1/16/2024 0 Comments Empire strike back dvdThe full Atmos experience is given a grand introduction with the Hoth battle - those speeders zipping around and over the walkers with laser blasts and explosions erupting all around - it's a hell of a sequence! Likewise, when the falcon escapes into the meteor shower, the impacts allow for some great pinpoint placement along the surrounds or verticals and giving some nice LFE rumble. In keeping with A New Hope and Rogue One - I didn't feel this adjustment was too dramatic as with previous Disney outings for the audio format. Could it be better? Sure - and it likely will someday - but for now this will do nicely.Īgain, like every other Disney Atmos audio mix - you've got to make some adjustments for volume. On par with A New Hope, I'd argue this is the best this film has looked on home video - at least legally. Luke lightsaber battle in the dark chamber is beautiful stuff Whites are crisp and black levels are nice and inky giving the image a well-maintained sense of depth. Things only brighten up when we get to Bespin cloud city and Lando adds some flash and pizzaz to the mix. This is a pretty drab affair visually and thematically as the rebellion is on its backside. While primaries do gain a boost allowing blues and reds to pop nicely, they're not showy in this film. What really stood out to me were the small details and staining that went into the snow speeders and all of the imperfections of the Falcon interiors as well as the scuff marks on C3PO's brassy exterior. He's still one of the best practical effects creations of the franchise and every frame of this transfer allows you to appreciate that work. From then on things appear much more stable.Įven with DNR and the clumpy grain, fine details remain intact allowing you to fully appreciate faces, clothing, textures, and all of the intricate work that went into bringing Yoda to life. Where this clumpy grain can appear throughout at various points, it's not as apparent as it is against that bright white snowy backdrop. Again the frozen clumpy grain can appear and it's a bit more unsightly this time around as its most noticeable during the Hoth battle. This gives rise to an often beautiful but restrained 4K UHD HDR10 transfer. As with A New Hope, a bit of grain scrubbing was employed along with a few other digital alterations over the years. Sourced from a new native 4K transfer that was prepared around about the same time as when Lucas was getting Star Wars ready for a 3D run, Empire looks amazing but with those pesky caveats. The 4K disc holds no bonus features and opens to Disney's standard language / "start the movie" menu structure. None of the bonus features are found on the 4K disc. The discs are housed in a two-disc black case with identical slipcover artwork, the 4K UHD Disc is stacked on top of the bonus features Blu-ray. The Empire Strikes Back dominates 4K Ultra HD in a three-disc 4K UHD Blu-ray + Blu-ray + Digital set from Disney. It's still a great movie and love it every time I roll it. Not necessarily better - but certainly not worse. Some purists may decry the lack of the original cut for this 4K release, but all in all, I don't mind the changes that were made for the Special Edition and subsequent home video alterations. It says something about the work that went into this sequel and Ivan Kirshner's direction that it gave Lucas the least amount of wiggle room to "fix." Outside of redoing some visual effects, adding a second or two of wompa carnage, and redoing that hologram conference call between Vader and the Emperor - there's really nothing different here. Maybe it was by the time I hit 12 years old I just wasn't interested in Ewoks anymore? Whatever switch flipped that helped me appreciate this movie, I'm glad it hit because of all the films and shows, Empire is the one that I return to again and again. The opening Hoth battle with the walkers, speeders, and snow troopers, Luke's training with Yoda and the importance of his internal conflicts - especially in connection with Return of the Jedi, and then ultimately the appreciation for Han Solo's fate. I can't count how many times I'd watched this movie as a kid but all of a sudden Empire made sense. and I loved it. All of a sudden when I hit my teens - I got it. Outside of Yoda and the big lightsaber fight at the end with that big "reveal" between Luke and Vader - it didn't hold my interest very much. As a kid, this wasn't my favorite of the Original Trilogy. Like A New Hope before it, my dad simply copied the rental tape and we wore that thing out through years of repeated viewings. Again too young to catch this in theaters, I grew up watching The Empire Strikes Back on another bootlegged tape.
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