I have been a fan of John Badham's work for some time and was looking forward to the letterboxed reissue of one of his better films (in my humble opinion), 'Blue Thunder'. Personally, I consider full frame transfers of anamorphic widescreen films almost completely worthless so never indulged in the older release on disc but did have the VHS tape. The tape transfer was not that good, even by VHS standards, but Columbia had an opportunity to set things right with this new release. Unfortunately, they blew it. The quality of the transfer on this new disc is unusually inconsistent. Some scenes will look great, with accurate color and contrast, solid blacks and virtually no grain. Then the scene will change and the blacks will go gray and colors fade noticably. The master was obviously "pushed" to try to bring out more detail in some of the darker scenes. This practice was once very common but newer technology and better telecine practices have made it mostly unnecessary. I feel it was unnecessary here as well. Another problem is the aspect ratio. 'Blue Thunder' was filmed in anamorphic Panavision which, as most here will know, yields an image aspect ratio of 2.35:1. This transfer has cropped the image to barely over 2:1 (about 2.05:1 by my measurement). Again, this was fairly common a few years ago, but not lately, and not from Columbia. On the plus side, the compositions do not appear to be all that wide and the main characters remain in the frame when they should. It also goes without saying that this transfer beats pan & scan all to hell. Also, the sharpness and detail are good most of the time.
The soundtrack is clear and clean but lacks the impact one might associate with films of this genre. There are some fairly good separations and effective use of the surround channel, however.
Looking at this disc I wonder if, like 'Bridge On The River Kwai', this transfer was perhaps done a couple of years ago by RCA/Columbia and simply not released until now. This would explain much, but if this is, in fact, a new transfer, then someone should be ashamed of themself.
The film runs 108 minutes and contains 40 chapter markers. The list price is $34.95. I am going to recommend this disc to fans of the film only because, this being a new release, no better transfer is likely to be forthcoming for quite some time.
Addendum
The aforementioned inconsistencies in the transfer of 'Blue Thunder' are most apparent in the first 2 reels. The quality improves somewhat after about the first 30 minutes, though it is by no means good enough to change my overall impressions. Another note on the aspect ratio. I noted the ratio on this transfer at about 2.05:1. I have noticed that beginning on side 2 the ratio changes to about 2.15:1. While one might consider this an improvement, I consider it another sign of a sloppy transfer.
Fans of this film have been waiting a long time for this disc and Columbia owes these customers and this film a better job. Better luck next time.
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