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The Story
"A brilliant man would find a way not to fight a war."
From producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Michael Bay
comes "Pearl Harbor", an incredible film that re-tells the events
surrounding the Japanese surprise attack on the U.S. Navy Pacific fleet
based in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. This epic film employs
incredible stunts, real-world pyrotechnics and explosions, computer generated visual special
effects, and superb sound design to put audience in the middle of the action
surrounding this tragic event that changed the course of history. The
movie magic behind "Pearl Harbor" is world class and is second to
none. Interestingly enough, the film is actually shot on-location on Oahu and even in Pearl
Harbor.
Though a movie focused on this powerful event can easily
stand on its own, "Pearl Harbor" further engages the audience through the
storyline of fictional characters of two courageous pilots and a
beautiful and quick-thinking nurse. The love triangle woven among
these three characters successfully brings this movie to life for
audiences. Based on an amalgamation of real-world personalities who
lived through the Pearl Harbor attack, these characters pull us into the
storyline and allow us to see what life was like during the early Sunday morning
hours of December 7. Given the recent tragic events of September 11,
2001, the movie "Pearl Harbor" becomes even more relevant to
Americans.
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping
giant."
With a run time of approximately 3 hours and 3 minutes, Buena Vista
decided to split the movie across two discs, with the first disc containing
roughly the first two hours. This is unfortunate,
as it requires most viewers to get up and manually swap discs. It
looks like the other two versions are the same way, the 3-disc 60th
Anniversary Commemorative Gift Set (also released on December 4, 2001) and
the forthcoming 3-disc Vista Series director's cut coming out on May 14,
2002.
The Extras
This 60th Anniversary Commemorative Edition
reviewed here is the
most basic version of the three versions. Here's a summary of what's
included in this version:
Disc 1:
Disc 2:
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Feature film (part 2 of 2), chapters 32-44
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"Journey to the Screen: The Making Of Pearl
Harbor": the
typical making-of featurette, with a documentary on the real-life Pearl Harbor veterans and
their return to the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial for the film's premiere
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"Unsung
Heroes of Pearl Harbor", the History Channel documentary: a very inspirational
documentary on the real-world surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and
that fateful day's unsung heroes.
-
Faith Hill music video "There You'll Be"
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Theatrical trailer and teaser trailer
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Preview: National Geographic Beyond the Movie: Pearl
Harbor
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DVD-ROM features
Other than the usual making-of featurette, there's not
much bonus features directly about the film. So if that's what
you're looking for, you're better off waiting for the Vista
Series release on May 14, 2002. But if you're just interested in the DVD of the
original theatrical version, then this version is your ticket.
The other version that is currently available is a
3-disc
60th Anniversary Commemorative Gift Set. This version is
identical to the Commemorative Edition reviewed here, except that the
Gift Set adds a 53-minute feature: National
Geographic Beyond the Movie: Pearl Harbor and a National Geographic
60th Anniversary Commemorative map. One one side of the map is a
detailed overview of what happened at Pearl Harbor, and the other side
features an authentic replica of a world map from this time period,
displaying the political boundaries of that time. The suggested retail
of this Gift Set is $49.99, compared to $29.99 for the Commemorative
Edition. On May 14, 2002, Buena Vista is releasing a
3-disc
Vista Series that includes a director's cut of "Pearl
Harbor". The director's cut adds back six minutes of the original
film that had to be cut for a PG-13 rating. Apparently, Disney wanted
to release this film to theaters with a rating no worse than PG-13 in order
to attract the widest audience possible. The director's cut will
include additional war scenes that are more visually explicit, accompanied
by vulgar language.
These scenes are likely to earn the director's cut an R-rating. As a Vista
Series DVD, Buena Vista plans a ton of bonus materials. There are even plans to build new movie sets just for the DVD animated menus
for this Vista Series. Cool! This Vista Series director's cut version will carry a suggested retail
price of $39.99. Will it be worth the five and a half month wait and the extra $10? For details on the Vista Series version, check out
our preview and disc specifications of the
Vista Series DVD. We have to credit Buena Vista Home Entertainment for
clearly announcing their intentions for a follow-on Vista Series
release. (Some studios release a standard version, only to announce
there will be a special edition to follow several months later after
consumers bought the standard edition.)
Video & Audio
The image quality of this anamorphic
widescreen DVD is exceptional, thanks to the THX-certified
video transfer. The colors are accurate and
saturated, while shadow detail is superb. The excellent picture
quality does justice for beautiful cinematography style, the stunning visual
special effects, and the beautiful Hawaiian setting.
The sound design is equally remarkable. It does a
superb job of making the audience feel as though we are there.
Capturing the awesome sound design are three English soundtracks: Dolby
Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1, and a Dolby Headphone
soundtrack (a world's first!). The soundtracks are
completely immersive, from the aerial dogfights from the pilot's perspective
to the underwater scenes where the sailors fall overboard after their
battleship capsizes. The DTS soundtrack is particularly
engaging, capturing some of the finer nuances of this richly textured
soundtrack. The dialog comes across consistently clear, and so did the
awe-inspiring soundtrack by one of my favorite composers, Hans Zimmer.
Also included is the world's first Dolby Headphone
soundtrack. As its name implies, this soundtrack is specially
mixed (or encoded) for headphone listening and simulates a surround sound soundfield with
a conventional stereo headphone through
the use of psycho-acoustic effects. In my listening experience, the Dolby Headphone soundtrack created an amazing
soundscape with just the stereo headphones. The panning effects from
side-to-side are exceptional and sounds very real. The front-to-back
fly-over effects are good, but doesn't come as close to a real 5.1-channel
home theater set-up. Overall, I was pretty impressed with the Dolby
Headphone soundtrack. It's great for late-night viewing, while
traveling, or if you
don't yet have a 5.1-channel home theater system. I hope the Dolby
Headphone soundtrack feature finds its way into many future DVD releases.
To listen to the Dolby Headphone soundtrack, simply plug
in your stereo headphones into your DVD player. That is, if your DVD
player sports a headphone jack. Unfortunately, many entry-level and
budget DVD players do not have this feature. If not, then if you have
a receiver with headphone jacks, those will work also assuming you have
connected the stereo output of your DVD player to your receiver. Just
make sure that your receiver is not in any DSP or surround sound processing
mode and you're all set.
Conclusion
Regardless of which DVD version you choose, "Pearl Harbor"
is a remarkable film about a turning point in our nation's history. It
is a movie that deserves to be in many collector's DVD library.
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Visit the "Pearl
Harbor" DVD web
site, Disney DVD
web site or the Disney
DVD technical assistance web site (or call 1-800-723-4763).
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Associated equipment used in evaluation: Sony
DVP-S7700 reference DVD player, Sony
KP-61V45 61" rear projection TV (4:3 screen aspect ratio), Sony ES STR-V444ES A/V receiver, four
B&W CDM 9NTs as left/right main speakers
and left/right surrounds, B&W CDM CNT center channel speaker, Monster Cable M-series S-Video cable MSV-500, Monster
Cable Interlink LightSpeed 100 (Toslink) optical cable, Monster Cable
Interlink 400 MKII interconnects, Monster Cable
Original speaker cables in bi-wire configuration with Monster Cable twist-on gold-plated banana plug
connectors, Lovan Sovereign T HiFi audio
rack, and Sony MDR-V600 studio monitor headphones. Our home theater equipment was calibrated
with the Video
Essentials DVD.
Be sure to check out our Top 10 DVDs of the year
2001 and our list of this year's Oscar winners on DVD.
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United We Stand
