LEGEND Coming From Arrow - 2-Disc Blu-Ray - September

[Edmund Kattak]

I guess I should have stayed in LA.

And lose your soul? lol.

[Paul MacLean]

I guess I should have stayed in LA.

And lose your soul? lol.

Maybe, but the chicks would dig me more!

[AndyDursin]

My regular review copy came in yesterday and I'm still going through it. The short version is if you're a fan, this is worth the upgrade.

The big surprise? The SOUND. Arrow took the unmolested, original Dolby Stereo tracks for both the Director's Cut and the US Theatrical Version and included them here (in 2.0) alongside the older 5.1 mixes. This is the first time the 2.0 tracks have ever been available on Blu-Ray, and the first time ever the Director's Cut has ever had audio other than 5.1 -- and it makes a big difference. When properly matrixed into surround as intended, there's a massive enhancement in "spaciousness," there are more audible details and the entire surround field has a bolder, stronger presence on both tracks. Comparatively the 5.1 mixes, which I believe were engineered around the time of the DVD, both feel cramped and limp -- lacking the precision and overall "airy" atmosphere the 2.0 tracks generate. For that reason alone, I think this set is worthwhile.

The transfers are also improved though it's not a night-and-day enhancement. The US theatrical cut is the more obvious beneficiary because Arrow did a true restoration and the colors and detail level are an appreciate upgrade over the theatrical's cut prior appearance on the 2011 Universal Blu-Ray, which offered VC-1 encoding. The Directors Cut is the same master as the 2011 Blu-Ray but it benefits from a fresh, high bit-rate AVC encoding that enables the detail to come off as more "transparent" -- a touch crisper and superior to its prior releases.

I'm listed 3 times in the booklet notes (thanks Arrow!) and the new extras are quite nice too, albeit the most welcome addition is a rough looking VHS dupe of an ancient EPK featurette that sports more footage from the long-lost Gump dance sequence than I had ever seen before (and was supplied by the Legend FAQ-master, Sean Murphy). There are two 15-minute segments on the music, one for each score, with Jeff Bond talking about Jerry and Daniel Schweiger and some other folks praising Tangerine Dream. I can't join them in their analysis but it's a fair difference of opinion (nobody mentions Ridley himself called the Dream score "an error"). Travis Crawford also supplies a strong 20-minute essay on the different versions, and comes to the conclusion Jerry's score and the longer cut are far superior to the US edit. Paul Sammon provides a general overview of the movie in a new commentary on the US cut, which also includes a new isolated music/effects track (in stereo) plus the DVD's "isolated score" mix of the Tangerine Dream score that I believe are mostly lifts from the soundtrack album. You also get all of Charlie deLauzirika's great extras from the DVD and one (superior) international trailer on disc for the first time (plus the terrible original US/UK trailers), plus spiffy packaging too.

Warmly recommended for us fans

[AndyDursin]

$24.99 at Amazon! (sale price shows when you click through)

[Edmund Kattak]

Yeah grabbed it up. With Amazon points, final cost was $19. Thanks for the tip!!!

[Monterey Jack]

Damn me, ordered this, and received it today. Yeah, it sucks, but I've always found the behind the scenes story more compelling than the actual product, and the Arrow release seems loaded with content. The packaging is as gorgeous as Mia Sara. If only the director's cut offered an isolated score option, then i wouldn't have to hear all of the twee, annoying dialogue...

[Paul MacLean]

I screened it last night. I found the transfer of the directors cut to be excellent -- and not inferior to the transfer for the US cut (both are fairly grainy in places).

I maintain Legend is remarkably imaginative, with some superb sequences, likable characters and certainly some of the most arresting visuals ever put on screen. There are a lot of references to high art, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast -- and it seems this all went over the heads of those who dismissed the film.

I think it smokes Willow and The Princess Bride, and -- despite an obviously less complex narrative -- is, in the realm of design, photography and certainly scoring, a better film than any of the Lord of the Rings movies.

As far as the special features I find it astonishing that the studio signed-off on those awful trailers -- which provide no sense of the film's tone and style, with all the images filtered through this crystal-like reproduction of the film's title logo. The narrator is obviously not Tim Curry, and most ridiculous of all, it is tracked with music from Alien. (On the other hand the Alien music is better than the nutty "Is Your Love Strong Enough" used in the US TV spots!)

[Monterey Jack]

6.5/10

Watched the DC this morning, and my opinion has softened somewhat on the movie. Like Scott's Hannibal, it's not nearly as bad as I remembered it, even if it's a movie I can never bring myself to love as much as its most fervent admirers do (then again, I get mad when people dismiss Crimson Peak, so what do I know?). It's just such a pretty movie that the narrative faults and obnoxious voice dubbing seem to fade away into the background, like some annoying, heavy-breathing guy sitting a few rows back in a movie theater. Granted, I'd knock the .5 off of my grade if I were watching this with the awful Tangerine Dream score. It's just such an anachronistic earsore it's hard to wrap my mind around it. The fact that some people at BR.com dismiss the Goldsmith score as "not matching the tone of the movie" is baffling. Would they feel this way if Star Wars were taken away from George Lucas by Fox, cut down to 89 minutes, and dumped into theaters with a buzzing electronic score? The U.S. cut totally guts Ridley Scott's original intentions, and as twee and, frankly, unintentionally amusing as the film can be even in the DC, it's at least achingly sincere in a way that big budget fantasy cinema rarely is, especially in this day and age. I'm still not in love with the movie outside of its audiovisual trappings, but it's worn better with infrequent repeat viewings, and the Arrow set is incredibly impressive.

[AndyDursin]

When I watched it again a few weeks back, it's striking how young Mia Sara is in this film -- as in she really WAS a kid (15?) when the thing was being shot, though she comes across as much older the way Scott coached her performance and, obviously, filmed her.

[Monterey Jack]

When I watched it again a few weeks back, it's striking how young Mia Sara is in this film -- as in she really WAS a kid (15?) when the thing was being shot, though she comes across as much older the way Scott coached her performance and, obviously, filmed her.

Careful, you'll be branded a "pedo" if anyone from the BR.com forums reads that.

it is noteworthy how actresses from the 80s and earlier often played older successfully, whereas young actresses from post-2000 often cling to their teenybopper audiences like a life preserver (a thirty-year-old Emma Watson playing age sixteen in Little Women, for example). Winona Ryder was barely out of her teens when she made Bram Stoker's Dracula, yet she seemed far more mature than her years in her performance (ditto with Scorsese's The Age Of Innocence). Yet someone like Jessica Alba was still dressing and acting like a giggly teenager when she was well into her thirties.

Lauren Bacall was NINETEEN when she was cast opposite Bogie in To Have And Have Not, yet she already seemed like she was forty-five.

[AndyDursin]

Capsaholic has uploaded their comparison of the Arrow Director's Cut with the older scan (on the Universal and Fox overseas Blu-Ray 2011 releases). Despite what they claimed, this is clearly a different transfer as these caps illustrate. Did they actually pull material from the 4K remaster of the US theatrical cut and then splice in the unique moments from the existing Director's Cut master?

The scenes that are "unique" to the Director's Cut look only a little tweaked, but caps from the rest of the transfer -- i.e. any footage in common from the 113 min. cut and the US theatrical version -- look very different between the two versions, with a major, major edge to the Arrow release.

https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=16797&d2=16067&c=6095

[John Johnson]

When I watched it again a few weeks back, it's striking how young Mia Sara is in this film -- as in she really WAS a kid (15?) when the thing was being shot, though she comes across as much older the way Scott coached her performance and, obviously, filmed her.

Careful, you'll be branded a "pedo" if anyone from the BR.com forums reads that.

The IT Crowd.