Jaws – Blu-ray Disc Review

August 1, 2012 – 11:33 am - Posted by: Justin Sluss

Tags: BD-Live, Blu-ray, Carl Gottlieb, D-BOX, Digital Copy, Jeffrey Kramer, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, pocketBlu, Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider, Steven Spielberg, UltraViolet, Universal Studios Home Entertainment

has an average rating of 8.2 on IMDb
1080p in AVC MPEG-4 on a 50gb disc
DTS-HD 7.1 MA and DTS 2.0 Mono
are 4 hours long with a NEW documentary
–
– 1975
– 124 minutes
– Universal
–
This uses 33.8GB for the movie out of 44.6GB total.
Street Date: August 14th, 2012

Overall Verdict – Highly Recommended

Buy it on Blu-ray for $17.99 @ Amazon.com

— Review written by: Justin Sluss —

Blu-ray Trailer:

The Movie Itself was directed by Steven Spielberg. It was based on the novel of the same title written by Peter Benchley which was first published back in 1973. Benchley also co-wrote the screenplay adaptation of his novel along with Carl Gottlieb.

The film follows the chief of police in the small island community of Amity, New England. Chief of police “Martin Brody” (played by Roy Scheider) is called one morning to investigate a missing girl who had been swimming at a party the night before. “Deputy Hendricks” (played by Jeffrey Kramer) manages to discover her body washed up on the beach. Brody looks over the mangled body and is disgusted. The medical examiner tells him that the girl was attacked by a shark. It’s at this point that Brody has plans to close the beaches to protect the people of his community until they can find the shark. He goes as far as to prepare to make signs with the wording “no swimming” to put on the beaches but this decision is immediately shot down by the town’s Mayor “Larry Vaughan” (played by Murray Hamilton). The mayor doesn’t want word spreading of a shark attack as it’s the peak of tourist season. He goes out of his way to make the medical examiner change his opinion to the girl being killed in a boating accident. This upsets chief Brody but he has no choice but to go along with the lie, until a short time passes and another person is killed by the shark while swimming. Brody is on hand to witness this attack and is downright furious. A small boy turns out to be the second victim and his mother offers a reward for the shark. This causes every amatuer fisherman in the area seeking a reward to try to hunt down the shark. The result is one big giant mess.

A town meeting is held and the Mayor agrees to shut down the beaches like chief Brody had originally planned to but only for 24 hours. It’s during this town meeting that a fisherman speaks up and claims that he’ll catch the shark for them for $10,000. This fisherman, “Quint” (played by Robert Shaw), is known throughout the area as a professional shark hunter. The town is reluctant to pay him such a large fee but he warns them of what damage the shark will do. A marine biologist from the oceanic institute by the name of “Matt Hooper” (played by Richard Dreyfuss) soon arrives via the request of chief Brody. He examines the body of the girl, the first victim, and immediately determines that she in fact was attacked by a shark.

As mentioned earlier the reward was issued for the shark which led to fishermen going to every means necessary to catch it. One shark is caught and the mayor immediately claims this has to be the one that was responsible for killing the girl and boy. Hooper has a look at the shark caught and determines it to be a tiger shark. He’s not convinced that this is the shark they were looking for and asks to be able to cut the shark open and examine the contents of its stomach. The mayor refuses to let Hooper do this. However after a bit of late night drinking with chief Brody, Hooper manages to talk him into letting him dissect the sharks stomach. They find nothing but fish and oddly enough a license plate. No bodies or remains of any human victim. This causes Hooper to want to go hunt for the shark himself on his boat as to which he asks Brody tag along. They end up discovering the wreckage of a boat and let’s just say that there have been other victims of this shark. During a dive to examine the hull of the damaged boat Hooper discovers a tooth which he believes to belong to a great white shark. This is a very, very dangerous shark.

Brody and Hooper confront the mayor with their findings but he again refuses to close the beaches. The fourth of July comes and all the tourists begin to arrive and populate the beaches heavily. With the rumors of a shark people are at first reluctant to swim but once a few people go in everyone soon follows. It’s only a matter of time before another shark sighting takes place and eventual attack. At this point the mayor realizes they are going to have to close the beaches and that they are also going to have to hire the shark hunter “Quint” to catch this killer. Chief Brody and Hooper will join Quint on his boat in search for the shark and so that sets up the real plot to the film.

“Jaws” proves to not only be one of Steven Spielberg‘s most memorable films but perhaps best films. It captivated audiences and left them remembering his name as a director to keep and eye on. This was only Spielberg’s second theatrical film and it would be the one that launched his career. He’d go on to be one of the most accomplished directors of my generation with such other classic films as “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977), “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981) and “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” (1982) to soon follow. He’s been going strong ever since and managed to win a total of three Academy Awards (two for “Best Director”). “Jaws” was a huge success at the box office, breaking records to become the highest-grossing film of its era. In fact, the film reportedly had a budget of 7 million dollars and managed to end up grossing 470 million dollars worldwide in ticket sales — according to Box Office Mojo. Some attribute the film to being one that launched Summer blockbusters. The film was nominated for a total of four Academy Awards, including “Best Picture”, and would end up winning three for “Best Editing”, “Best Music, Original Dramatic Score” and “Best Sound”.

Video Quality on this release is in full 1080p using the AVC MPEG-4 codec on a BD-50 (50 gigabyte dual-layered Blu-ray Disc) in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio. According to the technical specifications on IMDb this was shot on 35MM film using the Panavision cinematographic process and cameras. Universal, in honor of the studio’s 100th anniversary celebration, chose this as one of the 13 films to be digitally remastered and fully restored from the original 35MM film elements. They went through some vigorous processes to clean up scratches on the original film negatives, then scanned them in digitally and worked frame-by-frame fixing problems such as damage, removing a great deal of dirt and such as well as balancing the color and fixing the black level on select scenes. At the very same time they were careful to preserve the original film grain and not use excessive DNR (digital noise reduction) to achieve a cleaner image. DNR tends smooth things over and this by no means seems smooth, it’s very sharp (literally and metaphorically). In fact, the result is just downright amazing. The restoration was not only done by Universal Studios Digital Services but it was also done in conjunction with director Steven Spielberg as well as his Amblin Entertainment‘s post-production team. This made sure that Spielberg’s original vision was what you saw when you popped in the Blu-ray.

Before I go any bit further discussing or even rating the video quality I think you should first watch this video that takes a closer look at the restoration process the studio used for this film. After watching that and looking at some still image comparisons perhaps you’ll have the appreciation I do.

As you can tell they (Universal) went to great lengths to restore this film and Steven Spielberg obviously has approved the restoration. It’s worth noting that video featured above appears in the bonus materials as a featurette. Below you’ll find two still images that show before & after comparisons of the original film negative and the final restoration. Click on them below for larger images.

Film Negative Before & After Restoration Comparisons:

Just as you saw in the video further above they did one amazing job of fixing these original film negative elements, even when they were severely damaged or the color was extremely off. In the first shot you’ll see a huge tear in the film negative was fixed using previous frames and in the second shot you’ll see that the color was totally adjusted. These are “night and day” type comparisons, for sure. This is very some impressive work. It should go without saying that this is definitely the best you’ve EVER seen “Jaws” look, even if you saw it back in 1975 during the original theatrical run.

So much detail can be found here in every single shot and especially in close-ups. The black level is perfect, the color palette looks great to be a 1975 film and the fleshtones are perfectly accurate. There’s certainly nothing at all to complain about here visually. This restoration is just downright amazing and earns itself a perfect “5 Star Rating” for overall video quality. Let’s by all means hope that Universal and Spielberg did just as an impressive job on the restoration of “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial“, which is set to be released on the format in early October. Lastly, if you’d like to see some clips from the film in its new restoration form you can find four of them HERE on Universal’s YouTube channel.

Audio Quality on this release is presented in DTS-HD 7.1 Master Audio and DTS 2.0 Mono @768kbps. Let it first be noted that this originally came from a Mono sound source. So, it’s nice to see they chose to include a DTS Mono track as an option. However, they chose to “upmix” this original Mono source and do some sound restorations as well. The result is one excellent 7.1 lossless mix. Things start out with John Williams‘ Academy Award-winning minimalist Score getting great rear channel presence and having a very nice amount of LFE (bass). As anyone who’s seen the film knows, the original score can go from subtle to intense at the drop of a hat. It has some slow points during dramatic sequences or during dialogue but it livens up when it needs to. The sound effects can be intense at times and pack a whole lot more “punch” to them than they ever have before. This helps build suspense a whole lot more and the very same can be said for Williams’ original Score as it fits the mood perfectly and gets mixed perfectly. Ambient sounds such as waves crashing on the beach not only come at you from the two front left and right channels but also get mixed very nicely into the four rear channels. Other ambient noise such as crowds of people on the beach and such also get this type of treatment. This gives you a very cool feeling of totally being immersed in the film. Dialogue here is delivered very distinctly from primarily the front center channel and never once will be “drowned out” by any of the sound effects or original score. No volume adjustments will need to be made here at all. Just crank it up, sit back and enjoy.

You would expect a film that won Academy Awards for “Best Music” and “Best Sound” to hold one impressive audio presentation when it debuts on Blu-ray and that’s exactly the case. The climactic end of the film serves as the real highlight of the mix with some very intense sound effects and music which make for excellent use of the rear channels and LFE. This sounds downright spectacular to just have been from a Mono source. The upmix the folks at Universal have done here sounds awesome and is sure to leave fans pleased. Purists will be very happy to see that DTS Mono track included but perhaps a tad bit upset it’s not in lossless. Still, DTS is great and does the original Mono track justice. Speaking of justice, the original Score by John Williams that has become so iconic over the years has never sounded better and I’m very happy to report is done complete justice. This earns itself a perfect “5 Star Rating” for overall audio quality. I know some of you may criticize me for giving it that rating but to have been from a Mono source upmixed to 7.1 this earns every bit of it. By far this is the best the film has ever sounded.

Bonus Materials on this release are presented in both Hi-Def (HD) and standard definition (SD) video with Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo @192kbps sound — unless otherwise noted below.

• BD-Live is included on this release which allows users on a “Profile 2.0” capable Blu-ray Disc player with Internet connectivity to access online content from the studio as well as make use of features such as pocketBLU which allows you to use your portable media device such as smartphone or tablet as a remote control.
• Deleted Scenes & Outtakes (13:33 – SD) are sadly presented in a “framed” widescreen with black bars surrounding the content.
• “The Making of Jaws” (2:02:48 – SD) is a two-hour documentary that features interviews with key cast members and crew; namely director Steven Spielberg.
• “The Shark is Still Working: The Impact & Legacy of Jaws” (1:41:21 – SD) is an ALL-NEW feature-length documentary featuring never-before-seen on set footage as well as interviews with cast and crew including Steven Spielberg, Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider. This documentary is split up into ten parts total but it also has the “play all” option.
• “Jaws: The Restoration” (8:28 – HD) features Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo @256kbps sound. This entire featurette can be viewed on YouTube at the link in the title or further above embedded in the video quality section.
• “From the Set” (8:56 – SD) gives you an insider’s look at life on the set of the film and features an interview with Steven Spielberg.
• “Jaws Archives” includes still photo galleries with the following:
– “Storyboards” (29:45 – HD)
– “Production Photos” (48:34 – HD)
– “Marketing Jaws” (9:20 – HD)
– “Jaws Phenomenon” (10:08 – HD)
• Theatrical Trailer (3:15 – SD) sadly is presented in “framed” widescreen with black bars surrounding the content.
• A DVD of the film in standard definition with Dolby Digital 5.1 @448kbps and Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono @192kbps sound is included in this “combo pack” style release. This includes a “Spotlight on Location: The Making of Jaws” (50:13 – SD) featurette which is comprised of highlights from the full-length documentary found on the Blu-ray.
• A Digital Copy of the film is included via a URL and redemption code on the paper insert in the packaging. This is compatible with both iTunes and Windows Media devices as well as both Mac and PC.
• An UltraViolet streaming and downloadable digital copy of the film is included via the same URL and redemption code on the paper insert in the packaging mentioned above. This allows you to put your copy of the film in the “cloud” and access it via your tablet, smartphone and/or computer.
• D-BOX motion code is included on this release for those with the proper equipment to enjoy it. I couldn’t think of a much more fitting film to have this included and I’m sure it makes for one awesome experience in D-BOX.

Overall the bonus materials here prove to be great. You have OVER 4 HOURS of supplemental material, including two documentaries on the film; one of which is ALL-NEW. Definitely my favorite featurette on here, from a technical aspect, is “Jaws: The Restoration” which proves to be very informative and even includes an interview with Spielberg himself. The other featurettes prove to be worthwhile but most have seen them on the previous DVD release. Still it’s great to see they were included. The “Jaws Archives” gives you one huge amount of sill photos which are presented in Hi-Def. There’s also the original theatrical trailer thrown in. The physical addition of a DVD of the film in standard definition is nice to see as well as the digital copies in both regular form and UltraViolet. Also the inclusion of D-BOX motion code here is a very nice touch if you’re fortunate enough to be able to experience the film in it.

Lastly, if you’re looking for more information on the film itself there’s a great book worth checking out called “The Jaws Log” written by Carl Gottlieb (who co-wrote the screenplay) which is being re-released in an “expanded edition” via paperback on August 7th — a week before this comes to Blu-ray.

Blu-ray Disc packaging:

Screenshots:

NOTE: The full-sized 1920×1080 files are in a .PNG file format and uncompressed. Please be patient with the slow loading times, keep in mind these files are at least 1MB (1 megabyte) in size each.

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