The Incredibles – Blu-ray Disc Review

April 8, 2011 – 11:11 pm - Posted by: Justin Sluss

Tags: Brad Bird, Craig T. Nelson, Digital Copy, Disney, Dominique Louis, Elizabeth Pena, Holly Hunter, Jason Lee, Jean Sincere, John Lasseter, John Ratzenberger, Lou Romano, Michael Bird, Pixar, Samuel L. Jackson, Sarah Vowell, Spencer Fox, Teddy Newton, Wallace Shawn, Wayne Canney

has an average rating of 8.1 on IMDb
1080p in AVC MPEG-4 on a 50gb disc
DTS-HD 5.1 MA ES & Dolby Digital 2.0
are great with a DVD & Digital Copy
–
– 2004
– 115 minutes
– Disney / Pixar
–
Disc 1 uses 40.6GB total.
Disc 2 uses 21.5GB total.
Street Date: April 12th, 2011

Overall Verdict – Highly Recommended

Buy it for $24.99 @ Amazon.com

— Review written by: Justin Sluss —

The Movie Itself was written and directed by Brad Bird, known for previously being a writer on “The Simpsons” as well as doing “The Iron Giant” in 1999.

The story to the film revolves around two superheroes in a world where superheroes once existed openly and did their jobs — just like in the comics. That was all going great, especially for our main character “Mr. Incredible” (voiced by Craig T. Nelson) until one person sued him for saving their life; as they wanted to commit suicide — imagine that? Anyway, at this point in the film we are shown all of this in a retro newsreel to add some dramatic element to it. So, as a result they make all superheroes “hang up their capes” so-to-speak. The two main characters to this film are affected, as they are just married when they are forced to become normal citizens.

We flash-forward to fifteen years later where we find our main character “Bob Parr” (actually “Mr. Incredible” but now having to go by his true identity) working a desk job where he has to deny (instead of approve) loans.  It’s very obvious that he is missing his days of fighting crime as a superhero, while his wife “Helen” (voiced by Holly Hunter), also a former superhero, is actually more getting used to the married life and taking on the task of raising three kids — namely “Jack-Jack“, the baby.  Bob’s friend and also a former superhero “Lucius” / “Frozone” (voiced by Samuel L. Jackson) shares his desire so the two still get together and go out to fight crime anonymously from time-to-time.  It’s by doing this that he eventually gets the attention of a mysterious lady named “Mirage” (voiced by Elizabeth Pena). At a later point Mr. Incredible is fit into a new costume by his tailor/family friend “Edna ‘E’ Mode” (voiced by the director himself, Brad Bird). Aside from that, long story short, minus the spoilers and such, that’s our real plot here with the last part about the “E” character thrown in as a bit of trivia of sorts really. As I said, no real spoilers here but let’s say something happens that spawns the wife Helen to rebecome her superhero of “Elastigirl” as well as get some help from the kids “Dash” (voiced by Spencer Fox) and “Violet” (voiced by Sarah Vowell) as superheros themselves. Also we are later introduced to Mirage’s boss, our real villain here, a criminal mastermind by the name of “Syndrome” (voiced by Jason Lee).

“The Incredibles” proves (still to this day) to be just as enjoyable as it was roughly 7 years ago in its theatrical run. There’s stuff that comic fans will like about the superhero elements of the film. There’s stuff that kids will like — as is the case with all the Pixar films — but there’s also some real emotional stuff there at times for the adults or jokes specifically for the adults. This formula has been one that has always paid off for Pixar and continues to to this day.

Director/Writer Brad Bird would go on to later direct his second feature-length film at Pixar in 2007 with “Ratatouille” which also won him an Academy Award. Currently Bird is set to direct two live-action films; those being “Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol” coming out later this year (2011) and Pixar‘s first live-action film “1906” coming out next year (2012) about the legendary San Francisco earthquake.

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 2.39:1 aspect ratio. Just is the case is on all the other nine Pixar feature-length films that have come to Blu-ray Disc, this just looks simply stunning in its Hi-Def debut. There’s such an abundance of detail here that never, ever, existed on the DVD release. In fact, the only time folks ever saw this much detail was when it ran theatrically and even now it’s a tad bit better as things like the color palette have been tweaked and fine-tuned. Disney when they started releasing Blu-ray back in 2007 used to always used the word PRISTINE to describe the sharpness of the visual presentation in the promo videos. Let’s just say that description of “pristine” fits this release even years later. The black level here is perfect and is definitely helping emphasize detail even more than ever as well as the color palette which now is very vibrant and makes things really “jump off the screen” at you.

In further discussion of the detail here, I’d like to point out how great that things like hair strands, textures on fabric, the lighting effects and such all look here — absolutely stunning. It’s having said that it is good to also remember that this was the first Pixar film to feature only human characters, so they had a lot of challenges in front of them years ago but it still shows off to look amazing now, years later.

There’s definitely no problems here in the visual presentation to speak of, just loads of stuff worthy of praise like the occasional “3D pop” in a 2D presentation, which is always nice and pretty much a “given” on all the Pixar films. The scenes about 40 minutes in or so that first show the jungle island look simply breathtaking and are very vibrant, with perfect saturation and almost photo-realisism at times. These are some of the stuff I was referring to that would “jump off the screen” at you and contain “3D pop” as well. All and all, Disney / Pixar have delivered yet another perfect Hi-Def presentation worthy of a “5 Star Rating” — as usual. Kudos and keep up the excellent work.

Audio Quality on this release is presented in both DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio ES (with extra, but discrete, rear channel presence) and Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo @320kbps. It’s certainly a bit odd they chose to use a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 ES configuration instead of just opting for a more trendy 7.1 configuration. Folks, like myself on a 7.1 receiver/speaker setup will have to make some adjustments if they actually want to take advantage of the extra rear channel; as opposed to channels. Speaking of sound configurations though, this also comes with the option for Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, as mentioned above. Now onto the discussion of the lossless 5.1 mix here and less about the tech specs.

The first thing you’ll notice here is that dialogue is delivered very distinctly through primarily the front center channel speaker. However, having said that, there are some instances like 25:30 in where you’ll hear the dialogue being delivered from the front left and right channels in a heated discussion between wife and husband. Effects like this are subtle but very cool if you notice them. Safe to say, no need for any volume adjustments here — as dialogue is not drowned out by the action, although it does get pretty intense at times.

The second thing you’ll notice here is that the film’s original Score (music) done by Michael Giacchino sounds absolutely marvelous from start to finish. The music gets a great amount of delivery from the rear channels as well as obviously from the two front left and right channels, with an excellent amount of LFE (bass) as well. The sound effects here sound very realistic and get a nice bit of rear channel presence from time-to-time that helps to make this mix that much more intense. There’s certainly a new amount of fidelity to this mix now that it’s able to take advantage of a lossless codec, that should go without saying but I think should be something to remember — if that makes any sense. All and all, this mix is just downright awesome and has no flaws, just lots of “demo material” and is very much worthy of a perfect “5 Star Rating” for over all audio quality.

Bonus Materials are presented in both 1080p Hi-Def (HD) and Standard Definition (SD) video with Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo @320kbps sound — unless otherwise noted below.

DISC 1 (A Blu-ray) contains the film as well as the following:

• Director Commentary is an audio commentary featuring Producer John Walker and director Brad Bird.
• Animator Commentary is an audio commentary featuring the Supervising Animators.
• “Boundin’” (4:40 – 1080p HD) is a Pixar short that features optional audio commentary by director Bud Luckey. The short itself features DTS 5.1 sound.
• “Jack-Jack Attack” (4:43 – 1080p HD) is yet another Pixar short. This features Dolby Digital 5.1 sound.
• “Jack-Jack Attack Exploded” (4:44 – 1080p HD) is a visual commentary featuring director Brad Bird, Story Supervisor Mark Andrews, Character Designer Teddy Newton and Animator/Voice Actress Bret Parker.
• “The Incredibles Revisited” (22:09 – 1080p HD) is an all-new roundtable discussion featuring writer/director Brad Bird, Producer John Walker, Story Supervisor Mark Andrews, Supervising Technical Director Rick Sayre, Production Designer Lou Romano, Character Designer Teddy Newton & Animation Supervisor Tony Fucile. This proves to be very enjoyable and worth the watch.

DISC 2 (A Blu-ray) contains additional bonus materials.

• “Paths to Pixar: Story Artists” (5:55 – 1080p HD)
• “Studio Stories: Gary’s Birthday” (1:25 – 1080p HD)
• “Ending with a Bang: Making the End Credits” (1:35 – 1080p HD)
• “The New Nomanisan: A Top Secret Redevelopment Plan” (3:30 – 1080p HD)
• Deleted Scenes (21:31 / 4:07 / 5:26 / 1:33 – 1080p HD) feature an Intro (1:56 – 1080p HD).
• “Incredibles Teaser” (1:54 – 1080p HD)
• “Classic Content” is all of the DVD bonus materials ported over. They include:
“Making of The Incredibles” (27:25 – SD)
“Story (6:39 – SD)
“Character Design” (5:28 – SD)
“E Volution” (2:51 – SD)
“Building Humans” (6:16 – SD )
“Building Extras” (2:07 – SD)
“Set Design” (3:18 – SD)
“Sound” (3:27 – SD)
“Music” (5:14 – SD)
“Lighting” (2:50 – SD)
“Tools” (2:45 – SD)
“Mr. Incredible and Pals” (4:03 – SD)
“Mr. Incredible and Pals Commentary by Mr. Incredible and Frozone” (4:03 – SD)
“NSA Files [Audio + 21 Stills]” (7:00 – SD)
“Who is Bud Luckey?” (3:57 – SD)
“Vowellett – An Essay by Sarah Vowell” (9:23 – SD)
“Art Gallery” (HD)
• “Easter Eggs” (SD) are flat-out a choice on the menu here, you don’t have to search for them.
• “Publicity” includes “Character Interviews” (6:36 – SD) and “Trailers” (SD).

DISC 3 (A DVD) contains the film in Standard Definition with the two shorts (short films) “Boundin’” and “Jack-Jack Attack” as bonus material.

DISC 4 (A DVD-ROM) contains the Digital Copy of the film which is compatible with both Mac and PC computers and iTunes and Windows Media portable devices. As with all digital copies, this only lasts for one year and then expires.

Overall, the bonus materials here are excellent and span across a total of 4 discs total. On the first disc there’s 2 audio commentary tracks, 2 Pixar shorts, and an all-new 22 minute retrospective roundtable discussion with Brad Bird and others. On the second Blu-ray Disc you’ve got tons of the original DVD bonus materials ported over (mostly in Standard Definition) as well as some in Hi-Def for the very first time. The DVD and Digital Copy of the film that are on discs 3 and 4 are very nice to round things out of a very, very solid set of supplemental materials.

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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