Top Gun [25th Anniversary] – Blu-ray Disc Review

August 11, 2011 – 3:14 am - Posted by: Justin Sluss

Tags: Adrian Pasdar, Anthony Edwards, Barry Tubb, Clarence Gilyard Jr., Digital Copy, Don Simpson, James Tolkan, Jerry Bruckheimer, John Stockwell, Kelly McGillis, Meg Ryan, Michael Ironside, Paramount, Rick Rossovich, Tim Robbins, Tom Cruise, Tom Skerritt, Tony Scott, Top Gun, Val Kilmer, Whip Hubley

has an average rating of 6.6 on IMDb
1080p in AVC MPEG-4 on a 50gb disc
DTS-HD 6.1 MA & Dolby TrueHD 5.1
includes the DVD ports & Digital Copy
–
– 1986
– 108 minutes
– Paramount
–
This uses 33.7GB for the movie out of 45.2GB total.
Street Date: August 30th, 2011

Overall Verdict – Still Recommended

Buy it on Blu-ray for $9.99 @ Amazon.com

— Review written by: Justin Sluss —

25th Anniversary Trailer:

The Movie Itself was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and the late Don Simpson. The film was directed by Tony Scott best known for films like “Beverly Hills Cop II” (1987), “The Last Boy Scout” (1991), “True Romance” (1993), “Crimson Tide” (1995), “The Fan” (1996), “Enemy of the State” (1998), “Man on Fire” (2002), “Domino” (2004) and “Unstoppable” (2010). Quite a list of great films he’s directed as of now. Yet, having gone into this film Tony Scott had only done one motion picture as director, a horror / romantic thriller called “The Hunger” from 1983.

The film is about one of the U.S. Navy’s most elite groups of pilots that attend the Navy’s prestigious fighter weapons school called “Top Gun.” Our main character is a pilot known by the call sign “Maverick” (played by Tom Cruise). Maverick’s wingman and best friend is known by the call sign of “Goose” (played by Anthony Edwards) and they’re a team that have been known to be a tad bit reckless, but a force not to be reckoned with. That is until they get to “Top Gun” school and we meet the immediate “bad guy” or rival known by the call name “Ice Man” (played by Val Kilmer) who’s obviously cocky with a reason to be; as he can fly extremely well. This is a fast paced action film with some dramatic and romantic elements of the film like the relationship that develops between “Maverick” and his female flight instructor (teacher of sorts) simply known as “Charlie” (played by Kelly McGillis).

As mentioned above, this film wasn’t all just about the action of fighter jets as you might expect; although it does have its definite share of that. My point is there’s a real story of a friendship between “Maverick” and “Goose” as well as romance as I discussed. That’s one reason guys managed to get their girlfriends to watch this film with them for the past two, going on three, decades. Just saying.

“Top Gun“, a film now celebrating its 25th Anniversary, holds up to the test of time rather well and remains one of the more memorable films that Tom Cruise did in the eighties. It was just one of those classic 80′s films that stuck with a majority of viewers. Also note that these same 3 filmmakers (Producers Don Simpson, Jerry Bruckheimer and Director Tony Scott) brought you another Tom Cruise film four years later called “Days of Thunder” which does share a few slight similarities to this film — in ways. And yes, this re-release is a technical “double-dip” as it does contain THE EXACT SAME DISC RELEASED THREE YEARS AGO. However, it does contain spiffy new packaging with a slipcase and also the addition of a Digital Copy of the film as you’ll hear me discuss further below in the bonus materials section. I just wanted to get this out of the way before anyone is furious thinking I’m unaware of this. Trust me, I know!

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. According to IMDb‘s technical specifications listing this was shot on Super 35MM film using Panaflex cameras and lenses by Panavision. This film holds up rather decent to be now 25 years in age and looks pretty good in the Hi-Def transfer but keep in mind this is the very same one you saw on the Blu-ray Disc debut released roughly 3 years ago. This is THE SAME EXACT DISC in fact. Just keep that in mind and don’t expect any visual improvements here. Still having said that, the ariel cinematography is very impressive at times although I will admit it suffers a tad bit, at times, from heavy film grain and even noise; standing out from the dark (dusk) shots especially. The other footage throughout the film is fine and offers some really good detail — especially in close-ups — as well as a solid black level, accurate fleshtones and a pretty vibrant color palette.

While this does appear visually pleasant in comparison to previous VHS, Laserdisc and DVD releases I wouldn’t exactly pull this title off the shelf to show someone the capabilities of Blu-ray‘s picture quality but it does its job. This earns a respectable, solid “4 Star Rating” for overall video quality — just as it did 3 years ago when it debuted on Blu-ray and roughly 4 years ago on the HD-DVD release.

Audio Quality on this release is presented in both DTS-HD 6.1 Master Audio & Dolby TrueHD 5.1 sound. Just as I mentioned above in the video quality section, THIS IS THE SAME EXACT DISC released 3 years ago roughly on Blu-ray Disc. So don’t expect any improvements here, it’s the same 2 audio mixes. However, if you never owned the previous Blu-ray let me say that this offers an improvement over the original HD-DVD release in the audio department for the fact we get a DTS-HD 6.1 MA track now instead of just the standard DTS 6.1 track found on the the HD-DVD. If you never owned the HD-DVD, you’ll see an improvement over the DVD as well, trust me; as I think it had the same DTS 6.1 sound. From the opening of the film the amazing Score and Kenny Loggins‘ “Highway to the Danger Zone” do an amazing job of setting the film’s opening vibe as well as demonstrate the huge improvement found in the DTS-HD 6.1 MA track. The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix isn’t too bad either. Pick whichever you like. Personally I’m a fan of DTS.

Dialogue is delivered very distinctly in both tracks and sound effects come across pretty damn believable for a film of this age. There’s an excellent amount of bass and rear channel presence in both types of surround mixes found on this release. The original music by Harold Faltermeyer is done complete justice. It’s a generally the case that anything that Jerry Bruckheimer and (the late) Don Simpson Produced is most likely to be “demo material” in terms of their home video releases and this again manages to prove that — even more than ever, in fact! This is absolutely the definition of audio “demo material” and earns the perfect “5 Star Rating” for overall audio quality on this Blu-ray re-release of the classic 80′s action film.

Bonus Materials are presented in Standard Definition (SD) video quality with Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo @192kbps sound.

• Commentary by Jerry Bruckheimer, Tony Scott, Jack Eps Jr., & Naval Experts
• “Danger Zone: The Making of Top Gun” (148 minutes) is a 6-part documentary.
“The Making of Top Gun from the Ground Up – Pre-Production“
“Playing with the boys – Production: Land and Sea“
“The Need for Speed – Production: Air“
“Back to Basics – Visual Effects“
“Combat Rock – The Music of Top Gun“
“Afterburn – Release and Impact“
• Multi-Angle Storyboards with Optional Commentary by Director Tony Scott
“Flat Spin” (4 minutes)
“Jester’s Dead” (3 minutes)
• Music Videos are presented for songs off the Soundtrack. You get 4 total here.
Kenny Loggins – “Danger Zone” (4 minutes)
Berlin – “Take My Breath Away” (5 minutes)
Loverboy – “Heaven In Your Arms” (4 minutes)
Harold Faltermeyer & Steve Stevens – “Top Gun Anthem” (5 minutes)
• “Best of the Best: Inside the Real Top Gun” (29 minutes) is pretty self-explanatory. Doesn’t get any more real than this!
• TV Spots (4 minutes)
• Behind-the-Scenes Featurette (6 minutes)
• Survival Training Featurette (8 minutes)
• Tom Cruise Interviews (7 minutes) are actually tolerable since they were recorded 2 decades ago. Nowadays I don’t think I could keep a straight face listening to him talk 7 minutes.

Overall the bonus materials here ARE THE EXACT SAME as the previous Blu-ray Disc release; with the addition of new packaging (obviously) and a Digital Copy of the film added as a bit of a bonus. This works and if you didn’t pick it up when it was released three years ago you’ll get cooler packaging and a digital copy this time around and a cheaper $15.99 price — so don’t complain if this isn’t a “double-dip” for you. If you are complaining it’s a “double-dip”, I’m really not sure why you would even be considering buying this when you already own the exact same disc included here. After all haters, remember, no one is forcing you to rebuy this.

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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