Top Gun – Blu-ray Disc Review

July 16, 2008 – 2:05 pm - Posted by: Justin Sluss

Tags: Dolby TrueHD, Don Simpson, DTS-HD MA, Jerry Bruckheimer, Kelly McGillis, Meg Ryan, Tom Cruise, Tony Scott, Val Kilmer

has an average rating of 6.5 on IMDb
1080p in AVC MPEG-4 on a 50gb disc
Dobly TrueHD 5.1 & DTS-HD 6.1 MA
actually include DVD ports (this time)
–
– 1986
– 109 minutes
– Paramount

Overall Verdict – Highly Recommended

Buy it for $21.99 @ Amazon.com

— Review written by: Justin Sluss —

The Movie Itself was Directed by Tony Scott, Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and (the late) Don Simpson. 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 of later E.R. fame) and they’re a team that is 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. 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 teacher known as “Charlie” (played by Kelly McGillis).

“Top Gun” (now a 22-year-old film) was just one of those classic 80′s films that stuck with a majority of viewers and it’s just overall very pleasing to welcome this to High Definition on this Blu-ray Disc release. 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 similarities to this film in ways. Hopefully one day we’ll get to see it make it’s way to High Definition as well. That’s an obvious hint to Paramount by the way.

Video Quality on this release is 1080p in AVC MPEG-4 on a BD-50 — 50 gigabyte Dual-Layered Blu-ray Disc. Originally shot using Panaflex cameras and lenses by Panavision on Super 35mm film, the transfer to Hi-Def just as it was on the previous HD-DVD release is visually impressive when you take into consideration the age of the film – 22-years-old now roughly, I believe. The ariel cinematography is very impressive but suffers a tad bit from lots of noticable film grain and even noise standing out from the dark (dusk) shots. The other footage throughout the film is fine and offers good detail, solid black level, good fleshtones and a pretty vibrant color palette — I must say.

While this does appear visually pleasant enough I wouldn’t exactly pull this title off the shelf to show someone the capabilities of Blu-ray‘s picture quality but it does it’s job. This earns a respectable “4 Star Rating” just as it did on the previous HD-DVD release for overall video quality.

Audio Quality on this release is both Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and DTS-HD 6.1 Master Audio. 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. 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.

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. 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 release of the classic 80′s action film.

Bonus Materials are presented in Standard Definition (480i/p) video and Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo 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 we get here sure do beat the amount found on the previously released HD-DVD version last year. We get lots of material from the various DVD versions over the years of the film presented here and it comes with great welcome to fans of the film. This finally can make this title something I can totally recommend with a package that evens things out in the bonus department.

Blu-ray Disc packaging:

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