Outland [Blu-ray]

Excellent movie, mediocre DVD
Outland is an above-average early-1980s sci-fi Western that benefited from smart casting.

Unfortunately, the 1997 and 2007 DVD releases of Outland suffered from lackluster transfer -- grainy, distorted images and letterboxed widescreen.

The February 2008 DVD release seems to be marginally less grainy and distorted. However, the color intensity and resolution are still not quite up to par with present-day movie transfers. Low-light scenes suffer from fading and graininess which may become especially apparent on large screens. On smaller widescreen TVs (under 30 inches), filmed signs and lettering are acceptably crisp but post-production titles and captions remain blurred.

I have always liked Outland because it relied more upon mature characters (including a tough female country doctor) to tell the story, and resisted the temptation in Hollywood to fall back upon gun-blazing mayhem conducted by inexperienced young rookies. I continue to hope the studios...

One of the best SF movies you haven't seen
It's not quite one of the all-time greats, but it's not a 'B movie' either. It's a well-constructed, well-acted drama that doesn't aim _too_ high but does hit what it aims at.

See, out on Io (a moon of Jupiter), there's a titanium mining operation owned by some interplanetary mega-corporation. Federal Marshal William O'Niel (that's how it's spelled) gets assigned there and starts to investigate a series of odd deaths that don't seem to be murders but don't pass the smell test all the same. Getting almost no support from the mining station's personnel, O'Niel is on his own in uncovering the unpleasant truth behind the deaths. I won't tell you any more than that; what follows contains no spoilers.

The mind behind _Outland_ is Peter Hyams, who later brought us the excellent _Timecop_. But the movie benefits also from a wonderful ensemble cast. Sean Connery is, well, Sean Connery; he's worth watching as Bill O'Niel or as anybody else. Frances Sternhagen is delightful as the crusty and...

worst studio DVD ever?
I never bought the first release of this DVD because those who did savaged it for its poor quality. I figured WB couldn't possibly make the same mistake twice. Maybe they didn't - maybe they just repackaged the rotten DVD they manufactured before. Seriously, this is absolutely the worst DVD I've ever seen from a major producer. The quality may not even match those cheapie Canadian tv transfers in the bargain bins. It looks worse than standard definition - hardly a horizontal line looks straight, and any lettering is blurry. Within each scene, the image jumps up and down from one frame to the next. After 10 minutes, I stopped watching, and I really like this movie. The Amazon info (as of this day) is incorrect; the aspect ratio is extreme widescreen. However, the case says "enhanced", which is a flat-out lie. Perhaps they meant disenhanced.
Maybe there's a problem with the film elements, but this movie never looked this bad in the theaters; people would have walked out if it...

Click to Editorial Reviews