Region 4 Winners and Losers

    There have been two releases of Mad Max in America. The first was a 2.40:1 transfer without 16x9 Enhancement, which only had the terrible American dub to boot. It has been superseded by a new special edition.

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

• Original Australian monaural soundtrack
• American stereo dub
• Audio commentary with Cinematographer David Eggby, Special Effects Supervisor Chris Murray, Production Designer Jon Dowding, and Film Historian Tim Ridge
• Mad Facts Trivia pop-up subtitle stream
• DVD-14 Formatting (dual sided with one side being dual-layered)
• French and Spanish subtitles
• Featurette - Mel Gibson: The High-Octane Birth Of A Superstar
• Featurette - Mad Max: Film Phenomenon
• Original Australian Theatrical Trailer
• 4 TV Spots
• The Terminator: Special Edition Trailer
• International Poster Gallery

    The Region 1 Special Edition version of this disc misses out on;

• 1536 kilobit per second DTS soundtrack

    This is a very tough call. We are definitely being short-changed on the extras, although the idea of having them on the opposite side of the disc has never appealed to me. I am indifferent to the Pan And Scan version, although I have mentioned scenes in which it could be used to make people who honestly think they prefer this formatting see how much they are missing out on. It is a bit upsetting to miss out on the Audio Commentary, but one thing we miss out on a lot more in Region 4 is the DTS soundtrack, and especially a full bitrate DTS soundtrack. This DTS soundtrack is so awesome that it is not funny - I've already had two comments from neighbours about how it has rattled them. In the end, raving mad fans will probably want both versions, but I would declare both versions to be equally superior to one another for different reasons. Like I said, it is a tough call.

Addendum August 23, 2002: I have been emailed by one user in the UK who has told me that the R2 UK version of this disc has only the Australian English and dubbed American English soundtracks, both of them in mono.