Armageddon

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General		Extras
Category	Disaster	Theatrical Trailer(s)	None
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1998	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	144:40 minutes	Other Extras	None
RSDL/Flipper	RSDL (77:13)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Movie
Region	2 [Original Release #34542D5] 2,4 [Re-release #YU 34542v2.1.a VA01]	Director	Michael Bay
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Bruce Willis Billy Bob Thornton Liv Tyler Ben Affleck Will Patton Peter Stormare Keith David Steve Buscemi
Case	Amaray
RRP	$34.95	Music	Trevor Rabin

    There are differences between them, however. In Armageddon, the enemy is an asteroid. In Deep Impact, the enemy is a comet. In Armageddon, the US president is white and up-beat. In Deep Impact, the US president is black and sombre (Morgan Freeman). In Armageddon, the emphasis is more on the amazing special effects and the gung-ho attitude of the Earth's saviours. In Deep Impact, they concentrate a little more on the human response to impending annihilation.

    Of the two movies, I preferred Deep Impact myself. However, Armageddon is no slouch of a movie, either, and is more of an arcade thrill ride than Deep Impact. Just don't expect anything other than a spectacular thrill ride, and you will not be disappointed.

    Bruce Willis is Harry Stamper. Harry is an oil driller. When NASA discovers that the asteroid is on its way to destroy the Earth, they call upon Harry and his team of roughneck oil drillers to save the Earth. There are the obligatory complications along the way, all telegraphed well in advance by the script, such as that which occurs on the Russian space station, and those that occur on the asteroid, but in the end...

Video

Addendum 20th August 1999: I have reviewed the remastered version, and it is identical in every way to the original Region 2 only release, except that it is coded for Region 2 and 4. There are several ways to tell the difference between the two versions. The packaging and catalogue number for both versions are identical (34542), so you must look at the disc to determine which version you have. The original Region 2 only version is labelled "2" on the disc label whereas the remastered disc is labelled "4". The Region 2 only version is labelled "34542D5/1" around the inner rim of the playing surface, whereas the Region 2/4 version is labelled "YU 34542v2.1.a VA01"

    The transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 2.35:1. It is 16x9 enhanced. The 16x9 enhancement appears to be real, giving us a major advantage over the Region 1 versions of this disc, which are not 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer was razor sharp and crystal clear at all times. That's a phrase I occasionally use in my reviews, and it well and truly applies to this disc. The level of picture detail is amazing, with no evidence of ringing or edge enhancement to be seen. It is extremely film-like in its ability to resolve detail in the picture. Having said that, I found that shadow detail was a little lacking, in that blacks tended to be black with not a lot of detail contained therein, but this seemed to be a cinematographic choice rather than anything lacking in the transfer process itself. There was absolutely no low level noise. Blacks were very clean and crisp.

    The colours were well saturated throughout, with no evidence whatsoever of any under or oversaturation. A lot of aggressive, vivid colours are seen on display here, all perfectly rendered.

    No MPEG artefacts were seen. Film-to-video artefacts consisted of some minor aliasing on the sharpest and hardest horizontal lines, but this generally was well-controlled. There was a lot of camera panning in this movie, making it a real sitting duck for this artefact, but it was never excessive. Film artefacts were so rare that I cannot recall seeing a single one.

    The packaging inexplicably leaves out a number of the subtitle tracks; in addition to the subtitle tracks listed on the packaging, the following subtitle tracks are also present on this disc; Greek, Icelandic, and German. In addition to these, there are two additional subtitle tracks which are automatically selected when the German or French soundtracks are selected which provide occasional title overlays in the appropriate language.

Addendum 20th August 1999: Oops! Actually only the Greek subtitle track is left off the packaging - the rest are mentioned, but are listed slightly out of order.

    This disc, unlike its British Region 2 counterpart, is an RSDL disc with the layer change placed during Chapter 14 at 77:13, following an action sequence. It is minimally intrusive, and is certainly far less intrusive than having to get up and flip the disc over.

Addendum 20th August 1999: This disc has been re-released in the UK as a 16x9 enhanced RSDL formatted disc.

Audio

    The overall level of this soundtrack seemed a little low, and I eventually increased it by 5dB, which provided considerably more slam from the soundtrack.

    You cannot change audio selections on the fly, and must do this via the main menu.

    Dialogue was occasionally hard to make out, and was below the quality of the best audio mixes, which retain dialogue intelligibility even in the face of extreme ambient surrounding noise, but this was a minor complaint.

    There were no audio sync problems with this disc.

    The musical score by Trevor Rabin worked very hard to sound immense and important, and it generally worked quite well to achieve its aims, and tug the listener's emotions in the appropriate direction.

    The surround channels, as is to be expected in a movie of this type, were aggressively utilized for special effects, music and some ambience. Whilst not being quite as highly directional and aggressive as some of the other recent mixes I have listened to, nonetheless it remained a highly immersive and aggressively enveloping mix, great for demo purposes.

    The .1 channel was kept busy supporting all the explosions and supporting the music. It was very well integrated into the overall mix, never calling attention to itself, but anchoring the bottom end of this soundtrack nicely.

Addendum 20th August 1999: Understandably, there is no slip of paper in the remastered version of this disc.

Menu

    This disc has been superseded by a Special Edition.

    The video quality is almost of reference quality with only some very minor aliasing to distract from the image.

    The audio quality is also almost of reference quality, with only the difficulty in understanding some of the dialogue standing in the way of this soundtrack receiving a reference rating.

    The extras are non-existent.

    Given that our version of this disc is 16x9 enhanced, there is no question in my mind that, despite the lack of extras, this is version of the movie to go for. That is, if you can find one! I can only hope that Buena Vista will not take the shortcut of releasing the British flipper to our market to rectify the region error, but rather will have the European version remastered with Region 4 encoding. Time will tell.

Addendum 20th August 1999: Thank goodness we received an appropriately remastered version of this disc.

Video
Audio
Extras	nil
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna
22nd June 1999
Amended 20th August 1999