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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Theatrical Trailer(s)	Yes, 1
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1994	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	154 minutes	Other Extras	Unseen Footage (20 mins) Featurette (5 mins) Cast Biographies
RSDL/Flipper	RSDL (104:44)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Movie
Region	4	Director	Quentin Tarantino
Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	John Travolta Samuel L. Jackson Uma Thurman Harvey Keitel Tim Roth Amanda Plummer Maria de Medeiros Ving Rhames Eric Stoltz Rozanna Arquette Christopher Walken Bruce Willis
RRP	$34.95	Music	Karyn Rachtman

    The movie opens in a diner with Pumpkin (Tim Roth) and Honey Bunny (Amanda Plummer) deciding to rob the place. We come back to this later.

    We then cut to Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson), a pair of two bit hoods who are required to kill some small-time drug dealers who have been cheating on their boss, Marsellus Wallace. They reclaim a briefcase which contains something very special. We learn that Vincent is required to escort Marsellus' wife whilst Marsellus is out of town.

    We then cut to Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis), a boxer, and Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames). Butch is being paid off to lose his next fight.

    Vincent buys some heroin from Lance (Eric Stoltz) in preparation for his date with Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman). They go to Jackrabbit Slim's, which is a very retro cafe. On their return, Mia accidentally snorts some of Vincent's heroin and stops breathing which leads to an outrageous scene back at Lance's where she is revived.

    Next, we return to Butch, but as a child, where we learn about a very precious wristwatch that Captain Koons (Christopher Walken) delivers to him after keeping it in 'safe storage' for two years. Back in the present, Butch cannot bring himself to lose the fight, and hence falls out of favour with Marsellus. Through a series of errors, Butch ends up killing Vincent, and running into Marsellus. Two good ol' boys prevent the two of them killing each other, but as you will find out, perhaps they would have been better off dead. Nonetheless, all debts are paid and Butch is free to go.

    We then jump back to the briefcase scene where amazingly, neither Vincent nor Jules are killed. This leads to a very messy car ride, but Winston Wolf (Harvey Keitel) steps in and saves the day.

    Finally, it is time to return to the diner, where all outstanding loose ends are tied up.

Video

    The transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, 16x9 enhanced. I have a feeling that this is actually not a true 16x9 enhanced transfer, since the look of the transfer is identical to the Laserdisc, and it is considerably more blurry than I am used to seeing for an anamorphic transfer. It is possible that interpolation has been used to create a 16x9 enhanced transfer that is not truly enhanced.

    The transfer was quite blurry compared to other recent transfers that I have seen. The grey-scale of the transfer was also a problem. Whites were often over-bright which lead to a significant amount of blooming with consequent loss of picture detail, and blacks were just plain black with very little shadow detail discernible. The Laserdisc exhibited the same poor video qualities. Compared with the Laserdisc, however, much less low level noise was present on the DVD, giving the DVD an overall much cleaner picture. When comparing the two transfers side-by-side, it is very interesting to note that DVD is far less forgiving of a bad telecine transfer than Laserdisc is, because of DVD's much greater resolution. The Laserdisc softens the image somewhat, whereas the DVD comes across as very bright, very stark and very harsh. It is actually harder on the eyes to watch the DVD than it is to watch the Laserdisc because of this.

    The colours were quite muted throughout, to the extent of being undersaturated. Once again, the Laserdisc exhibits the same problem.

    No MPEG artefacts were seen.

    Far too much aliasing was seen in the transfer than should have been the case for a 16x9 enhanced transfer. There are a number of specific offenders, but the worst are the venetian blinds in the diner at the start and the end of the movie which shimmer dreadfully. Yet again, I need to mention that the Laserdisc exhibits the same problems in the same areas of the movie, though not quite as badly as the DVD. This is undoubtedly due to the higher resolution of the DVD.

    There were too many film artefacts for this film's age. They appeared mainly as a result of camera negative dirt (white flecks), and became distracting at times because of their frequency and the tendency for them to be in the middle of the frame.

    The disc is an RSDL disc, with the layer change occurring at 104.44, between Chapters 18 and 19. The layer change is very well placed in the middle of a fade-to-black transition, and causes a barely noticeable pause in the audio with virtually no disruption to the flow of the movie.

Audio

    Dialogue was up-front-and-centre, and often very difficult to understand.

    The music adds enormously to the experience of the movie, and is mainly presented in stereo, with some mix into the rear at times.

     The surround channels were rarely used except occasionally for ambience and for some music. It sounded like the same signal was being fed to both rear channels whenever there was anything in the rear. This soundtrack is very much up-front-and-centre with very little additional help from the rear channels.

    The .1 channel was hardly used at all.

    The major extra of this disc is the Unseen Footage, which is a 20 minute feature hosted by Quentin Tarantino presenting several deleted scenes from the movie. This is superbly presented with Quentin putting the scenes into context and explaining why they weren't used. This material is the same as used on the Criterion Laserdisc version of this title. This material is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced with MPEG 2.0 audio, which sounds mono. The only problem with this material was that once my player reached the end of this material, it crashed, and would only respond to the Stop button rather than returning to the Main Menu.

    A 5 minute featurette, consisting of shots from the trailer interspersed with production shots and cast and crew interviews is the next extra. This is presented in an aspect ratio of 4:3, 16x9 enhanced (windowboxed) with MPEG 2.0 sound (mono).

    The theatrical trailer is present on this disc, presented with an aspect ratio of 4:3, 16x9 enhanced  (windowboxed) and with an MPEG 2.0 soundtrack which sounded mono.

    Finally, limited Cast biographies are present.

    The video quality is sub-par compared with other releases of its vintage. It has significant brightness, saturation and artefacting problems.

    The audio quality is as good as it ever was, which isn't particularly good.

    The extras are quite good, particularly the deleted scenes.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna
26th December 1998