PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
The Lost World: Jurassic Park: Collector's Edition (1997)

The Lost World: Jurassic Park: Collector's Edition (1997)

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Released 10-Oct-2000

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Action Main Menu Audio & Animation
Scene Selection Anim & Audio
Menu Audio
Featurette-Making Of-The Making of The Lost World
Deleted Scenes
Gallery-Illustrations and Conceptual Drawings
Storyboards-11 sequences
Gallery-Models
Gallery-The World Of Jurassic Park
Gallery-Industrial Light And Magic
Gallery-Photo-Production Photographs
Gallery-Marketing: Posters And Toys
Trailer-3
Notes-Dinosaur Encyclopedia
Production Notes
Biographies-Cast & Crew
DVD-ROM Extras
Rating Rated PG
Year Of Production 1997
Running Time 123:25
RSDL / Flipper RSDL (88:10) Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 2,4 Directed By Steven Spielberg
Studio
Distributor

Sony Pictures Home Entertain
Starring Jeff Goldblum
Julianne Moore
Pete Postlethwaite
Arliss Howard
Case Brackley-Trans-No Lip
RPI $39.95 Music John Williams


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame None English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
German Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Hungarian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
16x9 Enhanced
Video Format 576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio 1.85:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles English
German
Arabic
Bulgarian
Croatian
Czech
Danish
Finnish
Greek
Hebrew
Hindi
Hungarian
Icelandic
Norwegian
Polish
Swedish
Turkish
Smoking No
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

    Four years have past since the ill-fated Jurassic Park venture, and John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) has gone from being a capitalist to being a naturalist. He is now worried about the exploitation of site B (another island), where the original dinosaurs were being bred and nurtured before being transferred to Jurassic Park. John Hammond summons his old friend, Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), and asks him to lead a small team of adventurers, with the objective of documenting the dinosaurs' behavioural patterns. At first Ian steadfastly refuses, but when he learns that his girlfriend, Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore), is already on the island studying the animals he agrees, so he can rescue her.

    The team assembles and heads off to the island. Shortly after they arrive on the island another team of humans lands with the intent of capturing some dinosaurs so that they can be transported back to San Diego and put on display in a zoo. It doesn't take long for the dinosaurs to get the upper hand, and the humans are once again on the run for their lives.

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Transfer Quality

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, and is 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer is extremely clear and sharp, but I felt that there were a couple of scenes that could have been slightly sharper. This is most likely not a transfer problem. No low-level noise was seen, although the sky does suffer from some rather bad graininess in two scenes (1:00 and 97:00). It is still tolerable, but it is very noticeable. There is plenty of detail in the shadows.

    Unfortunately, edge enhancement is a problem with this transfer. Halos can be seen around many objects throughout the movie. These instances are far from being severe, but they are certainly noticeable enough to be distracting and to detract from the overall picture quality.

    The colour was natural-looking, with well-saturated reds and greens.

     No MPEG artefacts were seen, other than one trivial instance of posterization which was noticed at 117:47. No aliasing was noticed. There are a couple of film artefacts during the opening scene that you can't help but notice, but after this they are very rare, so there's nothing really to complain about on that score.

    This disc is an RSDL disc, with the layer change occurring between Chapters 13 and 14, on a scene change at 88:10. It is perfectly placed with only a small pause, so it does not disrupt the movie.

Video Ratings Summary
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are four audio tracks on this DVD; English 384kb/s Dolby Digital 5.1, English 192kb/s Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded, German 384kb/s Dolby Digital 5.1 and Hungarian 192kb/s Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded. I listened to the default English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack.

    The dialogue was clear and easy to understand, and it is very well integrated into the overall sound stage. No audio sync problems were noticed with this transfer.

    John Williams' musical score again suits the movie well, as it adds to and enhances the on-screen action.

    The surround channels were very aggressively used for ambience, music and lots of special effects. With tons of noticeable directional effects and good sound placement within the sound field, this once again puts you right in the midst of the action with the dinosaurs and characters. Almost the entire soundtrack could be listed as a stand-out example of surround channel use - it is that good.

    The subwoofer use is excellent. It is continually being used to subtly add bass to most scenes, and is highly active during the dramatic sequences, such as those involving the footsteps of T-Rex. The .1 LFE channel use is much more effective and impressive than that found in Jurassic Park, and it really added to the dramatic nature of this film.

Audio Ratings Summary
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

    At first glance, there appears to be an excellent selection of extras on this DVD, but closer inspection reveals that most are just still pictures. On my DVD player, all the pictures suffered from vertical fold-over, which is where some of the bottom of the picture is displayed at the top.

Menu

    The Menu is presented in 1.33:1 and has a lead-in video clip followed by another of a Raptor prowling around the screen, set to a 192kb/s Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. You also get some additional footage when you select a menu option. The Scene Selections Menu has animation and audio and the Extras Menu also has a short repeating snippet of music. The Main Menu selections are; Languages/Audio, Scene Selections (20), Subtitles, Extra Features, and Play Movie.

Featurette - The Making of The Lost World (53:19 minutes)

    Overall, this featurette is of very good quality, with some grain present. Some of the early footage is of slightly lower quality. It is presented in two non-16x9-enhanced aspect ratios; 1.85:1 and 1.33:1, with a Dolby Digital 2.0, 192kb/sec soundtrack that has some hiss. This is basically an extended promotional piece for the movie, with some good behind-the-scenes details.

Deleted Scenes (2 - 6:37 minutes)

    The first of the two deleted scenes is plagued by film artefacts which degrades its quality somewhat. The second is of much better quality. Both are presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and are not 16x9 enhanced, with a Dolby Digital 2.0 192kb/s soundtrack.

Storyboards (11 scenes)

    Stego Attack, The Round Up, Eddie's Death, Death in the Waterfall, Malcolm vs. Raptor, Sarah Harding vs. the Raptors, Getting the T-Rex off the Island, The Cargo Ship Sequence, The T-Rex Visits San Diego, The Revenge of the T-Rex, and Deleted Scenes. Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 with no accompanying audio.

Other Extras that are comprised of photos or sketches

Dinosaur Encyclopedia

    Information on Dilophosaur, Velociraptor, Callimimus, Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Brachiosaurus, the Triassic Period and the Jurassic Period.

Theatrical Trailer - Jurassic Park (1:15 minutes)

    The quality is OK, but the picture is very soft. Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, 16x9 enhanced, with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack.

Theatrical Trailer - The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1:59 minutes)

    This is of very good quality, and is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, 16x9 enhanced, with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack.

Teaser Trailer - Jurassic Park III (0:42 minutes)

    Teaser footage taken from 1 and 2, presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 with a Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded soundtrack.

Talent Profiles (6)

    This section contains Biographies & Highlight Filmographies for Steven Spielberg, Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, Pete Postlethwaite, Arliss Howard and Richard Attenborough.

Flier

    A single page advertisement for the upcoming R4 Gladiator DVD.

DVD-ROM Features

    These would not work on my PC (or Michael's PC for that matter), so I'm not sure that there are actually any DVD-ROM extras on the disc other than the autorun files.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;     The Region 1 Dolby Digital version of this disc misses out on;     The Region 1 DTS version of this disc misses out on;
R4 vs R1 Dolby Digital
    The quality and extras are basically the same, so the R4 disc is the better choice here because it will not suffer from 3:2
pull-down artefacts and will have approximately 20% more picture detail than the R1 NTSC version.
R4 vs R1 DTS
    The sound quality is supposedly even better on this disc, but you do miss out on many extras and the advantages of PAL, so I leave it up to you to decide on this one.

Summary

    The Lost World is another chomping good time, presented on a very good DVD.

    The video quality is very good, with some edge enhancement slightly spoiling the picture.

    The audio quality is superb, and is of reference quality.

    There is a good selection of extras present, but most are in the form of still pictures.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Paul Williams (read Paul's biography)
Sunday, October 08, 2000
Review Equipment
DVDSony DVP-725, using Component output
DisplaySony Projector VPH-G70 (No Line Doubler), Technics Da-Lite matt screen with gain of 1.0 (229cm). This display device is 16x9 capable.
Audio DecoderBuilt in to DVD player. Calibrated with Video Essentials.
AmplificationOnkyo TX-SV919THX
SpeakersFronts: Energy RVS-1 (3), Rears: Energy RVSS-1 (2), Subwoofer: Energy EPS-150 (1)

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