Day After Tomorrow, The: Two-Disc Special Edition (2004)

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General		Extras
Category	Science Fiction	Main Menu Audio & Animation Menu Audio Audio Commentary-Roland Emmerich (Director/Co-writer) & Mark Gordon(Producer) Audio Commentary-Filmmakers Deleted Scenes-With Optional Commentary Featurette-The Force Of Destiny:The Science & PoliticsOf Climate Change Featurette-Pre-Production: Previsualization, Pre-Production Meeting Storyboards Gallery-Concept Art Featurette-Making Of-Eye Of The Storm: Filming The Day After Tomorrow Featurette-Post-Production: Pushing The Envelope-Visual Effects Featurette-Post-Production: Scoring, Audio Anatomy Featurette-Global Watch (Interactive) Featurette-City Freeze (Interactive)
Rating
Year Of Production	2004
Running Time	118:35
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (61:24) Dual Disc Set	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Roland Emmerich
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Dennis Quaid Jake Gyllenhaal Emmy Rossum Dash Mihok Jay O. Sanders Sela Ward Austin Nichols Arjay Smith Tamlyn Tomita Sasha Roiz Ian Holm Nassim Sharara Carl Alacchi
Case	?
RPI	$44.95	Music	Harald Kloser Thomas Wanker

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English dts 5.1 (768Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired English Audio Commentary English Audio Commentary	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     Director Roland Emmerich is no stranger to huge action films. Films to his directorial credit include Independence Day, Stargate, The Patriot and the very lacklustre Godzilla. His name is perhaps synonymous with the term 'summer blockbuster' - which really by now should be a genre in its own right. Indeed 'Emmerich' should be a genre in his own right. Here he remains true to form with this big budget and big FX disaster flick The Day After Tomorrow. Those familiar with the alien and lizard films could be forgiven for thinking that this is merely another special effects driven action movie with little in the way of substance but I'm happy to say that this is far from the truth. While the script is at times a little predictable, and some of the usual Emmerich clichés can still be found, The Day After Tomorrow is a well crafted and well executed film. And although it may be more science fiction than science fact it does carry with it a hard hitting message that we need to start looking after this humble little planet called Earth.

     While the scientific accuracy of The Day After Tomorrow may not stand up to serious scrutiny, the film's very realistic visual effects do a great job of suspending your disbelief. In a time where most audiences tend to be rather blasé about computer graphics it does take something very spectacular to make a film stand out from the crowd. The Day After Tomorrow not only stands out from the crowd but raises the bench-mark just a little bit higher. Just like Independence Day was in its time, The Day After Tomorrow is at the forefront of visual effects and many of the sequences throughout the film are enough to make your jaw drop. The water effects in particular, while still not 'perfect', have advanced considerably in the last few years. You need simply to look back at a movie like The Perfect Storm to see how far the technology has come in only a few short years. Once again the special effects artists have edged ever closer to that thin line that separates computer graphics and true photo realism. Indeed as far as The Day After Tomorrow is concerned it is only the clarity of DVD that gives some of the effects away. Due to the inherent image diffusion of theatrical film prints it is very near impossible to visually pick the digital effects at the cinema now - digital projection will no doubt change this and make the job of the visual effects artist all the more difficult.

     The Day After Tomorrow is a spectacular film from start to finish and has remained that way despite the transfer to the small screen. Then again, while the screen may have gotten smaller the sound has remained just as big - more on that shortly. Something that has also transferred over from the cinema to the DVD is a short anti-piracy ad which comes up immediately after the disc has loaded - yes, it's the one you've been seeing at the cinemas lately about downloading pirated movies. I guess it's not as objectionable as a series of static warnings. But a word of warning to those responsible for the ad - downloading a pirated movie off the Internet had never occurred to me prior to seeing that ad. While I do purchase all my movies legally I'm sure there are others out there who won't now that you've bought this possibility to their attention.

Video

     The transfer is presented in the original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.

     This is a very smooth yet detailed transfer that is very nearly impossible to fault. Detail is exemplary throughout the film, but this does however trigger some minor aliasing from time to time like on the buildings at 47:05 during the wave sequence. Shadow detail is also extremely good with the film exhibiting a high contrast range. The cinematographer Ueli Steiger reveals in the second commentary that Roland Emmerich wanted some scenes dark, to the point of underexposing, which is testament to the contrast range of film as it still manages to retain details in the blacks.

     Colour reproduction is extremely realistic and vibrant - a clear reflection on the choice of film stock. Skin tones are very accurate.

     There is nothing in the way of MPEG artefacts - this is as close to transparent compression as you can get. As previously mentioned there are some trivial instances of aliasing present but nothing that is likely to distract the viewer, that is until the end credits. The inherent detail in the image has caused absolute havoc in the credits, making them flicker profusely but because it is isolated to the credits I am very reluctant to deduct any points for this. Those of you watching the film using progressive scan equipment (the way films should be watched) will likely have no problems whatsoever. Film artefacts are completely absent - I didn't spot a single one (and I was looking).

     There are three sets of subtitles present - English for the hearing impaired as well as two tracks for the commentaries. I sampled all the tracks and found them to be very accurate.

     Disc 1 is RSDL with the layer change occurring mid-scene at 61:24. It is not distracting with only a brief pause in the audio giving its location away. The main file size is 6062Mb.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

     Within the first few minutes the term 'reference quality' began to creep into my mind and by the end of the first hour this had all but been confirmed.

     The audio is presented in English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kbs) and English DTS 5.1 (754Kbs). I listened to the DTS track in its entirety and sampled specific chapters in Dolby Digital.

     Dialogue is very clear with no issues to speak of. There are no problems with sync. There was a few instances where my keen ear detected some ADR but few people will notice this - the dialogue has been extremely well recorded and sonically matched to the location.

     The music is by Harald Kloser and for the most part is your typical slightly over-the-top score designed to further extenuate the trauma the various characters are in. Not that it needed it though - the visual effects had that more than covered. There were times however where the on-screen visuals needed the help of the music to draw some emotion but for whatever reason failed to do so, at least for me. If not for the subwoofer use which I will mention in a moment the music would be quite unremarkable.

     The surrounds are used for pretty much the entire duration of the film - there is seldom a moment of silence in any direction. The centre rear channel is also put to good but not excellent use with some ambient effects, mostly wind effects, being redirected by the ES and EX processing - one example is at 5:30. The first hour without doubt carries the bulk of the whizzy surround use - the tornadoes in Los Angeles in particular drive all the channels to the limit, much like Twister did - I wouldn't have expected anything less. Even the quieter scenes in the film still retain a lot of subtle ambience in the rears. All in all there is rarely a dull moment - this is surround sound at its best.

     The low end response throughout the film is at times phenomenal. However, it is in fact the music and not the effects which utilize the extreme bottom end of the audible spectrum to the greatest effect. Within the first minute of the film we are treated to an extremely deep resonating bass which has to be the closest to a 20Hz rumble that I've ever heard on DVD. Without a doubt this is where the quality of a subwoofer is really revealed.

     And finally Dolby Digital versus DTS. Given the 448Kbs encoding of the Dolby Digital 5.1 track there is very little separating the two. Both share the same deep resonating bass although the DTS track was slightly tighter and better defined. The music came across as being a little richer in the DTS track whereas the Dolby Digital track was a little flatter by comparison but it would be safe to say 9 out 10 people couldn't pick the difference during a blind test.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

     Extras fans, you'll be delighted to hear there are around three and a half hours of goodies here and that's not including the commentaries - set aside a good day to get through all of them. Except for the The Force Of Destiny: The Science & Politics Of Climate Change documentary all the extras are presented in 1.78:1 with 16x9 enhancement (yay!). As for sound it's Dolby Digital 2.0 (surround) all round.

Disc 1

Menu

     Nicely themed animated menu with audio that's easy to navigate.

Audio Commentary - Roland Emmerich (Director) & Mark Gordon (Producer)

     There is seldom a moment of silence throughout this commentary yet it seemed to cover very little ground at all. There tends to be a lot of "this is my favourite..." moment, shot, scene etc. which most people would know doesn't make for an interesting commentary. But by far my biggest gripe with this commentary is producer Mark Gordon. He has an extremely bad habit of constantly interrupting and finishing sentences which becomes exceedingly annoying to listen to after 15 or so minutes and downright torture by 90 minutes. I don't think Roland Emmerich ever managed to finish a sentence without being interrupted for the entire duration of the film. Even if not for Gordon, Emmerich has proved in previous DVDs he's far from being the best commentator in the world so I think from the outset this commentary was a lost cause. Don't even bother with this one - go straight to commentary two

Audio Commentary - Jeffrey Nachmanoff (Co-writer), Ueli Steiger (Cinematographer), David Brenner (Editor) & Barry Chusid (Production Designer)

     This is a superior commentary to the first in every way. The four commentators appear to have been recorded in two groups of two but the audio editing has been done so well it took me quite a while to notice it. This commentary covers numerous aspects of the production including safety as well as plenty of technical details from the cinematographer which I found most interesting. Of particular note was the New York set which was actually lit by two thousand 2K lights - that's a whopping 4,000,000 watts of light! Pretty impressive stuff. The script writing and editing is also discussed, including scenes which for various reasons proved to be rather challenging in the editing. Also worth a mention is the tornado sequence in Los Angeles in which low flying helicopters were actually used to create the wind on the ground instead of wind machines.

Disc 2

Deleted Scenes (x10) (17:42)

     This is a collection of 10 deleted scenes and scene extensions that for various reasons were omitted from the final cut. The reasons for their deletion are fairly obvious - some of the scenes involve further sub-plots that in the end were just unnecessary. It should be pointed out that many of these scenes were cut before the completion of the visual effects as such they contain pre-viz animation or just plain old chroma-key green in the place of the visual effects. These scenes are also viewable with commentary from Roland Emmerich and Mark Gordon - thankfully Gordon is much more tolerable here than the main commentary. And yes, there is a 'Play All' feature for these - thank you Fox!

The Force Of Destiny: The Science & Politics Of Climate Change (60:23) (1.33:1)

     This is a quite fascinating documentary about the science behind global warming and climate change. It was produced in the wake of The Day After Tomorrow and as such does serve to debunk some of the depictions in the film although this is clearly not its purpose. As science advisor to the film Michael Molitor PhD (who coincidently appeared on The Panel here just recently) explains about climate change "the biggest problem is that most people don't make the link between this problem and their daily lives" - this documentary seeks to rectify that. While it focuses mainly on North America it is quite an eye opener to the real dangers we are facing in the world today - although there are times I felt it pushed the doom and gloom factor a bit harder than it perhaps needed to. The internationalism of this problem is also covered, something that perhaps would be of most benefit to our American friends who like us are yet to ratify the Kyoto Protocol (something which the doco also mentions). Finally it also details how the production of The Day After Tomorrow was 'carbon neutral' - that is all the carbon dioxide emitted during the production was offset by the planting of trees as well as investments in renewable energy (essentially one cancels the other out). From the transfer point of view this documentary is a bit shaky. To accommodate all the extras on the disc the bit-rate has been cranked right down (usually below 5Mbs) and as such there is plenty of pixelization to be found. The source material is also a little odd - constantly switching between interlaced footage and progressive scan footage and 1.33:1 and 1.78:1 (and that's not taking into account the footage from the film which is intercut throughout). Finally, and rather unfortunately, Fox have neglected to place any chapter points in this documentary. A general rule of thumb is that if it's longer than 15 minutes it should have chapters!

Pre-Production

     This is a short documentary on the pre-viz process (pre-viz being the process by which basic animation is done quickly and early in the game to give producers a rough idea of what the completed scene will look like). As films get more and more 'digital' this process is becoming ever more important and this fact is highlighted here.

     Clearly shot on a consumer DV camera this a short compile of footage from the pre-production meeting. Shaky-cam with top-mic audio so it's nothing spectacular to watch.

     A basic collection of storyboards.

     These are concept photos which no doubt strongly influenced what appears in the final film.

Production

     Eye Of The Storm: Filming The Day After Tomorrow (68:44)

This documentary encompasses the many months of principal photography including the trials and tribulations of working with fake snow - something I've heard many a time before. All the major set pieces of the film are covered here including the tornados in Los Angeles and the flooding of New York which was actually shot on a huge soundstage, although you would never know if not for watching this doco. While the shooting of the numerous technically and logistically difficult scenes is explained here in detail there is also a near gratuitous amount of back-patting to be found as well. However, given the amount of ground this documentary still manages to cover, it is relatively easy to forgive this. This is well worth the time to watch although as with the Force Of Destiny documentary there are no chapter points. Having said that, I'm extremely glad that Fox have presented this as one long documentary - other studios would have chopped it up into countless short featurettes in an attempt to pad out the back cover (yes I'm talking about you Columbia Tristar).

Post Production

     This documentary analyses the many spectacular visual effects sequences throughout the film. Here the many stages of the computer animation are revealed including how new software programs had to written to achieve the results seen on-screen. In the case of the wolves this documentary also serves to demonstrate that CGI is becoming a viable back-up for virtually anything that fails to work in principal photography. Real wolves had initially been brought in to shoot these scenes but because they failed to 'act' to the satisfaction of the crew the decision was made to do them digitally. You know what they say - never work with kids or animals! Pretty soon you won't have to. As far as special effects documentaries go this is one of the better ones I've seen.

     This featurette is for the most part presented in picture-in-picture with footage of the recoding session at the Newman Stage in Hollywood and footage from the final film of the specific scene being scored. The picture-in-picture has simply been done in editing and not electronically as per similar features on other DVDs.

     1. The Final Mix (9:06)

     This featurette focuses on the sound mixing stage and how the many different layers of sound (i.e. dialogue, music & FX) are actually mixed at different times before the final composition. This was actually shot in the mixing studio during the mixing of the helicopter crash scene. This is a great addition to the DVD particularly as featurettes on sound are relatively rare.

     2. Interactive Demo (1:45)

     This is the helicopter crash scene as featured above presented with 8 audio channels - the final mix, dialogue, helicopter sound design, engines, ice & wind, sound effects, Foley and music. By simply toggling through the audio channels using your remote you can listen to the various layers of sound from the scene in isolation.

Global Watch

     This is an interactive image and text feature which details some of the major weather events in history. As the feature proclaims - "Choose from the weather pattern filter to explore some of the largest storms around the globe in recent history - and possibly in our future". Note the "and possibly in our future". This is a bit misleading as these accounts include some fictional events which occurred in the film. I can imagine this being rather detrimental particularly to a child's education as they're likely to read this thinking it's all fact (which most of it is) and being fooled into thinking the Hollywood sign was actually destroyed by a tornado in 2004. A poor choice.

City Freeze

     These are essentially concept photos of what various major cities around the world would look like in the event of a big freeze as depicted in the film. As you might have guessed Australia hasn't been left out. A photo of the Sydney Opera House is included - even though Sydney is way down in the relatively safe southern hemisphere as depicted in the film. This feature is of very limited value - a stocking filler, nothing more.

     The Day After Tomorrow is being released on DVD in the States on October 12 - strange we should get a movie such as this before them. Both versions have DTS but rather unusually the Americans have been well and truly stiffed in the extras department. They have only a single disc release with a separate Pan & Scan version available for those who haven't yet realised why widescreen is so much better. Compared to our humble Region 4 version Region 1 version misses out the following from above:

• Deleted Scenes (x8) (they only get 2)
• Featurette: The Force Of Destiny: The Science & Politics Of Climate Change
• Featurette: Previsualization
• Featurette: Pre-Production Meeting
• Gallery: Storyboard Gallery
• Gallery: Concept Art Gallery
• Featurette: Eye Of The Storm: Filming The Day After Tomorrow
• Featurette: Pushing The Envelope: Visual Effects
• Featurette: Scoring
• Featurette: Global Watch
• Featurette: City Freeze

     I'm not exactly sure what the story is here but I suspect this is no accident - Fox are probably preparing a Special Edition version in the States with the view to cashing in twice on the same film. Need I even say Region 4 is a winner by a huge margin - and believe me, I take great pleasure in saying that as it's extremely rare, particularly for an American film. If you'll pardon the pun the tides have certainly turned in this instance!

     The Day After Tomorrow is a spectacular disaster film and credit to Roland Emmerich - he's finally made up for the big lizard movie.

     The video transfer is of reference quality (the aliasing in the credits permitting).

     The audio transfer is of reference quality.

     Extras are of great quantity and for the most part of great quality - a fantastic extras package all round.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall