Ghostbusters: Ultimate Collector's Pack (1984) |
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As a box set the remastered Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters 2 make for a fun evening of viewing. The original Ghostbusters is by far the best of the two movies with very good video and audio transfers. Ghostbusters 2 also has a great video transfer but the surround sound field is a little lacking. As is the case with many sequels some of the magic that was felt in the original movie is missing. However, both movies have brilliant special effects and there are laughs-a-plenty with both movies. When you consider the very reasonable purchase price for this box set I think you will soon realise that it is definitely value for money.
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Ghostbusters (Remastered) (1984) |
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General | Extras | ||
Category | Comedy |
Main Menu Audio & Animation Dolby Digital Trailer Audio Commentary-Ivan Reitman, Harold Ramis And Joe Medjuck Featurette-1984 Featurette Gallery-Conceptual Drawings Gallery-Photo-Production Photos Storyboards-Ghostly Gallery |
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Rating | |||
Year Of Production | 1984 | ||
Running Time | 100:51 | ||
RSDL / Flipper | Dual Layered | Cast & Crew | |
Start Up | Menu | ||
Region Coding | 2,4,5 | Directed By | Ivan Reitman |
Studio
Distributor |
Sony Pictures Home Entertain |
Starring |
Bill Murray Dan Aykroyd Sigourney Weaver Harold Ramis Rick Moranis Annie Potts William Atherton Ernie Hudson David Margulies Steven Tash Jennifer Runyon Slavitza Jovan Michael Ensign |
Case | Amaray-Opaque-Dual-Secure Clip | ||
RPI | Box | Music |
Bobby Alessi Elmer Bernstein David Foster |
Video | Audio | ||
Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) |
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Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 2.40:1 | ||
16x9 Enhancement |
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Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
Original Aspect Ratio | 2.35:1 | Miscellaneous | |
Jacket Pictures | No | ||
Subtitles |
English French German Italian Spanish Dutch Arabic Bulgarian Croatian Czech Danish Finnish Greek Hebrew Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Polish Portuguese Romanian Swedish Turkish English for the Hearing Impaired English Audio Commentary French Audio Commentary German Audio Commentary Italian Audio Commentary Spanish Audio Commentary Dutch Audio Commentary |
Smoking | Yes, Main character smokes |
Annoying Product Placement | Yes, Commercial magazine placements such as Time. | ||
Action In or After Credits | No |
The original (and best) Ghostbusters has been remastered on DVD, and it has been beautifully done. Most of us know the storyline by now, except maybe for the very young, so I will keep the plot synopsis brief.
Ghostbusters is the story of three scientists who decide through necessity to go into the field of investigating and resolving paranormal activities in New York. They buy an old fire house and an old ambulance, and call themselves The Ghostbusters. They eventually start capturing ghosts and lock them away in an electronic containment facility they have built in the basement of the fire station. All is going along happily until, suddenly, a city environmental inspector takes exception to the whole process and shuts down the power to the containment facility. This leads to all the captured ghosts being freed, and they go on a rampage throughout New York. In the meantime, there is a whole other subplot happening between Bill Murray (Peter Veckman) and Sigourney Weaver (Dana Barrett) which ties in with the increase in paranormal activity. It is soon revealed that the building in which Dana lives happens to be the centre for all the ghostly goings on, and that Zuul the Destroyer is coming to wipe out the world. The Ghostbusters are called upon to take care of Zuul, and in so doing they inadvertently select the method of destruction for the city, which happens to be a huge marshmallow man.
Of course the Ghostbusters win out in the end, but the whole movie is a load of riotous fun, with great special effects and wonderful use of talented comedians such as Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd.
This video transfer has had a wonderful remastering job done on it; I enjoyed it immensely. Of course, I have come to expect no less from Sony Pictures' DVD mastering division.
The movie is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.40:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. It is worth noting that the original aspect ratio for the movie is 2.35:1. However, I do not think this minimal alteration to the aspect ratio has detracted from this release.
The video was always sharp and clear, with no hint of graininess or low level noise. I also did not notice any aliasing at all. I am particularly sensitive to aliasing, and I find it to be the most annoying of all the video problems associated with DVD transfers.
The colours were nicely rendered and there was no colour bleed to be seen.
Thankfully there was little in the way of MPEG compression artefacts. The same could be said for film-to-video artefacts, barring the obvious telecine wobble seen on the original Columbia Pictures intro. There were some minor film artefacts, but nothing that I would call distracting.
There are numerous subtitle languages available for selection, however, I only sampled the English subtitles, which I found to be reasonably accurate to the spoken word, although some words were occasionally left out.
The layer change occurs at 53:42 and it is not noticeable. It happens when Dana slams her apartment door on Peter Veckman.
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The audio transfer is superb: this is where the remastering process has really shined through in my opinion.
We are presented with numerous choices for the audio track, however the best by far is the English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) version, which is the track I based my review on, as the other tracks are all in foreign languages and only presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s).
I had absolutely no problem with the dialogue in this transfer - it was nice and clear. There were no lip sync issues, either.
This movie has always been renowned for its great musical score, and one of the biggest hits from the 1980s was the theme song from this movie, the self-titled 'Ghostbusters'. Bobby Alessi, Elmer Bernstein, and David Foster teamed up to compose and produce this fun musical score, and they did it superbly.
David Foster has a string of great music scores behind him, and he can take credit for composing songs for the likes of Pretty Woman, Footloose, Sleepless In Seattle, and The Bodyguard to name just a few.
Elmer Bernstein is a similarly accomplished composer who has worked on such film scores as Thoroughly Modern Millie (for which he won an Oscar), The Three Amigos and The Magnificent Seven.
Not to be left out, Bobby Alessi also composed songs for the soundtrack of The Main Event and has arranged/produced or written releases for singers like Sir Paul McCartney, Olivia Newton John, and Christopher Cross to name a few.
The main theme song 'Ghostbusters' is performed by Ray Parker Jr, who had a lot of success in the 1980s with his pop hits.
The brilliant use of the surround channels in this movie makes for a very immersive sound field, just the way I like it.
Very good use of the subwoofer will please those with the ability to send their neighbours running.
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The main menu takes the form of a cartoon image of New York city with the Stay Puff marshmallow man walking through it. The selections are incorporated into the buildings on the menu screen. The menu is presented in the 16:9 format and has the theme song 'Ghostbusters' playing underneath it.
As the title suggests, there is an audio commentary available in Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s). I found having the background to many of the scenes explained interesting.
An engaging look at how the movie came to be. It's presented in 4x3 format and is narrated by Ivan Reitman, Dan Aykroyd, and Harold Ramis. The featurette has a run time of 10:53.
This featurette is a collection of drawings of how the movie sets were envisaged. It is presented in 4x3 format.
This is also a collection of photos showing many stages of the creative process for different props used on set. Again this is presented in 4x3 format.
Not a particularly interesting feature, this focuses on storyboard line drawings of how the scenes were conceptualized. It is presented in 4x3 format.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
I have not seen the R1 version of this movie. However, from what I have read, the R4 version misses out on the SFX Team featurette and three scenes showing the special effects breakdown for them. Lastly, the R4 version misses out on 10 deleted scenes.
However, apart from the SFX Team featurette that is reportedly better than the 1984 featurette, I would rate the actual movie presentation to be superior on the R4 version due to the PAL transfer.
Ghostbusters is a rip-roaring comedy with a great plot and terrific acting. This DVD is a real must-have for those who love the comedy genre. Thanks to Sony Pictures for a great video and audio transfer.
Video | |
Audio | |
Extras | |
Plot | |
Overall |
Review Equipment | |
DVD | Momitsu V880DX upscaling player, Samsung DVD-HD747 player, Pioneer DV-535 player, Toshiba D-R1-S-TG , using DVI output |
Display | Panasonic PT-AE700 WXGA LCD Projector, 102" 16:9 Grandview motorised screen, Panasonic TH-42PV500A HD Plasma Display, Toshiba 83 cm 4:3 CRT. Calibrated with Video Essentials/Digital Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 720p. |
Audio Decoder | Denon AVR-2802. Calibrated with Video Essentials/Digital Video Essentials. |
Amplification | Denon AVR-2802 Dolby EX/DTS ES Discrete plus Sansui two channel amplifier driving Back Surrounds |
Speakers | Fronts, Centre, and Back Surrounds - Accusound Ref 8 speakers with 150W RMS accusound sub woofer, Surrounds - Sony |
Ghostbusters II (Remastered) (1989) |
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General | Extras | ||
Category | Comedy |
Main Menu Audio & Animation Dolby Digital Trailer Bonus Episode-Animated Episodes (2) |
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Rating | |||
Year Of Production | 1989 | ||
Running Time | 103:53 | ||
RSDL / Flipper | Dual Layered | Cast & Crew | |
Start Up | Menu | ||
Region Coding | 2,4,5 | Directed By | Ivan Reitman |
Studio
Distributor |
Sony Pictures Home Entertain |
Starring |
Bill Murray Dan Aykroyd Sigourney Weaver Harold Ramis Rick Moranis Ernie Hudson Annie Potts Peter MacNicol Harris Yulin David Margulies Kurt Fuller Janet Margolin Wilhelm von Homburg |
Case | ? | ||
RPI | Box | Music |
Bobby Brown Randy Edelman Danny Elfman |
Video | Audio | ||
Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) |
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Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 2.35:1 | ||
16x9 Enhancement |
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Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
Original Aspect Ratio | 2.35:1 | Miscellaneous | |
Jacket Pictures | No | ||
Subtitles |
English French German Italian Spanish Dutch Arabic Bulgarian Croatian Czech Danish Finnish Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Polish Portuguese Romanian Swedish Turkish English for the Hearing Impaired |
Smoking | Yes |
Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
Action In or After Credits | No |
I'd say a lot of people reading this review will have already seen this movie, so my plot synopsis will be brief.
Personally, I believe this sequel to the very popular Ghostbusters just did not cut it. To me, the cast really did not have their heart in this movie. I found the plot to be wishy-washy and lacking in overall direction.
The movie picks up five years after the first Ghostbusters movie. With the Ghostbusters team now almost defunct they are brought back together to solve the mystery of a river of slime far beneath the city of New York. With strange phenomena on the increase in the city they soon find themselves up against an evil entity known as Vigo who needs a child in order to live again. It just so happens that Dana has had a baby in the last 5 years, and this is the one selected by Vigo. Eventually all hell breaks loose with ghosts showing up everywhere - even the Titanic arrives and its ghostly passengers disembark.
Once again the mayor of New York requests the help of the Ghostbusters and of course after much ado they win out in the end.
This is another excellent remastered transfer from Sony Pictures.
The video is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.
The video was sharp and clear with no trace of low level noise. There was good shadow detail and no graininess present. There was some minor aliasing that I noted on Dan Aykroyd's shirt in one scene but that was all I could detect.
The colours are vibrant and rich with no colour bleeding.
There was very little in the way of MPEG artefacts, video to film artefacts or film artefacts.
I only sampled the English subtitles which I found to be accurate to the spoken word.
The layer change occurs at 66:43, however it is not noticeable.
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Grain/Pixelization | |
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Unfortunately I found this audio transfer to be of a lower standard than that of the original Ghostbusters movie as per my comments below.
My choice of audio track to listen to was the English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) track. There are other foreign language tracks available but I did not sample these as I am not conversant in any language except English. However, seeing as the other audio tracks are only Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) tracks the English track is by far the superior one.
I found the dialogue to be precise and clear. There were no problems with audio sync.
The musical score for this movie is not a patch on the original Ghostbusters but it still manages to support the video appropriately. It is worth noting that the music production team for this movie was different to the team that created the magic in Ghostbusters.
I felt that the use of the surround channels lacked somewhat when compared to the remastered Ghostbusters transfer, although the subwoofer was used very nicely.
Dialogue | |
Audio Sync | |
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts | |
Surround Channel Use | |
Subwoofer | |
Overall |
The main menu shows a cartoon scene of New York City with the selections incorporated into the building structures. It is animated with a figure of the Statue Of Liberty moving down the street and the sky showing clouds moving quite quickly. There are also reddish streaks flying around the buildings. Playing in the background is the Ghostbusters song by Ray Parker Jr.
This is exactly what it says, a Dolby Digital banner trailer.
There are two animated Ghostbuster episodes available to watch, either separately or you can watch them both by selecting Play All at the menu prompt. Selecting Play All will first play the episode entitled "Citizen Ghost" and then "Partners In Slime". To be honest I found neither much to write home about - in fact they were quite lame, but I guess each to their own. Some people may like to watch these but I doubt you would do it more than once. The first episode, "Citizen Ghost", has a run time of 23:47. The second episode, "Partners In Slime" has a run time of 26:29. Both episodes are presented in 4:3 format.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
I have not seen the R1 version of this movie but I believe the PAL format will render a superior transfer over the NTSC version.
From what I have read the R1 version has the same extras as the R4 version, so going on this I feel the R4 version will be the best version.
Even though this movie still has a lot of good special effects and the likes of Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd keeping the humour alive, it pales in comparison to the original Ghostbusters movie.
Video | |
Audio | |
Extras | |
Plot | |
Overall |
Review Equipment | |
DVD | Momitsu V880DX upscaling player, Samsung DVD-HD747 player, Pioneer DV-535 player, Toshiba D-R1-S-TG , using DVI output |
Display | Panasonic PT-AE700 WXGA LCD Projector, 102" 16:9 Grandview motorised screen, Panasonic TH-42PV500A HD Plasma Display, Toshiba 83 cm 4:3 CRT. Calibrated with Video Essentials/Digital Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 720p. |
Audio Decoder | Denon AVR-2802. Calibrated with Video Essentials/Digital Video Essentials. |
Amplification | Denon AVR-2802 Dolby EX/DTS ES Discrete plus Sansui two channel amplifier driving Back Surrounds |
Speakers | Fronts, Centre, and Back Surrounds - Accusound Ref 8 speakers with 150W RMS accusound sub woofer, Surrounds - Sony |