Edward Scissorhands (1990)

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General		Extras
Category	Fantasy	Menu Animation & Audio Audio Commentary-Tim Burton (Director) Audio Commentary-Danny Elfman (Composer) Featurette Interviews-Cast & Crew Theatrical Trailer-2 TV Spots-3 Gallery-Concept Art
Rating
Year Of Production	1990
Running Time	100:40 (Case: 103)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (58:47)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Tim Burton
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Johnny Depp Winona Ryder Dianne Wiest Anthony Michael Hall Kathy Baker Vincent Price Alan Arkin
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$36.95	Music	Danny Elfman

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 4.0 L-C-R-S (384Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (96Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	Czech English Danish Finnish Hebrew Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Polish Portuguese Swedish	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

   Edward Scissorhands opens with an old woman (Winona Ryder) sitting by a fireplace on a snowy night, attempting to coax her grand-daughter to sleep on a cold, blizzardy night. Refusing to go to sleep until Grandma explains to her exactly why it snows, she sets in, and commences her reminiscences.

    Peg Boggs (Dianne Wiest) is an Avon lady in Anytown, USA, a cul de sac of a suburb, in which the houses are identical but for their pastel colouration. Overlooking the town is a menacing castle at the top of its own mountain, and Peg, proving to be unsuccessful in town, braves this forbidding façade, and heads up the steep drive where she finds someone in dire need of facial care products, Edward (Johnny Depp). Edward is all alone in the castle, but that's the least of his problems – the biggie is that instead of hands, he sports a collection of knives, scissors and other implements, and a punk hairdo and leather outfit to boot. In a series of flashbacks, we learn that the owner of the castle, an inventor (Vincent Price), created Edward, but unfortunately, before Edward was finished, "he didn't wake up".

   Undeterred by this bizarre vision, Peg takes Edward home to live with her family. Immediately Edward causes a stir with the locals, who adore this oddity. As an added bonus, not only do Edward's skills with his unusual hardware allow him to turn the neighbourhood shrubbery into a living art gallery, but he also gives a mean haircut. Among Edward's biggest fans is terminally horny neighbour Joyce (Kathy Baker), but despite her best efforts Edward is smitten with Kim (Winona Ryder). And here's the problem: Kim has a boyfriend, the mean-spirited Jim (Anthony Michael Hall), whose evil machinations see Edward go from the toast of the town to public enemy #1.

   The world created by Burton is an entirely artificial one, but in many instances his vision of suburbia is so real, it's scary. It is also a beautiful one: many of the visuals are just stunning in their weirdness, and the director has created a cast of characters (or should I say caricatures) that are befitting of their setting. Johnny Depp in the title role shows that he always had it, and his portrayal of a character so full of desire and feeling (but with hands that injure all he touches) is painfully spot on, and produced with so few lines of dialogue. Also brilliant are Diane Wiest (Parenthood) as the friendly Avon lady who becomes Edward's surrogate mother, and Alan Arkin (So I Married An Axe Murderer) as Edward's surrogate father, Bill, is just hilarious. A young Winona Ryder (Girl, Interrupted) comes across, as, well...young, but almost without fail, the supporting performances are excellent, including among others, Kathy Baker (The Cider House Rules).

   Edward Scissorhands can be viewed as a fun (if slightly skewed) fairy tale, but it also works on so many more levels. This is primarily a satire aimed squarely at American suburbia, but Burton touches many themes: variations on the tale of the Beauty and the Beast, meditations on loneliness and art, the perils of non-conformity, and the dangers of fame and notoriety. Every time I see this movie, it just makes me think a little bit more about it, and if that's not enough from a fantasy/romance/comedy, then you're asking far more than you're likely to get in these days of sanitized, multiplex-friendly movies.

Video

    It is presented at a measured aspect ratio of 1.83:1, and features 16x9 enhancement. There was something of a slight lack of sharpness to the image which was just a little diffuse throughout, as well as a slight lack of detail, most apparent in the backgrounds. There are also some instances of background grain (especially in the lower light shots), and some more noticeable grain at 4:03 and again at 4:20. Shadow detail was good, without being excellent, subject to the detail limitations referred to above.

    If there is one thing that this transfer doesn't lack, it's colour. From the pastels covering almost everything, including the houses, to the extremely gaudy wardrobe worn by almost all of the actors, the transfer renders the Technicolor world in which the movie is set beautifully, although without the vibrancy of a recently made movie. There were no instances of colour bleed or over-saturation (which would have been most disappointing). The blacks were also deep and solid.

    I didn't notice any MPEG artefacts, however there were a few film-to-video artefacts to speak of. Aliasing was fairly rare and mild, with the most noticeable instances of this defect appearing at 28:00 on a building vent, at 59:35 on some horizontal blinds, and again at 34:10 on some roof shingles. There were also a few instances of telecine wobble: at 5:15 - 5:29, again at 10:29, and more at 16:38. Pleasingly, I only noticed two minor film artefacts in the guise of white specks in the whole feature.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The dialogue was always clear and understandable, and there were no specific defects in the soundtrack that I could hear. Audio sync was perfect.

    The Danny Elfman score was reminiscent of his other efforts for the director (including Batman and Beetlejuice): an orchestral score with some traditional horror-style overtones produced by the choral accompaniment.

    The surround channel wasn't called upon too frequently, and it was mainly used to support the score, without too much in the way of ambient effects. When it was employed, I felt it was a little low in the mix. In light of the fact that there is no specific subwoofer channel encoded on the soundtrack, my sub did little more than pick up some of the lower frequencies of the score, and for this, it was nicely supportive.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

Audio Commentary - Tim Burton (Director)

Audio Commentary - Danny Elfman (Composer)

Featurette (4:26)

Soundbites (8:37)

Trailers and TV Spots

• Trailer 1 (2:08): They forgot the spoiler warning before this one.
• Trailer 2 (2:05): Shows all the bits that #1 didn't.
• Spanish TV Spot - Amuse You (0:30): These feature a Spanish voice-over and subtitles.
• Spanish TV Spot - Amuse You (0:18): El Jovem Manos de Tijera!
• Spanish TV Spot - Romance (0:30)

Concept Art

Special Thanks

• Dolby Digital 4.0 448 Kb/s audio track.

    As the difference between PAL and NTSC is probably more significant than the difference between the audio track bit rates, I feel that the Region 4 version is to be preferred in light of the identical extras package.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall