Good Morning, Vietnam: Special Edition (1987)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio & Animation Theatrical Trailer Teaser Trailer Featurette-Production Diary Featurette-Raw Monologues
Rating
Year Of Production	1987
Running Time	116:02 (Case: 155)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (84:11)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Barry Levinson
Studio Distributor	Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.	Starring	Robin Williams Forest Whitaker Bruno Kirby Chintara Sukapatana Tung Thanh Tran
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	?	Music	Alex North

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired Spanish Swedish Norwegian Danish Finnish Icelandic Portuguese	Smoking	Yes, occasionally
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes, mildly
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Opinions of Robin Williams and his work tend to vary dramatically, not only from person to person, but in some cases from film to film. While I have very much enjoyed his performances in Dead Poets Society and Good Morning, Vietnam, I have to confess that I have found him terminally annoying in other films such as Hook or Jumanji. Obviously, this has something to do with the material he is working with, but his performance in Good Morning, Vietnam is one of those that reassures viewers like myself that there is some spark of humanity left in the human race. Unfortunately, according to the real Adrian Cronauer, this film is only about forty-five percent accurate, misrepresenting what he believes in, and portraying him as doing things that would earn him a court-martial at least twice over.

    However, when these divergences from fact are set aside, what we have left is a very entertaining and solid story about a man who was sent to help build morale for troops assigned to a mission that few, if any, of them fully understood. The story begins with Adrian Cronauer (Robin Williams) landing in Saigon during the year 1965, where he is greeted by a soldier named Garlick (Forest Whitaker). After meeting with the rest of the station personnel, Cronauer launches into his first broadcast in his new location, one that riles the local lieutenant, Steven Hauk (Bruno Kirby), no end. After a series of broadcasts in which Cronauer gets up the commanding officers' noses, he is sent on assignment while said lieutenant fills in for him, a move that lets the station's commanders know exactly how much support Cronauer has amongst the GIs who are in the field.

    One of the stunts that the fictionalised Cronauer pulls in this story involves teaching a class of Vietnamese citizens how to speak English, although the reasons for this in the film (to woo a lady) are quite divergent from reality. In any case, while the attempts to woo Trinh (Chintara Sukapatana) don't go as planned, Cronauer does make friends with her brother Tuan (Tung Thanh Tran). However, when Cronauer finds himself in situations such as getting out of a building that is bombed by the Viet Cong with mere seconds to spare, questions are raised about what Tuan is doing, and the nature of Cronauer's friendship with him. This helps reflect one of the more real elements of Cronauer's stay in Saigon, in that the place is relatively calm when he arrives, but it turns into sheer mayhem before he leaves.

    Okay, so a lot of liberties had to be taken with the facts in order to create a story that would be palatable to the audiences, but what sets the film apart is some fine performances from the entire cast, especially Robin Williams, Tung Thanh Tran, and Chintara Sukapatana. The latter two give a depth to their characters that makes a nice antidote to the shallow, stereotypical nature that many films about this war portray the "enemy" with. While I know that it is a bit anachronistic to feature Louis Armstrong's What A Wonderful World in a film that is set in 1965 (the song was recorded eighteen months after Cronauer was in Saigon), it perfectly encapsulates the tone of the film. I really enjoyed viewing Good Morning, Vietnam, and I'm sure that anyone with a keen eye for comedy and drama will feel the same way about it.

Video

    There is one specific problem with the video transfer that, unfortunately, leads me to severely mark it down. In all other respects, this is a very good, clean, and watchable transfer.

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

    This is a sharp transfer, detailed enough that it fully shows off the Thai locations that were used as stand-ins for Saigon and Vietnamese jungles. The shadow detail is rarely, if ever, required, so it is not much of an issue here (it is pretty good by late 1980s standards, anyway), and there is no low-level noise.

    The colours in this transfer are very well-rendered. Greens tend to dominate the film to a degree, with uniforms, jungles, and one very bad suit making sure this colour gets plenty of use. I did not detect any composite artefacting or colour bleeding in this transfer.

    MPEG artefacts were not noticed in this transfer. Film-to-video artefacts were pretty mild, with only the occasional jagged line or very minor shimmer to worry about, and these are very much blink-and-you'll-miss-it artefacts. Film artefacts, unfortunately, are what brings this transfer down in a heap, with a number of large, unusual, and distracting artefacts appearing in the picture. Bruno Kirby's head was partially covered by a black and white spot at 42:08, a huge green line was seen in the top right of the frame at 55:03, and a smudged vertical line appeared in the mid-right of the frame at 68:19. In addition to this, numerous small black and white marks could be seen on the picture throughout the feature's running length.

    English subtitles for the Hearing Impaired are available on this DVD. There are some abbreviations of the spoken dialogue, but they are otherwise very accurate and well-timed.

    This disc is RSDL formatted, with the layer change taking place during a fade to black at 84:11. If not for the quick interruption to a musical cue, it would have been unnoticeable.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are two soundtracks on this DVD, both of which are encoded in Dolby Digital 5.1 with 384 kilobits per second: the original English dialogue, and a Spanish dub. I listened to the English dialogue.

    The dialogue is generally very clear and easy to understand, although there was one specific instance when Forest Whitaker says "No, an old rule" at 6:16, which sounded rather muffled. There were no discernable problems with audio sync.

    The music in this film is mostly comprised of contemporary numbers from around 1965, although mention is made of an Alex North in a suitably ambiguous way during the credits that it isn't clear whether he is a music supervisor or a composer. The music in this film is used in a suitably feel-good manner that carries a lot of the comedy, making it much easier to accept the premise of a comedy being set in Vietnam.

    The surround channels were barely used by this soundtrack, if at all. Numerous opportunities for directional effects go begging, making this a similar waste of the 5.1 format as I discovered on the Special Edition of Dead Poets Society.

    The subwoofer was used occasionally to support the sounds of helicopters, such as at 17:01, or when the cafe explodes at 59:14. These effects gave the subwoofer a good workout, but they were quite conspicuous in the overall mix because of how infrequent they were.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menu features an animated introduction, some heavy animation, a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack, and 16x9 Enhancement, all the good things about DVD, in other words.

Theatrical Trailer

    This two minute and twenty-nine second trailer is presented in the aspect ratio of 1.33:1 with Dolby Digital 2.0 audio.

Teaser Trailer

    This one minute and thirty-one second trailer is also presented in the aspect ratio of 1.33:1 with Dolby Digital 2.0 audio. It contains a fair amount of footage that was not used in the theatrical version of the film.

Featurette - Production Diary

    This thirty-four minute and twenty-nine second featurette is simply excellent. It is presented in the aspect ratio of 1.33:1 with Dolby Digital 2.0 audio. It features interviews with almost the entire cast, some of the crew, and the real Adrian Cronauer, who has quite a few interesting things to say.

Featurette - Raw Monologues

    This thirteen minute and ten second featurette is presented in the aspect ratio of 1.33:1 with raw film footage at 1.85:1, and a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. It is not 16x9 enhanced. This is basically a collection of unedited takes featuring Robin Williams ad libbing his radio broadcasts.

    I was only able to find reviews of a Touchstone Home Video version of this disc available in Region 1.

    The Region 1 version of this disc misses out on;

• RSDL Formatting
• 16x9 Enhancement
• Teaser Trailer
• Featurette - Production Diary
• Featurette - Raw Monologues

    The Region 4 version is quite clearly the winner here.

    Good Morning, Vietnam is an interesting film with a theme that, thankfully, the advertising campaign never touched upon. It is one of the better films that Robin Williams has starred in, and the rest of the cast give powerhouse performances that all combine to make one very solid, worthy film.

    The video transfer is good, but there are simply too many film artefacts.

    The audio transfer sounds more like Dolby Digital 3.1 than a 5.1 mix.

    The extras are light on for quantity, but of great quality.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall