Blue Thunder (1982)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Theatrical Trailer Biographies-Cast & Crew
Rating
Year Of Production	1982
Running Time	104:50
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (63:28)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	John Badham
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Roy Scheider Warren Oates Candy Clark Daniel Stern Malcolm McDowell
Case	Soft Brackley-Transp
RPI	$36.95	Music	Arthur B. Rubenstein

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish 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 French German Italian Spanish Dutch Arabic Czech Danish Finnish Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Polish Portuguese Swedish Turkish	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Blue Thunder is an action thriller about a heavily-equipped helicopter - one with a whisper mode, an electric Gatling gun, and some cool surveillance equipment. I think this movie inspired a TV series called Airwolf.

    This movie stars Roy Scheider, an actor I like. He's been in quite a range of movies now, always playing a low-key hero in one way or another. Here he is Frank Murphy, perhaps the best pilot in the LA Police Department's Astro division. No, the LAPD doesn't extend into Earth orbit (yet!) - the Astro division fly the police helicopters. Daniel Stern plays Lymangood, the new guy transferring into the division. He gets a rapid introduction to aerial policing: in his first shift he gets shot at. Warren Oates plays the police captain in charge of the Astro division. I think he gets the best one-liners: "You're supposed to be stupid, son. Don't abuse the privilege". Malcolm McDowell plays a suitably slimy Colonel Cochrane. We know he's bad because he doesn't get along with Frank.

    After the final credits there is a dedication; "for Warren Oates, with love, for all the joy you gave us". If you don't remember the name, perhaps you'll remember him as the drill sergeant in Stripes - he played many roles like that over the years.

    Back to the movie. Frank Murphy is on the verge of being grounded because of concerns over his sanity. These concerns appear justified, because he is tortured by memories of things that happened when he was flying in Vietnam. But, he is still a good pilot. When the Astro Division needs a good pilot to fly an experimental new helicopter, he is chosen. The experimental helicopter is being tried because of concerns about the LA Olympics (that dates this movie) - might there be a terrorist attack? The helicopter is armed (police helicopters have not been armed before), and it comes with a lot of other equipment too.

    Frank is more than a little concerned about arming police helicopters, and his concerns are not alleviated by the demonstration at the firing range - the helicopter mows down more than a few "civilian" targets in the process of taking out the "terrorist" ones. The more he learns about this machine, the more worried he gets.

    All up this is a well-constructed action movie, with some cool stunts (love the scene where the Gatling gun cuts a police car in half).

Video

    This movie was made in 1982. It has been well looked after.

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. I've seen this movie on TV, and the difference is quite obvious - this movie doesn't look good in Pan & Scan.

    A fair bit of this movie takes place at night - Murphy's normal shift is at night. That's a shame. The day-time shots are good - fairly sharp, good strong shadow detail, not a lot of film grain, and no significant low-level noise. The night-time shots, however, show quite a bit of fine film grain, some visible low-level noise, a generally softer image, and not a lot of shadow detail. Have a look at 10:30 for the worst shot - almost the entire frame is fuzzy grey. Interiors, and close-ups, look quite good; exteriors and long shots don't look as good.

    Colour is good, but not fabulous. There aren't a lot of bright colours in this movie. Frank's car is black, his girlfriend's car is dark, Malcolm McDowell's car is grey - it seems to be deliberate. Skin tones look fine, though.

    I think I saw a film artefact - a whole one! For an 18 year old film, this is in good shape. Very little aliasing, too. In fact, there are virtually no film-to-video artefacts to be seen (other than the low-level noise).

    There are lots and lots of subtitle tracks - 20 to be precise.

    The disc is RSDL-formatted, and I had trouble spotting the layer change. It's at 63:28, at a cut between scenes.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are five soundtracks on this disc; English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. I listened to the English soundtrack, which is in Dolby Digital 5.1.

    Dialogue is clear and easy to understand, even the radio transmissions and conversations in the helicopters.

    The music is fine, but is nothing special - it's an action movie soundtrack. There was some nice use of the surrounds for parts of the score, though.

    This is a 5.1 soundtrack for a reason - the sound engineers have made good use of the surrounds. The subwoofer doesn't get a huge workout but it is used to support the explosions.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menu is static and silent, but nicely themed around the movie.

Trailer (3:10)

    The trailer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and is not 16x9 enhanced. As usual, it shows most of the stunts.

Profiles

    We get a page and a filmography for each of three people: the director, Roy Scheider, and Daniel Stern.

    The Region 4 disc misses out on:

• Pan & Scan version

    The Region 1 disc misses out on:

• 5.1 soundtrack
• profiles

    The big difference between the Region 4 and Region 1 discs is that the R1 is double-sided - Pan & Scan on one side, widescreen on the other. That means we get the widescreen movie spread over two layers, while they get it crammed onto one layer; they get a Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded soundtrack, we get a full 5.1 soundtrack. Unless you have to have a Pan & Scan version, I'd say the choice is simple.

    Blue Thunder  is a decent action-thriller which holds up well for its age.

    The video is not perfect, but it is fairly good.

    The audio is quite good, noticeably better than the Region 1.

    The extras are basic.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall