Stand By Me (Region 3 Superbit Edition)
Picture: B+
Sound: B+ Extras: D Film: B
Rob Reiner’s nostalgic adaptation of Steven King’s short
story The Body, later titled Stand By Me for the film, is one of the
few films that works when it comes to King’s material. We have seen some other decent re-workings
such as Carrie, The Shawshank Redemption, Misery,
and a few others, but most of the time there is something lost in the
translation. The film is short, sweet,
and simple. It has a decent following as most people remember the film or
remember certain elements about it. In
fact, the film does great things with its younger cast including Jerry
O’Donnell, River Phoenix, Wil Wheaton, and Cory Feldman; this may be their best
film. They make the film believable and
their performances as 12 year old boys stuck in 1959 with little to do but look
for a dead body is right on the money when it comes to portraying boredom at
this age. Not just boredom, but curiosity.
Stand By
Me has been issued three times at this point in the U.S. to
DVD, the first release was an early basic release with Dolby Surround and a
1.85 X 1 anamorphic transfer, that was followed up by a Special Edition that
would simply add a few extras, but keep the same picture and sound from the
earlier disc. From what I understand
that was a good release, but then Sony released yet another edition aptly named
the deluxe edition, which including the same extras and now added a 32-page
booklet and music CD. However, it would
seem that the same picture and sound information carried over. I have not seen those 3 editions compared
side by side so it’s hard to tell whether the same transfer appears on them, or
how that transfer is affected by the compression on the disc due to the extras,
but I would be hard pressed to believe that any of them come close to the
Region 3 Superbit Edition released in Japan.
What is up with Japan getting better editions of American
movies? Well, the Japanese market is
quite different than that of the U.S. in that most consumers there don’t put up
with crap. They want good quality, and
DTS is much more common on their discs than in the U.S., which makes Japanese
import DVD’s quite a popular thing for fans of DTS audio or even some extras
that are not always released on U.S. titles.
It’s surprising that a film like this is even thought of as a Superbit
title, especially since in American the film was never even issued with a 5.1
mix! If you think that Stand By Me is an interesting pick how
about the fact that Japan also has Superbit editions of St. Elmo’s Fire, Taxi Driver,
Gloria, Easy Rider, and many other interesting titles to say the
least. Some of them are more demanding
to have than others including Superbit editions of Gladiator, Jurassic Park
Trilogy, The Fast and the Furious,
and Hannibal. Oddly enough those titles are all available
in the U.S. in rather good editions with DTS if you wanted, but they are more
popular because Sony has the rights to them in the Japanese market instead of
Universal/DreamWorks or MGM, so therefore they receive Sony Picture Home
Entertainment/Columbia TriStar Superbit treatment, but have since fallen
out-of-print.
Ok back to Stand By
Me, which looks really fantastic presented in a 1.85 X 1 transfer you can
see amazing levels of detail from the opening with a superb color palette and
good scale of color. Detail is sharp
and refined and makes the film age non-negotiable. The DTS 5.1 is still the ONLY 5.1 mix available for the film as
the alternative on this disc is a Dolby stereo/surround mix that is merely
laughable in comparison. The film lends
itself to a few good moments where the surrounds become active. Other highlights include the films superb
use of songs and score, which break the 5.1 mix in nicely.
Once again this is the edition to buy if you are concerned
with sound and picture quality, but the U.S. releases have the upper hand in
the extras department as this Superbit has no supplements. You can most likely find this disc on many
an online vendor, but don’t pay the first price you see as this disc can be
found inexpensively if you search long enough.
- Nate Goss
