Blue
Thunder - The Complete Series
(1984/Sony DVD Set)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C Extras: D Episodes: C+
PLEASE
NOTE:
This series was just reissued on Blu-ray in a better basic set ad you
can read more about it at this link:
https://fulvuedrive-in.com/review/16802/Blood+Bitch+Baby+(2024*)/Blue+Thunder+4K+(1983/
John
Badham's Blue
Thunder
(1983) was a decent action thriller that did not do as well as it
should have and is a better film than it ever got credit for. When
it was not a blockbuster, those in the know knew a hit was still to
be had somewhere, so TV was the next place to go with the concept.
While Airwolf
with Jan-Michael Vincent and Ernest Borgnine was the somewhat bigger
hit, decided to try out a Blue
Thunder
TV series the next year. With James Farentino taking Roy Scheider's
place and the cast offering football greats Dick Butkus & Bubba
Smith, the hope was to get the male audience. However, the show only
lasted 11 episodes, all collected here on this Complete
Series
DVD collection officially for the first time.
An
additional curiosity for the show is that it was produced by Fugitive
producer Roy Huggins, who was also known for Alias
Smith & Jones,
Maverick,
Toma,
Baretta
and latter-day hit Hunter. This was not as successful, but no worse
than Airwolf
or other later imitators. The other curio is an early Dana Carvey
before hitting it big as a Saturday
Night Live
cast member. Carvey had previously surfaced briefly as an ambulance
attendant in Halloween
II
and then on the failed Mickey Rooney sitcom One
Of The Boys
which later produced one of his funniest impersonations of a
celebrity in doing Rooney as someone who could not stop talking about
his peak fame decades before.
Like
Airwolf,
the budget here was not going to be the equivalent of Badham's
feature film, but this was a serious, ambitious and good-looking
attempt to do a series version that holds up better than you might
expect. Besides some old technology, only Cold War plots involving
KGB troubles add age to the show. The series also tries to erase
(unsuccessfully) the idea of the technology being used for the wrong
purposes, a major point of the film that rings truer than ever.
Still, it is worth a look for those interested and was worth the
trouble of pulling out of the Sony archives.
The
1.33 X 1 image was shot on film, remastered in digital High
Definition and looks shockingly good throughout. There are shots
that are not as good, while the Pilot
in particular reuses footage from the original feature film. It is
blurrier because at the time in 1984, reprinting square 1.33 X 1
frames out of anamorphic 2.35 X 1 Panavision frames was not done as
well and there were limits in being able to do it right. The lossy
Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is clean, but at a volume that is lower than
it should be. There are no extras.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
