ADDITION New Line Blu-ray - August 2009: Comments coming soon!

Terrence Malick's The New World premiered around Christmas 2005 in New York and Los Angeles with a running time of somewhere around 2 hour 30 minutes. By the time it received a wider release, the director had trimmed it down to 2 hours 15 minutes. The initial DVD (compared here) was that trimmed down version.  The 'Extended Cut' on the Blu-ray is the same the DVD released at October 14, 2008 which is actually almost 22 minutes longer than the Première.

At the time, I thought the SD-DVD looked just marvelous, but expectantly the Blu-ray eclipses it in all visual areas. I suppose the awesome cinematography is a key in the mesmerizing presentation but fans were simply hopeful that this 1080P transfer would support the film justly. Colors are, for the most part similar, but the Blu-ray tightens everything up. Skin tones lose their orange hue, but perhaps the biggest difference beyond the higher resolution detail is that the DVD comparatively appears much flatter. The Blu-ray often looks to have desirable depth of field but doesn't reach the level of Braveheart. Being Warner (New Line is a division of...) the VC-1 Video encode has been used and although I prefer MPEG-4, there remains a hint of noise. Grain is not as prevalent as I was expecting. I've added extra, expandable, captures, at the bottom of this review, to help you judge the quality for yourself. The Blu-ray is minutely darker than the DVD and this is probably more accurate to theatrical. The almost 3-hour feature takes up over 37.5 Gig of space on the dual-layered disc. It could be somewhat crisper and is possibly filtered to some degree. Could this look better? I think so - but it's a heck of an improvement over the DVD.

The only audio is a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track at 1437 kbps. There isn't a lot of aggression in the ambient soundscape and the modest audio transfer is acceptable with James Horner's beautiful original score along with the classical warmth of Richard Wagner, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, R. Carlos Nakai and others. The extended cut of The New World incorporates some narration and score shifts - all for the better in my opinion. Along with the film's visuals - it's all pretty overwhelming. I've already replayed several scenes - just for the music. There are only optional English subtitles (the brief Algonquin dialogue is English-translated and burned-in). My Momitsu has identified it as being a region FREE disc playable on Blu-ray machines worldwide.

Extras extend slightly over the DVD which has a, heavy-on production, hour-long "Making The New World" divided into 10-parts*. The Blu-ray appears to have the same documentary but its about 20-minutes longer and I haven't identified the differences. There are 2 trailers but nothing more.

*NOTE: The extended version DVD didn't have this documentary supplement.

I was so happy to relax and re-experience this profound film. I think this longer cut flows just as well as the wider released theatrical. It's layered with more visual splendor.  It's one of those films though where viewing time shouldn't be an issue. Watch it late at night with no work the next day. You are exposed to so much natural beauty along with the story it can elevate you to a new cinema experience. The New World cried out for a Blu-ray treatment but, for some what New Line have done may not be enough. We need more of this cinema in the 1080P resolution done right - enough of the teen comedies.    

Gary W. Tooze