NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Imprint Blu-ray (April 2022): Imprint have transferred John Sturges' Marooned to Blu-ray. It looks very good on a dual-layered disc with a very high bitrate. Aside from some speckles and light marks the 1080P image quality is quite appealing with true colors, texture and occasional depth. There is some softness. The outer space sequences vary from impressive to dated. Overall, I thought it was a respectable HD presentation. Hopefully the below screen captures will give you an idea.

NOTE: We have added 50 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Imprint use a linear PCM 2.0 channel track (24-bit) in the original English language. Marooned has many effects from space capsules and an array of scientific monitoring equipment back on earth, liftoffs - usually with stock footage - but some decent effort was out into this. There is no credited score or music that I can remember - dealing basically with the nuts and bolts, and technical aspects, of the story - thereby producing an air of realism. Imprint offer optional English subtitles on their Region FREE Blu-ray.

The Imprint Blu-ray offers a new commentary by Bryan Reesman. He discusses the production and s/f crew, Martin Caidin's novel, the poetic license (unscientific) breaches in Marooned (untethered objects etc.), NASA technical tidbits, the Apollo program and more. It's a shade dry and he is obviously reading but it's a 2+-hour film to fill and he does pack in a ton of information. There is a lot here on space exploration history, the stacked cast, Sturges and more. We also get 20-minutes with Kim Newman and he talks about the release year - 1969 - and the 'space race' that was going on at the time. He divides this genre previously into Jules Verne or H.G. Welles - he talks about George Pal's Destination Moon as a precursor - devoid of monsters etc. He is always enjoyable to listen to. The Troubled Master is a 13-minute featurette on John Sturgis' later films directed by Daniel Griffith with C. Courtney Joyner, essentially, fortifying the case for Sturges as a 'master director'. Lastly, is a theatrical trailer. The package is housed in a nice slipcase. Unadvertised is an isolated effects score that doesn't offer much value.   

John Sturges' Marooned has a very strong cast with Gregory Peck, Richard Crenna, David Janssen, James Franciscus, Gene Hackman, Lee Grant, Nancy Kovack, Mariette Hartley, Scott Brady etc.. From that standpoint alone I enjoyed my viewing although there were some middling performances. Complaints state that it is very deliberately paced - slow-ish - and it has no aliens etc. It's also not technically accurate in many areas, but there is drama, a decent story and has the tension of crucial, life-saving, time constraints... plus surprising deaths and a Russian Cosmo-naught out of the blue (or rather the' darkness of space'.) I will certainly watch this again as I became more invested the longer it went on and I enjoy Peck (talking to the President), Janssen - always and Hackman in most anything. The Imprint Blu-ray is on the pricey tier but has the commentary, Kim Newman and excellent video piece on the director - so fans will see the value. Despite the weaknesses this science fiction effort by Sturges goes on the keeper shelf. To each his own.

Gary Tooze