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| Armageddon |
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Genre:Action Adventure
Reviewed In Issue 31 Of Widescreen Review®
Stars:
Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Liv Tyler, Ben Affleck, Will Patton, Peter Stormare, Keith David, Owen Wilson, William Fichtner, Steve Buscemi |
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| Supplementals |
| Includes an Aerosmith music video |
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 DVD General Information |
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| (Studio/Distributor): |
Touchstone Home Video |
| (Catalog Number): |
16066 AS |
| (MPAA Rating): |
PG13 |
| (Retail Price): |
$59.98 |
| (Running Time In Minutes): |
151 |
| (Color Type): |
Color |
| (Chaptered/Scene Access): |
Yes |
| (Closed Captioned): |
Yes |
| (Theatrical Release): |
1998 |
| (LD Release Date): |
1/99 |
| (THX® Digitally Mastered): |
No |
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| Credits Information |
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| (Director): |
Michael Bay |
| (Screenplay/Written By): |
Jonathan Hensleigh & J. J. Abrams/ Tony Gilroy & Shane Salerno (Adaptation) |
| (Story): |
Robert Roy Pool & Jonathan Hensleigh |
| (Music): |
Trevor Rabin |
| (Director Of Photography): |
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| (Production Designer): |
Michael White |
| (Visual Effects): |
Dream Quest Images, Cinesite, Tippett Studio, Blue Sky/VIFX, Computer Café, Inc. & Pacific Title/Mirage |
| (Costume Designer): |
Michael Kaplan |
| (Editor): |
Mark Goldblatt, ACE, Chris Lebenzon| & Glen Scantlebury |
| (Supervising Sound Editors): |
George Watters II |
| (Re-Recording Mixers): |
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| (Executive Producers): |
Jonathan Hensleigh, Jim Van Wyck & Chad Oman |
| (Co-Producers): |
NA |
| (Producers): |
Jerry Bruckheimer, Gale Anne Hurd & Michael Bay |
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| DVD Picture Information |
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| (Principal Photography): |
Panavision |
| (Theatrical Aspect Ratio): |
2.40:1 |
| (Measured LaserDisc Aspect Ratio): |
2.32:1 |
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| DVD Sound Information |
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| (DVD Soundtrack): |
DTS Digital Surround |
| (Theatrical Sound): |
SDDS & Dolby Digital |
| (Theatrical Re-Issue Soundtrack): |
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| (Remastered Dolby Digital): |
No |
| (Remastered DTS Digital Surround): |
No |
| (Additional Languages): |
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| WSR Narrative Review |
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Story Synopsis:
Is Armageddon at hand? It appears so after it is discovered that an asteroid the size of Texas is 18 days from impact with Earth. NASA concocts a plan to send a team to the asteroid to destroy it. They contact maverick oil driller, Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis) who insists on using his own group of rag-tag riggers for the trip to space.
LaserDisc Picture:
The LaserDiscs exhibits good quality, with sharp and detailed images and natural color fidelity. With all the special effects, clairty is not exceptionally rendered. Otherwise, contrast and shadow delineation are superb, and all other aspects of image quality are pleasing throughout. The LaserDiscs is framed at 2.32:1.
LaserDisc Soundtrack:
The soundtrack is quite loud and busy and overall awfully "manufactured" sounding. But then this is a big budget special effects picture with elaborate sound effects, though not always sonically realistic. Fidelity is overall harsh and bright with a very forward dialogue presence that sounds ADR-processed and wanting in spatial integration. The LaserDiscs’ matrix PCM and DTS® Digital Surround versions resolve low level ambience wonderfully, but the discrete version sounds more spatially defined with effective split surround envelopment. Bass response is powerful, especially with the .1 LFE enhancement of the discrete.
| (Surround Bass Below 50Hz): |
Yes |
| (Aggressive System Surround): |
Yes |
| (Intense 25Hz Bass): |
No |
| (Deep Bass Challenging): |
No |
| (Aggressive 0.1 LFE): |
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| (Holosonic Soundfield): |
Yes |
| (Aggressive Split Surround): |
Yes |
| (Center Back Surround Imaging): |
No |
| (Directionalized Dialogue): |
No |
Superb Sound Effects Recording Quality: |
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Superb Music Score Recording Quality: |
No |
Superb Special Visual Effects Quality: |
Yes |
Superb Color Fidelity: |
No |
Superb Cinematography: |
- |
Reference LaserDisc: |
Yes |
Collector Edition: |
No |
DVD To LaserDisc Comparison:
The dual-layered DVD is not anamorphic, but exhibits good image quality, as do the LaserDiscs, which exhibit the same transfer. Images are sharp and detailed with natural color fidelity. Sadly, the DVD was not anamorphically enhanced nor authored using a component master, and digital coding artifacts are apparent as is image enhancement. With all the special effects, the clarity would be dramatically enhanced, but Disney evidently has a policy not to release in the anamorphic widescreen format. The LaserDiscs and DVD are framed at 2.32:1. The soundtrack is quite loud and busy and overall awfully "manufactured" sounding. But then this is a big budget special effects picture with elaborate sound effects, though not always sonically realistic. Fidelity is overall harsh and bright with a very forward dialogue presence that sounds ADR-processed and wanting in spatial integration. The LaserDiscs’ matrix PCM and DTS® Digital Surround versions resolve low level ambience better than the Dolby® Digital version; while both the discrete versions sound more spatially defined with effective split surround envelopment. Bass response is powerful, especially with the .1 LFE enhancement of the discrete soundtracks.
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