Plot: What’s it about?
Written and narrated by Toni Myers, Blue Planet was released in IMAX theaters and now, has been released onto our favorite format. This film takes us up into space with the astronauts, who serve as camera operators and capture all the dazzling footage shown. The piece takes us on a tour of some landmarks like deserts, islands, and other landforms, all viewed from hundreds of miles above the surface, which puts a new spin on their appearance. Blue Planet also lets us see what happens to our planet via natural disasters such as volcano eruptions, earthquakes, and hurricanes, which is very interesting indeed. We’re also shown and told about the effect mankind has had on the planet and of course, it isn’t a good one at all. So yes, there’s a message hammered home within Blue Planet, but even if you don’t want to hear it, there’s plenty of visuals to keep you interested. The piece runs a little over forty minutes and while that seems short, that’s not that bad given the IMAX averages and what not.
In most cases, I find IMAX movies to be great the first time around and that’s about it. A few have been good enough to view more than that, but often they’re better just used as visual stimulation, which is still cool. So even when they don’t hold my interest as a film, I can often revisit them and just soak up the visuals, which ain’t bad. This was pretty much the case with Blue Planet, which was fun to watch the first time through, but better used as background fodder after that. As usual with IMAX flicks, Blue Planet is loaded with dazzling visuals and since this one is space geared, those visuals are even more impressive than usual. As I mentioned above, the footage taken by the astronauts is amazing and seeing the elements from that perspective, very cool indeed. I do think the message is a little too preachy at times, but as I said, I doubt I will view it with sound again, as I will focus more on the visuals. Even with a little heavy handedness, Blue Planet makes for a good watch and anyone interested in outer space should give this disc a once over.
Video: How does it look?
Blue Planet is presented in a full frame transfer, which is the closest choice to the original IMAX format. This piece uses stock footage and when it does, the image gets laden with grain, but that’s to be expected. The newer clips look much better of course, very clean and sharp, with minimal errors to discuss. On the whole, the colors look vivid and contrast is stark, so no real complaints to be made here. Some of it looks better than other parts, but in the end, this is a more than solid effort and in this case, that’s enough.
Audio: How does it sound?
The included Dolby Digital 5.1 track is downright awesome, very powerful and very, very immersive indeed. I couldn’t detect too much silence from the surrounds, almost every scene has a ton of action and as such, the surrounds always seem to be hard at work here. The sound effects are well presented and boom when needed, while the music is sleek and fits the material to perfection, very cool stuff. The narration is also right on the mark, which leaves me to score this one very high, as it offers an excellent overall experience. This disc also includes a French language track, as well as subtitles in English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese.
Supplements: What are the extras?
This disc includes the film’s IMAX trailer, but no other supplements.
