Its Fronkensteen!

[jspartan]

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment is ramping up its Blu-ray Disc offerings and even producing new materials for them.

Young Frankenstein includes new bonus feautures that brings the cast and director back.

Special Features:

-New 2008 BD Exclusives-

Inside The Lab: Secret Formulas in the Making of Young Frankenstein - BonusView Enabled Picture-in-Picture Track featuring New Cast & Crew Interviews
It's Alive! Creating A Monster Classic featurette
Transylvanian Lullaby: The Music of John Morris featurette
The Franken-Track: A Monstrous Conglomeration of Trivia
17 Deleted/Extended Scenes -Remastered in High-Definition
The Brain Game - BD-J Enhanced Game
Blucher Button - Interactive Feature
Isolated Score Track

-Original DVD Special Features-

Commentary by Director Mel Brooks
Making FrankenSense of Young Frankenstein featurette
Outtakes/Bloopers
Deleted Scenes
Interviews with Marty Feldman, Gene Wilder & Cloris Leachman
Still Galleries ? 19 individual production photograph galleries
Theatrical trailers
TV spots

-Technical Specifications-

1080p Widescreen
dts HD Master Audio English 5.1 Surround; Dolby Digital: English Mono, Spanish Mono, French Mono
English Subtitles


Look for it October 7th for a retail of $39.99 US. Woof!

[Guido Henkel]

I simply cannot wait for this release! Just the other day I revisited the Mel Brooks Collection and was wondering when we'll see these films - Young Frankenstein in particular - in high definition.

[jspartan]

I can't believe that Fox pulled out all the stops for this BD. They got Mel Brooks, Cloris Leachman, and Teri Garr to do new video interviews for the BonusView track plus the isolated score for the first time. The icing on the cake are the deleted scenes remastered in high-def.

I want this yesterday!

[jspartan]

I just got this in this morning.

Wow! Absolutely flatout awesome wow.

Young Frankenstein was one of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment's first DVD special editions and the first Mel Brooks' film to be released on DVD. How fitting that this is this is the first of his films to hit BD.

To call this a special edition would be underevaluating its quality. The DVD had over 60mins of bonus materials when it was first released. This BD includes all of that plus an additonal amount of extras running over 45mins!

One thing that fans may notice and its not a disappointment is the video quality. The only other black and white film I have to compare it against is Casablanca on HD DVD. Young Frankenstein is not as clean or processed as that. Its a jump in quality over the DVD with minute details like smoke, cobwebs, and hair that are even more noticable. There is grain and lines througout the image, in fact, this is reminiscent of watching old Three Stooges shorts on TV in the 1980s and 1990s. The 1080p presentation also gives the film a better 3D feel than the DVD.

Some of the best examples of the quality:
>The candle scene has more depth and feel thanks to being able to see the cobwebs in the far background.
>After the first attempt at revival, all of the smoke and tussled hair is more detailed.
>The introduction to the musical number, look at the curtains behind Gene Wilder. They sparkle moe brightly than ever, I never noticed this on DVD.

Fox also created a new dts HD Master Audio track in 5.1 surround sound. I have not listened to this track yet. I chose to sample the mono track and well...it sounds like the DVD. The film was mixed for mono so I doubt anything more could be done for this. I'll check this 5.1 track out later to compare it against the original track.

Thus far, the only extra I can get into right now is the wonderful "Inside The Lab: Secret Formulas in the Making of Young Frankenstein." This is a picture-in-picture BonusView Profile 1.1 track. Thankfully, the BD producers do allow Profile 1.0 players to access the material thanks to a menu that lets you choose the topics discussed. When viewed during the film, the PiP window is fairly large compared to other similar tracks. Mel Brooks also confirms that this is all-new material with his funny introduction. Brooks embraces Blu-ray and says it makes him look better than ever before. Amazingly, this track is never boring and the participants include James Curtis (James Whale's biographer), film historians, Brooks, Teri Garr, Cloris Leachman, actors from the "Young Frankenstein" musical, Alan Spencer (creator of Sledge Hammer), and even Sara Karloff (daughter of Boris Karloff). These are all-new interviews made for the track and it even includes footage from the Universal Studios' Frankenstein films.

The main menu is also presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround and it isn't a gimmick. When the thunder cracks, you hear it in the right rear surround speaker.

I have one quibble with this release and its a minor one. The menu design could be better. I won't give it away as its a nod to one of the film's jokes but navigation is tricky for the special features section.

Is this worth paying the $40 retail?

YES. YES. YES, WOOF!

Just like back in 2000 when the DVD sold for $40 it was worth it. Now the BD sells for about the same price and its even more worth it.

One more thing...kudos to Fox for keeping the ORIGINAL key art for the BD. Albeit, its in color and mostly Blue, its better than the photochop job of the recent DVD re-issue.

[krammer]

Cool, thanks for the heads up Tom.

I now look forward to this BD. I was a bit hesitant on pre-ordering this. $27.99 (Amazon price) for a catalog is still high imo. Theres a few more FOX titles coming out this tuesday as well so my wallet is begging for mercy. :D