So, the world’s most famous adventurer and archaeologist, Indiana Jones, has turned forty. This past weekend, four decades ago, the first movie in this glorious four-film series, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, was released in cinemas. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas’ action-adventure would go on to gross a massive $399 million at the global box-office, and spawn three sequels (a fourth is currently filming in the north of England). Those first four movies are now available on the Ultra HD home entertainment formats and we sat down to check them all out.
Bundled in a nifty white box, Indiana Jones: The Complete Collection is a nicely packaged affair with a glorious, hand-drawn poster (a montage of all of four flicks) by Drew Struzan adorning the front. Inside is a folded continuation of that; a leaflet on one side featuring all four original poster designs for ‘Raiders’, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and the most recent film in the series, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. One the reverse is a ‘Map Legend, a world map showing where Indy has taken his adventures over the years (to date).
Onto the discs – and there are no less than nine of them in the brilliant little box set. They are clipped to the inlay slip, again adorned with imagery of Jones in silhouette form, Fedora worn and bull whip in hand. Each film is presented on both the 4K format and also standard Blu-ray. We don’t need to go into too much detail in regards of the movies themselves – we’ve covered them on the site many times of the years – but we will look at each one in the new format, 4K Ultra HD.
We naturally viewed Raiders of the Lost Ark first, and the transfer is nothing short of breath-taking. Arguably the best film in the series, not to mention one of the best movies of all time, the picture is as crisp as the format will allow and the forty year old film is the best it has ever looked. As well as the stunning picture quality, the movies have also had a Dolby Atmos sound makeover also, and we hooked it up to our compatible sound bar. The opening scenes are aurally jaw-dropping, the quiet first moments as Indy curiously approaches the booby-trapped Peruvian temple where his small golden idol awaits him. His exit as he attempts to outrun a rolling boulder is he opposite – the sounding booming along with John Williams’ amazing, iconic score. We had to keep checking our audio levels as the dynamic range is simply amazing.
The other films are similar in terms of technical marvel. I have a soft spot for ‘Temple of Doom’ as it was one of the very first films I saw in the cinema (I was just a touch took young for ‘Raiders’ first around). Last Crusade – arguably the second best in the series was also great to revisit, as was ‘Crystal Skull’, purely for nostalgia sake. While we may own the films on other formats, make no mistake, this is the best we’ve seen so far in terms of picture and sound quality – presuming you have the equipment to handle it.
The ninth disc – Blu-ray only – is loaded with bonus materials. Four making of films for the four movies but these have all reportedly been available on previous releases, so those expecting a mass of bonus stuff, may be let down. There are also other behind-the-scenes peeks but we might have expected a little more from a big anniversary release.
However, if you look at the box-set in terms the selling points of the Ultra-HD format, it doesn’t come much better than this. This is the best way to view the films away from a big screen in a multplex and surely an absolute must for home cinema enthusiasts and fans of this glorious series in general.
The Indiana Jones 4-Movie Collection (Ultra HD)
Summary
The extras offer nothing new but if you don’t yet own the series, this is the definite versions to grab – especially if you want to show off your home cinema set up.
