Customer Reviews

Highlander Immortal Edition Blu Ray

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I just watched this on my old Laser Disc from the early 1990s this weekend. Tonight I watched the Blu-Ray Director's Cut 2010 version!

Generally I hate director's cuts. I want the theatrical version, and I want the director to stick a fork in it and call it done. But this is the exception.

Technically, they did a GREAT JOB lifting this copy from the master.

How can you tell? Because you can tell its stunt doubles and not Lambert or Connery fighting on the cliffs in the Scottish Highlands! The resolution is that good.

Its much brighter than the other versions as well. Two full F-Stops brighter would be my guess.

Also, we Americans finally get a few important deleted scenes that I saw many years ago while in Europe that help tie the story together. For those who haven't seen it, lets just say the phrase "Hey, it's a kind of magic" will now make sense. You also will no longer need say "So how did the Kurgan know Brenda was his girl friend and just show up at her door step?"

They did a great job on the sound too.

I bought this Blu-Ray Disc with much apprehension as I was very disappointed with the Special Edition DVD. I am glad to say that the Blu-Ray did not disappoint in the least. The colors are all rich and vibrant. The scenes are very clear for the most part, every so often a scene is a little "grainy" but not enought to affect the pure enjoyment of watching this classic movie that is finally on Blu-Ray. It actually felt like I was watching this movie for the first time, a big accomplishment as I have watched Highlander many, many times. The sound quality is also excellent. This Disc plays fine in my Blu-Ray player in America.

MOVIE RATING is 5 stars.

Blu-Ray rating is 3 stars.

This is essentially the British Blu-Ray release, but lacking the original soundtrack and that is a shame. The 5.1 remix has a great deal of reverb added and just doesn't sound as natural as the original stereo surround track, which is on the brit release and virtually uncompressed. Why studios insist on excluding original soundtracks is beyond me, but it is infuriating.

The picture quality on this release is about the same, though possibly a tad more smoothed over. I think they might have used a little bit of grain reduction in scenes. This is comparing the releases on a 72 inch DLP. Both are great, but I give the slight edge to the Brit release.

That Brit BD also has extras that are not on this American version.

This is not a definitive release. It just isn't. However, it is most certainly superior to any American version released on DVD. The UK Amazon has the Brit release so I urge you to buy that one instead. It will play in American BD players. Should you not have the extra cash then go ahead and pull the trigger as long as you understand you won't have the sound that the film was intended to have.

After receiving and watching this blu ray my recommendations is do not pay more than 10 dollars for this movie.
Highlander blu ray transfer is terrible...it would appear that the movie is transferred half with the original print and half with what I can only describe as one of the daily prints.
Some of the shots are great and clear and some are grainy and seem to pulsate with light.
I would wait until another print is released when there is another anniversary.
In conclusion do not purchase this blu ray for more than $ 9.99 like I did...it's not worth it.

OK! I just received this dvd via mail from best buy priced @ 8 bucks. I like the movie so I gave it 4 stars, but for those people that have claimed that the blu ray is outstanding and picture perfect are absolute liars! The picture is grainy all over, you can even see it on the faces in certain dark scenes, so do yourself a huge favour and don't buy this one. I don't regret losing 8 bucks, but why people lie and say something is fantastic when its not is just ridiculous. I have other movies that were made around the same time as this movie and they are fantastic picture and soundwise. That reminds me, the sound is not great either, sounds too bright, for lack of a better word. Thank you and have a nice day!

While generally good, there are certain shortcomings in the blu-ray version. There seems to be an uneven quality in the video, especially between the parts of the film that are from the theatrical release and those segments added to this "director's cut". There are a couple of scenes where the sound seems a bit tinny.

Despite these problems, the great majority of this release is better on blu-ray.

I love this movie, one of my all time favorites, but the blu-ray transfer is horrid!
why is it I can watch 2001 on blu-ray and it looks fabulous, yet this looks like a bad VHS tape?
it's some scenes look ok, while others are extremely grainy.
they should have done a better job

if you love this movie, you're probably going to buy it anyway.. just don't expect great video quality.

I am a huge fan of this movie. I have it on VHS, Laserdisc, DVD, and now Blu-ray. I have the regular and extended cuts. I essentially have seen just about every version and quality they have. The only version that I wish they had made was an HD-DVD version. I have several upconverting DVD players(one being my HD-DVD player), and 3 blu-ray players. I also have plasma and LCD tvs to compare on. At this point, I will say on my plasma I give the blu-ray a nod as far as being a bit superior to the upconvert DVD, but on my lcd tvs it really is splitting hairs. The film still has quite a bit of grain to it, and the edges seem to be a bit blurred, but as a fan of the film its a version I must have. You can only do so much to 23 year old film. At least it won't break the bank getting the blu-ray version.

I love Highlander. This is the first time I've seen the "Director's Cut" and I like it even more than the original theatrical release.

The major annoyance with the Blu-Ray version is the obvious change in picture quality between scenes. I'm sure this is due in part to the newly added "Director's Cut" scenes which have never been "cleaned up" in post-production for theatrical release. However, there are many scenes that are part of the original theatrical release that look horrible, worse than the VHS and DVD versions of the original Highlander that I have seen. Some of these scenes have horrible grain, are fuzzy, bad contrast, and bad color. Then other scenes look amazingly great, what you expect a Blu-Ray to look like. The picture quality seems to degrade with the darker scenes, which would be expected with the film stocks in use when Highlander was originally filmed. But this would not explain picture quality so bad that it is worse than the VHS version of the movie.

More should have been done to clean up the film in the transfer to Blu-Ray. While watching the movie I was constantly distracted by the changes in picture quality. It was like watching a 1080p high definition Blu-Ray one second and watching my first TV set (with rabbit ears) the next. This should have been a 5 star review but someone decided to get cheap in mastering this version of the film to Blu-Ray.

Love this movie...don't know if the movie quality is that much better then the original, but the Queen soundtrack sounds awesome. Can't beat it for the price.