Their plan starts with A Fistful of Dollars (1964) arriving on 4/21, followed by For a Few Dollars More (1965) on 5/26, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) on 6/23. Each will feature a new digital restoration and Dolby Vision audio, but we suspect from the same 4K scan utilized by Kino Lorber Studio Classics for their recent editions. Extras are mostly still TBA, but you can read more here on the Arrow UK website. Meanwhile, you can see the cover artwork above left and also here below...
Also newly-revealed today is the fact that Paramount plans to release the disastrous made-for-streaming movie Star Trek: Section 31 on Blu-ray, 4K Ultra HD, and 4K Steelbook format in the coming months. Street date is TBA, but look for it sometime in Q2. What chaps my ass about this is the fact that Secret Hideout probably spent the extra money to film and finish this dreck in actual 4K, while the endlessly superior Picard: Season 3 was finished in 2K only. But you know what: I’d much rather buy that on 4K UHD, because it still features 12-bit color and a Dolby Vision HDR grade (and that information comes directly from Terry Matalas), so upsampled it should look fantastic.
At this point, I actually hope that Section 31 kills this franchise for a while. Star Trek needs a break, and a real reset with a new direction and new creative guidance—people that embrace its roots and legacy of inspiration, not those who seek to turn it into glossy and grimdark space opera or to reinvent it to be more like every other bubble gum space franchise. Star Trek should be additive, not atomized and fractured. Let it lean into its strengths, and be what it was always meant to be... the optimism that humanity needs now more than ever. Let Star Trek be Star Trek.
In the event some of you don’t know what that means, I’ll let its creator explain...
“The human race is a remarkable creature, one with great potential, and I hope that Star Trek has helped to show us what we can be if we believe in ourselves and our abilities.” –Gene Roddenberry
Anyway...
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has also just revealed a new stand-alone 4K Steelbook release of Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi (1982) on 4/29. Look for that to include both Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos audio. It will also be a four-disc set, featuring two 4K discs and two Blu-rays.
And Synapse Films is apparently planning to release Jeff Lieberman’s Blue Sunshine (1977) in 4K Ultra HD on 4/15.
Finally today, our dear friend Bob Furmanek along with Jack Theakston, both of the 3-D Film Archive, have just participated in a great conversation with the folks at the Perf Damage Podcast about the difficulty of determining the proper aspect ratio for certain films. I think you’ll find it interesting, so here it is...
That’s all for today! Stay tuned...
- Bill Hunt
(You can follow Bill on social media on Twitter, BlueSky, and Facebook, and also here on Patreon)