Spartacus

***October 2015 Update***Universal's 2010 release of this film on Blu-Ray was a piece of garbage. My review below was made on a 52" screen.I've since created a projection room in my home and watch on a 100" screen. The flaws of that 2010 disc are so glaringly obvious now that it defies belief that Universal even released it.Well, Universal has gone back and restored Spartacus from a fresh 6k scan of the 35mm Technirama color separates. They've cleaned up the print of dirt and scratches and color corrected the whole film. They've created new 5.1 and 7.1 channel HD audio mixes.In short, the results speak for themselves. Detail is superb. Individual grains of sand, facial pores (which were almost entirely absent in the 2010 craporama), skin creases, very light film grain, it's all here. And it's blissfully free of any evident DNR or edge enhancement. Colors pop but not unnaturally so. Black levels are strong and stable but not crushed. In a word, superlative. In more than one word, ravishing, transporting, reminds the viewer of how magical watching a movie can be.I am bumping my rating up to 4 stars. But I can't in good conscience go with 5, because of the history. Universal owes its customers an apology, if not a refund for the travesty they foisted upon them in 2010. I doubt we'll see any of it (they have not replied to my customer service query about a refund or disc exchange). But this disc is at least a good start.NOTE TO CUSTOMERS:Do not under any circumstances buy the 2010 edition of this movie. The 2010 edition is easily distinguished by the cover art - it is marked on the top with "50th Anniversary Edition" (I can't imagine a worse insult) and at the bottom with the words "The Perfect HI-DEF Movie Experience" (HAHAHAHAHAHAAAA...). The edition you want is marked on the top by the words "Restored Edition." Amazon should stop selling the 2010 edition altogether, but as of today, there is still a link at the top of this page to choose it, for a few dollars less than this one. DON'T!***2010 Edition***The Movie:I've been letting this one sit in my collection for a few months before I let loose on it. This is one of my personal favorite movies. In the "swords and sandals" genre I think it is among the finest - it has a stirring story, a wonderful sense of scope, a great soundtrack, and a set of truly exceptional performances, including screen greats such as Laurence Olivier, Peter Ustinov, and Kirk Douglas. Although it doesn't display the sort of technical mastery that Kubrick would assert on his later films, there is still a certain Kubrickian something to the direction, as well. Certain camera moves, certain lingering shots, certain compositions. All told, it's a great movie and a great representation of the 1950-60s "epic" motion picture tradition. At 3-plus hours, it always remains brisk and entertaining, and it's a movie I frequently revisit because of its richness and replay value.The Blu-Ray:But then we get to this transfer. Having owned the Criterion DVD edition of this film, I was well acquainted with its look and feel.This Blu-Ray transfer has been stripped of all natural film grain. As such, a level of fine detail is missing from the image, one which has been compensated for by the application of edge enhancement (quite noticeable on the tall iron bars frequently visible in the gladiator school) and an artificially boosted contrast.On the plus side, the image *is* more detailed than the Criterion DVD. Interested viewers ought to search "spartacus dvdbeaver" in order to see that site's comparison between the Criterion DVD and the Universal Blu-Ray. You should be able to note that several of the comparison shots show that mid-sized details are much sharper. But fine details such as film grain are gone. It should also be rather apparent that colors have been juiced up for this release as well - Kirk Douglas was always a bronzed sort of guy, but he looks like he spent a few too many hours in the tanning salon for this release. The most revealing comparison is the shot of Douglas being painted to show "kill zones" by his instructor. Details on the instructor's uniform like his metal buckles are clearer. But check out the high contrast areas such as the metal bars in the lower left - there is practically a double image made of edge enhancement halos. The flesh tones also are hot and unrealistic. Facial details at this distance look waxy.The irritating aspect of Universal's thought process is that there was apparently a fresh, restored celluloid interpositive from 1991 that could have been re-transferred at only nominal cost. Instead, the studio went with the cheaper option of using the inferior early-90's HD transfer of that interpositive, a transfer that Richard Harris (who oversaw the 1991 restoration) has called flawed in the extreme, riddled with noise. This noise was washed away with DNR, and then compensated for with edge enhancement.So in the end, this is sort of a textbook case for a poor Blu-Ray transfer. Sure, it looks slightly better than a DVD. But it is obvious that we're missing so much more that we could have seen. I'd call this comparable to decent cable television HD. Smooth, compressed, pleasing to the uncritical eye, but unsatisfying to those who wish their movies to look like they were shot on film, not on a computer.The audio is quite nice. The DTS soundtrack presents the booming music score quite well, and the voice acting always comes through well. Extras of course fall short compared to the Criterion release, which had an entire extra disc to its credit. But we do get deleted scenes, some classic interviews and newsreels, some behind the scenes footage, and a trailer. Had we not known of the Criterion DVD, I think most would be pleased. But the lack of commentary and the lack of a comprehensive making-of documentary are glaring. A movie like this cries out for a discussion of writer Dalton Trumbo, Kubrick's tension with actor-producer Douglas, the Hollywood blacklist, and the many elements that slipped past censors of the day.Conclusion:As it stands, I can't go above three stars, here. The movie is undeniably great. Those who enjoy historical epics will find a lot to love. But the video transfer is significantly flawed (though perhaps not fatally so). That makes this an "average" home video purchase at best.This is a stopgap. I think it's worth buying at a low price, in order to have a version of this film in high definition. But we can only hope that either Criterion gets the rights back from Universal and does their usual respectful job, or the powers that be at Universal pull their heads from their rears and decide to treat this classic the way it deserves to be: with a fresh, modern HD transfer from film elements that will give us a truly filmic presentation of a great flick.

like

The movie and product were great. Was crisp and clear movie.

Watched it the first night it arrived. Wished they still made movies like that one.

A Kubrick masterwork. Epic not only in scale, but in story. It boast an impressive cast, who deliver equally impressive performances. Truly, a movie for the ages.Like so many memorable, and epic classic films, the sum of its parts are greater than the whole.

A beautiful job rendering Spartacus after all these years. The interview with Kirk Douglas is sad as his stroke makes it difficult to understand what he has to say and so they put in subtitles. But it is a good film and well done and deserves the best treatment which it receives. In this particular edition!

"Spartacus has had some interesting, even if at times sloppy, presentations on various home video media. I defer to the man whom I consider to be the definitive source on what "Spartacus" *should* look like, the film's historian and the person responsible for the 1991 restoration, Robert Harris (who hopefully will be able to secure funding from MGM (now that they're fat and happy from the worldwide success of "Skyfall") to finish his ten-year project to restore John Wayne's "The Alamo"). Mr Harris believes that the Criterion SD-DVD "color and density correct."Twenty years ago, under the aegis of Universal's Tom Pollack, and with the cooperation and support of both Kirk Douglas and Stanley Kubrick, we spent a year reconstructing and restoring Spartacus from extant film elements. The process was difficult, tedious, and expensive. Work was performed virtually on a shot by shot basis.An HD master was created from our 65mm interpositive some ten years ago. AFAIK it has previously been used for all SD as well as HD releases of Spartacus, I am told that the master was returned to HTV for clean-up and removal of unwanted noise and grain. HTV, which performed meticulous dirt and grain removal on another large format production, Franklin J. Shaffner's brilliant 1970 Academy Award winner Patton, has been brought back to perform similar duties with Mr. Kubrick's Spartacus. Only now, with newer, next gen software, the final results, both based upon the original transfers and the newer software are different. Many people were thrilled with the look and overall textures of Patton, which was smoother than a baby's bottom, and to give it proper credit, looked beautiful on smaller screens. Where are we now?Where before, we had heavy noise as captured by the HD transfer, we now have something akin to the surface of a quiet pond in which not even the smallest ripple distorts the surface. Make no mistake, the video noise inherent in the HD master was a problem. The film element upon which the master was based had the normal grain attributes of large format separation masters, which are nominal. No grain reduction was necessary. The information that I received is that HTV noted the problems, and instituted a fix based upon their newest generation noise and grain reduction software. After doing a comparison of the HD vs. the new Blu-ray, here's what I'm seeing: The video noise, inherent in the HD master is gone. That's a good thing, but keep in mind that it should never have been there to begin with. In removing the noise, all grain is also gone, replaced by what appears to be a pleasant sheen of artificial film grain.All of the detail captured by Academy Award winning cinematographer Russell Metty's meticulous large format Technirama camera, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Color Cinematography, is unfortunately also gone. All high frequency information has been lost, and with it all of the detail in the image.In its place the newly softened image has been electronically sharpened. We now have a halos. Contrast has been boosted to make the image appear sharper than it is, but this is perceived as opposed to actual sharpness. Fortunately, possibly based upon the new software, we have not gone plastic. During the restoration of Spartacus, we went through numerous tests to find the optics that could reproduce the immense amount of detail found in the original elements. I recall one test that we screened in the Hitchcock Theater at Universal. The image quality wasn't quite there. It was slightly soft. When I mentioned that detail was missing in the wood that surrounded the gladiator's arena, one of the gentlemen from the post house responded "But you can see the wood grain." I distinctly remember getting an elbow in the ribs at that moment from our tech assistant, Mike Hyatt. He knew where this was going. What we needed to properly represent Mr. Kubrick's film was not the ability to see the wood grain, but rather to see the insects eating their way through the wood grain. Within two weeks an optical system was put in place that enabled us to reproduce the information as exposed to the original elements.In Universal's new Blu-ray release of Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus, you can almost see the wood grain, but now that grain is covered in electronic enhancement, halos and unnecessary contrast. The pity is that Spartacus, like Out of Africa and Elizabeth makes Blu-ray appear to be something that it is not - a flawed technological system for viewing motion pictures in home theaters. I was hopeful that the lessons learned with the Blu-ray releases of Patton, The Longest Day and Gangs of New York might have been taken to heart. They have not.Where Fox and Disney have been releasing gorgeous Blu-rays of their catalog titles, and Disney recently released a fully corrected version of Gangs, it is now Universal that is placing data of less than stellar quality in the holding container that is Blu-ray. This potentially damages the reputation of the Blu-ray system, while it absolutely damages the concept that is the "art" of cinema, and proper representation of the what was created by the filmmakers. Where we often have to make compromises between art and commerce, with this Blu-ray of Spartacus there appears to be no compromise -- only the resolute purity of commerce.***There will be many people who will love the Blu-ray of Spartacus, especially on smaller screens. I'll not get into color, densities, black levels or audio because any discussion of those attributes is irrelevant. ***There is no problem with the film elements held on Spartacus. There is a 65mm interpositive with virtually all of the basic color timing and densities intact. There are two audio masters. One which replicates the original 6-track 70mm Todd-AO mix, and another, which updates it for those theaters, equipped at the time of the restoration with "baby booms." It is the Todd-AO mix that properly represents the wide proscenium mix for properly spacial dialogue. A return to the 65mm IP would not be an extremely expensive undertaking, especially based upon the importance of the film, and of potential worldwide income. The pity is that whatever entity is controlling the purse strings is unable to recognize that fact.Here we have an example of great classic cinema. Written, produced, photographed, edited and scored by some of the finest talent in the industry. Spartacus is a huge, epic film about the enduring spirit of mankind and the concept of freedom. **It has been turned, on this Blu-ray, into a sideshow pipsqueak, an ugly and unfortunate bit of home video fodder, which would be far better suited to VHS. **I would suggest a recall. Spartacus on Blu-ray could have been as Mr. Kubrick wished it to be - a heroic and majestic piece of epic entertainment. With a simple new image harvest, Spartacus could be a piece of brilliant Blu-ray software. As it is, Spartacus receives an absolute and undeniable...Fail.

todo ok

Spartacus is my favorite historical epic from classic Hollywood. It's not very historically accurate but it doesn't really matter if you want to see entertaining movie with great characters, stellar cast and impressive sets and costumes. Also helps the fact that this isn't a christian morality tale that mostly plagued historical epics from the 50's and 60's. Spartacus is good introduction to the genre and in my opinion it's easily the one of the best.This is the restored and uncut version of the film. The video and audio is as good as you get for a 50 year old movie. Don't expect anything groundbreaking. The extra features are some what limited. The highlights include 2 commentary tracks and a 24 minute long interview with Peter Ustinov, promotional materials, storyboards, deleted scenes and a 1960 documentary The Hollywood Ten. They should have made this a 3 disc set to give more extra content. Peter Ustinov interview and commentary tracks are the best part of it. They give enough insight in the production, behind the scenes and the overall politics of Hollywood. Overall this is a great purchase if you love historical epics from Classic Hollywood or are big Kirk Douglas, Peter Ustinov or Stanley Kubrick fan.

Just bought the poster series blu ray edition hoping it was a remastered edition only to find its the old blu ray from the 50th anniversary set in a new box ! Come on people, this is supposed to be celebrating 100 years of the studio so give us a proper blu ray edition. Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments have all been released in superb quality so whats taking so long with Spartacus? I gave it five stars because its just a timeless classic that just getes better with each viewing.

No wonder it was a block buster. Kirk Douglas excels as the slave Spartacus. All crowd scenes andacting superbly shown, feels as though we were part of it, But the ending - very emotional and sad.Must be seen by allNo wonder it was a block buster. Covers every aspect of a time gone-by. Kirk Douglas and Jean Simmons play a very tender and emotional couple. But such a sad and tear-jerking ending.A must watch by all.

Dated in parts. Not dissimilar to Gladiator in that Spartacus is slave who becomes a gladiator and leader whilst Gladiator is a leader who becomes a slave and a gladiator. Similar themes are explored in the plot.

A classic film. Haven't seen it in ages. Love all the so called epics genre. Kirk Douglas is superb in it and a great and well known supporting cast.