Today, I received the New Frontier on Blu-Ray today. When I first bought the PS3, I put Pixar's the Incredibles for a field test. The movie quality was already fantastic on standard definition. The PS3 upscaled it somewhat and I just couldn't imagine the picture quality being any better.
Months later, I put the Incredibles into the slot for a friend to watch. Needless to say, I started to nitpick the qualities of this masterpiece. Suddenly, the image became too soft or the crispiness wasn't all that spectacular to me. Even when I bought Ratatouille, the amazing quality of that film didn't make me notice the jump. Ironically, it took a 2-D animated film like the New Frontier to make me see the difference.
I used to argue with Zac regarding cartoon transfers. Was there improvement for animation on a high definition scale? Aren't they already optimized for DVD? Well, after watching the Blu-Ray copy of this film...I was blown away. I just could not believe the colors, the sharpness of the edges, and lack of any imperfection. Unbelievable. Unfortunately, the rest of the extras including the extra Justice League episodes are standard definition. They look like CRAP on the HDTV. I haven't watched all the extras and only briefly went through the chapters of the film. The Darwyn Cooke commentary is supposed to be insightful so I am looking forward to that. My feelings on the film are strong. As a geek who loved the original work and a fan who loves superhero films, this is incredibly faithful and fun. Not perfect, but really amazing considering what they were able to do. They compressed two volumes into a 75 minute time with little sacrifice. Well Done.
If I had to put some sort of rating down, I call this a B+ purchase. In my heart, it is really an A- though.
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