Young Han Solo finds adventure when he joins a gang of galactic smugglers, including a 196-year-old Wookie named Chewbacca. Indebted to the gangster Dryden Vos, the crew devises a daring plan to travel to the mining planet Kessel to steal a batch of valuable coaxium. In need of a fast ship, Solo meets Lando Calrissian, the suave owner of the perfect vessel for the dangerous mission — the Millennium Falcon.
Plot: During an adventure into the criminal underworld, Han Solo meets his future co-pilot Chewbacca and encounters Lando Calrissian years before joining the Rebellion.
Director: Ron Howard
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1
Runtime: 135 min
Rating: Rotten Tomatoes 70% & IMDB 7.1/10
Unboxing (see below)
Review:
This was shot with cameras in both 3.4K & 6.5K and finished in full native 4K. As seen in almost every case, it was also given a HDR color grade in HDR10. The image quality on this disc is very clean throughout, there were a few soft shots, but nothing that took away from the movie.
Here is were some problems come to the light, and where a lot of conversations in the forums have rotated around… the darkness of this film. Don’t get me wrong, the cinematography was great, but 3/4 of this movie was dark, low lit and even foggy for the way the atmosphere was created. Honestly, you didn’t really see any pop until the final stages of the film. This isn’t to say that it’s not clean 4K image, because it is, there just isn’t that POP! you are use to seeing in the format.
There were (like other Disney releases) spots that should have crushed-black that appeared more grey, but once again it was the way the movie was intended to look. The HDR did exactly what it was meant to do; bring out all the color and light on the screen, especially for a darker film. Even though this foggy, dark atmosphere was present throughout, it was consistent with the Director’s intent. Whether you are for or against that, the consistency is there.
Conclusion:
If you have a 4K UHD capable device, there’s no reason not to jump to absolute best way to watch it, but if you have any doubt in your mind, you won’t be missing out immensely if you just pick it up on Blu-Ray. Take that how you may, but like I said, this is a dark film — so there won’t be as many eye-popping 4K moments you may have liked to see. If you caught this in theaters, you know this, if you didn’t — you do now.
Cheers,
Matt.
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