Perseverance
Remember the Titans is a story about a small town highschool football team that is struggling. They’re struggling on the field andamongst themselves; in short, they’re in a rut. Denzel Washington plays aknowledgeable and motivated football coach that is offered the position ofcoaching the Titans. The small town of mostly Caucasians gives him a harshwelcome, but he perseveres and continues to coach football his way. He workshard to break down the barriers and stereotypes amongst the African Americanand Caucasian players on their team, and over the course of the film you seetheir relationships purge hatred and develop into a power friendship. As youmight expect, the film includes many moving scenes and events that strongly affectthe lives of the Titans that year.
I had not seen Remember the Titans before viewing thisBlu-ray release. I thought it was a good movie, but at the same time it isn’tone of those movies I would really watch more than once every few years atbest. There is a difference between a good or great film that you can watchrepeatedly, and those that are more of a ‘statement film,’ in which the storyis so dramatic or suspenseful that watching it again would severely dampen itseffect. I think Remember the Titans is a film that falls into that lattercategory.
Sites & Sounds
If there is one thing I have come to expect out of Disneyfilms on Blu-ray, its impressive or even outstanding technical quality. Onceagain the translation to Blu-ray for this film is excellent. The film lookscrisp, clean, and sharp. Granted, there aren’t many visually stunning scenes inthis movie since it is based in reality, but you can’t deny that the translationto Blu-ray is solid. You could say the same about the audio presentation; itdoes a great job of enveloping the viewer into the intensity of the film.
Features
Remember the Titans on Blu-ray features several extrafeatures that fans of the film should enjoy. All video is in SD, and none of isnew compared to the DVD versions of the film already released. However, you doget three features totaling about thirty-five minutes. The largest is abouttwenty-one minutes, and features the great NFL receiver Lynn Swan as hebasically provides some generic back story to the film and other fairlyuninteresting information. Two other features are just six minutes each focuson Denzel’s character as well as some other information on the real Titansstory that the film is based on.
There are two audio commentary tracks, the first of whichfeatures the director, screenwriter, and producer. This is one of the bettercommentaries I’ve heard as of late, as it provides plenty of interestinginsight into the film’s production. The second audio commentary track is alsointeresting, but for a different reason. The two folks on the second track arethe real Herman Boone and Bill Yoast, and hearing their views as the movie goeson was neat, but I doubt I’ll ever load it up again.
Lastly there are six deleted scenes that give just a littlemore insight into the characters and story.
