Jones! Indeed, Indiana Jones is back on home video, for the first time on 4K Ultra HD with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos support. I last bought these films on Blu-ray nearly a decade ago, and though I have thinned out my disc collection over the years, staples like Back To the Future and Indiana Jones will always have a spot on my shelf. This new box set includes all four of the Indy films as well as digital copies that you can redeem at your favorite streaming service. There are no new extra features, but, all of the old extras from the old 2012 Blu-ray set are here and they’re still quite serviceable. Let’s have a closer look.
I’m an Indiana Jones fan, and have been since first seeing Last Crusade when I was probably about twelve. Raiders is probably my favorite movie of all time, and I actually just watched all four movies a few months ago, though it had been a few years since I had before that. Since receiving these 4K movies for review, I watched them again; and, like any timeless classic should, they just hold up so good. I think just about everyone has seen these four movies, the first three especially, so I’m not going to go into another review of those. I do still maintain that Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is the weakest of the bunch, but topping Raiders, Crusade, and even Temple is a very tall order. I’ll be very curious to see how Indy 5, currently filming in England, will fare (especially seeing as Spielberg is not directing it).
Anyway, pleasantries aside, the crux of this release is in the presentation quality of these films. To that end, I’m excited to say that Paramount has done a superb job with this release. Support for Dolby Vision and HDR10, with painstaking film clean-up have produced a beautiful image with outstanding image quality. Colors quality is superb, and even though I have seen these films (the first and third ones especially) numerous times, I was shocked at how much detail and clarity I had previously missed before this 4K release. In a word, the work done here is masterful and as close as to perfection as we’re likely to ever get out of these films.
Dobly Atmos tracks are the new audio mix, although I understand these were based off of the already excellent DTS-HD track on the Blu-rays. My humble home theatre setup is not Atmos capable, however. Still, I can vouch for the excellent audio quality from what I experienced and what I have read. The soundscape in these films is legendary. There are almost as many memorable sound moments — be they from John Williams’ score, effects, spoken words, or what have you — as there memorable visual scenes.
The extra features here are worth watching, but, they are exactly the same as the 2012 Blu-ray release. That’s a bit of a letdown, but at the same time it wouldn’t surprise me to see a five-film box set released in another couple of years and maybe that’s when Paramount will get Spielberg, Ford, and others to do a roundtable or something like that. Still, for now, there are about a dozen extra features, plus trailers, though a lot of the features are in SD. Don’t expect hours of content here, but, these features cover the typical ‘making of’ concepts, and so forth — they’re well worth watching if you haven’t yet.
All four films are binge-worthy, fun, timeless, and have excellent replay value. Admittedly, Kingdom pulls the franchise down some, but it’s hard to expect anything else being that it was filmed so many years after the original trilogy. Regardless, as far as this release goes, Paramount has done a phenomenal job bringing these into the 4K era with a presentation quality — image and sound — that stun. Must have.
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