Pink Floyd - The Wall
Reviewed by Rodney Campbell
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Review Equipment:

DVD Player:
  Pioneer DV-717

Display:
  Panasonic TX-79P100Z 79cm 100Hz CRT (4:3 screen with 16:9 mode)

Receiver:
  Denon AVR-2700

Front Speakers:
  Tannoy Profile Plus 633 (Biwired)
Center Speaker:
  Tannoy Profile Plus 621
Rear Surrounds:
  Sony Bookshelf
Subwoofer:
  M&K V75 MkII

Video Cables:
  QED Qnect SVS s-video
Audio Cables:
  QED Qnect DS & Qnect SS

DVD-ROM:
  Pioneer DVD-U03S
MPEG-2 Decoder Card:
  DVDmagic Pro (RealMagic Hollywood Plus)

Rating
Video 7
Audio 9
Extras 9
Overall 9

Video General
P & S/Full Frame No Region(s) 2,4,5
Wide/aspect ratio Yes 2.35:1 Distributor Columbia Music Video & Sony Music
16x9 Enhanced Yes Macrovision ??
Audio Chapters 27
Audio Format(s) English DD 5.1
English Linear PCM (48kHz/16Bit) 		Running Time 95 min
Extras/Features RSDL/Flipper Yes/No
Trailer(s) Yes Classification ??
Commentary Tracks Movie length commentary by Roger Waters and Gerald Scarfe Subtitles English Captions, French Subtitles, Spanish Subtitles & English Song Lyrics
Other Extras
Sound System Setup Guide; 1982 25 minute documentary "The Other Side of the Wall"; 1999 45 minute documentary "Retrospective: Looking Back at the Wall"; Deleted Scene "Hey You"; Music Video "Another Brick in the Wall Part 2"; Still Gallery with Production Photos; Still Gallery with artwork by Gerald Scarfe.

"The story of The Wall is told simply with the music of Pink Floyd, images and natural effects. There is no conventional dialogue to progres the narrative. Our story is about Pink, a Rock and Roll performer, who sits locked in a hotel room, somewhere in Los Angeles. Too many shows, too much dope, too much applause: a burned out case. On the TV, an all too familiar war film flickers on the screen. We shuffle time and place, reality and nightmare as we venture into Pink's ppainful memories, each one a 'brick' in the wall he has gradually built around his feelings. Slowly he withdraws from the real world and slips further into his nightmare as he imagines himself as an unfeeling demagogue, for whom all that is left is the demonstration of power over his unthinking audience, the culmination of the odious excess of his own world and the world around him. His internal self trial follows, as the witnesses of his past life, the very people who have contributed to the building of the wall, come forward and testify against him." - Alan Parker.

Video

For a movie of this age (in DVD terms) the 16:9 enhanced presentation is very good. The new Hi Definition film transfer was taken from the original wide screen interpositive and it shows. There are hardly any discernable film artifacts during the movie itself (unlike the numerous ones to be found during the "Hey You" deleted scene); a very few nicks and scratches are about all you will see. The restoration job is fantastic and although there was a slight grainyness, the colours were vibrant and images generally sharp and clear - just take a look at the garden in Chapter 7. There were a few MPEG artifacts to be seen throughout the movie - mainly some banding effects.

Audio

The remastered audio tracks are awesome, the Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is great with the rears put to good effect during the movie (especially during the war scenes). In both the DD5.1 and PCM Stereo mixes the music comes mainly from the front mains and the LFE channel is used to good effect both with the explosions in the war scenes but also to give some incredibly clean bass during a couple of the music tracks like Goodbye Blue Sky and Comfortably Numb. The dynamic range during the songs is great and certainly sounds as good (if not better) than the CD.

Extras

Well this is more like it - extras galore! The 16:9 enhanced animated menus are very nice and I like the fact that you just have to use the arrow keys to select your navigation path without having to press the enter key as well. The only downside is that the menus can take their sweet time coming up - making you wait to do things - at least they are instantaneous once you've seen them once.

The Sound System Setup Guide is sort of like a very mini version of the Video Essentials disc but still a useful basic setup tool.

There are two documentaries on the disc; the first is the original 1982 25 minute documentary - "The Other Side of the Wall" - which goes into the making of the film in pretty good detail. There is lots of behind the scenes footage and interviews with the films creators. The second documentary comes in two parts and was created in 1999 for the DVD; "Retrospective: Looking Back at the Wall" is a 45 minute documentary that provides some very interesting insights and recollections from the creators of the film.

The Oddities section contains the "Hey You" deleted scene along with the original 1982 music video is "Another Brick in the Wall Part 2". We also find the original theatrical trailer as well as a still gallery of production photos and another one featuring the drawings of Gerald Scarfe.

There are also some "Easter Eggs" contained on the disc. On all of the menu screens (except the root menu) there is a small clickable icon on the screen. This can also be activated on home DVD Players by pressing the "9" key. These activate various sound bytes from the film.

Overall

Overall this is a great disc and well worth the price of admission.