American Graffiti - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

American Graffiti



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:



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Movie
I’m going to admit that I was not initially the wildest fan of American Graffiti when I watched it back in the late 90s. I had grown up on Star Wars, Willow and the like and wanted to go back and watch the films that started it all with THX-1138 and American Graffiti, only to leave with scratching my head wondering what I just watched. The film seemed like it was completely ad-libbed the more and more I got into it, and I just was so confused about what was going on. Turns out that I was kind of half right when you watch the commentary with Lucas, as he describes in detail how the film had massive production issues, barely topped $700,000 and was filled with a bunch of rowdy young boys who were just having fun on set. But somehow, despite all of those fumbles and hurdles, Lucas managed to made a love letter to the the late 50s and early 60s cruiser culture that has become a zeitgeist indie film that encapsulated a longing look back at the innocence of time gone by.

American Graffiti is a vignette based series of events “hang out” movie wherein four lifetime friends hang out and cruise around the strip one last night in Modesto, California, before they all leave for college and other adult things that would mark the end of their carefree days. The 4 guys have their various hijinks, ranging from tough guy street cruiser aficionado Milner (Paul Le Mat) cruising around looking for babes, love struck Curt Henderson (Richard Dreyfuss) looking around for the blonde bombshell that was there and vanished. And of course nerdy and socially inept Terry Fields (Charles Martin Smith) and his buddy Steve (Ron Howard) who is at a crisis about what to do with his long time girlfriend as he’s looking to “spread his wings” in college this coming year.

The stories themselves are almost meaningless if you think about it. These vignettes are simply there to allow us to watch the turmoil and conflict going on within the boys as they try to bridge that gap between carefree high school student and the burgeoning manhood they’re on. But what’s REALLY the focus of the movie (if you take a step back) is Lucas showing us an age that the American populace was longing for at that time. Call it member berries, call it nostalgia, but this was Lucas looking back at the innocence of the 1960s, before the civil rights movement changed things forever, the death of Kennedy that traumatized a nation, and us being on the edge of war in Vietnam. What we had was a culture just wistfully looking back at “the good old days” when boys went around cruising the strip on a Friday night, when the hijinks were actually fairly innocent, and basically those nice rose colored glasses on how life used to be before the world became so interconnected and serious.

As I said above, I wasn’t a wild fan of American Graffiti when I saw it the in 90s, and while I have have gained a new appreciation for it as a film fan over the years, I still think it’s a bit on the dull side comparatively. The episodic nature of the film, mixed with the meandering story line takes a bit of effort to hold onto. However, Lucas’s crafty use of genre music and 60s rock-n-roll classics sort of steers the ship back on course more often than now. It’s a strange film, and definitely reminiscent of his more indie background than most think of the king of Star Wars, but a rather intriguing and fascinating watch as well.




Rating:

Rated PG by the MPAA




4K Video: Video:

You win some, you lose some, and it unfortunately looks like this 4K UHD release is one where we lose some. The old Blu-ray was notorious for being rather “meh” back in the day when Universal catalog titles were known to be a DNR’d, edge enhanced, haloing messes (my copy of The Jerk has always been the demo disc I use for how bad a catalog title would look) and it suffered badly on that old VC-1 encoded disc. Colors were overly brightened and garish, while details were pretty weak due to the DNR. However, fans got excited when it was announced that for the 50th anniversary there was going to be George Lucas supervised 4K transfer and the subsequent 4K UHD disc that we got this week.

Well, turns out that remastered doesn’t always equal better. While the 4K UHD is generally better than the old Blu-ray, it’s basically akin to Forrest Gump, where we get some things that elevate it over the old disc, and other issues that cause the Blu-ray to actually be BETTER than the 4K disc. Right off the bat there are some definite improvements with the new disc. Colors are much more vivid, with a more natural amount of contrast to them. The yellow on Milner’s car isn’t that faded banana yellow, but a richer and more textured yellow where you can actually see the glint and sheen of his topcoat. Fine details can look better as well, which is mostly because the white levels are no longer blooming to the point of hysterical levels, and the black levels no longer so milky. But that’s about where things end on the good end of the spectrum. The disc has been absolutely BLASTED with DNR to the extreme. I’m talking it appears as if Lucas was mastering the disc, tripped over something and bumped the DNR up to level 15 on a scaled of 1-10. The grain in the old disc was heavily reduced, but this disc has zero grain whatsoever. The entire film is smooth and overly waxy to the point where I was wondering if this was actual “film” at all. Character outlines actually look like they’ve been pasted into the scene due to how over sharpened the edges are, and the waxy look does no good for the image quality. There are times where I was saying “wow, this totally looks better than the Blu-ray” and others where there is LESS fine detail despite the added resolution. My conclusion is basically this. Is the disc better than the aging Universal Blu-ray? Yessssss, but it is in no way a proper transfer for a film like this. For everything it does right, it does something equally as egregious and frustrating.








Audio:

I had completely forgotten that American Graffiti only came with a DTS-HD MA 2.0 audio mix back in the day, so I was thinking that we were getting the same audio mix when I noticed that the 4K disc had a 5.1 DTS-HD MA mix until re looking up my old Blu-ray’s specs. Luckily Universal has included the 2.0 track for purists, but the new 5.1 mix is actually quite good. It has some nice heft to the low end with Milner and his hot rod, and there’s a little bump to the 1960s score that keeps things hopping. Dialog is well done and centered in the front, and there’s some moderate use of surrounds while heading down the strip. It’s not going to ever be a rock and roaring 5.1 mix that will blow your socks off, but the 5.1 upmix is still a pleasing audio experience.












Extras:

• The Making of American Graffiti
• Screen Tests
• Feature Commentary with Director George Lucas
• Theatrical Trailer
• The Music of American Grafitti

Final Score: ​

American Graffiti will forever be known as the film that put George Lucas on the map. It really doesn’t hold any resemblance to THX-1138 or his upcoming war among the stars, but it has garnered itself a very strong cult following for fans of the 1950s and 1960s as a feel good hang out drama. Personally I’ve always felt that it was a fun watch on a cultural level, but never really enjoyed it as much as my brothers who were 11 and 13 years older than me did. But it is still an iconic film, and it’s a depressing thought watching the new transfer. The overzealous DNRing is fairly painful to watch, but at the end of the day the disc IS better than the old Blu-ray, just not by a whole lot. The new audio track is probably the single shining bright spot midst all of the frustrations. So while I would love to give this a hearty two thumbs up as a saved Universal catalog finally getting the treatment it deserves, I have to simply be cautious and say “check it out first”, to see if the upgrade is worth it for you.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Harrison Ford, Candy Clark, Cindy Williams, Mackenzie Phillips
Directed by: George Lucas
Written by: George Lucas, Gloria Katz, Willard Huyck
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 HEVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DTS-HD MA 2.0, Japanese, German, Italian DTS 2.0, Spanish, French, Japanese DTS 2.0 Mono
Subtitles: English SDH, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Korean, Mandarin (Traditional), Norwegian, Swedish
Studio: Universal
Rated: PG
Runtime: 113 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: October 7th, 2023

Recommendation: Good film, weak release

 

[Todd Anderson]

Such a bummer that the video side of things falls apart on this release.

 

[Michael Scott]

Such a bummer that the video side of things falls apart on this release.

Yeah as I mentioned this is pure Forrest Gump territory. And supposedly overseen by George Lucas himself for the transfer. It's kind of mind-boggling, and rather frustrating

 

[Todd Anderson]

George needs to stop meddling with his old work!

 

[Michael Scott]

George needs to stop meddling with his old work!

ooooooo honey. I'm not sure we can get lucas to do that. lol

 

[Todd Anderson]

One of my favorite parts of this film is heating Wolfman Jack. Kind of haunting… I remember hearing him on the radio as a kid and being completely mystified by his voice and persona. Different times, I guess - no internet kept thing mysterious!