Indiana Jones 4-Movie Collection (4k Ultra Hd + Digital HD)

Blu-Ray Reviews | Jun 18th, 2021

Indiana Jones 4-Movie Collection (4k Ultra Hd + Digital HD)
Image used with permission for review purposes.

Starring: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman, John Rhys-Davies, Denholm Elliott, Kate Capshaw, Amrish Puri, Ke Huy Quan, Alison Doody, Julian Glover, Sean Connery, Cate Blanchett, Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Jim Broadbent, Shia LaBeouf
Written By: Lawrence Kasdan, Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz, Jeffrey Boam, David Koepp
Directed By: Steven Spielberg
Studio: Paramount
Buy On Amazon.com

Indiana Jones is celebrating 40 years with the release of The Raiders of The Lost Ark, so of course Paramount decided to celebrate that with a glorious 4k Ultra HD set. Let’s just say I was very happy that this arrived on my doorstep, because these movies look fantastic on the upgraded format. If you ever thought about upgrading your TV and player, now is a good time to get a 4k TV and player and get this set while you’re at it!

By now, you should know all about Indiana Jones and the various MacGuffins of the stories so I won’t go in too deep on the plots of the 4 movies. Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indy went up against the Nazis to find the Ark of the Covenant. The Temple of Doom was about the sacred Sankara Stones and kidnapped slave children in India. In The Last Crusade, Indy teams up with his Father, Henry Jones, Sr. (Sean Connery) and goes against the Nazis again to find the Holy Grail. The 4th movie was a blur and probably a blur on purpose since I dislike the movie so much. Something about Russians, Indiana’s son, alien spaceships and of course a nuclear fridge.

The opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark is a classic one, one I probably have seen every year since I was old enough to watch these movies. The newly upgraded 4k Ultra HD really makes a lot of this stuff POP. There’s some noticeable grain for the opening scene, but after that, it seemed to get a lot better. During The Ark scenes, the gold from it really shined and showed the viewers how much these movies have been improved! I’m truly impressed how well Paramount remastered these movies and think it’s probably one of the best transfers to date. The quality of the movies get better as they go along since they aren’t as old as Raiders was. At first, I thought something was up with the transfer since it looked like the dreaded “store view,” so I had to change the settings around since somehow they resetted on my TV. After that, everything looked great! The sound was really amped up too. I can’t rave enough about the 4k quality for these discs. The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit had great transfers too but these are even better since the movies are older.

I’ve probably talked about this before, but my favorite movie of the franchise is Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. It’s something about Harrison Ford and Sean Connery teaming up to battle the Nazis all over the place that makes it the most fun for me. The journey to all the places (Venice, Austria, Berlin, Alexandretta/Turkey), the treasure map-like conquest of tracking down the Grail and the booby traps at the end. It finishes off so nicely too with them riding off into the sunset too. It was just a fun movie from start to finish. I have a special place in my heart for the original trilogy movies. Raiders is of course a classic, and Temple of Doom is great for the humor, the grossness of things and the iconic bridge scene at the end of it. I still do that when I’m on bridges like that and quote parts of that scene. Indy’s most insane, badass moment in my opinion. One can’t forget to mention Kali Ma when talking about Temple of Doom either. Funny enough, the one movie my 5 year old son decided to watch with me from start to finish was The Temple of Doom. Perhaps he was curious since I’ve been jokingly doing Kali Ma on his chest since he was born. I covered his eyes for the heart part though. Unfortunately, I don’t really have too many favorite parts of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I’m really hoping the 5th movie they are filming now will be back to the way the first 3 movies were and not over the top stupid.

The only extras for the set were from the 2012 Blu-Ray release. So I suppose if you never owned that, then it will be new to you. The set also includes digital UHD copies that you can redeem at Vudu and other other streaming platforms. I did that for Vudu since I have the most movies there but I didn’t test out the quality of those streams. I’m assuming it’s not as well as physical media but better than the HDX quality.

This set is absolutely worth upgrading to 4k, since it’s the best quality I’ve seen these movies in. Some releases are so-so with their upgrade but this isn’t the case with the Indy franchise. Far superior video and sound make this an easy decision – upgrade to this set now! Kali-maaaaaaa!

Features:
On Set with Raiders of the Lost Ark
From Jungle to Desert
From Adventure to Legend

Making the Films:
The Making of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
The Making of Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Making of The Temple of Doom
The Making of The Last Crusade
The Making of The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Behind the Scenes:
The Stunts of Indiana Jones
The Sound of Indiana Jones
The Music of Indiana Jones
The Light and Magic of Indiana Jones
Raiders: The Melting Face!
Indiana Jones and the Creepy Crawlies
Travel with Indiana Jones: Locations
Indy’s Women: The American Film Institute Tribute
Indy’s Friends and Enemies
Iconic Props
The Effects of Indy
Adventures in Post Production

Video:
Codec: HEVC / H.265
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1

Audio:
Raiders of the Lost Ark 4K
English: Dolby Atmos
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 2.0
French: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Italian: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Italian: Dolby Digital 2.0 (224 kbps)
Japanese: Dolby Digital 5.1
Japanese: Dolby Digital 2.0
Russian: Dolby Digital 2.0
3 more titles (more)

Subtitles:
English, English SDH, French, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Cantonese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Korean, Mandarin (Simplified), Mandarin (Traditional), Norwegian, Russian, Swedish, Thai

Bottom Line: No brainer – upgrade to 4k now!
Running Time: 482 mins
Rating: PG, PG-13
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating:

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