DVD DETAILS:
Vision
The 16:9 enhanced widescreen transfer aptly captures the film’s delicate hues and lighting choices. However, it approaches a colourful authenticity akin to Spielberg more so than the menacing, entrapping worlds more associated with Carpenter and as a result it seems like a most uncharacteristic film. There is a fine warm glow to Allen’s home that perhaps signals it as a safe place for the alien presence. Likewise, there is an effective series of alien point of view shots although Carpenter does not fully develop this into the desired motif concerning Bridges’ perception of the world around him, as if the film is unsure of how to accommodate the alien’s direct point of view, instead insinuating his response through Bridges’ gestures, eye movements and other behavioural reactions as he feels what it is to be human. This observation of Bridges’ behaviour, however, is quite effective. In design, the film is natural in look, with nondescript clothing and a fine sense of travelling through a real America. Special effects are kept to a minimum in favour of the human drama but they are effective: the birth of the alien and the spaceship entering Earth’s atmosphere being sly allusions in some ways to Carpenter’s The Thing, of which Starman is perhaps best thought of as an inversion. The transfer does justice to the visuals, even if in design the film feels too much like a cheaper-looking simulation of Spielberg.
Sound
The sound transfer is functional in Dolby Digital 5.1. There are subtle directional effects and the voices are generally well distributed according to character composition within the frame: the control room scenes having a richness of background detail intended to create a sense of urgency. However, for the most part, this necessary sense of urgency is not as well maintained as it should be throughout the film, even dissipated in the film’s protracted pursuit. Still, there is a nice initial contrast between the control room scenes and those set at the respective homes of Allen and Smith, suggesting a way in which “home” acts as a sanctuary from the cruel and complicated world outside. In a sense, the film charts Bridges’ desire to return home (another parallel to Spielberg’s E.T.) and Allen’s hope to find a home for him here on Earth, with her. “Home” is an ideal, Carpenter at first contrasting its invasion with its possibility as an alternative to escape. There is a fine use of quiet scenes favouring dialogue or minor sounds as a prelude to more dangerous eruptions (the sound of helicopters being particularly effective). The score is suitably romantic and fully preserved on this transfer. The spatial sense makes for an approximation of the difference between fore and background effects. Likewise the sounds of travelling on the road (engines, wind and rain, car tyres on gravel) make for another layer of convincing reality. read more