THE ROCKETEER [1991 / 2011] [20th Anniversary Edition] [Blu-ray] [USA Release] High-Flying Entertainment! Buckle Up and Hang On Tight!
Celebrate the 20th Anniversary of director Joe Johnston’s action-filled, witty ‘THE ROCKETEER.’ And now with state-of-the-art digital restoration and enhanced high definition sound, experience it as it jets off for the first on this Disney Blu-ray disc.
The discovery of a top-secret jetpack hurls test pilot Cliff Secord [Billy Campbell] into a daring adventure of mystery, suspense, and intrigue! Cliff Secord encounters an assortment of ruthless villains, led by a Hollywood screen star that’s a secret Nazi spy Neville Sinclair [Timothy Dalton]. With the help of his actress girlfriend Jenny Blake [Jennifer Connelly], Cliff Secord, dubbed "The Rocketeer" by the press, embarks on a mission that could alter the course of history and make him a true hero and see the young pilot battles enormous odds to defeat his foes that are anxious to use the device in an evil plan to rule the world! The dangerous mission transforms the ordinary young man into an extraordinary hero. The film was based on a comic character created by Dave Stevens.
FILM FACT No.1: Awards and Nominations: 1992 Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA: Win: Best Costumes for Marilyn Vance. Nominated: Best Science Fiction Film. Nominated: Best Supporting Actress for Jennifer Connelly. Nominated: Best Special Effects for Ken Ralston of Industrial Light & Magic. 1992 Hugo Awards: Nominated: Best Dramatic Presentation for Danny Bilson (Story/Screenplay), Joe Johnston (Director), Paul De Meo (Story/Screenplay), William Dear (Story) and Dave Stevens (based on the graphic novel).
FILM FACT No.2: The visual effects were designed and created by George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) with Ken Ralston (‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ at Sony Pictures Imageworks founder) serving as the VFX supervisor. Rocketeer director Joe Johnston previously worked as an art director/model maker at ILM before his film directing career took off. Joe Johnston's insistence on a realistic flying rocket man led ILM to devise a lifelike Cliff Secord model that was filmed in "stop-motion-animation" coupled with an 18" figurine that was manipulated by hand and in "go-motion" to create "motion-blur." Speeded-up Moviola effects were also used to advantage in the air circus sequence where a combination of live action and stop-motion animation was also employed. “The Rocketeer” attack on the Nazi Zeppelin was filmed over four months near Six Flags Magic Mountain amusement park in Valencia, California through pick-ups. Remaining visual effects footage took place at ILM's headquarters in San Rafael and Hamilton Air Force Base. There, they constructed a 12 feet scale model of the Zeppelin, which was photographed against matte paintings that resembled 1938 Los Angeles for intercutting purposes. The Zeppelin explosion special effect alone cost $400,000.
Cast: Billy Campbell, Jennifer Connelly, Alan Arkin, Timothy Dalton, Paul Sorvino, Terry O'Quinn, Ed Lauter, James Handy, Robert Miranda, John Lavachielli, Jon Polito, Eddie Jones, William Sanderson, Don Pugsley, Nada Despotovich, Margo Martindale, America Martin, Max Grodénchik, Michael Milhoan, Daniel O'Shea, Joe D'Angerio, Clint Howard, Tommy J. Huff, Paul DeSouza, Pat Crawford Brown, Julian Barnes, Sam Vincent, Lisa Pedersen, Peter Bromilow, Tom Kindle, Charlie Stavola, William Boyett, William Frankfather, Heinrich James, Herman Poppe, Norbert Weisser, Michael Francis Clarke, Darryl Henriques, Scanlon Gail, Melora Hardin, Bob Leeman, Rick Overton, Gene Daily, Richard Warlock, Thomas Lee Tully, Mike Finneran, Doug McGrath, Dave Adams, Arlee Reed, Kim Sebastian, David Pressman, Lila Finn, Perry Cook, Tiny Ron Taylor, Taylor Gilbert, Ele Keats, Danielle Bedau, Chance Michael Corbitt, Bob Sandman, Lori Lynn Ross, Kathleen Michaels, Merritt Yohnka, Peter Frankland, Kristopher Logan, Paul Forsyth, Craig Hosking, Steve Hinton Sr., Jim Franklin, Richard T. Brickert, Chuck Wentworth, Bill Turner, Bret Culpepper (uncredited), Scott Ditty (uncredited), Wilhelm Frick (archive footage) (uncredited), Adolf Hitler (archive footage) (uncredited), Michael Mills (uncredited), Steve Moriarty (uncredited), Tim Neeley (uncredited), Mitchell Shaw (uncredited) and William Woodson (Newsreel Announcer voice) (uncredited)
Director: Joe Johnston
Producers: Charles Gordon, Dave Stevens, Larry J. Franco, Lawrence Gordon, Lisa Bailey and Lloyd Levin
Screenplay: Dave Stevens (graphic novel "The Rocketeer"), Danny Bilson (story/screenplay), Paul De Meo (screenplay/story) and William Dear (story)
Composer: James Horner
Cinematography: Hiro Narita (Director of Photography)
Image Resolution: 1080p (Technicolor)
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 (Panavision)
Audio: English: 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
French: 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo Audio
English: 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo Audio
Subtitles: English SDH and French
Running Time: 108 minutes
Region: All Regions
Number of discs: 1
Studio: Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment / Silver Screen Partners IV
Andrew’s Blu-ray Review: ‘THE ROCKETEER’ [1991] film debuted in the cinema to great excitement and here the Walt Disney Studios pays homage to a film that celebrates B-movie serial films that you would view at the Saturday Morning Pictures that were so popular in those days and is a visually impressive restoration. Disney's ‘THE ROCKETEER’ is based on the comic book by Dave Stevens and has now been released on this Blu-ray to celebrate its 20-year anniversary.
The story takes place in 1938 Hollywood and centres on Cliff Secord [Billy Campbell], a young man who loves to fly planes. But his dreams suddenly take a sharp turn when the airplane he has spent most of his life building ends up broken into pieces on the runway after a shootout between the FBI and a couple of mob members. All appears to be lost until he discovers a small rocket engine hidden in one of the older planes where the mob stashed it for safe keeping. With the help of his mechanic, Peevy [Alan Arkin], and Cliff Secord manages to wear the engine and becomes “The Rocketeer.”
A gang of crooks has stolen a top-secret rocket backpack from Howard Hughes. Pursued by the FBI, they ditch it in Cliff Secord's hanger, where he finds it. After a few experiments to see how it works, he straps it on and becomes “The Rocketeer” that the newspapers call him and is born. But, while Cliff Secord's intentions are to use the pack only for honourable purposes and return it to the legitimate owner upon request, others want it for darker reasons, and they're willing to do almost anything to get it. Soon, Cliff Secord finds himself pursued by gangsters, Nazis, and a big, ugly man with a rubber mask.
‘THE ROCKETEER’ film cheerfully tries to roll back the years by about a half-century and has all the ingredients that were once so popular in films of this genre, as per example: a hero with a good heart, a sexpot girlfriend with ample cleavage and a stunning smile, a dastardly villain with thoughts of world domination, and lots and lots of action. Director Joe Johnston, whose previous films include ‘Honey I Shrunk the Kids’ and ‘Jumanji,’ but consciously goes for the retro feel and for the most part it is in my opinion totally successful.
‘THE ROCKETEER’ contains a fair number of special effects, most of which are the original "old-fashioned" way as opposed to CGI computer generated images that are produced today. When the film came out, and pioneering CGI computer generated effects were beginning to make their presence. The flying sequences are surprisingly believable, and the climactic sequence on the airship dirigible is by far a very impressive effects and of course nostalgia certainly plays a big role in ‘THE ROCKETEER’ films success. But on the other hand in ‘THE ROCKETEER’ it looks back nostalgia on Hollywood through the proverbial rose-tinted glasses, and showing us what we want to see and believe.
In the end, unfortunately, ‘THE ROCKETEER’ film was not a big box office smash hit that the Walt Disney Studios was so hoping for, but because on its release in the cinema people thought it had a slightly old-fashioned outlook and approach genre. ‘THE ROCKETEER’ film has aged more gracefully than the ‘Batman’ film franchise. The image techniques used with this film gives it a very vibrant and rich look to it. You would be hard pressed to find many films of today’s standard that look as good as ‘THE ROCKETEER’ does with this brilliant Blu-ray disc, especially if you did not know this was made more 20 years ago, you would swear it was a brand new film. ‘THE ROCKETEER’ may be to some people not to be that perfect, but it's an excellent example of how to adapt a comic book hero to the big screen presentation and to me I loved this film a great deal and have a great fondness for it and especially the effort the director Joe Johnston has put his heart and soul into the film.
THE ROCKETEER MUSIC TRACK LIST
DER HOELLE RACHE – From Queen Of The Night's aria by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart [Performed by Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin]
YOU'RE A SWEET LITTLE HEADACHE (Written by Ralph Rainger and Leo Robin) (Vocals by Helen Forrest) [Performed by Artie Shaw and His Orchestra]
DRUM MAJORETTE (Written by Arnold Steck) [Performed by Arnold Steck]
AMBOSS POLKA (Written by A. Parlow)
VILIA (Written by Franz Lehár and Paul Francis Webster) [Performed by Artie Shaw and His Orchestra]
BEGIN THE BEGUINE (Written by Cole Porter) [Performed by Melora Hardin]
ANY OLD TIME (Written by Artie Shaw) (Vocals by Billie Holiday) [Performed by Artie Shaw and His Orchestra]
IN A SENTIMENTAL MOOD (Written by Duke Ellington)
WHEN YOUR LOVER HAS GONE (Written by E.A. Swan) [Performed by Melora Hardin]
NIGHT AND DAY (Written by Cole Porter)
EASY TO LOVE (Written by Cole Porter)
BARRAGE (accompanies the Nazi newsreel sequence) (Written by Charles Williams) [Performed by Charles Williams]
ALL DRESSED UP AND NO PLACE TO GO (Written by Oscar Levant and Edward Heyman) [Performed by Artie Shaw and His Orchestra]
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Blu-ray Image Quality – Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment presents ‘THE ROCKETEER’ with a top quality 1080p digital restoration that is very impressive and of course is helped along the way with a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. The blacks and contrast are solid, and the colours are accurate overall. There is some slight noise at times, but this was likely present in the original print of the film. The stunt scenes look especially great in high-definition and the wonderful edge detail in all those green screen shots makes the 1990s special effects really stick out. The encode image is fairly pristine and there is no compression or ghosting noted. And the print is clean, save for a speck of dust every now and then. The image does flicker from time to time, and cinematography does favour a soft visual design, but neither is too distracting. This film looks pretty remarkable in HD. In film terms, twenty years isn’t all that old, but for a twenty year film, this does look wonderful.
Blu-ray Audio Quality – Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment brings us ‘THE ROCKETEER’ with a 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio experience that sounds spectacular! The original score composed by James Horner sounds beautiful, and utilizes mostly the front left and right channels with some organic uses of the rear surround and subwoofer (LFE). However, the audio really flexes its muscle with the flight scenes, when the planes swoop and dive dynamically from speaker to speaker. Overall, the audio sound experience is crisp and perfectly balanced. There is plenty of action to give your audio system a very good workout, and supplementary channels are more restrained during more dramatic and dialogue-laden sequences. The audio track does provide an organic, impressive listening experience, especially considering the film is 20 years old now.
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Blu-ray Special Features and Extras:
Theatrical Trailer [1991] [480i] [1.37:1] [2:19] This is the Original Theatrical Trailer for the film ‘THE ROCKETEER.’ What a shame this could not have been shown in the proper Panavision 2.35:1 aspect ratio.
Finally, for those new to ‘THE ROCKETEER,’ the film was based on a comic series of the same name. In the film, Cliff Secord [Bill Campbell], a young down-on-his-luck pilot with dreams of making a name for himself, and getting the girl of his dreams girlfriend Jenny Blake [Jennifer Connelly]. When Cliff Secord and his old friend Peevy [Alan Arkin] stumble upon a mysterious self-manned rocket pack, and soon realises this could be his ticket. ‘THE ROCKETEER’ is a great piece of old school vintage cinema that has aged quite well over the years. Director Joe Johnston, his cast and his crew nail the film's 1930's authentic aesthetic and tone. And the narrative keeps you on your toes, especially as it is one of the best early comic-book adaptions of its time. ‘THE ROCKETEER’ is a fun combination of Indiana Jones derring-do, Iron Man aerial acrobatics, and a Flash Gordon-esque hero. The film might have flopped when it first got released, but ‘THE ROCKETEER’ remains a beloved cult classic film gem, that is a film that rightfully deserves the accolade. I really wish they had made some sequels to this since it would have been great to continue this series. Please note Disney: it is not too late! Very Highly Recommended!
Andrew C. Miller – Your Ultimate No.1 Film Aficionado
Le Cinema Paradiso
United Kingdom
