In space, no one can hear you re-release a movie on home video. For whatever reason (okay, probably money), Alfonso Cuaron‘s "Gravity" is coming to Blu-ray again in a fancy Diamond Luxe Edition. So why should you bother with this? Well, you’ll get an awesome three new bonus features (whoa!), but for all you audiophiles, this version of "Gravity" will be the one to get. Why?
Namely, you’ll be able to blast your ear sockets with the film’s presentation via Dolby Atmos Technology, which we presume makes all previous iterations of "Gravity" sound like utter garbage. Or like barely tolerable garbage. But even more, there will be an option to watch Cuaron’s film in a "Silent Space Version" that strips away Steven Price‘s Oscar winning score, creating "a surprising cinematic experiment."
And we’ll give the folks behind this edition credit —it is an interesting concept. Presumably, all we’ll hear (in Dolby Atmos, of course) is Sandra Bullock tumbling around, breathing a lot, and calling for help all alone in outer space with Ghost Clooney, but will the tension and momentum sustain without Price’s crucial score, which also does a lot of the emotional heavy lifting? Guess there will only be one way to find out.
"Gravity" Diamond Luxe Edition arrives on February 10, 2015. Check out the artwork below along with a video of Cuaron talking about Dolby Atmos. [via The Film Stage]
Take that, Oscar winning composer Steven Price! Who needs your score when we can just wipe it out in the blink of an eye!
So, according to Mr. Jagernauth, the audio in a film consists of dialog and music. There is nothing else, correct? Not correct. In this film the score and the sound effects have been orchestrated to work extraordinarily well. They often seem to disappear into each other, which may have given Jagernauth the idea that there was no sound design in the film, only music and dialog. It would be fascinating to hear the track with only music, and with only sound design. I\’m all for extras like this on Bluray / DVD releases.
Randy Thom
Director of Sound Design
Skywalker Sound
Why would the score be taken out? Shouldn\’t a "silent space version" be just that, with the sound effects that wouldn\’t be heard in space taken out but the score left in tact?