This week Shout! Factory enters the world of 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray with its latest release, Journey To Space. The film is the first in the company’s new line of Giant Screen films set to be released over the next few months. These short films, which were originally produced for IMAX-style theaters, take viewers on immersive journeys that explore our world and beyond, both in nature and in the scientific and technological advances made by the human race.
Journey To Space takes a look at one of the most exiting chapters of human innovation and exploration as it came to a close—the Space Shuttle program. The film discusses the missions to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, the missions to Mir, and the crowning achievement of the program—building the International Space Station. While the film doesn’t go into great detail about every mission, it does provide a nice overview of the program and some of its major achievements. The film then provides and interesting look at what lies ahead in the next chapter of humanity’s deep space exploration, and how Orion may be the innovation that will ultimately allow humans to step foot on Mars.
Journey To Space combines news footage, video shot by astronauts on their shuttle missions, stellar photos (in both senses of the word) captured by the Hubble telescope, time-lapsed footage taken from the ISS, computer-generated diagrams and more. All of this is integrated together to give viewers an amazing look at how the Space Shuttle program brought the stars a whole lot closer. The film is narrated by one of our most well-known space explorers, Sir Patrick Stewart (Star Trek: The Next Generation). Over the course of the film we also hear from astronaut Chris Ferguson, who served as Commander for the final shuttle mission; space suit designer Lindsay Aitchison; and next-generation astronaut Serena Aunon.
While the majority of the film was mastered using source material that was originally shot at 4-6K resolution, there is some footage that didn’t lend itself to being blown up for a 5-story screen. And so this material—such as the shuttle landings and transportation or the Challenger disaster news footage—does not appear full-screen. Instead, the filmmakers have created panels in the middle of the screen on which to display this footage. However, they have done a good job of blending these scenes into the narrative and I never found them to be distracting. They even found a visually-interesting way to utilize this footage in the 3D version.
I was thrilled to see that Shout! Factory combined the 3D Blu-ray & 4K UHD releases of Journey To Space into a single combo pack—something no other studio has done as of yet. This means the consumer doesn’t have to choose which format to purchase, or be forced to buy two copies of the same movie just to see it in 3D and in 4K. I am a huge fan of 3D, so that usually takes precedence over 4K when I’m forced to make a purchasing choice, so I was delighted that with this release, I got to see both versions, each of which has its own merits. To add to the consumer-friendliness of this release, the 3D Blu-ray disc allows for 2D playback, and the 4K UHD disc allows for playback either with or without HDR, giving viewers four different options on how to watch the film!
The 3D version: Half of this film was shot in native 3D, while another 15% was made up of 3D CGI shots. The 3D is primarily used to add depth to the picture. There are several scenes with the astronauts floating and working outside the ISS or space shuttle with the Earth deep in the background. There is also a lot of 3D footage of the astronauts floating around inside the shuttle or space station having fun with weightlessness, and the 3D adds some nice depth in these scenes as well. When we see footage of the shuttle launches, you also get a sense of the massiveness of the ship with all of the scaffolding that surrounds the rocket.
High-resolution shots of space and other planets taken via the Hubble telescope have been converted to 3D by and look quite phenomenal. Stars appear at many different levels of the screen. While I didn’t really notice any pop out of the screen moments, some of the 3D planet and ISS shots came pretty close. The 2D footage that is displayed on panels in the middle of the screen has been enhanced for the 3D version of the film. These panels appear to be floating at screen level thanks to the addition of 3D CGI backplates display things like closeups of space shuttle parts, or other items related to the footage in the background. This helps to give this 2D footage a nice 3D feel.
The 4K version: There are so many phenomenal, breath-taking shots in this film. I thought the 3D picture already looked great, but the 4K version adds in even more detail. In one scene where we see a shuttle taking off, you can even see a couple panels falling off of the nose of the rocket as it blasts off. And when I enabled the HDR playback, the already-stellar 4K picture looked even more brilliant, giving an almost 3D quality to some of the scenes, particularly the shots from the Hubble Telescope.
Both versions of the film utilize the same fantastic Dolby Atmos soundtrack. The narration is pretty much isolated to the center channel, while the rest of the channels are utilized to surround the viewer in an aggressive wall of sound that pretty much booms throughout the film. Whether it’s the bass rumbling as the space shuttle blasts off, or the surprise thud as something floating in the ISS hits the camera, or just the film’s uplifting and inspirational score, there is always something interesting happening in the film’s soundscape.
As for bonus material, both discs contain the same features— a 5-minute behind-the-scenes featurette where the filmmakers explain all of the technical merits of the film, a still photo gallery (in 4K on the UHD disc) and trailers for other Giant Screen films.
What’s Included:
Film: (41:34)
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4K Ultra HD:
- 2160p / Widescreen 1.78:1
- HDR and SDR
- Audio: English Dolby Atmos, French DTS-HD MA 5.1, Spanish DTS-HD MA 5.1
- Subtitles: English Closed Caption
- 1080p / Widescreen 1.78:1
- 3D and 2D
- Audio: English Dolby Atmos, French Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1
- Subtitles: English Closed Caption
Blu-ray:
Extras:
- Behind the Scenes (5:03)
Senior colorist John Daro and co-producer/VFX supervisor Rick Gordon give a technical discussion of how the film was made, including working in massive resolutions, creating/converting the 3D image, selecting 10K resolution photos, and their favorite sequences. - Picture Gallery (1:30)
Automated photo slideshow set to music that plays in a loop. Pictures cycle through every 5 seconds. This is offered in HD on Blu-ray and in 4K on the 4K UHD disc. - Trailers (8:26)
A collection of trailers for other IMAX films. Play All (in an endless loop) or select from “Last Reef”, “Wonders of the Arctic”, “Rocky Mountain Express”, “Journey To Space”, “Humpback Whales” and “Flight of the Butterflies”. These are offered in HD on Blu-ray and in 4K on the 4K UHD disc.
Final Thoughts:
Journey To Space is a highly-entertaining and informative look at not only the end-of-an-era in space exploration, but also an inspirational look at what is still to come. The film’s technical presentation is phenomenal—this is such a visually-stunning film to watch! The 3D version contains great depth, while the 4K version adds even greater detail to the already-phenomenal picture quality. If there’s one negative, it’s that there is only minimal bonus material included. However, Shout! Factory has still set a new consumer-friendly bar for how to release 4K titles by including both the 3D Blu-ray and the 4K UHD discs in the same combo pack—I hope that other studios take notice and follow suit. I highly recommend checking this out if you are looking for some 4K reference material or an interesting 3D documentary.
