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Dances with Wolves (Special Extended Edition) Customer Reviews (40 - 42 of 64 Reviews)

Beautiful film of a bygone era
Sumptuous, delicious, beautiful movie about a white soldier's journey of self-discovery with a Lakota Sioux tribe.

Lt. John Dunbar, a Civil War hero by accident (he was trying to kill himself), gets a second chance at life when he's allowed to choose his next military assignment. He chooses to see the frontier--"before it's gone". Arriving at the fort, he finds it abandoned, disheveled, broken down. As he tries to rebuild the fort and enjoy the scenery, hoping to see buffalo, he befriends a wolf, Two Socks. Eventually the local Indians come to check him out, and Dunbar and his neighbors draw closer through a series of stop-and-start encounters. He draws close enough to become one of them--but then Army life intrudes into the near-idyllic scene.

The details of the prairie and of Sioux village life are breathtaking. The music by John Barry is atmospheric and inspiring. I would hope those viewing the film will ask themselves what it would have been like to live an Indian village, if they would have been up to its demands and open to its possibilities.

Curious About This DVD? Read this...
This is one of my most favorite movies, mostly because I connect with it in a very personal way. No, I haven't lived among native americans or anything like that, but I see this movie as a story about a man who discovers himself, something that every man is forced to do at some point in his life. Some complain that this movie is "slow." As for me, I love every minute of it. Plus, John Barry's score for the film contains music that makes you feel as if it came down from heaven itself. It's funny too because I'm not exactly a huge Kevin Costner fan. However this is film is such a triumph for him that even though many of his movies have flopped since then, you can't deny that for an actor to direct himself in a movie that no movie studios wanted to produce that ended up winning all those oscars is quite impressive.

The Downside -
This is the third time this DVD has been released in the U.S. And still, I'm not completely satisfied. This release has wonderful bonus features, interviews, etc. However the sound is not DTS and the picture quality isn't quite as good as previous releases. This makes no sense to me. The DTS version that went out of print sounded great, but it was on 2 discs. The THX version was on 1 convenient disc, but no DTS and .. no extras. This time around we finally get the extended version and other great extras, yet we don't get the best sound or picture quality. Alas... if only we could watch the extended version on one disc, with optimum picture quality and DTS sound, with all the bonus features on the second disc. Why not make a third disc with the original cut of the movie as well? It's frustrating!!

Wonderful movie, but DVD quality so-so
This is my all-time favorite film, and the other reviewers do an already fine job of reviewing the movie itself. I have owned four different versions of this release... two on VHS (the original and extended-length versions), and two on DVD (the original DTS version and this new release).

PICTURE: While some scenes on this new DVD are absolutely stunning visually, it appears to me that about 1/4 of the scenes have very lackluster color. This effect is very noticable. Spectacular blue skies and vibrant green grasses in some scenes are followed by others that appear as if someone turned down the colors on my television set (I am using a Denon 2800II DVD player and a Samsung HLN-507W DLP HDTV).

SOUND: The original DTS version of the film sounded better than this one. My reference scene (and the one I use to demo my home theater to friends) is of course the buffalo hunt. The DTS version sounded crisper and more detailed... I found this Dolby Digital version somewhat muddier.

This DVD is still a must-own for fans of the movie. I'm just disappointed that it didn't receive the video and audio treatments it deserved. Many DVDs are released in both the Dolby Digital and DTS audio formats... why wasn't this one?

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