Christmas Vacation

 

BOX-ART

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In 2015 a remaster of the film was released, but some versions re-use the original 2006 Blu-Ray's box-art. My guess is that since it was initially available as a steel-book, they just copy/pasted the original artwork rather than make new artwork for standard cases. The insanely annoying thing about this is that all the technical specifications on the back are completely incorrect now. To make things worse, the steel-book version was discontinued and the only way to get the remaster is to find one of the copies with the old box-art. The only way to know if you getting the remaster is to look at the disc art, which is a plain red disc.

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MENUS

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A simple red overlay menu is used, with all options popping up from there. A static render of Clark near the squirrel in the Christmas tree is show at the start.

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VIDEO

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The transfer looks great! With an almost double bit-rate average over the previous release, no compression artifacts are seen. A nice fine grain structure is present here while the original looked a bit splotchy and DNR'd at times, obscuring some finer details. Sharpness and clarity are a bit better, with the previously mentioned issues gone.

 

The contrast & colors are a bit controversial among picky fans, as it seems a bit different to the previous release. Blacks are darker, at times obscuring slight details in darker scenes that were visible in the previous transfer. I, personally, think that those details were never really meant to be visible anyways, as the original transfer would have been over-brightened for early home video. This seems like more of a, we're seeing it in a more accurate way to how it was supposed to be, rather than a creative change. The color grading is similar, with a more vibrant & cool winter blue-ish scheme rather than the neutral dull one seen on the original transfer.

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It's also worth noting that all versions, safe for the original cropped DVD & VHS, are presented in an open matte 1.78:1. The remastered version is a bit zoomed in at times. Again, this is probably more accurate as the original transfer would have been opened up more to avoid over-scan obscuring the edges on older TVs.

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AUDIO

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While the original Blu-Ray only had lossy Dolby 2.0 audio, this version has full 2.0 DTS-HD MA 24 Bit. A few dubs are also included on both versions, but this one has one extra.

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I assume the reason 2.0 is being used is because the film was mixed in Dolby Stereo, and never re-mixed in the more modern 5.1 configuration. Dolby Stereo, in theatrical mixing, is 4.0 folded into a 2.0 track.

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EXTRAS

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The extras are identical to the original Blu-Ray release, and special edition DVD for that matter, with a trailer and audio commentary. Strangely enough the original pan-&-scan DVD had four trailers, of which three were never re-released.

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FINAL THOUGHTS

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N/A

 

TECH. SPECS.
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                                                                 ASPECT RATIO: 1.78:1 (Open Matte Widescreen)

                                                                  VIDEO CODEC: AVC (32.78 MB/s) 
                                                           NUMBER OF DISCS: 1
                                                                       DISC SIZE: Dual-Layer
                                                                 REGION CODE: A
                                                                     SUBTITLES: English, Spanish, French, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Swedish
                                                                      RUN-TIME: 1 Hour 37 Minutes
                                                                           AUDIO: English DTS-HD-MA 2.0 (3.1 MB/s)

                                                                                      Spanish (Castilian & Latin) 1.0 & 2.0 (192 KB/s)