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Reviews Wanted: The Time Machine(Rod Taylor)

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Reviews Wanted: The Time Machine(Rod Taylor)

Old 03-08-02, 12:54 PM
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Reviews Wanted: The Time Machine(Rod Taylor)

How good of a DVD is this movie? Special Features etc? How good of a plot does it have?Worth a purchase?

Your thoughts?
Old 03-09-02, 03:56 AM
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For me this is a must own DVD for the movie alone. I first saw it when I was about 10 years old, and it's been one of my favorites since. This version follows the book very closely. Although the special effects are a bit dated by today's standards (a lot of time lapse photography, obvious matte paintings, miniatures that don't look quite real), they were cutting edge at the time the film was made (1960 in think) and won an acadamy award. Even with its dated look this film is very watchable. From the victorian design of the time machine itself with that giant spinning disk, to the look of the world of 800,000 A.D. everything about it is just darn cool. And hey, in the future all of the women are blonde! The time travel scenes are very visual in nature with the time traveler narrating as he observes his surroundings. A fun and easy film to watch. Even my three year old son was entranced by the various images throughout the movie, and sat through the whole thing.

As far as the DVD itself, it's Anamorphic widescreen (about 1.85:1) and looks incredible despite its age. colors are bright, and I noticed very few flaws in the print if any (though I'll admit I don't pay that much attention to those things unless they are really distracting).

The sound has been remastered into DD 5.1, and does not contain the original mono soundtrack. Nonetheless, the sound is very well done. Most of the effects come from the front with occasional use of the surrounds. I have no complaints about the sound quality whatsoever.

Extras include an interesting hour+ long documentary hosted by Rod Taylor which explains some behind the scenes and production details, but the largest portion of the doc. goes to telling the story of the time machine prop itself. Including where it ended up after filming, its painstaking restoration, where it is now, and how it has been used in advertising and promotions such as the first Back to the Future film. One of the best parts of the documentary is a repairing of Rod Taylor and Alan Young in an improvised scene where the time traveler returns to the past as an older man, and tries to convince Filby to return to the future with him. This was done on a set in costume and is quite entertaining. This documentary was produced in about 1993. I don't know if it appeared on television or on a laser disk versionof the film.

The only other extras are the original 1960 trailer and cast and crew bios.

I highly recommend this DVD based on the film alone, but I found the documentary to be interesting enough that it too could be watched more than once.

Hope this helps you out.

Last edited by greatjedi; 03-09-02 at 03:59 AM.
Old 03-09-02, 09:45 AM
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It is worth buying if you can find it.
Picture, color transfer is great.
And the extras are good too!
A must buy, worth every penny!
Old 03-09-02, 08:54 PM
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Two words: Yvette Mimieux
Old 08-16-02, 01:06 PM
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I know it's been a long time since the review have been asked and a couple of persons already gave their opinions about the dvd.

I just wanted to add that the documentary with Rod Taylor is one of the funniest things I've ever watched while it's trying to be real serious.

You have to see Mr. Taylor talking to the ghost of George with great empathy. Or talking with a feeling of tender-loving-care about how they found the remains of the machine (the old beaten-down movie prop) and restored it to it's prime beauty.

And that new scene that is supposed to be happening after the movie (quite like a 10 minutes sequel to the film) is worth a thousand laughs.

You must buy this thing if you haven't allready got it.
Old 08-16-02, 11:39 PM
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The transfer is absolutely incredible! It looks better then a good bunch of the new releases coming out today! You will find the story much more interesting then the new version and it's only fault I would say are the Morlock's themsleves who weren't as menacing as they should have been. That is one point I will give to the new version... the Morlocks were MUCH MORE impressive in a menacing sort of a way!
Old 08-20-02, 11:45 AM
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Great disc!
Old 08-22-02, 08:55 AM
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I found this version to be way way better that the updated version that is out now. I was bored with the new version. I much rather the rod taylor version.
Old 08-23-02, 10:23 AM
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In fact, I don't even want to see that new version. It looks like a battlefield-earth-bad kind of movie.

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