The tight grain of the image, so important a component of Mr. Willis’s original low-light photography, has returned to particularly spectacular effect in the four-disc Blu-ray edition. The effect is not unlike that of a pristine 35-millimeter print projected in perfect focus — a rare enough phenomenon in a movie theater and, until quite recently, inconceivable in the living room.

This crappy duplication of the original stock contains scratches, nicks, color washout and flickering, all problems that can be solved by frame by frame digitizing and restoration. They opted not to do one damn thing to create the lush, rich, colorful and remarkably sharp DVD experience, instead the quality is that of a brand new VHS on a good machine.

Here's my first problem with it (and it's THE major problem)- The films were NOT restored for this release. The source prints used for the first two movies were damaged. Numerous wear spots and flecking, graininess in many scenes. Artifacts are readily apparent and often distract. What a blunder, what sheer laziness and bottom line gluttony. I can understand the greed-head thinking on Paramounts part, they didn't have to spend any extra money on restoration to satisfy film buffs, DVD collectors and assorted video geeks as they would have normally for a DVD release of a film classic (i.e. Warner's brilliant Citizen Kane release). This is one of the most popular films of all time and the public at large will buy, buy, buy. Unfortunately, they are right.