When I first heard of Life of Pi, I was quite frankly, doubtful. I was doubtful that a story of this sort would translate well to the screen never mind be done in 3D. I mean after all, the story of a boy stranded on a lifeboat with a tiger?
My doubt dissolved into a trance like amazement as I watched the 3D film for the first time.
Then something even more amazing occurred. The film was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won four including Best Director for Ang Lee, Best Achievement in Cinematography for Claudio Miranda, Best Original Score by Mychael Dana and Best Achievement Visual Effects for Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik DeBoer and Donald Elliott. With over $500 million at the worldwide box office, Life of Pi, had firmly established its place in film making history.
With all that to live up to the 3D Bluray had to deliver some amazing content as well.
And after watching it I must tell you, finish reading this, and immediately click the link to buy this for yourself!
As the tagline for the movie says, “Believe the unbelievable”, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment has delivered an amazing mix that give you gives you a wonderful insight into the creation of this modern-day classic.
Besides the amazing movie, Life of Pi, in both 3D and 2D, the 3D Bluray is packed with over two hours behind the scenes special features including deleted scenes and five documentaries that take you inside the making of this amazing 3D masterpiece.
We are used to seeing deleted scenes included in a 3D Bluray package, but watching these make you understand how difficult it was to choose the scenes to leave out.
The VFX progressions show how the live action scenes and CGI were plated together to create what we saw in the movie. By enabling the “Shot Indicator”, labels appear on the screen that explain which shots are “Animation” or “Plate” (green screen). The Tsimstum Sinking and The Wave Tank give you unique behind the scenes views of how these complex scenes were assembled.
And it was definitely fun to watch the theatrical trailer again in either 2D or 3D.
But what really makes this Bluray shine are the three documentaries that are included.
The 63 minute “A Filmmakers Epic Journey”, takes us inside the making of Life of Pi with interviews with the cast, while showing behind the scenes content. If you haven’t seen the movie before, it’s best to watch this after you watch the movie. It really showcases how difficult it was to create this film and what the cast and crew had to go through.
“A Remarkable Vision” at 20 minutes long takes you into the vision that Ang Lee and his troupe of visual wizards had to go through to make Life of Pi come to life.
And for those fans of Richard Parker “Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright” is a nine minute documentary of how the famous tiger was created. It compares the shots of the real tiger and his CG counterpart. It is amazing testimony to the state of modern CG. It is easy to see why Richard Parker was more than just a tiger.
The “Gallery” is a seven minute slideshow of the concept art that was created for the film.
In the documentaries we see a lot of the PreViz that was created for making the live and CG elements of the movie. But “Storyboards” gives you a glimpse of the storyboards used to guide Ang Lee and his team through the movie.
Another excellent bonus is in the BD Live Content. “The Importance of Storytelling” is a 20 minute documentary that chronicles the story of Life of Pi and storytelling in general. Crew and cast interviews reveal their strong feelings on the importance of the story. It really displays the passion that the filmmakers had in creating this tale.
Many times Blurays are filled with mindless additions that don’t add very much to the original movie. Life of Pi 3D Bluray is an amazingly well thought out tribute to movie making at its best.
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