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Woodstock: 40th Anniversary Revisited Blu-ray Review

By Rachel Cericola

The Film

You're not tripping and your math is not off. This year actually marks the 45th anniversary of the Woodstock Festival and the 44th of the landmark documentary, which followed a year later in 1970.

So why is Warner Bros. putting out this Woodstock: 40th Anniversary Limited Edition Revisited Blu-ray? Well, it looks like they want to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the greatest rock festival of all-time with a few new extras.

Before we get into those goodies, let's talk a little bit about the movie, Woodstock. If you haven't seen it from beginning to end, you're really missing out. This is not one of those movies where you can just see a few bits and pieces. Sure, maybe you're a Who fan or even a Sha Na Na fan and only wanted to see those few minutes. However, the fact that this event ever happened is what makes this film so worthy of its 225-minute runtime.

The amount of talent, the caliber of that talent, the attendees, and the fact that, in a pre-cell phone era, everything featured here managed to make it onto film is a real accomplishment. Well, at least most of it. Woodstock offers an almost-four-hour slice of life during that famous four-day festival. There were musical acts, speakers, interviews, rainstorms and spontaneous yoga sessions. There was also supposedly at least one birth, but thankfully, that was not captured on film. Everything else is an absolute must-see.

Woodstock-Hendrix.jpg
Jimi Hendrix closes out the iconic 1969 music festival, known as "Woodstock."

The Picture

As you can tell by the title, this is the same film that was released five years ago, so you aren't going to see any sort of upgrade on the 2.35:1 image. It's fuzzy, flickery, and faithful to the original film. Colors may be a little brighter and images may be slightly sharper, but there's not a ton of detail here. For example, Roger Daltrey's chest doesn't have its usual glisten. (Some of it still manages to make its way through though.) Despite being remastered just five years ago, this is the same hazy trip from 1969 -- and it's sort of wonderful. It really captures the era and the original footage. I couldn't imagine it being any better than this.

The Sound

The songs (and audio tracks) remain the same as well. Warner Bros. has included the same Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks that were previously released. I do think the TrueHD packs in slightly fuller sound. The bands seem a little bolder and those rainstorms just seem a bit more immersive, but overall, the sound quality isn't anything you'll want to demo. Some bands sound fantastic, while others deliver feedback, distortion and some muffling -- and not on purpose. That was just the nature of this four-day beast. That said, like the image, this is probably as good as Woodstock is going to get.

The Extras

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Okay. Take a seat and get ready to take this all in. The special features are what makes this release truly special. First and foremost, it's important to note that all of the extras are only available in Dolby Digital 5.1, with English SDH as the lone option for captions. That said, there are enough special features to keep you locked up and entertained for a day or two.

The main movie disc doesn't have any extras. In fact, once you pop in the disc, the movie loads right away, with no option for a main menu until the end of the film. Of course, you can call up settings and scene selections from your remote during the feature presentation. Also worth noting is that those options are only available while the movie is actually playing. The main menu only has a "Play Movie" option.

As far as special features, those are stretched across two separate Blu-ray discs. The first one includes four minutes with Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid as he talks up The Museum at Bethel Woods, as well as the "Customize Your Own Woodstock Playlist." The latter is exactly what it sounds like, allowing you to list the songs in any order you want them. From there, users can play all the songs, play only selected songs, and even save playlists. However, it's just the music; there are no other clips from the film featured here.

The bulk of goodies on this disc lies under "Woodstock: From Festival to Feature." This is a collection of 21 shorts that focuses mostly on the making of the movie. It's best viewed by selecting "Play All," since it runs about 77 minutes total.

The second disc of extras has an additional 16 songs not featured in the movie, including tracks from Crosby, Stills & Nash, The Who, Sha Na Na, The Grateful Dead, and more. If you didn't get enough of the concert during the actual film, this should keep you plenty entertained. It also features new "From Festival to Feature" footage, adding in more information about the movie and the actual event.

And just to make this set a little sweeter, Warner Bros. has included a bunch of collectibles, such as an iron-on patch and replicas of tickets, newspaper articles, and a piece that ran in Life magazine.

Final Thoughts

It's hard to recommend a Blu-ray that doesn't have the best AV possible, but here we are. The Woodstock: 40th Anniversary Limited Edition Revisited Blu-ray is a must-have for most. I say "most" because it's hard to recommend it to those of you who just purchased the 40th anniversary director's cut five years ago. The new extras are awesome, but the actual film is exactly the same. For the rest (and a few of you die-hards), this is an experience that should be enjoyed, savored and repeated. It's truly a stunning peek at an even more stunning event in music history.

Product Details

  • Musical Acts: Crosby, Stills & Nash, Canned Heat, Richie Havens, Joan Baez, The Who, Sha Na Na, Joe Cocker and the Grease Band, Country Joe and the Fish, Arlo Guthrie, Ten Years After, Jefferson Airplane, John Sebastian, Santana, Sly and the Family Stone, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix
  • Director: Michael Wadleigh
  • Audio/Languages: Dolby TrueHD 5.1 (English), Dolby Digital 5.1 (English)
  • Subtitles: English SDH, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Polish, Swedish, Japanese, Cantonese, Korean, Thai
  • Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
  • Number of Discs: 3
  • Rating: R
  • Studio: Warner Bros.
  • Blu-ray Disc Release Date: July 29, 2014
  • Run Time: 137 minutes
  • List Price: $39.96
  • Extras:
    • Extras Disc:
      • Behind the Story: The Museum at Bethel Woods
      • Additional Footage:
        • Woodstock: Untold Stories:
          • Customize Your Own Woodstock Playlist
          • Opening of Festival
          • Closing of Festival
        • Woodstock: From Festival to Feature:
          • The Camera
          • 365,000 Feet of Film
          • Shooting Stage
          • The Lineup
          • Holding the Negative Hostage
          • Announcements
          • Suits vs. Longhairs
          • Documenting History
          • Woodstock: The Journey
          • Pre-Production
          • Production
          • Synchronization
          • The Crowd
          • No Rain! No Rain!
          • 3 Days in a Truck
          • The Woodstock Effect
          • Living Up to Idealism
          • World's Longest Optical
          • Critical Acclaim
          • Courtesy of The Museum at Bethel Woods: The Hog Farm Commune
          • Hugh Hefner and Michael Wadleigh: The Woodstock Connection
    • More Extras Disc:
      • Woodstock: Untold Stories - Revisited
      • Woodstock: From Festival to Feature:
        • Restoration
        • Technical Difficulties
        • Woodstock: A Turning Point
        • Food, Lodging & First Aid
        • Reflections on an Era
        • Woodstock: A Farm in Bethel
        • A Cinematic Revolution
        • The Woodstock Generation
      • The Museum at Bethel Woods

What did you think?

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View all articles by Rachel Cericola
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