Outland - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Outland



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


​

Movie
I still remember being a kid in the VERY early 90s and finding out that my hero Sean Connery had done a sci-fi western in space, and I immediately wanted to see it. At the time, I was only 9 or 10 years old and wasn’t familiar with Peter Hyams at the time, but I would soon come to realize that one of my favorite 80s and 90s directors was the same man who directed my childhood “space western” back before Serenity was the rage.

Best known for portraying the legendary James Bond, Connery wanted to do a western in space back in the 80s, and found that the studios really weren’t that interested in making those anymore, let alone a western of any kind. But soon found his outlet in Peter Hyams, who also had been told by studio heads that making a big-budget western wasn’t a viable solution. Hyams had been working on a Space Western script for years, having code labeled it IO (in regards to Jupiter), and finally got his go-ahead by Warner Brothers. So in 1981, he and Sean Connery teamed up for what they considered a modern-day retelling of High Noon (one of the best westerns ever made), just in a space station setting. The only thing was, the film was a gigantic flop on arrival, barely netting 17 million dollars worldwide on a 16 million dollar budget. But over the years, fans would be inexorably drawn to he quirky Neo-Western film, creating a sort of cult like following that would maintain drawing in members to the fold over the next 44 years.

William O’Niel (Connery) is 2 weeks into a one-year-long tour as Marshall on the Con-Am mine on IO, and already his family is falling apart. His wife Carol (Kika Markham) is at the end of her rope following her husband along on crap assignment after crap assignment due to O’Niel’s tendency for the brass to hate his direct approach to law and order. Taking their son Paul (Nicholas Barnes) back to earth in the middle of the night, the aging lawman is left alone on a space station filled with overworked miners, and a plant manager (Peter Boyle, “holy crap!”) who is more interested in the Marshall being a paid hand rather than an actual lawman.

O’Niel starts to notice that a few crewmen have gone stir crazy, offing themselves in bizarre ways, and realizes that it’s more than just a couple of overworked miners. The last month alone had over 10 times the amount of deaths as the previous month's average, and all of them in insane ways. Digging deeper into it, the beleaguered lawman figures out the truth. The plant manager has been sneaking in a designer drug that is Meth on steroids, allowing the workers to double their output and ramp up production for the company. The only downside is, the drug has a known side effect of turning its users into raging psychotics with full mental breakdowns after nearly a year of continuous use. Which means that more men are going to die, and the powers that be are going to stop at nothing to silence O’Niel if he doesn’t play ball. Aaaaaaaand of course, James Bond is not going to roll over and play dead, prompting the Plant Manager to call in a couple of hitmen to take him out. Now it’s 20 hours and counting until the professional hitters come in, and no one is going to back O’Niel up, leaving the man to prep and steel himself for a giant showdown in space.

Chugging through the commentary, Peter Hyams mentions the obvious in that he took a lot of inspiration from Ridley Scott’s Alien and Blade Runner in creating the gritty feeling of space, with an old-fashioned vibe. The film plays out like Deadwood meeting High Noon, with Sean Connery and his brogue grimly awaiting the inevitable, while still determined to do the right thing. There are no signs of a Utopian society, ala Star Trek, but one that has been overrun by corporate greed, lust, and men who will do anything for power. O’Niel himself struggles with his own desire to leave with his family, even going so far as to put his own life on the line to do what he knows is honest and just, but Hyams leaves just enough of a happy ending to fulfill the audience's desires as well. But at the same time, those happier and “family moments” are some of the cheesiest parts of Outland. The interaction between him and his son over the communicator is sweet and sets the stage for O’Niel’s inevitable reunion with them, but it also reeks of bad acting on the kids' part and clumsy writing.

That minor nitpick aside, Outland is a blast of a Neo-Western in space. Connery was in his early 50s at that point, but still cast an imposing shadow over everyone else with his 6 foot 2 inch frame, and the use of nothing but classic projectile weapons over using something more “spacey” was a nice touch (seriously, the only weapons in the entire film were Browning 2000 shotguns with pistol grips, even though it was set 150 years in the future). The flick is gritty, rough, and very little humor enters into the picture, yet it remains ryely cheeky. Peter Boyle is spot on perfect as the sleazeball manager of the plant, but it’s really the relationship with Dr. Lazarus (Frances Sternhagen) that is the heart and soul of the entire film. The two start out with a rather contentious relationship in the first 20 minutes, only for both of their continued desire for the truth ending up bonding them to the point where her interaction with his are vital for his very survival later on.




Rating:

Rated R by the MPAA




4K Video: Video:

I always thought that the 2012 Warner disc looked great in 1080p, and it still does look good. Though I might downgrade my original 4.5/5 rating to a 4/5 because mastering and Blu-ray authoring have gotten so much better over the years. But that notwithstanding, the new Arrow transfer looks amazing. The film has always had a gauzy and slightly soft look due to some of the optical effects Peter Hyams was working for, and that is replicated here in all of its 4K glory. The new transfer is very textural, showing a ton of fine details that I could never pick up from the 1080p disc, including seams and creases on the practical effects, as well as lines and bits of debris on O’Niel’s face after getting shot at by one of the assassins. The Dolby Vision and HDR applications are judiciously done, with slight tweaks to the overall look, while not oversaturating anything. Outland is a very bleak and gray-looking picture, with tons of steel gray bulkheads to get lost in. Splashes of color break up the gray monotony, but overall, this is not going to be a film that really “pops” in HDR. Instead, the blacks are super clean and inky, and subtle little changes to things like the orange on a suit, or the blue on O’Niel’s uniform, stand out more than the SDR version. While this is not going to be a shock-and-awe type 4K image, Outland looks extremely clean and filmic, and by far the best it has ever looked.







Audio:

Arrow offers dual audio options for listeners on the disc, giving us an uncompressed LPCM 2.0 theatrical mix that the old Warner Blu-ray didn’t have, AND a 5.1 DTS-HD MA track as well. But one minor thing of note is that this is not the same 5.1 DTS-HD MA track just re-reported over by Arrow. It sounds to be a new mix, with a slightly improved dynamic range going on. Bass is punchier, the track sounds like squashed, and overall is a nice, improved take on the older Warner 5.1 mix. But personally, the 2.0 LPCM track is where it's at if you’re a purist. The mix is more front-heavy heavy of course, but it does well with the claustrophobic nature of the IO space station, and does well with what activity it is given. Gunshots have some weight, as does the rumble of the arriving shuttle, but this is not a bass-heavy film by any means. Vocals are clean and clear. Locked up front where they should be. Surrounds on the 5.1 track are good, but not overly done considering that this was a 2.0 track originally, leaving them fairly light except for mild ambient sounds and a few moments near the end with the gunshots.








Extras:

• Archive audio commentary by writer-director Peter Hyams
• Brand new audio commentary by film critic Chris Alexander
• A Corridor of Accidents, a newly filmed interview with writer-director Peter Hyams
• Outlandish, a newly filmed interview with the director of photography, Stephen Goldblatt
• Introvision: William Mesa on Outland, a newly filmed interview with visual effects artist William Mesa
• No Place for Heroes, a brand new appreciation by film scholar Josh Nelson
• Hollywoodland Outland, a brand new visual essay by film historian Howard S. Berger
• Theatrical trailer
• Image gallery
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Pye Parr
• Double-sided foldout poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Pye Parr
• Illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing by film critics Priscilla Page and Brandon Streussnig

Final Score: ​

Peter Hyam’s Outland wasn’t exactly a commercial success, nor would it rival his later works with Timecop or 2010: The Year We Make Contact, but it was a fun little remake of High Noon with that '80s grit and depressing grunge that was so popular in sci-fi films of that era. Arrow’s remaster looks freaking fantastic, and the new 5.1 Dolby Digital track improves slightly on the 5.1 track Warner Bros. used on their decade-plus-old Blu-ray. Great watch for sci-fi and western fans alike.



Technical Specifications:

Starring: Sean Connery, Peter Boyle, Frances Sternhagen
Directed by: Peter Hyams
Written by: Peter Hyams
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 HEVC
Audio: English: LPCM 2.0 Theatrical, English DTS-HD MA 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH
Studio: Arrow
Rated: R
Runtime: 109 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: November 4th, 2025

Recommendation: Great Watch

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

​