Stand By Me - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Stand By Me



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



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Movie
When people think of Stephen King they automatically envision his more prolific horror films and novels, but probably his most influential novel to film adaptation has to be 1986’s Stand By Me. Devoid of horror and suspense, Stand By Me is an incredibly peaceful and emotionally impactful coming of age story (probably THE most influential coming of age film to date) about a group of young 12 year old boys on the cusp of adulthood. Originally based off of a novella from King titled “The Body”, the movie simply outpaces the short story in every way shape and form, becoming one of the biggest 80s hits and becoming one of my most watched films ever. Sadly I wasn’t able to review the 2019 4K UHD when it came out, but being that Sony is on a mission to re-release all of their HDR only 4K’s with Dolby Vision (and steelbook collectible packaging) I was able to get my mitts on this new edition and give it a spin for you.

Narrated through the eyes of adult Gordie Lachance (Richard Dreyfuss), our story transports us back to 1959 when Gordie (Wil Wheaton) and his three friends Teddy (Corey Feldman), Chris (River Phoenix) and Vern (Jerry O’Connell) are on the cusp of going to middle school and dealing with all the stresses of growing up. The set of friends have been hanging out since childhood, but now that they’re going to middle school the group appears to be on the verge of going their separate ways due to familial reasons. Vern kick starts the main plot by coming in and telling the rest of the guys that he found the dead body of a missing child and in all their childlike enthusiasm the gang heads out to take a look.

What sounds like a simple day trip for the boys is actually that simple. The film doesn’t go into any massive story arcs filled with adventure and a thrilling conclusion. This 89 minute film is quite simply a day in the life of 4 friends, filled with the boys talking crap about each other like 12 year old boys do (wow, this brought me back to my own childhood, as I recognized more than a few epithets my friends and I used with each other back in the day), dodging trains on the railroad tracks, and forging their way through the surrounding woodland of the Oregon rural countryside on their way to “checking out a dead body man!”.

However, the film is anything but simple underneath. The boys each have their own problems that they’re struggling with, and each and every step of the journey allows the audience to watch the pieces of their past pepper the landscape with narrative tidbits. Chis is the delinquent “leader” of the group, struggling to know what to do with his life. Everyone thinks of him as a juvenile thug version of his older brother, while Teddy is deal with the pain of having his own father abuse him. Vern is pretty much oblivious to everything, but Gordie himself carries the biggest weight on his shoulders as his brother (played by John Cusack in flashbacks) recently died, and poor Gordie hasn’t even allowed himself to grieve yet.

On paper Stand By Me doesn’t look that great. It’s a simple coming of age story with 4 friends horsing around on a trip to check out something cool, and not much happens in the way of action (outside of the end confrontation with the local punk gang headed up by Kiefer Sutherland). However, what makes this story special is just how artfully Reiner blends in all of the boys life stories into the narrative. Nothing is heavy handed and in your face, but rather the natural outpourings of 4 dorky 12 years olds informing the audience of their pain and suffering. It’s a story of simple childhood friendship, and it doesn’t need to be any more than that. I honestly have a hard time putting my finger on the exact reason WHY Stand By Me is so good. But no matter the cause, it is quite literally one of THE best coming of age stories of all time.

The second reason that I think the film knocks it out of the park is the casting and acting by the 4 kids. Wheaton, O’Connell, Phoenix and Feldman are on point with their performances. They literally give their all to the story and come across as natural and believable 12 year old kids. Growing up in the 1980s I can 100% verify that what I saw on screen was pretty much how my friends and I acted growing up in Oregon (I lived just south of Portland actually). It’s just such an organic and fantastic display of chemistry and probably the single main reason why the film just WORKS on every level. It’s been nearly 30 years since I saw the film as an 11 your old boy on late night TV, and I still can watch the entire thing without noticing just how much time has gone by until the credits roll. Absolutely mesmerizing is all I can say.




Rating:

Rated R By the MPAA




4K Video: Video:

Since I never got ahold of the 2019 4K UHD disc I can’t give a direct comparison to anything but the Blu-ray disc, but judging by what I’ve seen of Sony re-releases on the 4K format, the differences will be slight. Their use of HDR has usually been excellent, and the inclusion of Dolby Atmos is more of a fine tuning rather than a revolutionary difference.

Now, comparing against the 2011 Blu-ray is another experience entirely. The Blu-ray sported a decent transfer, but one that was heavily brightened and had a rather large red push in my personal opinion. This 2160p image is light years better than the 1080p disc, showing a more tamed brightness level, and the new Dolby Vision color enhancements make this an entirely different film. The palette is much more stable, with a lot more pop to primary colors (luscious Oregon greens, blue water, or the bright red shirt that Gordie wears). The previous Blu-ray was what I would consider mildly flat, but the new disc is just so much more robust and vivid with it’s colors, and the fine details are stupendous. The grain has been left intact, giving us a natural and filmic look that sometimes has a few grain spikes, but otherwise is lovingly textured and unmarred by major digital manipulation. Black levels are deep and inky, but really, it’s those colors that make this film just POP off the screen. Great looking transfer and probably the best I have ever seen the film look.








Audio:

While the 4K UHD disc transfers over across the 5.1 DTS-HD MA and the 2.0 Mono original theatrical mix (also in DTS-HD MA lossless) it also introduces a brand new Atmos track that I feel is a BIT overkill for the film’s sound design. Stand By Me is a very front heavy mix, and one that is generally more subdued than most other films of it’s era. About 70% of the activity stems from the front of the room, with a great dialog track in the center and the ambient forest sounds coming in through the mains. Overheads mainly get used with the score here, but it does have a few moments of excitement that bring in the sides and reads to compliment as well (that train chase early in the film, or the gunshot as Gordie faces off against Ace), but overall this is still a fairly neutral front heavy mix and I’m not sure what Atmos was chosen. That being said, there’s nothing technically wrong with the mix outside of the fact that it really doesn’t stretch the capabilities of the audio format. Solid all the way around.













Extras:

4K UHD Disc
• Deleted & Alternate Scenes

Blu-ray Disc
• 25 Years Later: A Picture-in-Picture Commentary Retrospective
• Audio Commentary
• Walking the Tracks: The Summer of Stand By Me
• Stand By Me Music Video
• Previews

Final Score: ​

Stand By Me stands as one of the greats of the 1980s, and probably one of the most quintessential coming of age films ever made. I still can’t put my finger on just WHY the film has become so beloved over the last 27 years, but it just hits EVERY emotional chord perfectly. Maybe it’s because I grew up in the 80s when this was made and I identify so much with the kids and their relationships, or maybe it’s because Rob Reiner was a master story teller. It’s a movie about a bunch of kids on a day trip to check out a dead body, but somehow manages to pull you into the story and never once check the time on your watch. Sony’s 4K steelbook naturally has a new encode with added Dolby Vision over the 2019 disc, otherwise the two 4K discs are identical. If you have the 2019 4K UHD disc I’d hesitate on ordering because the upgrade in picture quality due to the Dolby Vision inclusion is very subtle and only is noticeable if you’re A/Bing the two discs side by side. But if you’ve never owned this film before in 4K, then it is WELL worth upgrading over the 12 year old Blu-ray by a goodly margin. Great Buy.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell, Kiefer Sutherland, John Cusack, RIchard Dreyfuss
Directed by: Rob Reiner
Written by: Stephen King (Novella), Raynold Gideon, Bruce A. Evans (Screenplay)
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 HEVC
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos, Enlighs DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono, Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish (Latin), Spanish (Castilian) DD 5.1
Sugtitles: English, English SDH, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Korean, Mandarin (Traditional), Norwegian, Polish, Slovak, Swedish, Thai, Turkish
Studio: Sony Pictures
Rated: R
Runtime: 89 minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: December 5th, 2023

Recommendation: Great Buy

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. This is a great movie to own.

 

[Asere]

Thanks for the review. Yup, when kids used to play outside. I may get this one but it is steep right now for being such an old movie.