Avatar 4K UHD Blu-ray Review | A Complete Guide To Avatar’s Home Entertainment Options

hey everyone Jeff here from films at

home and today we're diving into the

world of Pandora and avatar on 4K

Blu-ray

[Music]

hey everyone thanks for coming back to

the channel today and I'm very excited

that we're reviewing Avatar because this

is maybe not only the most anticipated

4K UHD Blu-ray release of 2023 but

possibly one of the most anticipated

releases of all time people have been

asking me when I was going to film this

review when I was going to get this done

when is this releasing this has been a

question since I started on YouTube and

finally I have in my hands the Avatar 4K

UHD Blu-ray from Disney so we're going

to talk quickly about the movie itself

because many other people have covered

that and then we'll dive into a

breakdown on the picture quality

comparing it to the Blu-ray release and

to the Disney plus stream because there

are some differences there that you have

to note we'll talk audio we'll talk

packaging special features different

cuts of the film what's available here

and then ultimately give you a

recommendation on whether or not this

one is worth picking up for your

collection so to kick things off on the

movie briefly this I don't know if this

will come as a shock to some people I

think I've been kind of vocal about this

but Avatar is not my favorite movie by

any means I just never really vibed with

it when it came out I didn't really like

it when I saw Avatar the way of water I

was still kind of like okay I'm not in

love with this series I don't know I

just never truly connected with Avatar

the story felt very generic to me it a

lot of people say it's basically

Pocahontas with blue people right which

I kind of get I think it's a little more

complicated than that but it's the

technical effects for sure they were

incredible in 2009 they were incredible

in 2022 when this sequel came out what

James Cameron has done with these movies

is nothing short of amazing he's pushing

boundaries I've just never connected

with the characters the stories I just

don't care about the navi in this whole

story the same way that I care about you

know the fellowship in Lord of the Rings

or the same way that I care about you

know Luke Skywalker and Leia and Han and

Star Wars I just never connected with

that Core group so I haven't really been

into the movies but I know there are a

lot lots of super fans they obviously

print money at the box office and I can

even not liking the movies say with full

honesty that the technical aspects of

all of these are pretty incredible now

Avatar's here for the first time ever in

4k UHD with HDR and this is all based on

a new 4k HDR and 3D remaster that James

Cameron did in anticipation of the

sequels release they put this back out

in theaters so this was supervised by

James Cameron he looked over it it was

completely redone for HDR coloring it

was put out in theaters in 3D with a

high frame rate and some variable frame

right there you're not getting any of

that craziness on the disk with the

variable frame rate Blu-ray can't do

that the disc either needs to be 24 or

60 frames per second so there's no

variable frames per second here no

variable frame rate but you do get this

new HDR color grade and you get a new 4k

scan now if we look at this versus the

Blu-ray which I have here in my

collection the old Blu-ray collectors

Edition the biggest difference is

immediately the HDR the colors on this

are pretty mind-blowing the blues are so

so bright they're so much more vibrant

than what you can get on Blu-ray that's

just HDR for you and James Cameron

mentioned when talking about this

remaster that when wetta the company who

did all the effects for this film

actually rendered all of those effects

they rendered them in high dynamic range

so they were already ahead of the curve

they were doing things in HDR so this

was simply kind of flipping a switch

turning that on and maybe playing with

the adjustments a little bit but they

were ready for it and you can tell

because flipping that switch to HDR it's

really mind-blowing now when you talk

about like the detail of the disc here

and the quality of the the picture

the 4K is really really good what it

does do is it exposes some of the lower

resolution CGI I talked about this with

the way of water again when I reviewed

it on Disney plus but when you have a

human who's shot in very high resolution

against a backdrop of 2K CGI rendered

characters that can be a little bit

jarring all of the scenes where it's

primarily CGI it's Navi on Pandora they

look great the minute you introduce

humans it goes a little bit uncanny

valley it goes a little bit it looks

like Halo to me you know that's kind of

what I always think of I was a big halo

player when I was younger and I always

look at this and go this is a video game

this is Halo this is what that looked

like so the scenes that are great are

great but the 4K does expose some more

of that sort of low-res CGI which is to

be expected so it just doesn't blend as

well as the Blu-ray but it is a much

much higher quality picture the detail

is outstanding and the Blu-ray is really

good but this takes it to the next Next

Level so no complaints there it's just

that with better picture quality and

better detail on some of the images when

you do dip down to lower rendered CGI

there starts to be a noticeable

difference there but thankfully even

though Disney has not done this on any

other releases at least in a very long

time they did use a hundred gigabyte

disk here so Disney has been using 66

gigabyte disks and that can really

compress films down it's not a whole lot

more space than an HD Blu-ray at 50 gigs

right so that can be a problem with some

Disney Blu-rays is a little bit of

compression low bit rates but James

Cameron's James Cameron and he gets what

James Cameron wants and if he wanted 100

Gig disk and the highest bit rate

possible they were going to give it to

them and they did so it's a 100 Gig disk

it's really high quality you don't have

to worry about compression here even

though the movie's nearly three hours

long I think it fits fairly well on this

disc with a really solid bit rate and

really great quality so I had no issues

at all with that and I'm really happy to

see they used 100 Gig disk here now the

other comparison point we have to talk

about when it comes to picture quality

is HDR specifically Dolby Vision HDR

because on Disney plus if you watch

Avatar in 4k you get Dolby Vision HDR if

you're watching here on this 4K disk you

do not get Dolby Vision you just get HDR

10. Disney does not have a license to

put out Dolby Vision on physical media

they just haven't paid for it haven't

cared to do it but they do have one for

streaming so this has been a major

difference with Marvel's movies with all

the latest Disney cartoons and animated

films and it's an issue again here with

Avatar however I will say that it's not

a huge difference I watched avatar on 4K

Disney Plus

on a couple of different TVs both with

Dolby Vision turn the Dolby Vision off

still was kind of similar but if you

really look at the 4K disc that quality

of the disc is just so much higher than

what a Disney plus stream can give you

and it's not like their iMacs enhancing

It on Disney plus they could do with

some Marvel movies it's not like you got

a 66 gigabyte disk where the compression

is a little bit closer this is a 100 Gig

disk with great HDR and honestly the

Dolby Vision it just doesn't add that

much for me you're getting a far better

experience on the disk than you're

getting on Disney plus yeah a couple

moments might be a little bit brighter

or a little bit more vibrant I don't

know I could go back and forth honestly

placebo effect there to a certain degree

just because I'm thinking Dolby Vision

this looks fantastic on disk and there's

no comparison when it comes to the

compression and the detail of the

picture the 4K disc is the clear winner

now with the audio we do get a Dolby

Atmos track here which is another

exciting upgrade over what was available

on Blu-ray and it's pretty good this is

I would say not your typical Disney

Atmos and again think that has to do

with who's involved here James Cameron's

involved James Cameron's going to make

it right there's a reason this took so

long to come out on disk it had to be

perfect in his eyes which isn't always

the right thing Terminator 2 but in this

case I think he did the right thing and

the atmos had a pretty good kick to it

one of the areas where Disney ammos

always lacks is on the lower end and I

thought that I got a lot more lower end

activity here when some of the big tanks

and the big you know military equipment

starts rolling across the runways

that boom is pretty solid when they're

flying their little you know helicopters

whatever you want to call them air

copters you know they're little

hovercraft machines

that's pretty solid and the music sounds

great I thought the dialogue for some

reason was a little bit on the muted

side I did you know pump up my volume

just a couple ticks but that was my only

minor complaint everything else sounded

pretty good and it it sounded like they

made good use of the atmos track which

Disney doesn't always do sometimes it's

sort of a I call it a marketing gimmick

right you're just putting the name out

there but it's not in full effect but I

think it was here I definitely had a

much better experience than most discs

this lines up with some of the I

wouldn't call this like a top 10 Atmos

disc but it lines up with some of the

better Atmos sound out there and I

thought it was a really good sound

experience so it's definitely an upgrade

over the 1080p Blu-ray when it comes to

sound and it's definitely an upgrade

over Disney plus the Disney plus Atmos

is not real Atmos if you ask me it's a

compressed lossy version of Atmos this

is true Dolby true HD lossless audio

full-on Atmos on the disk you're only

going to get it here on the disk no

streaming platform can give give you

that and that's the quality that

physical media enthusiasts at home

theater enthusiasts are going to look

for and I'm happy to report that it is

here in full effect so picture quality

great audio quality great the AV specs

on this are really really solid now

let's talk packaging let's talk special

features because this is one area where

I think hardcore collectors and physical

media enthusiasts and fans of this movie

might want a little more so I actually

like the packaging I like a white slip

cover really clean has nice artwork you

know redid the artwork it's got the some

you know info on the back with some

additional artwork got the A on the side

nice spine like overall nice on the

inside you've got the same artwork and

then kind of annoyingly rather than

doing a tray that you could actually put

a third disc on they stacked discs so

actually the 4K was on this side and a

special features disc was stacked

underneath it and the Blu-ray was over

here I swapped them because I don't want

my 4K disc getting scratched that's more

prone to scratches but it still means

that you have stacked discs which

personally drives me nuts I find it a

little bit lazy it's one extra piece of

plastic and a little disc tray in there

and you could have had a full collector

set with three discs without needing to

stack them I just don't like to put one

disc on top of another you're asking for

scratches so that's a personal pet peeve

of mine but it's great that there is a

third special features disc and there's

over three hours of bonus features

including a couple of new behind the

scenes features which were not on any

previous releases so those include

memories from Avatar which is a look

back with the cast Sigourney Weaver

Stephen Lang Sam Worthington Zoe Saldana

John Landau Avatar a look back again

with the cast and filmmakers reflecting

on uh making the movie The

groundbreaking Tech and then there's

like capturing Avatar which is a full

length documentary which is very cool

with James Cameron and then a bunch of

different features there are 17

different featurettes I could give you a

full list here it's a whole bunch of

behind the scenes stuff most of them

five to ten minutes long so that's

really good right 3 hours plus of bonus

features is great for a Disney catalog

release it's great for any release

that's a lot of features but it's

missing some stuff so if we look over

here at the Blu-ray collector's edition

the first thing it's missing is the

extended version of the film which is on

this Blu-ray set is not on this 4K that

adds about 16 minutes of additional

footage so you're not getting the

Extended Cut here doesn't exist on 4K it

is in the collector set this also

includes the uh alternate opening on

Earth which is an exclusive here this

also has capturing Avatar which is a

feature length documentary and it's got

45 minutes of deleted scenes it's got

interactive C and D construction it has

the 17 featurettes and then it has the

art of Avatar with over 600 images this

set has eight hours of never foresee

material it has 45 minutes of deleted

scenes

it just simply has a lot more content

plus additional Cuts alternate openings

things that unfortunately did not make

their way to the 4K so hardcore fans out

there your best AV experience is going

to be the 4K disc but you're not getting

the best collectors experience by buying

this it is lacking five hours of

features and it's lacking a lot of other

things like those extended cuts and

photo galleries so overall if you want

the best picture quality and you want

the best audio

the 4K disc will get you that but

if you're a real super fan of avatar on

Pandora and everything James Cameron is

building

this Blu-ray is the better set and it's

funny because of course we know Disney

does this but Ultimate Collector's

Edition along the bottom this is not

that that is actually the most

misleading use of ultimate collector's

edition that I've ever seen because

there literally is an ultimate

collector's edition which is not this

you've already done this it's already

happened granted this was Fox this is

Disney

there's a different emphasis this is

also 2010 11 whenever that release came

out

a totally different ball game for

physical media so things have changed

but you can't call this the ultimate

collector's edition this is the ultimate

home theater Edition this is the

ultimate AV Edition it's not the

ultimate collector's edition and that's

something that I think is super

important for people who buy this you

may want to keep your old collector's

edition because it just has a lot more

content that you're not getting here so

that's my complete review and breakdown

of avatar on 4K hopefully that was

helpful I went into real depth here

because there's a lot to talk about

there's Disney plus and the differences

there there's the collector's edition

there's a special features differences

the extended Cuts there was a lot to

cover but I wanted to be comprehensive

so hopefully this helps you make a

buying decision whenever you know Camp

you fall into you can't really get a bad

Avatar experience on physical media it's

a really good experience no matter what

but if you want to pick up this 4K and

you want that best AV picture quality

and maybe you already have the

collector's edition which you can just

hang on to which I probably will do then

it's a great release it's really solid

it's a great remastering job by James

Cameron and I didn't see this in

theaters but I have a feeling that it

probably looks just about as good as it

looked in theaters at home so it was

very exciting to watch this again and

kind of relive it it's not my favorite

movie in the world but it sure is a

visual treat and it looks awesome so if

you want to grab this I'll put a link to

Amazon down in the description in the

pinned comment buying through there or

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as well but thank you for watching this

I know it was a little bit longer than

most reviews but I had to cover it all

wanted to be comprehensive and I will

get to the way of water very soon I did

review the Disney plus stream but we'll

be taking a look head to head with 4K

Blu-ray versus 4K Disney plus so stay

tuned for that one coming soon but thank

you all for watching have a great rest

of your day stay safe stay healthy out

there and I'll talk to you all soon