Top Gun 4K SteelBook review

Nov 27, 2020- Permalink

Paramount released a 4K version of Top Gun in May of 2020, but with the holidays fast approaching, they’ve now released a limited edition SteelBook version for those who like collecting that format. I had a chance to review the SteelBook. Note that the video and audio presentation is the same as the May release.

If you aren’t aware of Top Gun, it’s the 1986 film that pretty much launched Tom Cruise into the stratospheric position he once held in Hollywood. He played Maverick, a Navy pilot aboard a carrier who often flaunted the rules along with his friend and Radar Intercept Officer “Goose” (Anthony Edwards). His captain begrudgingly accepts that he’s a damn good pilot and sends the pair to the Navy’s elite Naval Fighter Weapons School. Will he make it through the program? Will his reckless ways get him into trouble? You’ll have to watch to find out.

The 2160p HEVC / H.265-encoded native 4K digital transfer is presented in a 2.40:1 aspect ratio with both Dolby Vision and HDR10. The transfer is faithful to its source negative. There’s a fine film grain throughout and though clarity and sharpness in textures such as faces, clothing and surfaces are generally excellent, there are some scenes that display a little softness. Again, this is just occasional and most of the scenes are full of the excellent detail 4K is known for. The colour palette, which is full of warm hues, blue skies, and steely cockpit interiors is greatly enhanced by the HDR presentation. There are no compression artifacts or digital noise to speak of. It’s a great video presentation.

On the audio side, your ears have as many choices as Maverick’s F-14 Tomcat cockpit has switches. There are English Dolby Atmos and Dolby TrueHD 7.1 soundtracks as well as German, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks, and a Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 track. Subtitles are available in English, English SDH, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Cantonese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Korean, Mandarin (Simplified), Mandarin (Traditional), Norwegian, Romanian, Russian, Swedish, and Thai. The Atmos soundscape is given quite a workout with this film, with the roar of fighter jets traversing the surround and height speakers. It’s not just the loud roar of engines, but the general use of the surround elements to place you in the scene even in quieter moments. That amazing opening carrier scene with Kenny Loggins’ Danger Zone has never sounded better. Dialogue is clear and centred.

The SteelBook packaging looks great with hand-drawn images of several of the characters on the case. The set comes with the 4K disc, a Blu-ray disc and a digital code. The 4K disc contains two new 4K extras (On Your Six: Thirty Years of Top Gun and The Legacy of Top Gun) while the rest of the extras are on the Blu-ray disc and include a making-of featurette, storyboards, music videos and an audio commentary.

With an excellent video presentation, a mind-blowing soundtrack, good extras and nice collectible SteelBook packaging, the Top Gun 4K SteelBook is perfect for adding to your collection or gifting to a friend who feels the need for speed.