Product: Gladiator [VHS] (2000)
Rating: 5.0
Recieved remaster
I am pleased to report that the version I received, ordered on the 1st of December, was the remastered version. While the original release has seen a lot of highly vocal backlash, the remastered version couldn't look any better. Simply put, it is reference quality, pushing the detail envelope enabled by the blu-ray resolution to its limits, and showing the film as it was truly intended by the filmmakers. Pristine, with bold colors and exemplary contrast, this is how a blu-ray master should be. Paramount sacrificed some marginally bad PR (the importance of a small percentage of home theater enthusiasts is disputable in the grand scheme of things) in exchange for not having to recall their previous version, and seemingly going out of their way to mask the differences on the outside packaging to make distinguishing the two more difficult. It's getting almost to the point now that you might be better off simply putting the disc in your player and looking at the image yourself to see which version it is. You can be sure that if you receive the newer version, which will only become more probable as time goes on, that it will not be representative of all the bad ratings it has garnered here on Amazon. Contrarily, it will be an indispensable addition to any discerning blu-ray collector, and one worthy of showcasing your home theater system with. Highly recommended to those willing to take the (quickly dwindling) risk.