![Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend [DVD]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/516vayJ+jAL._SY300_.jpg)
Up until maybe a month ago this was a film I had completely forgotten had ever existed and if it hadnt had been for a quick scan through the budget Blu ray releases on Amazon would still have remained in my subconscious. It was here that I saw poster art for a film that I hadnt seen for a good twenty five years, a film that I had seen once with my parents as a child in the local cinema and never seen since on TV, VHS or DVD. It was this poster art depicting two adventurer types and a baby brontasaurus that triggered my memories of this film and the film was Baby:Secret of the Lost Legend.
Produced by Disney's Touchstone company in 1985, Baby was to be the next best thing in childrens films featuring then state of the art dinosaur special effects in a live action film, a story that would also entertain the adults, a decent cast that included Sean Young(Bladerunner), Patrick McGoohan(Braveheart) and William Katt(House) and some wonderful, mostly shot on location African scenery. Unfortunatly Baby wasent a success at the box office and a mere seven years later was superseded by the far more technically polished Jurassic Park(still the most beautiful use of CGI to this day) and apart from a small fanbase Baby was pretty much forgotten.
Watching Secret of the Lost Legend now as an adult I find it hard to understand who the film makers were aiming this movie at. Indeed the children of the 80s would have loved the idea of a film with lifelike full size dinosaurs but also would have struggled with the long build up to actually see these on screen. Like wise older children and adults would have probably enjoyed the first forty minutes or so with plenty of intrigue into what the characters were going to find in the dark African jungles but once the dinosaurs are shown may have been put off by the special effects work which ranged from ok(the adult dinosaurs) through to poor(baby herself). Also as a supposedly child orientated film this comes across as too violent with villan of the piece McGoohan fatally stabbing a rival paleontologist during the opening five minutes, numerous gun and arrow battles and an explosive finale. Sexual innuendo and nudity could also be a problem with Young and Katt constantly trying to get it on complete with nearly topless Young only to be clumsily interupted by Baby. As parent myself I also know that as well as the often violent tone this would be way too distressing and sad for younger children as Baby's father is machine gunned down and her mother is kidnapped leaving her in effect an orphan.
As a nostalgic blast from the past though I thouroughly enjoyed reliving Secret of the Lost Legend again even if I have to postpone showing it to my own children for a few years. Ok so its basicly a low rent Indiana Jones with dinosaurs and yes the special effects havent aged considerably well but there are enough plus points to the movie to make it worth while. The cinematography is great and Jerry Goldsmith's score is perfect for the material. McGoohan's villan is tremendously effective and the fact that the vast majority of the film was shot on location in Africa really adds to the experience. Ok so its definatly not for everyone and the mixture of cutesy and rather more adult material doesent always bond together as it should but if like me you saw this as a child and only have distant memories this Blu ray represents the best way to revive those memories.
As I have already mentioned I had only seen this movie once before and that was over twenty five years ago so I go into this Blu ray review blind with no knowledge on how this has looked on previous formats. I would like to say that this is the best Baby has ever looked for home consumption as this budget release from American cheapy label Mill Creek is suprisingly good.
The opening didnt really fill me with joy as the 2.35:1 1080p transfer did exhibit quite a few problems. Despite taking place in the middle of a busy carnival with plenty of local colour and action the image was flat and lacking in detail and depth. Black levels lent more to grey and skin tones were flushed pink. Once the credits were over the transfer did improve making me think the disapointing start was down to the opticals used for the credits. The first shots of an archaeological dig site showed lots of promise with decent levels of detail and depth in close ups but with some softness to objects in the distance for example jungle trees just looked like a clump of green with no texture. Skin tones too were still off with a shirtless William Katt positively glowing pink. But this is a transfer that gets better as the film proceeds. The later jungle scenes looked great and thanks to no digital manipulation from Mill Creek all the grain has been left in place resulting in a very filmlike image. This is how I like to see older catalogue titles with just a natural and raw 1080p image. As to be expected the added resolution does highlight at times the weaknesses in the special effects whether its close ups of the dinosaurs faces or opticals used in the films finale but then again this all adds to the charm of a movie like this. Over all I was fairly impressed with how this looked. I especially like the close ups of the mother dinosaur's rough elephant hide skin which made you feel as if you could reach out and touch wrinkled texture. Colours were nice and natural apart from the already mentioned pinkish skintones with the greens of the jungle leaves through to ruddy browns of the earth a river water. Black levels could be a little inconsistant at times and could look slightly pale with some crush but the print did look on the whole in good condition with no noticable damage and the compression job seemed good with no artifacting to report.
For the first packaging mistake Mill Creek have listed the soundtrack on this Blu ray as a two channel Dolby Digital but what you actually get is something far better in the form of a lossless 4.0 channel DTS-HD Master surround mix. The way this 4.0 track is delivered is different to more conventional 5.1. The front of the soundstage has two stereo left and right channels with no centre channel or subwoofer support. The rear soundstage also has left and right stereo channels which take up the remaining two channels. This has a suprisingly effective surround ambiance. The front features plenty of directional effects and foley work through to Jerry Goldsmiths score which comes through rich and robust. The lack of a centre channel means dialogue can get a little lost in the action but this can be altered if you use an AV reciever that incorporates a matrix surround decoder such as Dolby Pro Logic ll or DTS NEO 6 although I prefered to listen to this as it was recorded. The real problems with this track came from the rear channels. For the most part they provided good support for the jungle sounds, the score and in one scene a great pan effect as a plane passes from front to back. But occasionally sounds blast from the rear which have no place to be there and almost always from the rear left speaker. A jeep which should have stayed in the front of the mix passes through the left surround channel, machine guns clatter and native drums also pound from the same speaker for no reason making this sound at times off kilter. On a plus point despite no .1 subwoofer channel the low frquencies are rather strong from the roar of a brontosaurus through to its heavy footfalls and of course Goldsmith's score also benefits as does the overall tone of the soundtrack. Ok so it would be unfair to rate this against a more modern movie or an older title that has had extensive work lavished on it so on its own terms this is good if slightly unrulely track that is far better than what Mill Creek had listed it as.
As this is a budget Blu ray there are no extras not even a trailer but being as i picked this up for a few quid i consider this fair.
The second mistake on the packaging is the region code which states that this is a region a locked Blu ray when infact it is region free and playable on all machines worldwide.
| Additional DVD options | Edition | Discs | Amazon Price | New from | Used from |
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12 April 2004 "Please retry" | — | 1 | £4.16 | — | £3.27 |
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20 Mar. 2019 "Please retry" | — | 1 |
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13 Feb. 2018 "Please retry" | — | 1 |
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