It gets so much right – and I mean just about everything – that it seems odd that a couple of small soundtrack bungles have slipped into the extra features, but I'll get to that below. This then, surely, is the absolute definitive release we have always dreamed of. It also restores the original aspect ratio and presents the film on a home cinema format that was still two years away from commercial release back in 2004. Much as I loved The Complete Dossier, I did note at the time that the absence of two key extras – the Kurtz compound destruction sequence and the documentary feature Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse – meant that it didn't quite live up to the claim of being 'complete', something this 3-disc Blu-ray edition not only puts right, but actually builds on, with new extra features exclusive to this release. What I do applaud, as I did with The Complete Dossier release, is the option to watch either version at exactly the same quality – my infuriation remains at seeing Peckinpah's masterly Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid properly restored for DVD only in the 2005 recut, which was executed (and I choose that word deliberately) by people who had nothing whatsoever to do with the original production. Seven years on I still far prefer the original 1979 version over the 2001 Redux expansion, a viewpoint shaped by more than the simple fact that I saw and fell in love with the original cut first, and again I've made my case for this preference in my DVD review. Thus if you're looking for a review of the film then check out my original DVD coverage here.
Sure, there are things that I missed, some of which have become more evident with subsequent viewings or have been highlighted in the myriad of articles, books, commentaries and interviews that have appeared since the film's original release, but to further expand on what I've already written risks nullifying the purpose of many of the extra features included on this release. What more can I say about Apocalypse Now? Having already made my case in some detail for why it remains one of my very favourite films in my review of the US 2-disc DVD set Apocalypse Now: The Complete Dossier back in 2004 (can it really be that long.?), I find myself with little to add seven years later.
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