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The Movie:
An enjoyable and in-depth look at the history of Sir Edmund Hillary, the first climber to reach the top of Mount Everest. 59 minutes.
The DVD
VIDEO: The documentary as a whole looks a little old and at times a little worse than others. Often, the full-frame image is soft and sometimes, a little hazy. Colors generally have a natural feel and occasionally, a brighter color from clothing will stand out. The picture often has a "grainy" feel to it, and some marks and scratches that are visible. Overall, it's not consistent, and some parts of the footage looks worn while others don't. Not unwatchable, but flaws are noticable.
SOUND: There really isn't anything to the audio on this presentation and essentially, a lot of it is made up of the narration. But the sound quality itself is generally fine, and the narration comes through clearly and cleanly.
MENUS:: No animation, but the National Geographic theme music plays in the background.
EXTRAS: Quite a few extras - some more impressive than others. The first major extra is a 29 minute documentary on the history of Everest, which contains interviews with Sir Edmund Hillary and others who have attempted to climb the mountain. The information provided takes you through every step of the climb, and goes into detail about the temperatures and conditions that climbers have to face. There is a good amount of footage of climbers making their attempt, and although the image quality here does have some slight flaws, it fares much better as a whole than the main program.
Also included is a "never-before-released" interview with Sir Edmund Hillary that lasts for 10 minutes where he talks about his experiences in climbing Everest and his memories of what happened on the mountain. Most fascinating is when Hillary talks about his thoughts on the recent IMAX film "Everest".
In addition, there is a map of Everest, a small photo gallery, a quiz, an add for other National Geographic programs and web links.
Final Thoughts: The image quality is fair, but aside from that complaint, I really liked what Warner Brothers has done with this disc - there are some good extras to look through (especially the 29 minute documentary) and the price of $24.99 at most places is acceptable.
DOCUMENTARY GRADE: B+
OVERALL DVD GRADE: C+
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