I'll Follow You Down (2013/Well Go USA Blu-ray)/Legendary (2013/Lionsgate DVD)/Strange New World (1975/Warner Archive DVD)

Picture: B-/C/C Sound: B-/C/C+ Extras: C/D/D Films: C+/D/B-

PLEASE NOTE: Strange New World is now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.

Here are three very different science fiction releases....

Richie Mehta's I'll Follow You Down (2013) is a somewhat ambitious drama about a physicist (Rufus Sewell of Dark City) who is a father and husband that disappears mysteriously and is assumed dead. His young son is not so sure and when he grows up to be older (Haley Joel Osment of A.I. and The Sixth Sense), he starts investigating just what really happened. His mother (Gillian Anderson of The X Files) has never been the same and may have her doubts too.

The film wants to be clever, yet be a drama and it cannot have it both ways. The conclusion is pat, the feel god aspect never works and though we do get some interesting moments, the script never adds up. The cast is good (including Victor Garber) and Mehta can direct with some visuals a plus, but this lands up being more hokum than substance and I was ultimately disappointed.

Extras include Behind The Scenes, Deleted Scenes and an Original Theatrical Trailer.

Eric Styles' Legendary (2013) will only live up to it title if it is ever remembered for the mess that it is with Scott Adkins and Dolph Lundgren on his sillies B-movie streak in this as hunters in some part of China in a race for treasure when they are attacked by a creature no one thought existed. They find it, but never a script!

This is just hideous, badly shot, has some of the worst CGI we have seen in a while and that says something. Lundgren is not even in the film enough to justify co-lead status, resulting in something that makes the Sharknado telefilms look like c lever National Geographic specials. If you see this playing on a TV set of any kind... run!!!

Unfortunately, extras include two making of featurettes.

Robert Butler's Strange New World (1975) served as a pilot for a TV series that attempted to be another Star Trek as the then-failed show was becoming a huge hit in TV syndication. With two stories contained in this one telefilm, designed to be split into two shows if it were picked up as a series, this would have joined a cycle of series about hero/scientists traveling a post-apocalyptic earth that included the TV versions of Logan's Run, Planet Of the Apes (both cancelled after one season), The Starlost (though they are stuck on an intricate space station, same principles) and the Saturday Morning TV hit Ark II (all reviewed elsewhere on this site), as good as any of them.

This one starts in outer space when the three leads (John Saxon, Kathleen Miller and Keene Curtis) are send to the earth 180 years after it had certain issues. Gene Roddenberry's work was the basis for this pilot, but you do not see his names in the credits. Still, it is smart, takes itself seriously and deals with issues of genocide, cloning (a revelation then) and other issues hard science fiction does so well.

Though some of it now looks dated, you can see the makers and cast were going all out to make this work and versus some of the shows that have been greenlit since, it I a shame this one was not picked up. Supporting cast includes future TV Captain America Reb Brown as a henchman, Bond girl veteran Martine Beswick, Oscar nominee Richard Farnsworth, James Olson, Ford Rainey, Bill McKinney, Gerritt Graham, then-unknown Catherine Back (The Dukes Of Hazzard) and Playboy Playmate Cynthia Wood, you have to see this one to believe it.

There are sadly no extras.

The 1080p 2.35 X 1 HD-shot digital High Definition image transfer on Down is the best visual presentation here as it should be being the only Blu-ray, but it tends to have a slight softness throughout that works against it a bit, while the anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on the Legendary DVD and 1.33 X 1 color image on World are even softer, though Legendary is a particularly bad HD shoot. World was shot on 35mm film and has some nice shots here and there, but the print is rough and uneven. Color is decent at times too.

The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Down is dialogue-based in between times when the sound kicks in, but that is enough to make it the best-sounding release here. The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Legendary is a mess, a little too digital, edgy, badly mixed and too much in the front channels, so the older, lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on World manages to be better by being more professionally recorded and mixed.

To order Strange New World, go to this link for it and many more great web-exclusive releases at:

http://www.warnerarchive.com/

- Nicholas Sheffo