When I got the pitch to take a look at Arrow’s 4K UHD release of 2004’s The Chronicles of Riddick, it offered up a bit of a moral quandary and something I’ve been pondering for quite some time. While the Sexual Battery charge against star Vin Diesel is still pending, and he’s continued to deny these allegations. Given the recent incident with Joaquin Phoenix, who just walked out on a pending production causing irreparable financial loss to so many folks, whose livelihoods relied on the film, I felt like simply ignoring this film might have been the wrong choice. When I got to dig into the set to review, thanks to the absence of Diesel, probably due to availability or possibly these allegations, it spotlighted how these blockbusters, while they rely on a big name to market them, aren’t simply conjured and are the fruits of hundreds if not thousands of individuals.
So with that said….So I am digging in.
The Chronicles of Riddick was a film that could have only been made thanks to both Diesel’s stardom and director David Twohy unrelenting passion for the charismatic antihero. While the first film respectably doubled its 25 million budget – it was the quintupling of the Fast and the Furious’ 38 million budget that greenlit the blank check film, that is the literal definition of “go big or go home”. For those too young to remember, Diesel was a master of the Facebooks, before Chronicles and subsequently in the leadup to the sequels, Friday were labeled “Furyan Fridays” by the star and he would essentially hype his fans for his eventual return to the character. While his meme game was cringe, he was one of the first stars really leveraging social media in this way, and while it’s now commonplace, this online reaction was the other component that led to the audacity and ambition of Riddick.
See, while most would have simply replicated the first film, maybe sent Riddick to a new planet where the antihero was yet again charged with saving a group of individuals or fighting for his life (Which was what they did with the third film), Twohy had something bigger in mind. The Chronicles of Riddick is an ambitious world building exercise that rivals a Star Wars or a Dune with its sheer breadth and scope, and to be honest it still is a thing of beauty to behold. The film picks up with Riddick a few years after the events of Pitch Black where a 1.5 Million Dollar bounty has him brought back to Helion Prime and face to face with Abu “Imam” al-Walid (Keith David), the holy man whom he saved in Pitch Black. He’s then asked to help save the universe from a group of intergalactic colonizers called Necromongers, who worship death. They’ve been traveling world to world, killing anyone they can’t convert to their cause.
Of course, we also bring back Jack, the young girl who was disguised as a boy from the first film as Riddick tears his way through the Necromonger ranks to save the universe. But along the way we also soon discover they had something to do with the carnage that enveloped his home world of Furya. To be completely honest, I was underwhelmed the first time I caught The Chronicles of Riddick, theatrically, opening day. When I heard a director’s cut was incoming I picked up the special edition day and date and found that it definitely addressed the issues I had with the plot holes, and provided a much more satisfying and enjoyable narrative. That cut is presented here on the set on a 4K UHD, along with the theatrical cut and an “Open Matte” version of the film (LIMITED EDITION EXCLUSIVE), which essentially removed the black bars applied to the image for the 2.35:1 aspect ratio revealing more image. This is a big thing with the collector market right now, with folks buy fullscreen DVDs to enjoy more of the image in these editions.
As we’ve witnessed from countless Star Wars clones, intergalactic world building isn’t easy, but here writer/director David Twohy makes it feel effortless. It doesn’t hurt that thanks to Pitch Black he’s already got a stable of engaging characters, including a great anti-hero, who just fires off the one liners like he was trapped in an 80s action flick. Here he’s pitted against the Necromongers, whose not only a great group of antagonists, thanks to their religious zealotry, but their baroque aesthetic that makes them as stylish as they are badass. Subtextually the film is a little light, other than its anti-colonizer message, paired with the ruthlessness of the religious zealots who lack the morals of those who they feel are below them.That said this is a summer blockbuster after all, or was poised to be one, because poor reviews kept fans away from this one. The film currently stands with a 29% on Rotten Tomatoes.
While the film missed the mark both critically and financially on its initial theatrical release, it thankfully has since begun to be reappraised thanks to the director’s cut release of the film, hence this release. After The Chronicles fizzled out at the box office, the property was shelved by Universal and famously Diesel leveraged his stinger cameo in Tokyo Drift for the rights to the character, so he could continue the series. This led to not only 2013’s sequel Riddick that was super successful, but the fourth entry in the series that’s currently filming and announced of course – by a Furyan Friday announcement. Watching The Chronicles of Riddick now, you have to admire the sheer audacity behind the film and wonder what might have happened had the director’s cut been the one released. This reasoning is one of the many things discussed on the exhaustive and comprehensive extras on the set put forth by Arrow.
The film here is presented in a brand new 4K restorations by Arrow Films of the Theatrical and Director’s Cuts of the film, approved by David Twohy and to be honest the film looks way better than it did on its Blu-ray release. The HDR has been used to hone in on those sci-fi hues and the grain here given the internegative source is present, but not overwhelming. Also, the CGI here has aged as well as the film, since it holds up with the 4K upgrade. The production design is also even more spectacular here, with every fabric and every nook and cranny of every set on display in this new transfer. They really went all out, and every bit of that is thankfully captured here in this detailed and crisp transfer.
Not only are all three cuts presented on their own 4K UHDs here, but the previous extras were all ported as well. Keep in mind these were the kind of extras crafted when DVD sales were equally as important as theatrical numbers. A big piece of that, once upon a time, was special features to entice folks to buy the film to watch it again and sift through those extras. Coupled with these pre-existing extras is a brand new feature length documentary Ambition on Another Scale: Chronicling a Blockbuster Sequel, featuring interviews with writer-director David Twohy, actors Keith David and Linus Roache, storyboard artist Brian Murray and many others that explores nearly every aspect of the film imaginable.Since these interviews were recent, you get the addition of some added perspective, from the choices then compared to now.
The reset of the set is a wealth of information that comes with one of my favorite extras along with the doc, Escape from Butcher Bay, a compilation of cutscenes from the tie-in video game (LIMITED EDITION EXCLUSIVE). This is a super cut of the cutscenes from the XBox game that transpired before the film and explained where Riddick really got his night vision from. Riddick came out around the time in the early aughts where summer blockbusters, like a Matrix, could get not only a video game, but an anime adaptation, which are all pieces of a larger story. I didn’t play the game when the film came out, so this was a welcome bit of lore to get to experience.
Check out the full rundown of extras below:
- DISC ONE
- 4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible) of the Theatrical Cut from the original negative
- Ambition on Another Scale: Chronicling a Blockbuster Sequel, a brand-new feature-length documentary on the film, featuring interviews with writer-director David Twohy, actors Keith David and Linus Roache, storyboard artist Brian Murray, and many others
- Realizing Riddick, a new interview with Twohy on the creation of the character
- Back to Black, a new interview with Murray on his continuing work within the Riddick saga
- Chronicles of a Cult Film Celebrity, a new interview with David on the role of Imam
- Theatrical trailers
- DISC TWO
- 4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible) of the Director’s Cut
- Archive audio commentary by David Twohy and Vin Diesel
- Archive audio commentary by Twohy and co-stars Karl Urban and Alexa Davelos
- Archive introduction by Twohy
- Creation of New Mecca, an archive featurette focusing on the world and characters of Helion Prime
- Riddick Rises, an archive featurette focusing on the prison planet of Crematoria
- Keep What You Kill, an archive featurette focusing on the world of the Necromongers
- Visual Effects Revealed, an archive featurette focusing on the VFX
- Interactive Production Calendar, a series of short, candid videos filmed throughout shooting
- Production Vignettes, a series of short behind-the-scenes segments
- Three deleted scenes
- Virtual Guide to the Chronicles of Riddick, a series of short animated segments explaining the world of the film
- Toombs’ Chase Log, a short film narrated by Nick Chinlund in character
- A guided tour of the set by Vin Diesel, along with 360-degree panoramic views of eight sets from the film
- On-set interviews with Twohy, Diesel, Dench, Urban, Colm Feore, Alexa Davelos, Thandiwe Newton and producer Scott Kroopf
- Promotional interviews with Twohy, Diesel, Newton, Urban, Davelos and Feore
- Easter egg
- DISC THREE (LIMITED EDITION EXCLUSIVE)
- 4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible) of the Theatrical Cut in the alternate 1.78:1 aspect ratio
- Escape from Butcher Bay, a compilation of cutscenes from the acclaimed tie-in video game
- The Lowdown, a television special produced to promote the film’s original release
It’s at times frustrating watching The Chronicles of Riddick now, especially in its director’s cut form. The film is a rare example of a really well executed sci-fi, horror, fantasy, that didn’t get its due thanks to studio interference over runtime of all things. Afterwards it would be nearly a decade before we would get another glimpse into the world and that would lead to another film. Arrow have really outdid themselves here presenting featurettes and interviews that delve into almost anything a fan would want to know, utilizing both archival and new interviews along with restoring a film that most never gave a second chance. It’s great that they are not just focusing on obscure genre fare and also releasing blockbusters that may not get the same treatment otherwise even by their own home studios.
Fascinating. Apparently the third film, Riddick, was ‘super successful’, yet I found it to be by far the worse of the three. Words like tedious are sometimes used, along with B-movie. As for the director’s cut of the Chronicles, I find it annoying. I don’t need to be spoon fed Riddick’s back story, I prefer the tighter pacing of the theatrical, the director’s cut is a curiosity that only succeeds in making the movie less credible; but if Riddick was so successful maybe people prefer a dumb mindless movie as long as they are offered more gore or violence than the PG-13 version (I also prefer the theatrical cut of World War Z. Gore for the sake of it, like swearing and nudity, only seems to smack of desperation). When I discovered I’d bought the directors cut on blu ray, and found too late it was almost impossible to find the theatrical, I was very pleased to see it included in the 4k release. Looking at the first 30 minutes it does indeed look excellent.