Footloose 4K UHD Blu-ray Disc Review

Footloose opened up during the summer of 1984 and quickly gained notoriety for it’s music and story in no small way aided by Kevin Bacon’s charm as a teenager who moves to a rural town where dancing is discouraged by the Pastor (John Lithgow) in a the time I guess was mirroring the religious conservative stance on popular music that demonized bands for having hidden lyrics when records were played backwards and while it sounds outrageous now, in the mid 1980s there was a very real examination into popular music that included backtracked lyrics found in a number of musical genres that included rock music, heavy metal, as well as what was then contemporary dance music too. So I imagine from the benefit of hindsight, the investigation into music is reflected in Footloose though not nearly as detailed as I have described it and I am not naming anyone who was accused or literally were called in to testify because memory can benefit, but after 40 years accessing it is like opening an old file cabinet where you know you have some important papers stored, but your not exactly sure how they were filed. 

Anyway Kevin Bacon is the guy who breaks to taboos set by Lithgow’s character by building relationships and rallying the teenagers whose senior prom should be right around the corner. The cast features Chris Penn, Lori Singer and Sarah Jessica Parker. Paramount Home Entertainment’s 40th anniversary edition presents Footloose for the first time on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc with a 2160p Dolby Vision presentation that is clean and dynamic and an improvement over the 1080p HD Blu-ray Disc release included as well. Footloose is never going to look like a modern motion picture and it should not because it is a time capsule of the past when teenagers did not have cellphones, having a Sony Walkman and a tape of your favorite music was equivalent to having an iPod and just think about this, Apple does not make iPods anymore either. The point being this is a film from 1984 and it should retain a certain quality of that era in the video presentation.

A DTS HD-MA 5.1 audio track in English accompanied by German, French, Italian, and Japanese Language dubbed Dolby Digital 2.0 Soundtracks along with English Subtitles for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired, and German, French, Italian and Japanese Language Subtitles are encoded onto the discs as options.

Extra value features include a retrospective screen specific feature length audio commentary soundtrack with Producer Craig Zadan and Writer Dean Pitchford, audio commentary with Actor Kevin Bacon as well as featurettes that include an interview with Actresss Sarah Jessica Parker, Kevin Bacon’s screen test, several music featurettes and the theatrical trailer. These are all found on the 1080p Blu-ray Disc. A digital copy code for a limited time only redemption of the film for streaming is also included, but not on iTunes, which is rather surprising since Paramount releases usually include an iTunes option as well.

Footloose: 40th Anniversary 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital Cooy is available now at retailers on and offline courtesy of Paramount Home Entertaibment.

(C) Copyright 2024 By Mark A. Rivera

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