The Biggest Big Lebowski

The Big Lebowski is one of those films where, if I didn't write this entry sooner or later, it would've eventually just appeared on this site on its own anyway.  It's Joel and Ethan Coen's biggest cult film.  And it's a personal favorite because it feels like their spin on Fletch, capturing most of sardonic detective story's best elements, but injecting it with enough of their own sensibilities so it can stand firmly on its own.

I mean, just off the top of my head, you've got two anti-noir coded drifter (remember, we find Fletch living as a beach bum at the start of the original, and he's constantly dodging his ex-wife's alimony lawyer, etc) sports-obsessed non-detectives getting roped up into a classic detective story, that turns out to be a fake set-up by the person that hired them.  Their identity is confused with a millionaires, making them pawns in a con.  Even the crazy bowling dance dream is reminiscent of the "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" number from Fletch Lives, which also centers around a fake kidnapping and our hero being framed.  I could keep going, throwing down one beat after another that repeats between them: breaking into a lavish mansion, getting interrogated by aggressive police, having their car repeatedly busted up, a wealthy femme fatale painter who clarifies the mystery, a man being comically chased by a dog...  Honestly, a big draw of this movie for me is that, when it came out in 1998, The Big Lebowski delivered the Fletch 3 I'd been waiting decades for.

I don't think it's coincidence (though admittedly some of the recurring plot points are common detective story tropes); I think it's a direct inspiration.  Of course, here they throw their own existential spin on things.  There's a reason why "the dude abides" lives on all these decades later.  And the Coens always assemble fabulous casts, but they might've topped themselves here with Jeff Bridges, of course, and John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tara Reid(!), John Turturro, David Thewlis, the great Ben Gazzara and Sam Elliott forming an entire eccentric universe for him to drift through.  The story's good, but it's that world and way of life we want to keep revisiting.

And there's no shortage of home video options to do that.  Universal originally released this film on DVD right away in 1998; it was anamorphic widescreen, with a fullscreen version as well.  They reissued that disc in 2003, which is the first edition I got.  Then there were two new versions in 2005 - a widescreen disc and a fullscreen one - now separate releases - with a remastered transfer and a couple new extras.  And that opened the flood gates of repackaged editions: a 2005 Achiever's Edition with a towel and coasters, a 2008 Collector's Edition with more extras and a limited version that came in a plastic bowling bowl.  There were limited slipcover editions in 2012, 2013 and 2016, and that doesn't even include bundle packs or foreign editions.

But all of that was academic by 2011, because The Big Lebowski arrived on blu, in standard and limited digibook editions.  It was reissued in 2012 and 2013 with variant slipcovers, and then a steelbook.  And there were alternate "popart" covers, and Target and Best Buy exclusive covers.  Like, this movie is to Universal what Army of Darkness was to Anchor Bay.  In 2018, Universal released it as a 4k UHD, regular and in a limited package that came with a tiny sweater, a pencil holder ball and bowling bag.  And in 2023, they released a couple of steelbook versions.  But if you don't care about swag and covers, there are five different transfers out there, so let's look at each of 'em.

1) 2003 Universal DVD (wide); 2) 2003 Universal DVD (full); 3) 2006 Universal DVD;
4) 2011 Universal BD; 5) 2018 Universal BD; 6) 2018 Universal UHD.

Starting with the 2003 DVD, the widescreen transfer is very marginally windowboxed (basically a few pixels of pillarboxing in the overscan area) to 1.77:1, while the fullscreen is open matte at 1.33:1, and looks pretty good, especially for its age.  Still, the 2005 disc corrects the widescreen framing to exactly 1.85:1, revealing more along the sides.  And, as you can see in the first set of shots, removes some unfortunate haloing.  It looks like they used the same master, then, for the blu-ray, which is also 1.85:1, with identical framing, color timing, etc.  Of course, releasing it in HD does sharpen the image and equates to a genuine improvement, but not an impressive one.  There's still some leftover haloing, and the way grain has been smoothed away, you'd never know this was shot on film.

So compared to other blu-rays, it's pretty low quality, but compared to the DVDs, even the upgraded 2005 one, just look at the signage.  You can read "THAN ANY OTHER SUPERMARKET" above Bridges' head for the first time.  And the BD included with the 4k is exactly the same disc as all the previous BDs; it even still has the 2011 copyright on the label.  But the actual UHD, thankfully, is a proper remaster.  It's still 1.85:1 with the same framing, but hey look, actual film grain.  It's the first time it doesn't look like this 35mm movie was shot on digital.  The colors have a fuller, more naturalistic feel, and the resolution boost does result in more visible detail - now you can even read the little "SAVE 40¢" tags on the coupon machine. 

Now the original DVD just has a Dolby Digital 5.1 track with French and Spanish subs on both the wide and fullscreen versions.  The 2005 edition added French and Spanish dubs, and more helpfully, English subtitles.  Then the blu-ray dumped the Spanish dub, but bumped the English track to DTS-HD.  Finally, the UHD switched the track to DTS:X (which is 8 channels, if you were wondering) and added a whole bunch of foreign language options, including bringing back the Spanish dub, along with new Japanese and Portuguese dubs and subs.

The Big Lebowski has never really had a deluxe special if you don't count collectible tchotchkes and just actual features on disc.  But it's never been barebones either.  Even the earliest DVD included the core extra, a 24-minute 'making of' featurette (which is actually two shorter 'making of' featurettes that play in succession) and the trailer.  The 2005 edition added a silly "Mortimer Young Introduction" and a photo gallery.  ...Not much, but apparently the Satellite Awards still nominated it for Best DVD Extras that year?  🤷  Anyway, then the blu-ray came up with four new featurettes, which range from four to fourteen minutes, plus an interactive map, which is almost more trouble than it's worth, where you can click on locations from the movie and get little video clips related to the scenes that took place there.  So there's some stuff, but not as much as you'd expect for a beloved cult film like this, especially since some of these extras cover the same ground more than once.  But that special features package has stayed static through the 4k up 'till and including the latest 25th Anniversary editions.

So anyway, that's the story with The Big Lebowski on digital video disc.  It is absolutely worth double-dipping to the 4k if you still own any of the previous editions.  But at the same time, Universal could've done better with the special features for this fan favorite.  Of course, I'm sure we'll see five or six more releases before the film's 30th Anniversary, so maybe they still plan on it.