Top Gear Polar Special has made it to BlueRay!

Please tell us if it's actually a directors cut with some extra footage! :)

Got mine yesterday as well and watched it on a US PS3.

It is indeed a director's cut. There's new footage throughout the entire film. There's some extended conversation with Ranulph Fiennes, an extra bit of film where Richard explores a building they come across during the journey that has some beds and some canned food (if you've read "As You Do", this is the place where Richard finds his Taj Mahal loo), and there's an extra bit where Jeremy and James come across some sort of abandoned station (this comes after they find the abandoned plane, I'd assume it's the station the plane was taking off from when it crashed). Those are the major new pieces to the film, but as I said there's a lot of little tiny 10-30 second bits added here and there.

Pretty much every piece of music used in the original Polar Special has been replaced with some rather poor substitutes. It didn't feel quite as epic because of the poor music, but the the amazing video quality (and extra footage) certainly make up for it.
 
Got mine yesterday as well and watched it on a US PS3.

It is indeed a director's cut. There's new footage throughout the entire film. There's some extended conversation with Ranulph Fiennes, an extra bit of film where Richard explores a building they come across during the journey that has some beds and some canned food (if you've read "As You Do", this is the place where Richard finds his Taj Mahal loo), and there's an extra bit where Jeremy and James come across some sort of abandoned station (this comes after they find the abandoned plane, I'd assume it's the station the plane was taking off from when it crashed). Those are the major new pieces to the film, but as I said there's a lot of little tiny 10-30 second bits added here and there.

Pretty much every piece of music used in the original Polar Special has been replaced with some rather poor substitutes. It didn't feel quite as epic because of the poor music, but the the amazing video quality (and extra footage) certainly make up for it.


erm, I already have the polar episode (both the "regular" and the HD version) yet I'd still like a rip of this.

So rip & upload, kthxbye?
 
Got mine yesterday as well and watched it on a US PS3.

It is indeed a director's cut. There's new footage throughout the entire film. There's some extended conversation with Ranulph Fiennes, an extra bit of film where Richard explores a building they come across during the journey that has some beds and some canned food (if you've read "As You Do", this is the place where Richard finds his Taj Mahal loo), and there's an extra bit where Jeremy and James come across some sort of abandoned station (this comes after they find the abandoned plane, I'd assume it's the station the plane was taking off from when it crashed). Those are the major new pieces to the film, but as I said there's a lot of little tiny 10-30 second bits added here and there.

Pretty much every piece of music used in the original Polar Special has been replaced with some rather poor substitutes. It didn't feel quite as epic because of the poor music, but the the amazing video quality (and extra footage) certainly make up for it.


Yes, he documented most of the additional footage pretty well. Basically like any directors cut movie, many scenes were extended and there were completely new scenes added in, all in all about 12-15 min of extra footage, which was nice.

I disagree with the replacement music being 'poor' given that much of it is music i've heard used elsewhere in Top Gear, just not for the Polar Edition special.

The contents of the disc are simple tho, only the main movie, chapter search and subtitle options, no bluray/DVD disc extras tho. Would have been awesome if they included a 'making of behind the scenes docu' or 'outtakes' that are complete uncensored.
 
Sorry to bump this thread, but has anyone been able to play it in the US on a stand alone Blu Ray player (specifically a Sony BDP-S350)? Some sites say its region free, some say it's region B. I'm going to London in a few weeks and will pick up a copy if I can play it. Thanks
 
I was wondering the same thing about stand alone players. I know a lot of movies that are listed as region B are actually region free and there is a listing on the US amazon.com site for this title although it says that it is discontinued.
I think I am going to take a chance and order it to play on my panasonic bd-35 player
 
Sorry to bump this thread, but has anyone been able to play it in the US on a stand alone Blu Ray player (specifically a Sony BDP-S350)? Some sites say its region free, some say it's region B. I'm going to London in a few weeks and will pick up a copy if I can play it. Thanks

it plays on a US region PS3 just fine, why wouldnt it play on a US region standalone player?
 
Well not Gospel but I heard a rumour that BlueRay at the moment is an open format - do not shoot me if incorrect but it seems to me that is a SONY (The Man) players play it then this may be right.
 
I was wondering the same thing about stand alone players. I know a lot of movies that are listed as region B are actually region free and there is a listing on the US amazon.com site for this title although it says that it is discontinued.
I think I am going to take a chance and order it to play on my panasonic bd-35 player


I took my chances and bought it while I was in London, and it plays just fine on my Sony player here in the states. It's an excellent Blu Ray, well worth the money.
 
I have a stand-alone blu-ray player (LG BH200). I live in America. It plays perfectly. The blu-ray was region free because if it was region locked I'd have to enter a code on my player in order to play it (like the blu-ray version of Army of Darkness).

Blu-ray is not an open format but HD-DVD was. RIP HD-DVD, I still have 48 of them.
 
Now that is (the BLURAY one) the one to lend to people if you are trying to convert them to TG, there are better episodes IMHO (Botswana for 1) but this is in HD and is damn fine anyhow.
 
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Ps3 is region free.... you can play anygame's on it. only thing that make's it hard is older TV's :p and the top gear on BR is bad ass its must buy for me when i get some more money :p
 
The extra footage from the director's cut has been posted on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/user/klitschko64

Thanks for the link!!

If I was James, I'd have taken something from that place as a souvenir. ;)

"Say, where's you get that saucer?"

"Ahh, in an abandoned house just sitting in a cupboard while I was driving to the North Pole.."

That would be cool.


Or Richard..

"Look....beds!"
 
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