This is topic Pearl Harbor sound: beuh..... restrained, laid back, lacking oomph? in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.
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Posted by David Baum (Member # 568) on 06-01-2001, 09:43 PM:
this is just about the sound itself (sound effects especially, like explosions, gunshots, maching guns, planes flying by, vessels cracking etc ).
The theater is a large 70ft sceen, THX, BGW amps, JBL. The theater was 2/3 full.
It really felt much limited in the low frequencies and high frequencies. There was deep bass (20hz) but lacking that Saving Private Ryan level, that violent, "you're in there" sound. Anybody can comment on that ? the sound encoding itself ?
it was in DTS ( most probably ).Since the attack itself is the only worth part, the sound is crucial.
Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 06-01-2001, 10:00 PM:
The Pearl Harbor soundtrack, IMHO, was poorly done. I sounded like crap everywhere, so I have been told......
Posted by Jonathan Haglund (Member # 807) on 06-02-2001, 02:51 AM:
And for the love of Todd, you would think they would be able to get SDDS right. Two entirely separate prints of mine cut out of SDDS at the same places. Its really annoying since SDDS is still my only digital system.
Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-02-2001, 05:11 AM:
I've already commented about it in the movie review forum, but the track was definitely aimed at solely being "loud". Quality and detail seems to have been forgotten on this one. That's ashamed too, because this could've been one hell of a good track.By the way, I could not discern the LE and RE channels in an 8 channel house vs. a dts house. Anyone care to comment who has heard an 8 channel presentation?
Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 06-02-2001, 08:12 AM:
I saw this in Dolby Digital. I tend to agree that a better mix was expected. The sound in the fight sequences was loud but crap and the sound in the rest of the movie was just pap. 
Posted by James Keel (Member # 835) on 06-03-2001, 02:35 PM:
I saw it in a THX house, and first, it was LOUD. But loud can be good, but not this movie. The strings in the score seemed to make the speakers crackle. And the voice track seemed to be overpowered by the score. Overall Sound Review: Muddy
Overall Review of Me: Old 
JK
Posted by Tal Marks (Member # 175) on 06-03-2001, 04:40 PM:
And now for my biased opinion...Brad said:
"Anyone care to comment who has heard an 8 channel presentation?"
Our premiere house ran an EK print for the media & critics. The local service company, RMS was hired to make sure all the SDDS levels were correct. The tech that morning was phenominal. Everything sounded perfect, from the dialogue to the intense attack scene.
Fast-forward two weeks later to one of our smaller houses... Since we now have trailers ahead of the feature, there have been multiple complaints of "the sound is to big" (actual response from an employee). Compensating by turning down the volume results in loss of center channel dialogue, but the surrounds still blast out all the flying & attack scenes.
'no sir, i didn't like it'