Arrow Video has unleashed Excalibur and Westworld in new Limited Edition 4K releases. Are these restorations worthy of Camelot and Delos, or are we about to discover that even legends and lifelike androids can misfire in Ultra HD?
Excalibur
A lifelong passion project for the filmmaker John Boorman, Excalibur favors the legend of King Arthur over historical fact, drawing as much from the distinguished filmmaker’s aborted adaptation of The Lord of the Rings as from Thomas Malory’s sweeping 15th-century Le Morte d’Arthur. The results remain unique to this day, a beautiful and often bizarre triumph of production design and notoriously complex costumes, filled with earnest thespians early in their careers, among them Helen Mirren, Patrick Stewart, Gabriel Byrne and Liam Neeson.
Taken as either fact or fantasy, it’s one hell of a story: The illegitimate child Arthur, raised humbly, reveals his true identity and divine right to rule by pulling the magical sword Excalibur from the stone. As king, he unites his people and defeats countless enemies, before treachery and betrayal brings his glorious monarchy to a bittersweet end.
A reasonable hit in theaters, the movie has only grown in popularity, largely for its sweeping adventure as captured in its hypnotic visuals. It’s long been a tough title to properly represent on video, with its heavy green mists and the specular highlights bouncing off hand-beaten suits of aluminum armor often reduced to a blocky mess. Arrow’s native 4K scan of the original camera negative is properly framed here at its proper 5:3 aspect ratio for the first time, bringing a newfound stability to the image while the Dolby Vision pass maintains the moody green and red filter effect that cinematographer Alex Thomson intended without blooming into the surrounding forest shadows. While the scenery might be bleak at times, the wide color gamut makes the most of what was shot, notably the lush greens.
The disc defaults to a lossless true mono audio track, and the best I can say here is that it gets the job done, conveying the necessary elements–dialogue, the clinking of swords, the gist of the music–but with no flex whatsoever. Significantly more engaging is the 5.1-channel remix, putting the action all around us without ever trying to sound like a Michael Bay joint. This option is also the best way to enjoy the needle drops by Carl Orff and Richard Wagner that gave the movie its distinctive, operatic feel. Either way, the dialogue is very obviously looped and the spotty lip-synch can be off-putting.
The movie is joined on Disc One by two new expert audio commentaries as well as an archival track by Boorman himself. Disc Two carries a menagerie of substantive new interviews with key talent; a new mini-documentary about Boorman; an archival making-of directed by “creative associate” Neil Jordan (The Crying Game), making its home video debut here; and quite a bit more.
As with some of Arrow’s most highly regarded limited editions, this release also includes an exclusive bonus disc that presents the film in an alternate form: a television cut. To be clear, this is not the fully reconstructed 1980s broadcast version that featured alternate takes, different camera angles, and occasional additional footage. Instead, it is a toned-down edit where sexual content and graphic violence have been adjusted to meet network broadcast standards of the era. With an SD tape from the Warner vault as a guide, this two-hour presentation was reconstructed from the new restoration, in 1080p at the theatrical aspect ratio. Welcome certainly, although not exactly the holy grail that fans have been seeking. (See what I did there?)
Excalibur – Movie Details
- STUDIO: Arrow Video
- FORMAT: Ultra HD 4K Blu-ray (February 24, 2026)
- THEATRICAL RELEASE YEAR:: 1981
- ASPECT RATIO: 1.66:1
- HDR FORMATS: Dolby Vision, HDR10
- AUDIO FORMAT: DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0, 5.1
- LENGTH: 141 mins.
- MPAA RATING: R
- DIRECTOR: John Boorman
- STARRING: Nigel Terry, Nicol Williamson, Helen Mirren, Nicholas Clay, Cherie Lunghi, Paul Geoffrey
Our Ratings
★★★★★★★★★★ Picture
★★★★★★★★★★ Sound
★★★★★★★★★★ Extras
Where to buy: $59.95 at Amazon
Westworld
On a fateful evening in June of 1993, as I sat in a darkened theater surrounded by enthralled fellow ticket-buyers, I was distracted from the events unfolding onscreen as one nagging thought persisted: “Damn, Jurassic Park sure feels a lot like Westworld.” Whereas Jurassic Park began life as a novel that triggered a high-profile bidding war among several A-list directors before landing at Steven Spielberg, Michael Crichton conceived Westworld very differently. Rather than adapting a book, Crichton wrote it directly as an original screenplay and went on to direct the film himself, marking his theatrical directorial debut in 1973.
For his first high-concept sci-fi theme park run amok, he envisioned the ultimate vacation destination for deep-pocketed guests, with three distinct environments populated by robots virtually indistinguishable from people. The cowboy-themed land has attracted a nice-guy lawyer/tourist (Richard Benjamin) and his cavalier buddy (James Brolin) for a week of gun-totin’ fun, but a series of minor malfunctions quickly gives way to deadly consequences, with no human likely to survive. Top-billed Yul Brynner has limited screentime yet steals his every scene as the menacing, black-clad Gunslinger, riffing slyly on his character from The Magnificent Seven.
Arrow’s new 4K/16-bit restoration serves up Westworld at a wide 2.39:1. Nighttime scenes and many of the interiors boast deep shadows that enhance the realism and the organic ‘70s vibe. There’s a lot of beige in the western locales but the trappings of neighboring Medieval World deliver more colorful pop. Grain varies quite a bit but it is definitely in evidence throughout. Director of photography Gene Polito didn’t employ a lot of sharp focus, but in closeups we can really see that crisp 4K sparkle.
The movie packs quite the array of audio options, starting with three original theatrical mixes. The disc defaults to the restored original 4.0 “stereo” (left/center/right/mono surround), along with 2.0 and 1.0, plus a more modern 5.1, all in DTS-HD Master Audio. The 4.0 is quite strong and surprisingly did not reveal much of a difference when we switched to 5.1, each offering an engaging if not jaw-dropping spread across the home theater. The major explosion during the jailbreak sequence lacks real impact across all included audio options, sounding more “.0” than “.1” in practice, with limited low-frequency weight. Meanwhile, Fred Karlin’s eclectic score does much of the heavy lifting, establishing the distinct atmosphere of each themed world before shifting into something far more ominous as the seemingly unkillable androids close in.
Westworld is a single-disc affair yet manages to round up some solid bonus goodies. Arrow corralled the two leads for new on-camera interviews, leading me to believe they probably could have gotten Yul too, if he was still with us. There’s also a producer interview, a middling audio commentary, an interesting “video appreciation,” and one of those terrific old behind-the-scenes featurettes created to promote upcoming films of the era. Well-intentioned but a tad incongruous is the pilot episode of the spurious, short-lived TV spinoff, Beyond Westworld.
As you can see from the photos, both titles arrive in premium packaging: A rigid box holding the plastic disc case with reversible sleeve artwork and a set of six photocards, a perfect-bound companion book and a two-sided poster, all surrounded by a cardboard slipcover. If you’re an Arrow fan, you already know how great these will look on your shelf, just like you know that either or both are destined to sell out.
Westworld – Movie Details
- STUDIO: Arrow Video
- FORMAT: Ultra HD 4K Blu-ray (February 24, 2026)
- THEATRICAL RELEASE YEAR: 1973
- ASPECT RATIO: 2.39:1
- HDR FORMATS: Dolby Vision, HDR10
- AUDIO FORMAT: DTS-HD Master Audio 4.0, 2.0, 1.0, 5.1
- LENGTH: 89 mins.
- MPAA RATING: PG
- DIRECTOR: Michael Crichton
- STARRING: Yul Brynner, Richard Benjamin, James Brolin, Norman Bartold, Alan Oppenheimer, Dick Van Patten
Our Ratings
★★★★★★★★★★ Picture
★★★★★★★★★★ Sound
★★★★★★★★★★ Extras
Where to buy: $59.95 at Amazon
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