The Godfather Restoration was a highly anticpated title on Blu-Ray.  What could the new hgh defintion format bring to this classic American film, which belongs in every film buffs library.  I remember the original dvd release and my disappointment in the picture quality of that release, even though years went by before Paramount finally released it. I was hoping that for once and for all we could see this saga the way it was intended by its director without the flaws that accompanied all other releases.

Enter Stephen Spielberg of Dreamworks who asked the new head of Paramount to finance the restoration project and got the cash to finance it. The work was painstakingly done and shown to Coppolla for approval and he liked it a lot.  Coppolla explains in some of th eextras on disc four of this set that technology had finally allowed people to see his film the way it was intended.

I have read with amazement the rave reviews about this giftset from Paramount.  I respectfully disagree with most of them.  Restoration to me means going through a film frame by frame and taking out flaws found from the original negative and restoring the faded colors, removing unnecessary grain and flicker and for high defintion, get it as close to the original film as possible.

While I must applaud the efforts of the restoration team for doing some of this, I was disappointed with the overall restoration of the films, especially the most recent film from 1990, Godfather III.  While much effort was used to get the best negative available for the restoration, the overall graininess from the low-light shots and color balance are not pleasing with too much yellowing of skin tones and visible grain. Sure, Coppolla wanted this look to reflect the times and atmosphere but in enhancing the film' color for high defintion, the restoration team went a bit too far, making the characters look way too waxy in some scenes.

The other major beef I have with this set  is with the work or lack of work on Godfather III, which is not that old a film. The scenes with Michael and Kay in Sicily in the apartment, where Kay tells Michael she still loves him is filled with flicker.  In the scene with Keaton and a dark fireplace in the background, check out the inconsistency of the black in the fireplace. Shouldn't have happened if a film is truly restored.

This disc set does contain some new and interesting supplemental material including a feature on the restoration, and the Godfather legacy.  It also includes all the extras from the 2001 dvd release.

While the restoration of "The Godfather" is not horrible, I feel that with today's technology, it should have been better.