MASTER AND COMMANDER:
THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD
Year: 2003
USA & UK: Twentieth Century Fox
Cast: Russell Crowe, Paul Bettany, Billy Boyd, James D'Arcy, Lee Ingleby, George Innes, Mark Lewis Jones, Chris Larkin, Richard McCabe, Robert Pugh, David Threlfall, Edward Woodall, Ian Mercer, Thierry Segall, Max Pirkis, Jack Randall, Max Benitz, Tony Dolan, Bryan Dick, Joseph Morgan, William Mannering, Patrick Gallagher, Alex Palmer, John DeSantis
Director: Peter Weir
Country: USA
UK: 138 mins
USA Rated: PG-13 for intense battle sequences, related images, and brief language
UK Certificate: 12A contains moderate violence and one use of strong language
USA Release Date: 14 November 2003
UK Release Date: 28 November 2003
UK Release Date: 21 November 2003 (Limited Release - London)
Synopsis
HMS Surprise:
28 guns
197 souls
Coast of Brazil, April 1805
"... Intercept French Privateer, Acheron ... you will sink, burn or take her a prize"
Three-time Academy Award® directing nominee Peter Weir and Oscar® winner Russell Crowe join forces to create an epic, emotional adventure: MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD. Set during the Napoleonic Wars, Crowe is Patrick O'Brian's Captain 'Lucky' Jack Aubrey, renowned as a fighting captain in the British Navy, and Paul Bettany is ship's doctor Stephen Maturin. Their ship, the Surprise, is suddenly attacked by a superior enemy. With the HMS Surprise badly damaged and much of his crew injured, Aubrey is torn between duty and friendship as he pursues a high-stakes chase across two oceans, to intercept and capture his foe. It's a mission that can make his reputation - or destroy Lucky Jack and his crew.
In the course of the characters' epic journey, the movie travels the world - from the coast of Brazil to the storm-tossed waters of Cape Horn, south through ice and snow, to the far side of the world, to the remote shores of The Galapagos Islands (becoming the first feature film ever to film there).
MASTER AND COMMANDER is directed by Peter Weir from a screenplay by Weir and John Collee, based upon the novels by Patrick O'Brian. The project originated over ten years ago when two legends - Hollywood producer Samuel Goldwyn, Jr. and celebrated author Patrick O'Brian - had preliminary conversations about turning some of O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin stories into a film. It was Goldwyn who first saw the cinematic potential of O'Brian's work, and he persuaded the author, who had not been to the movies in years, that the medium would well serve the adventures of Captain Jack Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin.
The film that resulted a decade later is based on the principal characters first introduced in O'Brian's book 'Master and Commander', but employs the broad narrative outline of the 10 th of 20 Aubrey/Maturin novels, 'The Far Side of the World'. Peter Weir believed the latter had a more direct, cinematic and adaptable story structure. (Our heroes are attacked by a superior foe who must be pursued; but how far and at what cost?)
Using the narrative outline from 'The Far Side of the World' also allowed the movie to be concentrated almost completely at sea, a unique and original approach that Peter Weir understood as the key to capturing the spirit and detail of O'Brian's novels.
The film uses every state-of-the-art motion picture technique and an obsessive attention to accuracy and detail to put the audience back in time - not, as so common now, forward to some science fiction world - and lets us experience an adventure aboard a ship in Nelson's Navy 200 years ago. From the splinter of wood in an attack to the heat of the doldrums, to rounding Cape Horn in a violent storm, MASTER AND COMMANDER puts the audience at sea as never before in film.
On Special Edition 2-DVD set, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World includes a making of featurette The Hundred Days, a HBO Special, documentaries on sound effects and special effects, deleted scenes, galleries and a special interactive Cannon Sound featurette.
DVD EXTRAS
DVD 1-Disc
Certificate:
Feature Running Time: 132 mins
Language: English
Subtitles: Hard of Hearing English
Original Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 (16x9)
Sound Quality: 5.1 / 5.1 DTS
DVD 2-Disc Set
Certificate: 12
Feature Running Time: 132 mins
Language: English
Subtitles: Hard of Hearing English
Original Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 (16x9)
Sound Quality: 5.1 / 5.1 DTS
Special Features Disc 1: Inside look at I Robot
Special Features Disc 2: Making of Featurette - The Hundred Days
Peter Weir on Directing - In the Wake of O'Brian
Special Effects Documentary - Cinematic Phasmids
Sound Design Documentary
HBO First Look Special
6 Deleted Scenes
The Last Battle Multi-angle studies. Camera setups and split screen vignette
Four Stills Galleries
Canon Sound - Interactive Sound Recording