South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut - 25th Anniversary Limited Edition 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

When you have a show that’s been on for almost thirty years like South Park, some of the older material starts to get a little dated. The series went through a number of animation upgrades over the years and the’ shocking content became a little tame. Over time, language restrictions eased and streaming let fans enjoy episodes in their full uncut foulmouthed glory. The initial draw of Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s first South Park feature film was to not only give fans everything they loved about the show free of bleeps and edits but also serve as something of a possible series finale. Obviously, the show kept going and the need for bleeps eventually became a non-issue. 

It had been a few years since I last sat down in earnest to watch South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut. I worked the theater when it came out so I saw it several times on the big screen and it was among the first DVDs I ever bought. Overexposure wore off the novelty of the film so I never felt the need to kick back to it all that often. When the announcement came over the wire that Paramount Home Entertainment was going to offer up a 40th Anniversary 4K UHD upgrade, I was a little surprised, shocked, and plain curious about how well it’d turn out, let alone hold up. 

Maybe it’s because the show has become so extreme (or content restrictions so drastically loosened) over the years that South Park: Bigger, Longer, &Uncut now actually feels like a novelty again. If even in a retro sense, it’s nice to see early South Park when the animations were still a little crude, Butters was barely a character, Tolkien was still Token, and Randy hadn’t gone full Karen. I am by no means a strong fan of musicals, but wouldn’t you know it, these damn songs became infectious earworms all over again. 

I could chalk this recent reappraisal up to simple nostalgia, but it did make me feel like I was seventeen all over again. I remember the satire of this film feeling razor-sharp for its time with those obnoxious Parents Rights groups, V-chips, Bill Clinton, and the whirlwind romance of Saddam Hussain and Satan. Parents Rights groups are still a band moronically narrow-minded obnoxious twits with too much time on their hands, but the rest of the world changed a lot in the 25 years since this was in theaters. The pre-Y2K world through the lens of a South Park movie feels so quaint and innocent now. 

But nostalgia isn’t the only thing this film has going for it. It’s Matt Stone and Trey Parker at their best before they won Emmies, Peabodies, and Grammy awards, made puppets have sex, and completely dominated the Tonys. Their careers were still ahead of them and they had a lot to prove. It’s wild to think these two guys are one Oscar away from scoring an EGOT! It’s total bullshit Phil Collins won Best Original Song. If “Blame Canada” deserved to lose to any song that year it was a genuinely good song like Randy Newman and Toy Story 2’s “When She Loved Me.” The film is a tremendous showcase of range, wit, and talent. South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut isn’t just hilarious swear-filled shenanigans, it’s smart satire with great music, a funny-as-hell story, and at 81 minutes it flies by faster than a Canadian bomber during an airstrike on the Baldwins. 

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray 
You can’t blame Canada for South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut invading 4K with a new two-disc 4K UHD + Blu-ray + Digital release. That responsibility falls on Paramount Home Entertainment. The 4K is pressed on a BD-66 disc with the 1080p serving up the new Sing-A-Long edition and Bonus features on a BD-50 disc. The two discs are housed in a two-disc case with identical slipcover artwork. Each disc loads to a static image main menu with traditional navigation options.

[Note] As of publish time, we haven’t been able to snag disc-sourced 4K images or video yet, when we can we’ll try to circle back and update.

I was worried about how good South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut could look on 4K, but I’m pleasantly surprised it’s actually a winning effort. For starters, the telecine wobble that was present throughout the old Blu-ray and DVDs is now gone. That stability alone is a welcome upgrade. I was actually very impressed with the overall improvement in image details. Given that it's early South Park, details aren’t exactly abundant but fine lines are crisp without any sign of edge enhancement and textures in our cardboard-esq characters and scenery is much more notable than past discs. Film grain also appears intact so this film actually does look like a film and I dare say even better and more visually appealing than the recent full season and special event transfers on Blu-ray. 

The Dolby Vision HDR grade may strike some as a tad too saturated, but overall I liked it. Those blues, reds, and yellows are extra rich. Kyle’s coat and Kenny’s snowsuit are a darker orange shade than before. Stan and Cartman’s hats are a tad darker shade of blue now, but not so terrible to be distracting. These are only slight moves on the color wheel, not something I'd call complete revisionist overhauls. I don’t mind the slightly darker shading mostly because I see it as a great improvement over the old Blu-ray that just looked way too light and flat for my liking.  Black levels are nice and deep inky and for some of the bigger setpieces, it felt like there was real depth to the simplistic animation. Likewise, whites were nice and crisp. Cartman’s V-Chip superpowers lent to some notable spectral highlights as well.  

Unfortunately for the Sing-A-Long Blu-ray, the older master was used and the differences are immediately noticeable. Not to mention the fact that the Sing-A-Long feature is not optional. You can not turn that off. It’s fine if you run Karaoke or have trouble keeping up with the lyrics, but if you’re a true fan, you know these tunes. This is all the more frustrating since the Commentary track is only on this Blu-ray disc.

On a bit of a middling note, this 4K disc recycles the decent enough Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track from discs past. Overall this mix is a solid lively track with plenty of imaging. My gripe is the low end feels a bit anemic without much in the way of real sustained LFE. Some volume and setting compensation on my receiver helped that, but I would have loved to hear a new mix. Even Atmos would have been incredible for “Kyle’s Mom is a Bitch” let alone the rest of the great tunes and action sequences. Hell, even Hell could have used a sonic upgrade in that arena. All in all, this isn’t a terrible mix, it still works well as the dialog is still clean and clear and you can fully enjoy all of the songs.

On the bonus features front, the only new addition to the set is the Sing-A-Long version on the included Blu-ray. Now this might be fun for some, it’s a non-starter for me since even years away from watching the film I know the lyrics by heart. Now as mentioned in the video section, the Sing-A-Long feature is non-optional and baked in. You can not turn it off. This disc is also the only way you can listen to the archival audio commentary and enjoy the DVDA music video. There are no extra features on the 4K disc even though it has about 9 gigs of space to spare. 

Blu-ray Disc

• Sing-A-Long Edition
• Audio Commentary featuring Matt Stone and Trey Parker
• “What Would Brian Boitano Do” Music Video (SD 2:44)
• Teaser Trailer (HD 00:55)
• Theatrical Trailer (HD 1:32)
• Theatrical Trailer 2 (HD 1:51)

Matt Stone and Trey Parker certainly have come a long way since South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut. But in many ways, it’s one of their crowning achievements. The film was a success. South Park wasn’t canceled (and still isn’t). They’ve gone on to make other wild and crazy films while dominating Broadway with one of the funniest musicals of all time - that absolutely should be made into a movie. Now 25 years later we can look back at this film and appreciate the simpler times we used to joke about and laugh at. The film holds up impressively well and the songs are as infectious as ever. The new 4K Dolby Vision transfer is a welcome improvement. I wish it’d gotten a new audio mix but what's here still serves the film well enough. The weight of the new Sing-A-Long edition depends on how much you need a Karaoke-style version of the film on top of the vintage extras. Perhaps not a homerun release, but just the visual improvements in 4K are worth considering an upgrade. Recommended

Order Your Copy of South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray