I watched Mars Attacks! on 4K Blu-ray, which delivers quality streaming can't match

Mars Attacks! 4K Blu-ray and Blu-ray box set, 30th anniversary release — (Image credit: Future / Mike Lowe / artwork: Warner Bros.)

Over the weekend, I tucked into a superb Warner Bros. 4K Blu-ray remaster of Mars Attacks! – which has just been released on a 30th-anniversary steelbook edition.

I've always loved this movie; it's one of Tim Burton's best in my opinion, much as others might disagree (and its Rotten Tomatoes score certainly supports that).

But this remaster is an absolute belter that streaming can't even pretend to match – indeed, there's no access to a 4K version from such services.

I could barely believe that the original is now 30 years old, as the sheer quality that's been pulled from this high dynamic range (HDR) rework is really special.

Mars Attacks! (1996) • HD Remastered Trailer #2 (Rare) [30-Year Anniversary] - YouTube

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Honestly, it looks like a modern-day movie in many respects. I was nervous that the Martians might look really dated under the lens of today's more advanced effects – but their design and delivery show just how well thought-out they always were.

There are a couple of versions of the Mars Attacks! 4K Blu-ray: you can buy it as a single disc, or the more lavish 30th anniversary collector's edition with steelbook (and Blu-ray bundled into that package, too). It's the latter that I have, as you can see in the pictures below:

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Even the box set is lavishly thought out, complete with a steelbook that's shrouded in a transparent coating with Martian Girl showing – and revealing a classic Martian head once you slide it off. Ack ack!

The other box within the package has a series of postcards and a duo of posters, hence it being a collector's item. I'll be keeping those safe and sound rather than putting them up on my office walls, mind.

Warner Bros. has used a 100GB disc for this version of Mars Attacks!, which really shows in its visual fidelity. That's outputting a massive 84.5 megabits per second of HEVC-encoded visuals for the movie's 106 minutes.

To put that in perspective: it's crunching through around 630MB of data per minute to bring you those rich visuals. The sharpness is incredible, the colours pop more than ever before, with higher dynamic range than the movie has ever presented.

The audio track has been remastered too, with the 4K disc delivering a Dolby Atmos mix for even greater immersion, one-upping the standard Blu-ray's 5.1 mix. It's the audio treat that carries those visuals even further.

Diving back into this sci-fi classic rekindled childhood movie memories for me. That said, the message – as much as the satire and the comedy – is just as relevant today as it was back in 1996!

Mars Attacks! is a 4K Blu-ray treat and another entry in my '4K Blu-ray club' of watching one physical release per month. This one felt like a blast from the past, delivered in a modern-day quality that shows off just how good movie-making was in the mid-90s.

Mike is T3's Tech Editor. He's been writing about consumer technology for 15 years and his beat covers phones – of which he's seen hundreds of handsets over the years – laptops, gaming, TV & audio, and more. There's little consumer tech he's not had a hand at trying, and with extensive commissioning and editing experience, he knows the industry inside out. As the former Reviews Editor at Pocket-lint for 10 years where he furthered his knowledge and expertise, whilst writing about literally thousands of products, he's also provided work for publications such as Wired, The Guardian, Metro, and more.