UHD Titles Worth/Not Worth Upgrading [Archive]

[Finch]

True Lies screenshots

Park Road Post at the bottom is the 4k image. Really grim.

Geoff's capsule review of the Abyss 4k stream

[yoloswegmaster]

That screencap from the 4K resto for True Lies look so bad. Arnold and Tom look like they were CGI'd into the film.

[andyli]

It feels so ironic that during all these years of patient waiting, should at any point Fox give up on waiting for that Ever-Busy Somebody’s involvement, it would have been a much better release than this.

[dwk]

Thing is Fox could not remaster these titles without Cameron's involvement.

[CSM126]

Yikes. Looks like one of those AI generated image bots tried to mimic a screenshot from True Lies.

[tenia]

Thing is Fox could not remaster these titles without Cameron's involvement.

Of course, but the hypothesis is mostly true : should have Cameron's involvement been able to be ditched, the movies probably would be have been released years ago, and in more natural and faithful presentations.

[dwk]

Yes, these clearly would have been better without Cameron's involvement, but the post I was responding to said " ...all these years of patient waiting, should at any point Fox give up on waiting for," implying that Fox had any choice.

[andyli]

Thing is Fox could not remaster these titles without Cameron's involvement.

What level of involvement, then, is required in this case? Was it written into some kind of contract that the director must be consulted at the scanning/restoration stage (and tweak it to his liking)? Does he have to approve every step of the way? Could Fox have managed an expert remaster and delivered the near-final result for a sign-off at any point?

[MichaelB]

Was it written into some kind of contract that the director must be consulted at the scanning/restoration stage (and tweak it to his liking)? Does he have to approve every step of the way?

I suspect the answer to those two is more likely "yes" than otherwise.

Either that or Disney doesn't want to jeopardise their relationship with the creator of one of their biggest cash cows - and God knows that they need the money right now.

[nicolas]

Thing is Fox could not remaster these titles without Cameron's involvement.

What level of involvement, then, is required in this case? Was it written into some kind of contract that the director must be consulted at the scanning/restoration stage (and tweak it to his liking)? Does he have to approve every step of the way? Could Fox have managed an expert remaster and delivered the near-final result for a sign-off at any point?

They could have, yes. In the case of Cameron’s best DNR-loving friend Peter Jackson this happened with Turbine Germany commissioning a 4K restoration and Atmos upgrade for The Frighteners. All the (great) work was done in Germany without Jackson’s oversight and when they sent it to him he approved everything. Turbine probably rejoiced that it went this well. I’m not sure another one of his films looks this good on home video.

[yoloswegmaster]

According to the Kino Lorber Insider, no new HD/2K/4K master can be created without the involvement of the director per DGA rules.

[MichaelB]

This is why it’s much easier restoring films by people who are no longer with us.

[yoloswegmaster]

This is why it’s much easier restoring films by people who are no longer with us.

I know that this rule by the DGA would have to be followed by any American labels like KL, but would this rule also apply to any non-U.S. labels attempting to do their own restoration?

[tenia]

According to the Kino Lorber Insider, no new HD/2K/4K master can be created without the involvement of the director per DGA rules.

Is that a new rule ? Cause I'm quite certain Kino themselves almost got Brick remastered in 4k without letting Johnson know about it.

[yoloswegmaster]

According to the Kino Lorber Insider, no new HD/2K/4K master can be created without the involvement of the director per DGA rules.

Is that a new rule ? Cause I'm quite certain Kino themselves almost got Brick remastered in 4k without letting Johnson know about it.

Not quite. When KL first announced Brick, they were going to use the master that Universal had provided them with. Rian Johnson then found out about the release and reached out to KL, in which afterwards him and Steve Yedlin oversaw the new 4K restoration.

[dwk]

Is that a new rule ?

I think it goes back to the early 90s. But I would assume that some directors could have had a clause written into their contract before it became an official DGA rule.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Is that a new rule ? Cause I'm quite certain Kino themselves almost got Brick remastered in 4k without letting Johnson know about it.

Not quite. When KL first announced Brick, they were going to use the master that Universal had provided them with. Rian Johnson then found out about the release and reached out to KL, in which afterwards him and Steve Yedlin oversaw the new 4K restoration.

I'm pretty sure the DGA rules wouldn't apply to Brick anyway, since Johnson wasn't a member at the time and the production wasn't covered by a DGA agreement.

I should say that the 2020 DGA basic agreement (I don't know about the new one) only seems to give directors the right to be consulted about domestic video releases, not an actual veto.

[tenia]

According to the Kino Lorber Insider, no new HD/2K/4K master can be created without the involvement of the director per DGA rules.

Is that a new rule ? Cause I'm quite certain Kino themselves almost got Brick remastered in 4k without letting Johnson know about it.

Not quite. When KL first announced Brick, they were going to use the master that Universal had provided them with. Rian Johnson then found out about the release and reached out to KL, in which afterwards him and Steve Yedlin oversaw the new 4K restoration.

Oh right, I remember now, thanks for the reminder.

[hearthesilence]

According to the Kino Lorber Insider, no new HD/2K/4K master can be created without the involvement of the director per DGA rules.

To be fair, there are cases where I wish that had happened. Like I wish Alain Resnais was still around when they did the new restoration of Muriel...given what he did when he was displeased with the old DVD master, I'm sure he would've pushed back on the revisionist color timing.

[swo17]

To be fair, James Cameron is no Alain Resnais

[nicolas]

Some 4K updates:

Clue and Point Break by Shout are two excellent discs. The former’s clearly limited by the 70s stock and lighting (the actual resolution never reaches 4K) but the encode and colors are fantastic. Shout deserve a lot of credit for saving what would have been another Paramount victim.

Point Break looks incredibly beautiful in 4K. There’s been so much talk and worry about the transfer coming from an interpositive but all these naysayers haven’t seen this disc. It’s incredible and may be the best 35mm-IP-sourced UHD we’ve seen to date. It’s almost as crisp as a real OCN scan. I guarantee that most people wouldn’t have noticed if Shout never stated what they used. I was initially in disbelief about how good this looked as I’d have expected that the entire transfer has the definition of the opening credits. The minimal detail loss is palpable, so obviously no sudden surprises here.
Still a shame that they couldn’t access the negative for whatever reason but this is more than sufficient.

Color Purple by Warner received a good restoration with what seems a faithful color grade compared to the old BD (I never had the BD, only saw caps online) but the encode is very disappointing. The second-gen shots I saw looked awful with buzzy, swarming "grain" and skies are the same with macroblocking on top. Normal shots are beautiful and detailed. I dislike the way Warners approach their 4Ks as of late (using low-pass filtering such as on Rio Bravo and The Fugitive as an example) and this is no exception - they’re saving at the wrong places. Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise that they aren’t releasing as many titles. Hopefully Criterion and Shout can license more. This is not more than a solid upgrade.

Titanic is ridiculously bad when the AI strikes but in my opinion the second big issue (obviously not talked about in pro reviews) is the color grading. The then-present day scenes are affected by the opposite end of what we usually get from Ritrovata, meaning that many scenes, such as the one with Gloria Stuart getting out of the helicopter, look anemic and incredibly digital for the complete lack of any hint of filmic colors, particularly whites. It’s so bright and fake-looking (overcast never looked this bright) that this is what took me out of the film more than the AI upscale. Bill Paxton & co. look like seasick zombies there. I’d recommend adjusting your white balance settings to something significantly warmer as a counterbalance.

[Finch]

Following titles added to OP:

Clue
existenz (Fidelity in Motion encode, adding screenshots link later today)

Point Break was already added as a Solid Upgrade (reference video, but disappointing audio)

Aliens, The Abyss added to the Disappointing UHDs section for the same reason as Titanic: heavy grain reduction, actors' skins looking unnatural. Cameron's taken a heavily revisionist approach to restoring these films and robbed them of their original context. Your mileage may vary as to how you like their new appearances but none of them are faithful representations. True Lies is the worst affected and not worth buying even at the inevitable $12.99 on Amazon next September or thereabouts.

All of the Cameron 4k transfers are admittedly only available on streams right now, but the flaws are baked into the new master files and no amount of excellent encoding is going to fix that, and Disney's encoding is not great to begin with. As with existenz, will link to screenshots of Aliens later tonight.

[nicolas]

Following titles added to OP:

Clue
existenz (Fidelity in Motion encode, adding screenshots link later today)

Point Break was already added as a Solid Upgrade (reference video, but disappointing audio)

Aliens, The Abyss added to the Disappointing UHDs section for the same reason as Titanic: heavy grain reduction, actors' skins looking unnatural. Cameron's taken a heavily revisionist approach to restoring these films and robbed them of their original context. Your mileage may vary as to how you like their new appearances but none of them are faithful representations. True Lies is the worst affected and not worth buying even at the inevitable $12.99 on Amazon next September or thereabouts.

All of the Cameron 4k transfers are admittedly only available on streams right now, but the flaws are baked into the new master files and no amount of excellent encoding is going to fix that, and Disney's encoding is not great to begin with. As with existenz, will link to screenshots of Aliens later tonight.

Totally agree - the UHDs will be one and the same. People hoping for any miracles happening until the discs arrive will be disappointed as usual.

Regarding Point Break’s disappointing audio, I understood that the film never had much range and fidelity, particularly low-end over the course of its home video life. That’s what I took from the conversation on BR.com. Opinions appear torn on this one. Personally it seems odd that an action film from the mid-90s has next to no bass in the era of nothing but bass and oomph but if that was the intention, fine with me. (FWIW, DoP Don Peterman wanted to eschew the era’s prevalent strong and saturated color look in Hollywood films and therefore chose another Kodak stock for the production and likely went with different timing methods as well. This idea could have very well overlapped into the sound. A shame Kathryn Bigelow didn’t participate in the remastering or any interview about the film, she’d surely know best).

[therewillbeblus]

Re: Aliens - I hope the disappointments aren’t bad enough to prefer the blu? Or is it another Jurassic Park sitch where it’s not ideal but still better

[Finch]

I gather Point Break's old 5.1 mix wasn't exactly good either but people comparing the two said the new mix is worse still.