Spielberg: "I'm no longer a digital revisionist."

August 16, 2012

http://www.mania.com/spielberg-indy-imax_article_133888.html

He's made some nice strides since the walkie talkies in 2002.

This is also a good interview from last year: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/49897

Quint: I can’t wait, man. I love that the last DVD release actually had the original mono soundtrack on it as well. I wasn’t a fan of the remixed 5.1 sound… the splashing sounded canned…

Steven Spielberg: Oh, I know. I totally understand that. (In the future) there’s going to be no more digital enhancements or digital additions to anything based on any film I direct. I’m not going to do any corrections digitally to even wires that show.

If 1941 comes on Blu-Ray I’m not going to go back and take the wires out because the Blu-Ray will bring the wires out that are guiding the airplane down Hollywood Blvd. At this point right now I think letting movies exist in the era, with all the flaws and all of the flourishes, is a wonderful way to mark time and mark history.

Quint: I’m in total agreement with you. I wish you could talk George (Lucas) into doing the same thing!

Steven Spielberg: Well, I can’t!

Quint: (laughs) Yeah, I don’t think anybody can!

Steven Spielberg: George goes his own way and I respect him for it, but my new philosophy on this is to let sleeping dogs lie.

Quint: That’s great news for film lovers.

Steven Spielberg: When people ask me which E.T. they should look at, I always tell them to look at the original 1982 E.T. If you notice, when we did put out E.T. we put out two E.T.s. We put out the digitally enhanced version with the additional scenes and for no extra money, in the same package, we put out the original ‘82 version. I always tell people to go back to the ’82 version.

Quint: Having the option is the big deal for me. Using the Star Wars example, I don’t think there’d be an outcry if we could watch a nice transfer of the original versions. We’d be like, “George can do what he wants and I’ll watch it… but you know maybe the fans would like the option of watching the movie they fell in love with, too.”

Steven Spielberg: Yeah. And I think the other good thing is that they understand when they see a movie and they suddenly see something that obviously could have been done much better today and could have been corrected in the DVD/Blu-Ray transfer, they really appreciate seeing the strings attached.

If somebody put out George Pal’s War of the Worlds and took the strings off the machines I’d be very upset. When that machine crashes in downtown Hollywood, and you see the strings going from taut to slack, that’s the thing that allows me to both understand this movie is scaring the hell out of me and at the same time this movie is a creation of the human race.

That little taut-to-slack moment of those wires on that wingtip makes the original George Pal War of the Worlds work for me. It embraces my fears and it also alleviates them in the same breath.

And that is exactly how I have always felt about the SW changes. When I watch a movie I'm just as interested in marveling at the accomplishments in context of when the film was made. I love the matte boxes in SW. It feels like PEOPLE made the movie. Now the films are more machine than man. Twisted and evil.

SilverWook said:

He did invent the "Special Edition" with Close Encounters though. Have people forgotten the "inside the mothership" ending already? ;)

I'll be happy to own 1941 on Blu Ray even if the wires holding up the models can be seen.

And he changed the title of "Raiders of the Lost Ark".

A ferry that was seen in the background in the scene when Brody is trying to tie the knot on the Orca have apparently been digitally removed on the new Jaws restoration.

The Aluminum Falcon said:

Unfortunate yet minor. Any chance that the restoration company thought it was a blemish or just simply did it without Spielberg's knowledge or consent?

Yeah, it's nothing to be upset about, it's tastefully done like the well of the souls-reflection, for you who don't know it was basically just a tiny white spot on the horizon in a few shots. I recall reading in some article that they made a few corrections and cleanups of some visible production equipments and other flaws, so I guess this thing was included in that category. But who knows, an automatic process might pick it up as a speck of dirt.

I found a cap of it:

One of those blink and you miss it. ;)

zombie84 said:

To be honest in all likelihood that was erased by mistake, whether human or computer.

Yeah, I think this quote from "Jaws expert" Jim Beller suggests it was erased by mistake:

"For those who asked if the boat in the background during the quick scene of Brody trying to tie the "little brown eel" rope is still there. No, it's not anymore. The boat was the ferry going (or leaving) Oak Bluffs and was seen in the background in all other past versions of the film. They digitally took it out I guess. Although......
They missed another scene where you see the ferry in the background. That scene is still there, untouched with digital fixing."

A great article on the restoration: http://magazine.creativecow.net/article/restoring-jaws

This is what I was referring to in my earlier post, from that article:

In addition to the bigger challenges of color and brightness shifts, Dunn also dealt with a host of more minor issues. "There were some shots where there is production equipment in part of the shot," he says. "No one would notice, but we did. We got permission first from the production company and then removed it digitally or positioned it out." In one case Dunn recalls, he could see the shadow of a boom mic in the water off the boat. "It's safe to say that people who work in post have seen a lot of these things," he says. "Enough that we tend to catch them. But they tend to be subtle. A glint in the water might be mistaken for dirt, and you have to be careful about that."

I think they did a fantastic job with this restoration, the blu-ray looks excellent IMO, I was a little worried about the color timing being off with all the bad attempts to make old films look more modern, like we often see these days, but it looks perfect. Now if only Star Wars could be treated in the same way.

Jaws only worries me on the audio. The video portion looks great if not exactly 1975 era coloring. The 7.1 new mix is wholly unnecessary and even in their restoration video you can see the severely clipped audio tracks being used. This film has one of those mono mixes that is so damn well done that I hate to see any kind of remix.

S. Spielberg said:

There’s two fronts, on any successful conversion, to Imax resolution, which is significantly clearer and sharper, with much more depth and fidelity than the movie appeared in theaters in 1981. So the first tier is where you take the DI [digital intermediate] and you enhance the resolution to Imax resolution. The second tier is that the sound is significantly different. They take the [audio] stems that we gave them, and they put them through their 12,000 watts of digital surround sound, and it’s a totally uncompressed experience.

Still it's 4K digitally blown up to IMAX size, so not what it could be, and to top that off, the new restoration loses some of the look of the original photography in my eyes. It's a bit too sharp, too clear, and contrast/color very high. This may be from seeing Raiders on video for too long, but still it shouldn't be that much.

The new mix sounded identical to the DVD mix, but very unimpressive in the theater. (this may have been coming from Dolby Digital off a print) IMAx sound to me is never impressive, being jacked up to be extremely boomy in action sequences and then dropping off to almost nothing for dialogue scenes with little to no surround seperation. TDKR was extremely disappointing on this front. You could hear the projector hum at times louder than the actors. (Not that that's a bad thing.)

BTW on the new 35mm print the snake reflection was gone again, but Marion's still present. Original cliff shot intact, and I'm not sure but the rod/stick thing may be gone from the boulder chase.

What worries me is if this will start a trend towards more releases this way, because I don't look forward to having tickets all costs $18+. Plus I still have serious reservations about the design and structure of the IMAX theater. It feels really awkward.

I don't hate on Spielberg, but he hasn't made anything really worthwhile since Empire of the Sun which is sad.

captainsolo said:

I don't hate on Spielberg, but he hasn't made anything really worthwhile since Empire of the Sun which is sad.

Did you not see Tintin?

I like pre heavy cgi Spielberg and the Spielberg who used to make fun films to watch most of the current era are made for adults or considered more serious.  These days he could never make a film like raiders.

Jaws was a disaster of a movie much like star wars and saved in the editing not the directing, other than the performances he got from the actors.  Something he could do and Lucas could not.

Jaws was saved in the production firstly with all of the script re-writes. Then whether consciously or not, Spielberg played to his strengths which is why if you think about it, the film is like a combination of the best elements from Sugarland Express and Duel. Then the editing could only improve and tighten everything up. Though I still think the added head bit was unnecessary.

I could never agree that Spielberg's modern output is better. To me they're just so damn...boring. If you enjoy or prefer them that's fine, but I could hardly stand some of them and became beyond exasperated with things like The Terminal. I think my primary problem with these films is that I never saw much of a point to making any of them. They seemed to exist only on a single story level and little more, so that virtually anybody could have made them. His boundless creativity for storytelling hasn't been present for me in a looong time.

I guess I stick with EOTS as the breaking point because Last Crusade is undone by its tiredness. (Though I loathed The Color Purple and E.T.) I've realized that I only like five of his anyway. (Duel, Sugarland, Jaws, Raiders, Temple)

captainsolo said:

Jaws was saved in the production firstly with all of the script re-writes. Then whether consciously or not, Spielberg played to his strengths which is why if you think about it, the film is like a combination of the best elements from Sugarland Express and Duel. Then the editing could only improve and tighten everything up. Though I still think the added head bit was unnecessary.

I could never agree that Spielberg's modern output is better. To me they're just so damn...boring. If you enjoy or prefer them that's fine, but I could hardly stand some of them and became beyond exasperated with things like The Terminal. I think my primary problem with these films is that I never saw much of a point to making any of them. They seemed to exist only on a single story level and little more, so that virtually anybody could have made them. His boundless creativity for storytelling hasn't been present for me in a looong time.

I guess I stick with EOTS as the breaking point because Last Crusade is undone by its tiredness. (Though I loathed The Color Purple and E.T.) I've realized that I only like five of his anyway. (Duel, Sugarland, Jaws, Raiders, Temple)

Temple of Doom has its problems, but trying to remake Raiders is not one of them.  Though it does feel like cobbled together bits left over because it really was if you read the original script.  The Mine Cart chase came from there.  Though they did change the locale, and instead of Just Indy and Marion they had to through in a little kid for comic relief.

Cannot believe i am comparing Last crusade to Crystal Skull but they try to be remakes of Raiders instead of stand alone serial adventures and fail miserably in that regard.  Much like Return of the Jedi has been blasted for being a badly disguised Remake of Star Wars.

Though unless he was just being a marketing guy the fact that he thought Bayformers was good shows how little taste he has these days.  And Tintin was like a little kids Crystal Skull horrible cgi cartoon fest.