MGM recently published this clip on YouTube and I thought it might be of some interest to members here. These clips from The Terminator look very different to the current Blu-Ray master; some good detail but overall looking rather soft, lacking contrast, and with a heavily desaturated colour palette. The black level looks greyish and “milky.” The colour grade lacks the teal emphasis of the 2012 Blu-Ray.
I wonder what elements this was sourced from. It almost looks like a totally ungraded scan from the camera negatives or perhaps an interpositive. The overall look is vaguely reminiscent of some of the early home video masters, but in widescreen HD.
Perhaps this is the raw scan done for a 40th anniversary reissue due next year. If that’s right, I hope a high quality copy of the original theatrical mono soundtrack will be included too. I’d also welcome an isolated soundtrack option for Brad Fiedel’s synthesizer score.
The Milan CD includes the wrong version of Escape from the Police Station, and the mastering for some reason is quite rolled off in the high end. Maybe an attempt to reduce tape hiss, but I think they went a bit overboard in that regard leading to an overly dark tonal balance. It lacks top end sparkle compared to the earlier Edel CD, which I think is better in terms of sonics… but wrong artistically as Fiedel has pointed out. He had no say in the mix done for that CD, and the end result didn’t reflect all the detailed editing he carried out during the postproduction and dubbing process back in 1984 for the film itself.