American Graffiti UHD, Phantom Menace UHD.

Giving either of these 3 stars for picture quality would be generous. DNR scrubbed to hell. The quality varies shot to shot. They should just have not used noise reduction. The ATMOS mix for Phantom Menace is okay, but I prefer the laserdisc mix. The new 5.1 for American Graffiti is mixed to terrible.

The waxy and flat look, I mean why. There does appear to have been an attempt at good colors at least on American Graffiti but I can’t say whether they are theatrically accurate. I do know the techniscope grain is nowhere in evidence.

I think of the two, Phantom Menace is probably the worst DNR from hell UHD I own.

American Graffiti is charming in a way in its low budget style. Characters don’t feel perfect; the world feels lived in and real for the era it supposed to be. Even how goofy Richard Dreyfus acts is charming. And Terry the Toad is totally George.

Phantom Menace had cutting edge cgi in 1999. The story does not hold up. The acting is barely passable if you don’t excuse it as an old timey 1930s serial. For a kid’s movie there is an awful lot of dialog and boring scenes, and space politics is the worst part. You need more swashbuckling action and more Jedi doing cool stuff. I think there is like two cool scenes in the movie where Obi Wan and Qui-Gon fight the robots, and free the queen and her people, and the duel of the fates and the rest the movie the Jedi stand around talking about politics.

Anakin sort of is in the movie but he is barely a character and does not really effect anything until near to the end and by accident. The Space Battle is very um, pedestrian in comparison to return of the Jedi or Star Wars. The Gungan fight ground battle is kind of cool for a bit then it all goes silly with Jar Jar winning on accident like Inspector Gadget, until he gets captured.

Of yeah I forgot about the Podrace I guess that was cool like the first two times I watched it.