kaosjm said:
I'm watching the bluray of 2001 at the moment and wanted to add that the scene where Dave and his colleague go to replace the "alpha echo 35 unit" that HAL states is failing Dave is walking through a tunnel very briefly. This happens around 1:12:15 in to the movie and the whites were obviously yellow in the film print whereas in the bluray they are more of a white and grey tone.
I am noticing very many color timing deficiencies between the film and bluray where the film is much darker, more yellow, and the bluray is much more neutral and dull.
The scene where Dr. Floyd is flying towards the base on the moon... the rocks were definitely more brown but the tone was so dark on the rocks that you could barely make it out. I may be new to this game but film definitely seems to be much darker in general and the colors are more saturated and maybe a bit too much at times.
I read an article a while back, right after George Lucas had paid for or help pay for the refurbishment of the Rafael Theater in Marin. The article was about the new state of the art projection and the quality of the lenses.
They were showing a revival of Lawrence Of Arabia, the David Lean Classic. The article stated that although the Camera,Film and Lenses ( Super Panavision 70) that were used to film the movie were of the highest quality, the Lenses that the were available for the projection at the time of the first run of the move could not faithfully reproduce what was actually captured on the film. When they showed the film right after the completion of the restoration of the theater, with the newest and highest quality projection lens (THX certified?) they were astonished to be able to see the individual grains of sand in the hair of Peter O'Toole in one of his close up desert scenes. My point is this. What one sees and remembers when viewing a movie at a theater may not be exactly what is actually supposed to be seen. The theater's equipment may be out of calibration, the light source may not be of the right specification may be at the end of its useful life and was supposed to be replaced but the projectionist was lazy or the owner wanted one more use out of it to save some money, or the film may have been faded after many showings.Or as in Lawrence of Arabia, the technology at the time was not up to the task.
So all of the work in our preservation efforts here is still highly subjective. To further clarify my point. Would one complain that in viewing the grains of sand in O'Toole's hair, that it is not the way it was shown back in the theater in its original run?
Not that I don't appreciate all the work that is done here. I love the fact that hear the original soundtracks and see the original edits. But to a point, I saw 2001 at a Cinerama theater the first week it was out during it's original run. What I saw then and what I may see now other than any re-editing and remastering of the soundtrack. May be what was there to be seen but could not due to the limits of the technology at the time.