Jaws
While the BD could be better (and it should being a 4K neg scan) it is nowhere near as bad as a Uni title usually is. The mono is intact with only a spot or two of distortion.
A great film that deserves more recognition of its technique and understanding of characters. This is why I frequently point to its heavy debt to both Duel and Sugarland Express; without these there would be no Jaws.
One of the great happy accidents that at least is polished up to a respectable BD but not truly what it could have been.
The 7.1 upmix is tamer than the atrocious 5.1 for DVD, but still totally out of place and ruins much of the ambiance in favor of a new soundfield experience. Completely unnecessary and prevents the mono from a having a restored 24 bit lossless presentation-AS IT SHOULD HAVE-as it really represents (along with SW) the pinnacle of mono mixing just before the jump to Dolby Stereo.
I still find it weird the for color they stayed very close to the old transfers. That shouldn't always be the case but I found this blurb from the SVP of technical operations which made me anxious:
Using colour as an example, we don’t just colour our films on the fly. We have everything that was previously done and because we’ve done this over and over again, from original theatrical release, when we did it for VHS, and when we did it for DVD, we have those tapes as our guide. That’s why it’s so simple: we match to the last look, which was already matched to the original look. There’s always a few tweaks that you want to do, but overall it matches what has come before.
*facepalm to infinity*
I always thought the older master (1995 signature LD, recycled for DVDs) was fairly accurate but you cannot go by this stuff alone for accuracy. Just popping in the '92 WS disc shows boosted contrast and color that is already different and obvious.
The few Spielberg tweaks are very minor and seem to have to do with brightening the darker scenes-i.e. the opening. This goes with the tweak to the Raiders opening and how HD video today works far differently to the pitch blacks from the film world then. Personally I think you should never mess with this stuff as maintaining those blacks is the integrity of the original scene as shot and presented-but you risk losing people today on their HDTVs. So it's not bad necessarily...but it's still tweaked nonetheless.