This would be great to do as there was some real restoration work done amidst the added CGI and the color timing was done in a restorative function and has never been replicated on video.
That said it isn't fully accurate but could form the basis of a great OT reconstruction.
Die Hard is teal on the new 4K DCP. Some places are somewhat noticeable more than others.
I'm aiming to go to my arthouse's midnight screening of Batman Returns tonight as they're supposedly showing a 35mm original. And of course being me I will call up and ask the projectionist if it will be Dolby SR or the 5.1.
Mrebo said:
That's nothing. Try at least 2,000 people huddled outside in the cold (below 30 F with heavy windchill) for hours, only to reach the first marker finally inside and be told that we just needed to go to the goddamned website.
And to top that being surrounded by Prequel-ites/non-fans and many clearly over the age limit.
Oh dear. Oh dear.
If only I could have picketed with OT.com signs.
What a waste.
IcePrick said:
I saw a theatrical screening of Die Hard a couple of days ago (digital, not film), and when I sampled the BD afterwards, the sound mix on the BD, to me, sounded different from the sound mix I heard in the theater. That's why I'm interested in comparing the 70mm mix (or the 35mm mix) to the BD mix.
That is likely the 4K restoration with a new audio mix. They haven't yet released info other than a few select screenings. It is supposedly going to be the basis for a new BD in the near future.
It also reputed to be teal infused...
Silver that is an error that was never addressed, along with the OHMSS accidental minor edits found on the SE DVD.
I got the whole set recently in decent condition and found I could play back all the discs, even the ones like TMWTGG that are supposedly pressed wrong in places.
None are rotted, and neither is my THX DVD of TSWLM. Maybe you just got some bad discs, but then again they seemed to have lots of trouble with making these.
I now own the remastered NSNA and Casino Royale LDs and have the remastered LTK MGM disc on the way to marathon just before the holidays. I will post in here with results, but these should play exactly like their 1st DVD iterations.
On Die Hard, it's mainly guess work. The 1st LD had the presumable 35mm Dolby Stereo mix with different effects and overall different general mixing. This is the same track that is on the THX LD as the digital track and the ac3 2.0 found on the later DVDs. (The first one was a direct LD port, and the later SE 5 star ones are just reworking of those same transfers. I'm pretty sure the 1st and 2nd film BDs also use this same general master, but heavily modified again)
But as far as if the original untouched 70mm version was released, who knows. Presumably the LD 5.1 in both Dolby and DTS versions is this, as would be the DVD iterations as they used the exact same tracks and video masters.
I don't know about the Drac/Frankenstein tracks PDB, as I've never been able to sample the LD versions of any of them. But, from my research they should be largely identical to the VHS versions, save for the Discovision releases which used nitrate materials and sometimes were able to pull different audio masters.
This holiday season, Walt Disney Pictures brings you, a return to a visionary world far from our own, as originally envisioned by George Lucas...
Walt Disney's
SEN 5241
Fleming's creation still is best, the three film versions are almost all parts of that character's psyche but never quite match up despite my fondness for each.
And the fact that I quote Diamonds are Forever practically on a daily basis. ;)
Oooh dear...
Wait..does this mean Larry Kasdan can just walk down the hallway on a break from script sessions on VII and give it a go?
Please?!?
This sounds like what I did once with friends in college i.e. just simply dubbed over the audio while watching the movie with whatever came to mind.
This is what birthed my overly whiny Luke voice--"teen angst-kick the sand", Beru is a chain smoker, Dr. Evzan has liver problems and doesn't want Ben's drink, Han's ego gets him into all kinds of trouble, Old Ben is extremely wizened, 3P0's prissiness reaches new heights, there are discussions about all kinds of non-story problems, Luke forgets his brownies in the oven and that's how the moisture farm burns down etc.
It's actually quite hysterical. Try it sometime. Sadly all my recordings of this went corrupt. A true OT.com version if at all possible would be incredible. And a main event that would be mandatory for the eventual convention.
My favorites from our abandoned ESB dub:
"Oh look more of the floating text crawl in space!"
When the probes are launched: "One of the planet's leading scientists, sensing approaching doom, placed his small infant son in a small rocket ship and sent it hurtling in the direction of Earth as Krypton exploded!"
Han is searching for Luke amidst Hoth: "Oh, let me pull my GameBoy out.."
I can't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure throughout all the scenes in the Temple itself, especially the action ones, are easiest to check. On Raiders it's much more about mix levels, which may or may not stem from the usage of VistaSonic and the late conversion to the Dolby system. IIRC my favorite part of the Raiders mix is that the music actually pans through channels.
I just happened across the original CAV disc of TLM and the CLV of The Lion King, and while no major Disney fan and certainly not at all as knowledgeable as those in this thread on the topic they blew me away.
Despite being cropped to a 1.33 frame, I had just seen my sister's BD of TLM and in even the LD's opening shots was awestruck at the amount of atmospheric fog that simply wasn't there in the BD. Fine detail was inherent on this disc from 1990 that felt far more natural than anything the BD could muster. I even tried the BD on my CRT screen and that did next to nothing.
Despite being just the CLV version, Lion King is a fantastic LD title. I don't even like the movie, but geez does it look and sound stellar. I just watched a bit and flipped between the Dolby surround matrix and 5.1 audio tracks because at some point I had heard someone claim the matrixed was perhaps mixed better than the discrete version. (A phenomenon I found on Batman Forever) It may very well be. Either one sounds stunning.
YES! DYS BD!
The English audio can be brought in from the remastered MGM LD which only misses the full shot of the final flashback and Juan's final line in front of the camera with the film title. This last bit I actually found on the old Image LD.
I just want to know if this is different form the MGM master. The DVD version was almost greenish, but the restored 35mm looked spectacular.
And that Image LD is just awful for PQ. Imagine a fuzzy 16mm reduction with further degraded footage restored after many years and all this transferred to video tape in the early 90s.
As far as a new GBU BD, it needs to happen. Badly. In fact it needs to be done right by having both sides of the globe talk to one another about all these parallel Leone restorations that continually happen and perhaps for once everyone just get their heads together and work with one another.
At this point, just do a two disc end-all version with Disc 1 being a fully restored International version with English mono and titles--the option given to watch the scenes cut from worldwide release. Disc 2 is a fully restored version of the Premiere version/Italian release version the difference being in whether or not one wants to see the grotto scene. Or, if it possible to do so, a single seamlessly branched transfer.
AFAIK THX was a 2K scan of Techniscope materials, like others including some of the Leone classics. But then you have the Lowry-GL combo...oh dear.
Also been mad busy with a new job. Nice to see this thread still going along.
I'm curious about those analog tracks from the Uni Monster VHS tapes, as I've long wanted to do a comparison between LD, VHS and the 99 DVDs. Also the Discovision releases are supposed to use nitrate materials and different audio sources.
ROTLA was confirmed to use the original 70mm 6 track audio as the basis of the DVD 5.1, but nothing was ever said about TOD or LC. However, in comparing these they all lose something in the remix, LC comes across as the least different, as it was the least aggressive.
The biggest loss is in the mixing which as we have said is extremely aggressive on TOD, but is also interestingly open sounding on LC. (Something to do with the "designed in a THX theater" credit perhaps?) Most notable is the sound panning across channels in ROTLA and TOD which is gone in the remix.
Bingowings said:
SilverWook said:
captainsolo, can you recommend Gods and Monsters? I've been curious about it.
It makes a great double bill with Ed Wood (1994).
Though those sort of drama/biography things always make me feel uncomfortable especially when they aren't too accurate.
Haven't seen it in ages, but Bingo nails how I felt originally seeing it. Though now coming in knowing more about Whale I might be able to appreciate it better.
DuracellEnergizer said:
captainsolo said:
And speaking of the ongoing MoS debate and the horrid Supes movies that keep coming down the pipeline...I read this recently and felt it worked as a movie so well...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Son_%28comics%29
The plot description leaves me cold, to be quite honest. It's just more preoccupation with Krypton, Phantom Zone criminals, yada, yada, yada. Movies need to move away from all that; it's time that the human side of the character -- the side that is Clark Kent -- was focused on.
So did I, upon seeing it in a library, but then I noticed that Donner had actually co-written the book which necessitated my reading it. What I found most appealing was the frequent glimpses of humanity within.
FanFiltration said:
THE 13th FLOOR (1999)
I enjoyed this, yet it did have a fair amount of brutal violence. It's a murder mystery film that is kind of a cross between "The Matrix" and "Dark City".
Always meant to see this as it sounded different and featured one of my favorite songs in the history of time on the soundtrack. ("Erase/Rewind" from The Cardigans' masterpiece Gran Turismo)
ray_afraid said:
captainsolo said:
I went through the majority of the Universal classics...though it gets verry bad:
Dracula-Masterpiece with all of its flaws. 4/4
Spanish version-Better made in every way but drags on too long and is inferior sadly. 3/4
Frankenstein-Masterpiece. 4/4
The Mummy-Masterpiece. 4/4
The Old Dark House-I LOVE JIMMY WHALE. 4/4
The Invisible Man-Masterpiece. 4/4
The Black Cat-Obviously shorn to pieces by censors, made obvious by the ludicrous lack of plotting. Still it's Bela vs. Boris amidst supreme atmosphere, what's not to love? 3/4
Bride of Frankenstein-One of the great American films, one of the best films ever made, arguably the best picture of the 1930's, Whale's masterpiece, and easily by and large the greatest of all horror films. 4/4
Son of Frankenstein-Most underrated Universal horror. A great classic with Lugosi's best performance. 4/4
The Wolf Man-the least of the original monsters, because of plotting and low budgets, TWM excels in atmosphere and character portrayal with Lon Chaney Jr. truly nailing Talbot's accursed existence and Claude Rains performing as the screen's greatest supporting actor. 4/4
Nice reviews! Bold-ed for agreement! Bride Of Frankenstein is my favorite film. James Whale is too wonderful for words. Glad to see someone else giving Son Of Frankenstein some respect. I think it fits right along with the first two and is followed up nicely by Mel Brooks Young Frankenstein.
Thanks! Whale so imprinted his own personal brand of life into his films that they are absolutely one of a kind. Bride absolutely was life changing for me.
And Son is a remarkably effective film that gets no credit whatsoever. There would have been no 40's horror revival without it, or if it had been filmed/released as written because the script was rather poor. In fact, the film as stands is and was largely improvised by the director and cast on-set. The big drawback is that there became very little for the Creature to do besides stand around as a figure of horror, leaving Karloff's last performance rather understated.
LMS:
Abominable Dr. Phibes-Eloquent, pure joy that paved the way towards the glorious Theater of Blood. DON'T FREAKING REMAKE THIS BURTON!!! 4/4
And I started the 1943 Batman serials for the first time...deplorable quality in places but despite the cheesiness and poor production--this is seriously watchable stuff folks. Though watch out for typical racist anti-Japanese sentiment commonplace of WWII era media.
Think I might pop by the US casting call that is going on in Nashville tomorrow...no ideas as to what it'll be like. The information listed is extremely vague, just the same male and female character infos.
I went through the majority of the Universal classics...though it gets verry bad:
Dracula-Masterpiece with all of its flaws. 4/4
Spanish version-Better made in every way but drags on too long and is inferior sadly. 3/4
Frankenstein-Masterpiece. 4/4
Murders in the Rue Morgue-nothing to do with Poe, Lugosi is the only redeeming thing and is onscreen far too little, terrible monkey-suited man, and liberal doses of WTF. Terrible. 1.5/4
Island of Lost Souls-Poor version of Island of Dr. Moreau, with 90% of the novel gone for this cheapy 70 minute horror. Only Laughton's performance and the generated atmosphere are worthwhile. 2.5/4
The Mummy-Masterpiece. 4/4
The Old Dark House-I LOVE JIMMY WHALE. 4/4
The Invisible Man-Masterpiece. 4/4
The Black Cat-Obviously shorn to pieces by censors, made obvious by the ludicrous lack of plotting. Still it's Bela vs. Boris amidst supreme atmosphere, what's not to love? 3/4
The Raven-Mad ideas abound in this diabolically plotted picture that makes little to no sense. Bela and Boris are wonderful the rest is absolutely silly. 3/4
Werewolf of London-Absolutely dull and beyond silly. 1/4
Bride of Frankenstein-One of the great American films, one of the best films ever made, arguably the best picture of the 1930's, Whale's masterpiece, and easily by and large the greatest of all horror films. 4/4
Dracula's Daughter-Unbelievably dull and monotonous. A waste of everyone involved. 2.5/4
The Invisible Ray-Silly. 2/4
Night Key- Surprisingly effective crime thriller that has nothing to do with horror. Boris is wonderful. 3/4
Son of Frankenstein-Most underrated Universal horror. A great classic with Lugosi's best performance. 4/4
Tower of London-forgettable historical drama that is good only for basil Rathbone as Richard and an extremely young Vincent Price. 2.5/4
The Invisible Man Returns-Good plot setup but only middling to dull production. The beginning of the lesser budgeted cheapy horrors on tight economics courtesy of new studio owners. 3/4
The Invisible Woman-Good god, why make this a comedy? Abysmal. 1/4
The Mummy's Hand-The only good Mumym sequel, with plenty of humor and good ol' serial action. A true B-movie classic. 3.5/4
The Wolf Man-the least of the original monsters, because of plotting and low budgets, TWM excels in atmosphere and character portrayal with Lon Chaney Jr. truly nailing Talbot's accursed existence and Claude Rains performing as the screen's greatest supporting actor. 4/4
The Ghost of Frankenstein-Drivel. Pure and simple. Make it end. 2/4
Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man-surprisingly good sequel to two different films that is good albeit obviously edited down to remove thew Creature's speech. 3/4
Phantom of the Opera (1943)-unnecessary beyond tepid remake of the silent classic where Claude Rains is horribly miscast as a more sympathetic Phantom. Make no mistake, this is merely a Technicpolor musical vehicle and not a horror film. Gorgeous to look at but not at all recommended. 1/4
Now time to finish off my hated Mummy sequels, then on to the rest of the 40's/40's output.
And speaking of the ongoing MoS debate and the horrid Supes movies that keep coming down the pipeline...I read this recently and felt it worked as a movie so well...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Son_%28comics%29
This would be wonderful as I never thought the DVD nailed the color timing and certainly despised the awful looking SE master re-utilized for the BD (much as with the Batman series).
The LD is supposed to have DD audio with slightly better dynamic range, though I doubt by much and may or may not have better timing. Also apparently the R4 DVD release had better encoding and color for some reason IIRC.
I'll throw in my two cents. We're probably never going to be able to be definitive on the color timing, short of scanning a print ourselves, and even then-as has been brought up numerous times in this thread-there's film stock, IP differences, color timing decisions, on-set photography, and all kinds of variables to consider.
The new BD timing is for the most part correct and appropriate. Personally I find some scenes a bit too garish in the vein of modern timing and the KOTCS abomination...but it isn't a bad transfer. It also seemed more integrated and better overall in the 35mm print struck for the anniversary.
Footage of same print I saw (not mine): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dprxDRIq23I
What is atrocious is the complete reworking of the soundtrack from new elements and the abandoning of the original, despite the DVD multichannel mix being a bit restrained (made very obvious in the new 35mm which used this track unlike the IMAX version).
I may get some flack for saying this but I actually prefer the LD for picture despite the aliasing as it seems a bit more natural than the DVD and it is similar to the VHS I grew up with.
Audio...LD wins. No contest. Hands down. End of discussion. The score's integration alone nails it along with directional panning and fine detail not present in the DVD 5.1 derived from the 70mm master.
BB and TDK are both older masters with different color timing and in places excessive DNR to remove the natural grain of 35mm--with neither resembling the original theatrical presentations in either digital or film--especially the film prints.
BB is in dire need of a remaster and despite my loathing of it, so does TDK. The IMAX scenes ideally would be at their original 1.44:1 ratio and then seamlessly switch back to 2.35:1 for the Panavision 35mm majority. But the 1.78 was a compromise to the usual "Joe Schmoe" video average who supposedly favor pan n' scan releases to lose letterboxing bars. (also the reason why nearly 100% of films are cropped to fit a 1.78 hdtv frame nowadays--but this practice goes ignored.) You still get the sense of a larger scope due to the increased resolution in both originating camera negative and pixels on your screen, but this is somewhat negated by cropping and then the DNR on top of that.
TDKR looks better being a modern transfer, but it has the same problem when coming down to aspect. That said the 35mm sequences look better on the BD than the IMAX 65mm print, because those were so nasty looking that they more closely resembled projecting a video onto your childhood bedroom wall. The flashback scenes taken from BB and TDK were especially bad and were filled with digital noise.
DuracellEnergizer said:
Night of the Demon (1957)
Great movie. The only downside were the close-up shots of the demon - it almost turns an otherwise perfectly sublime film into some goofy kaiju film. It's a minor flaw, though, and not enough to bring the rest of the movie down.
8/10
I also just saw this for the first time.
And despite being a major proponent of less is more, and a huge fan of Tourneur's Cat People which essentially created the principle of suggested horrors...the film may actually work better with the shots because the amount of tensioned suspense is beyond palpable. Additionally you don't quite know for certain whether or not the Demon itself is imagined, just as the final shot leaves a question mark in the viewer's mind.
A staggeringly original picture that ranks amongst the best horror films I've ever seen.
Rarely do I say this but Night of the Demon gets my full 4 alcoholic has-been American former matinee idols out of 4 balls.
Cat People (1942)
One of the best horror films ever. More of a poetic triumph than a straight narrative, which is where the film's strength comes from. Paved the way for all the Val Lewton classics to follow.
4 balls out of 4 complete dumb schmucks who immediately marry a girl who is obviously mentally disturbed.
Curse of the Cat People
Designed as a sequel, this film goes way off the deep end and is really another story entirely with some of the same supporting cast. If you let the story go on its own and try not to question some things, it works as a childhood allegorical fantasy--something that is never really done in media in such a fashion. I'm still perplexed to be honest because it's not exactly a picture to recommend, nor is it a true sequel, nor is it great...but ultimately has a certain timeless beauty that cannot be denied.
3.5 balls out of 4 complete dumb schmucks who immediately marry a girl who is obviously mentally disturbed, later remarry and become a beyond godawful parent who should by no means be in a parental role.
I'm just looking for the best/most economical way of doing this for all my old student films and a handful of damaged DVDs I had to backup in order to even have a working copy. (Looking at you early Universal Monster Legacy sets with defective discs!)
The PS3 cannot recognize ISO files, yet I can sometimes get straight playback of individual vob files in sequence. Is converting to an mkv etc. the only way of having full playback?
Two Robert Ludwig cut rare 1st issue LPs:
Billy Joel's The Stranger, not really a fan but this is a great album with incredible mastering.
AC/DC-Back in Black. One of, if not the single best mastering example ever done for music in any format. So good it makes all the overplayed tracks feel fresh again. Seriously THAT good.
Awesome, looks like a better encoded hdtv source that would only need minimal color tweaking to remove the UE imposed teal etc. The cropping is regrettable but the image is far superior to the rehashed DNR'd BD transfer.