The Blu-Ray Upcoming, News & Info Thread

[JAWS]

I was very worried that this movie wasn’t going to hold up after all of these years but thankfully that wasn’t the case.

Super entertaining.

Was not bothered by the transfer whatsoever.

I don't know how this film managed to balance genuine stakes and top tier action with borderline Naked Gun style comedy but they somehow pulled it off!

I was practically *guffawing* at the back and forth between Paxton and Arnold in the corvette. Paxton's comedic timing combined with Arnold's accent "Ha ha, those eediots," holy crap, lol.

Interesting. I’ve just never been a huge fan of this film. I think the comedy works ok at times but the action is very average and often ruined by some bad comedy.

Tom Arnold was the best part of the film though JLC was a close second.

Again I think other than T1 and Aliens, Cameron’s filmography is very average. They just cost more than most films and I’ll admit he puts those costs on the screen. But I think that’s why I like T1 and Aliens so much more than anything else he has done. Less money meant he had to be more creative behind the camera.

I think the Abyss might be the best of his higher budget film but I have not seen it since the DVD days other than previewing the 4K disc


Khev you should be more than happy with the way The Abyss and Aliens looks on 4k if you liked TL

I do miss the grit that the look of Aliens use to have. But there is more detail for sure.

 

[Rotfish]

Skimmed the Aliens 4K disc. It's not terrible, but it seems like studios have two options for improving detail whenever increasing the resolution of an older, grainier film like this:

A. Denoise and sharpen (which, after an aggressive denoise, involves recreating detail or exaggerating what little is left)

B. Let the higher resolution do the work, maybe some sharpening here and there, but no denoising

Aliens is the best example of A I've come across, but I still prefer option B. Especially since this sharpening method involved AI, which for the time being interprets finer fuzzy textures as squiggly wisps. This CU of Apone illustrates this effect. Check out how it handled the rough skin on his cheek and the peach fuzz under his ear and back of neck.

Old Blu-Ray:

4K:

Suddenly his cheek has fissures and his neck looks like the surface of a rocky planet from space. What makes it worse is the AI interpreted the other areas as totally smooth, so the transition to the rougher spots is especially jarring. This kind of thing is less noticeable on a smaller screen, but 4K wouldn't be necessary for that.

Here's another shot, Vasquez and Hicks making their way through the hall:

Hicks is out of focus (and therefore blurry) in the Blu-Ray. In the 4K he looks clear and... simplified? Smoothed? Almost like a painting.
And look at how sharp the cable on the left of Vazquez' gun is compared to anything else in the shot, even the rest of the gun. That's the kind of weird inconsistency AI gets you these days.

Might be worth looking at the new Blu-Rays that came with these 4Ks as well. If they have the new "restorations" but in a lower resolution, these issues may be less noticeable.

 

[Rotfish]

The bluray is not remastered. It is the same as the bluray from the last release, the Anthology box set.
And that is a good thing

How about The Abyss and True Lies? I know TL had a Blu-ray release in Spain several years back, used to have a copy of that one.

 

[choombaz]

How about The Abyss and True Lies?

Sorry I think I spoke out of turn and deleted my post, I thought I read somewhere it wasn’t the remastered but now I can’t find that. I will try and confirm but Bill Hunt’s review strangely doesn’t seem to mention it. I should just put the disc in lol, much easier.

 

[Rotfish]

Sorry I think I spoke out of turn and deleted my post, I thought I read somewhere it wasn’t the remastered but now I can’t find that. I will try and confirm but Bill Hunt’s review strangely doesn’t seem to mention it. I should just put the disc in lol, much easier.

Same

 

[choombaz]

How about The Abyss and True Lies? I know TL had a Blu-ray release in Spain several years back, used to have a copy of that one.

The reviews of all three JC UHDs on bluray.com confirm that the blurays in the sets are the new versions and interestingly they give higher scores to the blurays, in their words “As I mentioned in my review of True Lies, this may be another case where some fans actually prefer the 1080 presentation to the 2160 presentation, since the processed appearance of this transfer is arguably a bit less dramatic looking in the relatively lower resolution.”

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Aliens-4K-Blu-ray/347320/