@RogerRoger
I think it's (video transfer quality) something that you could appreciate - though it is something else that can easily become an obsession too.
Given the number of Star Wars transfers out there, I'm surprised it isn't for you already. Incredibly Star Wars has more often than not been horribly handled when it comes to home releases. The best I have are the Limited Edition DVDs from a dozen years ago that each came with a non-Special Edition theatrical version on a separate disc. Not the best transfers (I think the masters are from the Laserdiscs) - but the best non SE versions I could get my hands on. I haven't purchased the Blu Rays as they are even worse. Lucasfilm's constant tinkering with edits, new effects and colour temperature is infuriating.
I do have the 'Despecialized' fan edits (Mods: perfectly legal) and highly recommend those if you haven't seen them. Taking the best possible video and audio sources of non-Special Edition footage and putting together HD versions of the OT. Incredible work!
As for the tech stuff. DNR (digital noise reduction) is what tends to make a HD transfer look really bad. The grain that is a part of the print gets artificially 'scrubbed' - this causes a lot of detail to get muddied when it's used heavily and often ruins a blu ray presentation.
The Road Warrior had a (physical) clean of the original print and a new 4k scan before the blu ray transfer. The natural grain was preserved thus leaving huge amounts of visible detail.
For me for the most part, it's a lot of tinkering for nothing. Movie examples of 'revisionist history' (Han DID shoot first) and a cmpany full of people who had to say 'yes' to George Lucas' every whim.
Most of ESB is fine I find. The visual upgrade on Bespin and the addition of McDiarmid (as well as most of the CG additions) I have no issue with. The recolour is annoying though - changing Vader from an imposing gunmetal to overall blue hue is shocking.
There's just too much to list for the other films. ROTS fares best of the prequels usually. TPM is notoriously awful and there is apparently no 'clean print' in existence. AOTC is OK looking, everyone looks rather waxy though - and the reshoot hairpieces are possibly worse looking for the HD transfer than in TPM.
Newer isn't always better. As seen with Star Wars (personal preferences notwithstanding).
A good case in point is the latest RoboCop (1987) blu ray.
MGM released a RoboCop blu ray a decade ago - it was terrible. Loads DNR and a fuzzy, muddy and otherwise bloom laden picture.
Sony released a remaster of the director's cut version a couple of years ago touting a new 4k scan of the print - and it is an amazing transfer. Not much DNR use and the print hasn't been unduly tampered with regarding film grain inherent of a catalogue title of it's age. But - such is the level of detail presented, it's almost film breaking. The vast majority of RoboCop's practical effects have always been easy to spot, so it's not the obvious mattes, squibs, glorious stop motion or early window shatter-explosions that really
pulled me out of the film; it's the oiled fibreglass RoboCop suit.
The film does a really good job of selling you the idea Weller isn't a guy in a suit. The costume, Weller's performance and his co-stars reactions to him always do so well. Until you can see with such clarity some of the seams that weren't visible before, the more obvious sections of fabric under-suit and worse - that the suit is dripping with a sheen of baby oil to create that iridescent look.
If not for the newest, best and most technical proficient version of RoboCop - these things I already knew to be a part of the film could've stayed shut behind my suspension of disbelief.
PSN: KALofKRYPTON (so you can see how often I don't play anything!)
Twitter: @KALofKRYPTON (at your own risk, I don't care if you're offended)
"Fate: Protects fools, little children, and ships named Enterprise." - Cmdr William T. Riker
Not sure what I've let myself into, but I've borrowed Justice League from my mate in work.
A brief history: liked Man of Steel, hated Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad, thought Wonder Women was only ok. So mu expectations are quite low for JL!
Life is more fun when you help people succeed, instead of wishing them to fail.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
@ReanSchwarzer7 Really, really good film, and there are a few actors in it who put in career-best performances, but for the love of all that is holy don't watch it if you're squeamish
Good job, Parappa. You can go on to the next stage now.
@KALofKRYPTON Yeah I'd definitely recommend it. For me Kurt Russell hasn't been this good since The Thing, that's how good he is in it. Richard Jenkins is in it too, he's always excellent.
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts actually. Maybe we can start a support group...
Good job, Parappa. You can go on to the next stage now.
@JohnnyShoulder The awful moustache removal is the worst of it - the altered tone towards the end is odd, and while mostly looking really good, there are a couple of GamesMaster looking moments on Cyborg.
PSN: KALofKRYPTON (so you can see how often I don't play anything!)
Twitter: @KALofKRYPTON (at your own risk, I don't care if you're offended)
"Fate: Protects fools, little children, and ships named Enterprise." - Cmdr William T. Riker
@RogerRoger I think with the best Star Wars, ESB (obviously) - Lucas actually wasn't around all that much. I think he was having some sort of breakdown or trouble with his marriage. Irwin Kirschner (also directed RoboCop 2 - a great sequel that also gets unnecessarily derided) directed with aplomb - and I doubt Lucas would've done a better job.
My point about being surround by 'yes men' is the problem with Lucas and Star Wars. For ANH at least - the constraints were largely budgetary, though I really think the whole thing became far more of a collaborative effort than anyone realises.
My friends and I used to joke that Rick McCallum must've spent most of his time telling Lucas how much of what he was trying to do was crap or unfilmable and reigning him in. Certainly, a lot of his original idea were really, really awful. If you can, try and track down the Starkiller comics produced from the original Star Wars story.
A director's cut used to get produced when the studio and a director didn't really see eye to eye. Sometimes that cut would be what the director wanted and other times not (Blade Runner and the Donner cut of Superman 2 spring to mind for the latter).
Lucas just kept on adding bits. Adding bits for very little reason other than he could, because he became so rich and retained ownership that no-one would say no.
The prequels highlight my points very well. Lucas can come up with a decent enough story idea, but he is a terrible writer and worse director. Without the worry of a budget or anyone to disagree, the prequel trilogy is what we got.
There are innumerable (formerly expanded universe) stories that could've, and would've made better films than what Lucas insisted on. Too pig-headed to accept anything but his own ideas though.
I recall being almost disgusted at the behind the scenes stuff on the prequel DVDs showing the prop room and production designers. Hundreds of examples of concept work and lightsaber hilts laid out and he just descended from on high and 'rubber stamped' the ones he liked. That is not directorial vision or crafting a world you're desperate to bring people in to - it's paint by numbers.
As is the majority of added SE content.
Anakin being young as a force ghost. Terrible - his last act to save Luke was his redemption. Younger Anakin fell - he was Darth Vader.
Yub Nub worked. The 'victory' at Endor was just that - at Endor, on the moon with some Ewoks. Without even the presence of the majority of the Imperial fleet or the legions upon legions of Storm Troopers, officers and otherwise stable Imperial worlds. The entire rebel fleet was there, without even the foggiest of how to begin deconstruction of the Empire. It's one of TFAs biggest problems too - that a republic was immediately formed and the remaining Empire forces just withdrew after Endor is really daft.
The images of Coruscant and Naboo in celebration are naive in the extreme - and bring the childish sensibilities of the prequels in to the original trilogy.
Everything has to connected, everyone has to be connected! It's laziness and ineptitude masquerading as fan service.
Another chunk of text!
Watch RoboCop! And RoboCop 2.
I very much grew up with both and they were rather formative for me, these and many others certainly drenched me with a rather dark sense of humour.
You may have seen or read various things about the RoboCop remake; it's not a bad film, but just doesn't need to exist. The first is sharp, dark, satirical and rather prophetic. The juxtaposition of man and machine then really was something special, the remake loses that - as well as the satire and creepily accurate foreshadowing of modern society and economy. It's both a big, dumb action film and an intelligent, witty, social commentary.
The sequel could never hope to surpass it, but it's a fine film.
PSN: KALofKRYPTON (so you can see how often I don't play anything!)
Twitter: @KALofKRYPTON (at your own risk, I don't care if you're offended)
"Fate: Protects fools, little children, and ships named Enterprise." - Cmdr William T. Riker
@RogerRoger Any opportunity for a film rant! I also don't sleep very much, sadly.
Oh yeah, make no mistake - RoboCop is a very violent film, with a couple of quite gory scenes. Go for the theatrical cut to omit a couple of the extended and differently framed gorier scenes.
I remember getting my hands on the amazing unrated Criterion Collection DVD of the Director's Cut many, many years ago (for £50 no less!) and seeing an extended boardroom scene for the first time. While I really do consider myself pretty desensitised and not at all squeamish, I really thought I might throw up just then. The intended context of the scene was to be so drawn out that it was ridiculous and thereby funny, which it is - but so very, very brutal.
@JohnnyShoulder@RogerRoger It often surprises me that films that are so integral to my life, character, humour and friendships are completely missing from the lives of others.
I'll bet most here have never even heard of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension!
PSN: KALofKRYPTON (so you can see how often I don't play anything!)
Twitter: @KALofKRYPTON (at your own risk, I don't care if you're offended)
"Fate: Protects fools, little children, and ships named Enterprise." - Cmdr William T. Riker
Isle of Dogs: Interesting film. The story is set-up like a kind of modern day fairytale (the Grimms' Fairy Tales, not the sanitized Disney versions), and follows an alternate history (and more than slightly dystopian) Japan that is controlled by a dog-hating clan. The current leader of this clan, Mayor Kobayashi, rules Megasaki City (which seems to be portrayed as the capital of Japan in this story) and exiles all of the city's dogs to an inhospitable and trash-filled island after a canine-borne disease breaks out. The Mayor's young ward sets off to this island to find his dog Spots and is helped on his journey by a ragtag group of dogs, including the cynical Chief.
Life is harsh on trash island, and the canines trapped in this place endure massive suffering, but the grim subject matter of the film somehow manages to never overwhelm the narrative, which often finds a kind of twisted humor in the strangest of places. The film's narrative is somewhat complex for a film of this type, oscillating between the boy's odyssey to find his missing dog and the efforts of a foreign exchange student on the mainland who is trying to uncover evidence of a conspiracy that goes all the way up to Mayor Kobayashi.
The real reason to see this film, though, is its fantastical, surreal, and sometimes overwhelming aesthetic. This is the best use of stop-motion animation I've seen since Coraline, and it creates a similarly evocative and nightmarish vision of a Japan that has gone very wrong.
It won't change your life, but if you have the opportunity to see it, I'd take it. Great movie!
Sicario: Another grim movie, we follow an FBI agent, Kate Macer, who finds herself traveling into the heart of darkness when she joins a government task force that is fighting against a powerful Mexican cartel around the city of Ciudad Juárez. She soon finds that she can trust almost nobody around her, especially the mysterious Alejandro Gillick, who is helping to head this task force, and that there are no heroes in this conflict.
This one is violent, methodical, and engaging if you open yourself up to it. Wonderful direction, acting, and cinematography.
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