Wonderful and extremely helpful comparisons from fkid from the bluray.com forums: Aliens: forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=21969300&postcount=6652 The Abyss: forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=21959279&postcount=3645 True Lies: forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=21963232&postcount=3841 True Lies Spanish import BD (do keep in mind it seems to be a bootleg but is available on Amazon): amzn.to/43BSf97
Quite interesting that the filmmaker who first gained fame by making a film about the dangers of A.I uses A.I to butcher his own films. But, in the world that is modern Hollywood & filmmaking, maybe its not that surprising.
i think i do live webcam on facebook where ranting can be XXXX rated at slagging off dolby atmos , i hardly now use my processor for Dolby atmos , system is now mostly used for Dolby Stereo matrix or Dolby Stereo 5.1 these fake JC atmos upmixes are to be avoided
He can’t be bargained with, he can’t be reasoned with. He doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And he absolutely will not stop, ever, until your favorite movies are dead!
I said it before and I'll say it again: even Ridley Scott let the previous versions of BLADE RUNNER exist alongside his director's cuts. He understood the importance of preserving different cuts. I'm starting to wonder if the original negatives have been destroyed somehow and that's why they won't go back to them.
No it's not a negative loss it's just stupidity. (Warner won't go back and handle BR properly either-especially the original and earlier versions and they really need to.) One wishes everyone could follow Scott's lead but sadly some refuse to...
Even Ridley Scott who admitts he only makes his films for himself and not his audiecess, even he has enough grace to give the consumer alternative cuts of his work. Scott, Scorsese, and (to a degree) Coppola and Spielberg all love and respect the format for it's preservation potential. Whenever Cameron speaks about the easthetic and art of film I can only roll my eyes and take it as pseudo-expert quackery. Jimbo's living proof that too many deep oceanic dives can't be good for the brain. Doesn't do much harm to the ego, though.
I've never fallen out of love with a filmmaker faster than when I was a teenager, buying my DVD copy of Terminator 2 (my favorite movie at the time), turning on Cameron's commentary in order to get his juicy insight, and becoming increasingly crestfallen as half the commentary seemed to consist of his shitting on the innovative special effects and filmmaking techniques, openly wishing that he could just redo the whole thing with digital effects and CGI. It's fascinating how arguably one of the most talented filmmakers of all time just seems to have zero respect for filmmaking as a medium, instead only seeing films as valuable if made with the newest toys on the market. It's such a sad approach to art.
True Lies and Aliens are so bad in 4K that the 35 MM scans online with print damage and other flaws are a million times better. And that's just pathetic and sad. Both films including The Abyss deserved so much better than what they got from James Cameron and the Park Road crew.
The Abyss looks very good. Aliens is ok. True Lies is very very bad. Looks better if turn off HDR for me. Aliens might even look better if turn off HDR. Pretty sure the HDR is messed up especially on True Lies
My iTunes copy of Aliens is about to be destroyed by what is sold as a “free 4K upgrade” 💀… just goes to show that you have to own the media you care for in a physical form that nobody can manipulate retrospectively!
Me when I see Cameron descrate all of classic his films in HD: "ITS GAME OVER MAN! ITS GAME OVER!! WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO NOW?!!! WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO?!!!!!
I think you underestimate videophiles, considering they're basically holding up the UHD platform. Bad press seemed to send T2 to the bargain bin. People won't just buy whatever's put out.
@@mowazeem644Because people still want to upgrade from DVD, a format that looks truly awful in OLEDs and modern TVs in general. But there is still plenty of criticism against these UHDs.
Adding one more thing, to complement my previous reply: how much a title sells also depends on how popular a film is. A horrible restoration of a very famous film is still gonna sell more than a fantastic restoration of a very obscure film, even with most people complaining about the quality of the restoration of that very famous film. I bet that T2 on UHD still sold more than The Roaring Twenties on UHD ever will, despite T2's UHD being a disaster that everyone agrees aboug.
Unfortunately I have already bought The Abyss. If the DVD was anamorphic I would be selling this on. If anyone comes up with a fan made restoration of an old print then I will scrap my 4K copy. Sadly I am stuck with it for now but I will not be buying Amy of the other titles.
Finally someone who will speak the truth!!! Reminder that supporting these releases tells the studios that this AI process is a success and is accepted! Supposedly they are already looking into using this process to save money when doing 4ks for other 20th Century back catalog and WE NEED TO STOP THAT. Because I swear to god if after years and years of waiting, if they actually finally come out with The Fly (1986) on 4K UHD Blu-ray and it has been AI'd, no power on earth will contain my anger towards those responsible ! (thats a joke I would not harm those that supported this.......or would I???!?!....No, buuuut) Hopefully Cronenberg and the Cinematographer for The Fly would stop that process being used on that film though. Maybe Sony will stop them as well??? Doubtful though. This needs to be nipped in the bud like real quick or the whole physical media and restoration industry will literally crumble real quick if this starts to take root. Some people already have their favourite films on 4k or are blind and enjoy these Cameron "remasters" (they aren't remasters they are fake), but my favourite film of all time The Fly (1986) is DIRECTLY in the crosshairs of this AI process and the success of these releases could very well determine the direction taken for a 4k for that film, and if not just that and other 20th Century films but this could spiral wildly out of control to every 4k release outside of Boutique Labels that have braincells and wouldn't do this. I implore you to fight the need to have these films on 4k even when you know they are bad because on their own sure maybe they aren't the absolute worst and maybe it isnt that bad Cameron can do what he wants (he can't and shouldn't but whatever) but this could have explosive ripple effects throughout the industry and change everything and not for the better. This could be how they kill physical media off for good becuase eventually people won't accept this kind of trash anymore. Dear god dont let this go any further. And please keep the AI process away from the films we care about. Don't let this happen to The Fly.
The problem is these will be HUGELY successful because we've had to wait so long for them, everyone will buy them because they love the films and just want to watch them again. Try watching The Abyss DVD on a 55" OLED. It can't be done, it's unwatchable. I feel stupid buying it, but the 4K Abyss is at least some way of revisiting one of my favourite films.
Stop inventing BS and spreading lies. There is no information of such AI being used in The Fly, or any Fox film besides Cameron's. It really is just Cameron.
I think AI technology can eventually be incorporated into restorations in a faithful manner. It’s just a tool after all, it doesn’t have to be abused to make films look like a waxy and weird mess, just like DNR. It could be used to still fully preserve the original and accurate film look of its era. Cameron and Jackson have "just" tested new technology that is far from ready, and will still take many years before any possible mass adoption of the industry. They have always done things their own way. Lucas butchering Star Wars film didn’t make all restorations go that route, far from such. True Lies in particular is getting mixed to bad reviews, and is already infamous among videophiles. It will still sell well because otherwise they have to stick with the DVD or import the bootleg spanish blu-ray, but many people aren’t happy. The feeling is more "what can we do, it's Cameron, we just have to take what we get, just like what Lucas does to Star Wars". Also, there are plenty of amazing restorations selling very well all the time in UHD. What makes an UHD sell well is far more tied to the profile of the film itself than the quality of the restoration. The industry learned its lesson after so many complaints for years in the blu-ray era. Even Disney has suddenly turned things around and are making great and truly filmic restorations of their classic animated films! Before that, Disney never needed AI to ruin their films in ways that are just as bad, if not even worse actually, than what Cameron has done now. Again, the problem is never the tool, but the taste of the people using it. Right now, the people employed for head of restorations at the big studios know what they are doing and have good taste, and that isn't changing in the foreseeable future. This is even truer for the most prestigious boutique label, as they have carefully crafted an image of heroes of film preservation, an image that matters a lot for their success and their consumers. They would risk ruining themselves and losing so many consumers if they started to fuck up with their films like Cameron did now. Ultimately, I would be willing to bet that we won’t see any major changes on the restoration process across the industry within the next 5 years if not 10, both by big studios and boutique labels. And we have already gotten, and we keep getting, so many fantastic and definitive 4K restorations of classic films! Park Road, the company behind these Cameron restorations, is Peter Jackson's company. They do all sorts of crazy shit for many years. They are just Jackson's lab experiment, and now for Cameron as well. There is a reason why nearly all of their restoration work is just Jackson and Cameron's films. There is a reason why they aren’t a major play in the industry, why big studios and boutique labels aren’t very willing to work with them and their methods. That hasn’t changed. Jackson has already been screwing things up for so many years. And Cameron has been doing it since the Laserdisc era, and yet there were always plenty of restorations, including by big studios, that strived to do far better than him.
@iansmith6166 That's very true. I totally get people wanting something that's compatible with their current TVs because for the old masters you really need a separate setup for legacy formats to look good on-or you have to go the route of trying to upscale and improve the old DVD master yourself or on The Abyss be looking at the HDTV versions of the old master for example. I watch LD, VHS and DVD on a separate setup with my HDCRT. Trying to run anything besides BD or UHD on OLED is a hideous joke unless you're running all kinds of professional scalers because manufacturers no longer care about legacy formats.
Have you ever seen the 35mm scan of "True Lies"? I found it through the Original Trilogy forums. Interestingly, it's graded differently than the D-Theater version. The 35mm version has blue tints in certain scenes (as intended by Cameron and originally shown in theaters), whereas these tints were removed for the D-Theater release.
Save film grain at all costs! Yes, there are some 4k discs from boutique labels that do a great job of restoring the original film elements but they are few and far between. For me the 4k format has been incredibly frustrating. Even trying to find a film that has it's original audio or god forbid it's original aspect ratio... ha hum (Robocop Arrow 4k) is a complete hassle. Great video!
He needs to let go of Avatar. Working on those films ruined his brilliant eye for detail! And maybe Arrow, if not Criterion (why, even Shout Factory), could do a brand new 'from scratch' restoration, ie., if they are lucky enough to somehow get their hands on those film negatives being guarded now, I am sure, with such ravenous hunger by the unforgiving witch of a dragon, Disney! And perhaps, film companies could make their directors sign binding contract that prohibits them from changing the visual traits of their film after release. Director's cut, and black and white are all ok but tweaking the colour from theatrical tone to something else entirely, grain removal, botoxian waxing hysteria, teal and green madness... it seems to be some sort of a plague affecting directors alone!
I agree. Even if he still wanted to this-it should have been after proper restorations and then allow people to have the choice of the original or newest director's version.
@@matheus5230 no wonder they are abusing that loophole. And who bears the brunt of it all? We, fans, without whom this whole industry would come crumbling down! 🥴 Peter Jackson with Lord of the Rings 4K, Nolan with his spectacularly bad case of dialogue-music mixing in Oppenheimer (visually brilliant but i need to hear dialogues too atleast 98%), and 'the King of the world' Lord Cameron with T2 and Aliens... A sort of saturated plague affecting the good ones. Spielberg experimented with ET but thank God, he didn't repeat his folly a second time.
@@shijoejoseph2011While I don’t like what Cameron and Jackson do, for example, I also understand why the rule is in place. For the vast majority of directors, they aren’t powerful people in the industry. The rule is to protect those small directors from having their films butchered by studios.
@@matheus5230 right, that makes sense. It is sad, all the same, that those with power choose to willingly abuse it, behaving as rich spoilt little children.
I'm a Cameron fan and while I was willing to give him the benefit of a doubt, now that the cards are on the table I'm so very, very disappointed by him. I wish I could enjoy all those favourite films by him in their original filmic form but instead we are all stuck with ugly revisionistic crap.
Thank you a lot for always keeping your objectivity and integrity. I still dont understand why many other reviewers suddenly decided to turn off their brains to review these releases and judged them under different standards and criteria than they use to judge any other home media release. Why suddenly everything they complained about turned now to be "good" and "aceptable"? Is it because is Cameron? Because Cameron contradicts himself like George Lucas now his fandom has to do it too? That's when fanaticism reaches unhealthy levels, when somebody goes so far to deny reality itself just to defend what they love, blindly. I don't get it, I love this movies too, and It is precisely because I love them that I want the best treatment and respect for them, the best quality possible which is definitively OUT THERE. If independent studios can give us outstandingly superior quality than these studio releases... how come that Cameron, with all the money in the world, specially after the last 2 Avatar movies, is not willing to put a penny to do a PROPER JOB and go back to the negatives to do a proper restoration? Nobody is asking him to do it for free, people pay for this things. But why should we pay for a blown up 1080p movie that we already have in Blu-Ray, DVD, Laser disc, and VHS, if the only thing that is new here is something that any TV does automatically and for free. DNR is ugly and something that we always tun off. Even THX tells you to turn it off. See the rabbit hole of contradictions? And one thing should be clear to those who complain about us complaining about these releases, that is that most people who buy physical media are people who care about film preservation, people who wants more quality than what streaming offers, we notice details that the average consumer wont, because we are film geeks, cinephiles, and some of us are filmmakers or aspiring to be filmmakers. Every detail counts. Among all people and potential costumers studios have, we are the demographic that will always be willing to PAY MORE TO OBTAIN THE BEST.
I wholeheartedly agree with everything you've said however, unfortunately, these films are so beloved by fans who have waited decades for them to receive a new release beyond DVD, that they are better than what they had. So I don't necessarily blame them for wanting to purchase them. As you pointed out if you're only being offered a turd the only thing you can do to it is polish it or flush it down the loo where it belongs........ and wait for a sympathetic restoration that will probably never come. It's hard to believe that JC has delayed the release of these films only to do such a poor job 😭
What really stings here is that there is no real good alternative for The Abyss. The DVD of The Abyss is almost like a VHS format onto the DVD, but it at least doesn't have the ugly teal tint. The Stinky Tuna Blu-Ray doesn't have that teal tint either, but although it is better than the DVD, it isn't the best video quality because it looks pixelated. Plus, the Stinky Tuna Blu-Ray only has the extended cut and not the theatrical cut. The 4K UHD transfer is definitely better as it includes both cuts of the film, however, what ruins the 4K is the DNR usage in the whole film as well as that teal tint, and that's incredibly disappointing. I seriously hope that there is a fan film restoration that can do a much better job, and therefore give The Abyss the proper treatment it deserves. As for True Lies, the Spain Blu-Ray is 1,000,000 times better than the new 4K. And for Aliens? The 2010 Aliens Blu-Ray is 100,000 times better than the 4K. Yeah, for Aliens, it could be better, but decent to my eyes, At least there is some grain included for the 2010 Blu-Ray. Overall, awesome analysis sir. You sure know what you are talking about. You really should get hired to work in a film mastering studio to fix any disc problems on Blu-Ray and 4K.
I was waiting for your to do a video like this. I couldn't have said it better myself. James Cameron is far closer to Lucas and his Special Edition revisionism than people would like to admit and these 4Ks are proof of that.
I saw your rant video on this OCP aka Mike. I agree with everything you said about James Cameron and his issues with film grain. He thinks film grain is bad. He is wrong! Grain is suppose to help make a film look natural. Yes, I am very upset about what James Cameron did.
I have to admit, I did order The Abyss, as it seemed like the only one worth getting (with Titanic and Aliens having already fantastic Blu-rays, while True Lies is stuck in limbo with that okay but kinda crummy Spanish bootleg BD). I did watch a very low bitrate stream of the theatrical cut when it was uploaded to Amazon Prime Japan (randomly was checking it with a VPN and was shocked to see it was there, new master and all), and I gotta admit, the low bitrate sure helped hide a lot of the issues. So I guess I’m part of the problem for getting one of them, but at least I held off the other three, so I’ll take a partial victory here. The one slight positive of them selling well is that Disney might take notice and release more of the Fox back catalog on UHD. One can hope…
@@Eva01-jy2qu7pu9rDisney is improving, as they started to release Disney+ shows on physical media. Also, the deal with Sony may give another hope for improvements, as the decision for what titles to release on physical media will be made mutually between Disney and Sony.
I completely get that and that's at least one possible positive that it might make Disney more approachable on Fox catalog titles. The Abyss is definitely the best of these three and will be the only one most people will likely think is livable with. Streaming issues and lower quality will definitely mask some of this crud as the discs were well made by Disney to reveal all the craptasticness...
I think to the people that say things like "It's the directors movie. He can make changes to the look of the film if he wants to." It's not like that. He didn't make these films alone in his backyard. Hundreds to thousands of people worked to make these projects come to life. Do the cinematographers, set designers, actors, sfx department etc not deserve to have their hard work shown not just in the best light but also in an proper unaltered state? This just makes me sad because generative ai in its nature is making up detail. How long before they get so good you won't know If you're looking at a proper remaster or something that looks really good and proper but is nothing like the original film that was shot?
Technically YES Lucas can do whatever the hell he pleases with Star Wars. He created Star Wars, he wrote Star Wars ALL 3, YES I know people love to claim someone else wrote Empire and Jedi. NO Lucas wrote them someone else directed them. Lucas self funded 100% of Empire and Jedi put everything on the line, his life was screwed he would be broke if Empire flopped because he didn't want to take money from Fox. There is a massive difference between Lucas and Cameron. Cameron didn't actually self fund anything, he sure as hell didn't create Aliens. He was selected to direct Aliens by the studio that paid for everything.
I watched the uhd of True Lies. I could tell there was a lot of DNR, as there wasn’t much film grain at all. But I didn’t know about the use of AI. It’s a damn shame we can’t just get a good 4k remaster without all that processing from major studios.
Highly thoughtful video essay on JC's relentless pursuit to cut and splice and atomize his filmography. I think your video here just proves how much fuller of himself he actually really is. I think he likens himself to be the Prince Prospero of the digital age. He or his lackeys wave their hands or magic walking sticks over their consoles in hopes to "keep up to date" with his films. Apart from the original The Terminator from 1984, never was a die hard fan but the arguments you posed here should be shared with people who really obsess over his filmography. Your video here just reinforces the idea that its good to hold onto physical media copies of one's favorite films because things just continually seem to be disappearing and or being deleted for the next "shiny and brand spanking new and up to date" version. JC's been power tripping for years now and hopefully will reach an age where he'll just let all of this nonsense go. Someone needs to tell him to read Walter Benjamin's essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" so he can get back to his un-AI senses.
This is so frustrating, and it sucks that some of these movies still look best on laserdisc. Especially because so many of us can’t even play laserdiscs. Getting a working player for a good price is almost impossible as is, much less one with digital audio capabilities. So for the majority of us, the only realistic way of seeing these movies is a dvd port I’m just thankful I’m not a Cameron fan at all, so I don’t have to touch these with a ten foot pole. I can happily live with my dvd copies of the movies since I pull them off the shelf next to never
Not to mention telling people they need a good LD player and it's best on a CRT or specific setup for standard def...and that I watch them on my Laserdisc setup because I have to have multiple setups for different formats...
This has spiraled out of control so much, that I've basically just resorted to VHS. I've grown used to watching films on inferior formats anyway. If Cameron has any control over Strange Days, and decides to go after that one next, hey, I got that on VHS, too. Studio labels don't often get my money anymore.
I totally agree, I refuse to pay money for trash like this, all that does is encourage these people to do the bare minimum in the future to take our money. I'll happily just pirate them instead, if the people who made these films don't care enough about the movie, or the customers, to do the work to make these look like they should, they don't deserve my money. If boutique labels can make old, cheaply made movies look amazing there's no reason Cameron and Disney couldn't have spent the money to master these properly.
Unfortunately the masses just see the film titles and the words 4K and will end up buying it anyway. All are now virtually sold out in the states. I weep for the future of 4K.
With films so famous, they will still sell well even if literally every buyer loudly complained that they were awful releases. T2's UHD is universally maligned, but I feel pretty sure it didn’t sell poorly, and it's gonna keep selling more than fantastic restorations of obscure films. And this is even truer when it’s big films that are not even on regular blu-ray! The Abyss is gonna be the best seller of these three, easily, as the old DVD already sucked back then and it is borderline unwatchable in modern TVs. Aliens already has a good blu-ray despite the teal, and True Lies UHD is already infamous for how bad it looks. These Cameron UHDs suck, but I can’t see them significantly changing the big picture of film restoration and the 4K blu-ray format anytime soon. So many fantastic classic films have already gotten amazing 4K restorations, and they always keep coming. For as long as Grover Crisp is employed as head of restoration at Sony, I can't see Sony ruining their catalogue like this, and the same applies to varying extents for other studios. Ultimately, the taste of the people in charge of restoration at the studios are what matters. These Cameron UHDs look horrible because Cameron has horrible taste, he likes them looking like this. It was his request to restore the films in this manner, not Disney's, especially when considering how Disney last year turned a new leaf regarding their classic animated features. Now, there will always be the people who passionately defend these restorations for one reason, and one reason only: they want to feel validated by their purchase, they hate the idea that what they bought is bad, and they delude themselves into thinking it is good.
They are printing more. These are going to be mass produced and available everywhere within the next 30 days so the scalpers can sit on their hundred dollar pricing forever.@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader
It’s so odd. Some parts of all 3 look pretty decent but at times, you can tell there’s some weird tweaking added to it. The Abyss looks the best of the 3 to me but that doesn’t say much. Do I think it’s horrible? Not so much. To me, the picture is a mixed bag, but the sound on the other hand was well done. Great atmos tracks and the option of having the original 5.1 mixes on the included Blu-rays. I’m just split on it. Oh and also they must’ve done the weird AI upscaling on the documentary for True Lies because the VHS quality stuff looks weirdly enhanced to be in 1080p.
Legacy standard def extras have been a minefield of problems but I'm sure the AI upscaling will continue...like the horrendous presentation of the original cut of DUEL recently.
I remember watching a bonus feature on a German Blu-ray release of The never ending story, where they proudly talked about taking the grain out completely and adding it later again. It's a tragedy
Horrifyingly, I don't think we've seen anything yet. The ridiculous mandate of the use of generative AI in EVERYTHING is going to devastate film and films in so many ways (Along with our lives and the planet) even more going forward.
Unfortunately, understanding things like the importance of preservation and the ethical and philological aspects of restoration requires some degree of culture and intelligence, something that's lacking even in some comments below this video (only a few, but if they're indicative of a larger audience, movie preservation is screwed forever).
Considering that modern home displays are usually 16x9, and Cameron has fully embraced 16x9/1.78/1.85 ratio for the Avatar films...I'm a little shocked that Cameron hasn't done the "open matte" thing to present ALL of his films in 16x9 for these releases.
@@qasimmir7117 NOT WHAT IM ASKING YOU 🤡. No crud quality wise it'll look better in pixels. If you watched the video you'd realize this is about color timing, use of AI, DNR, etc.
I guess I will stick to Blu-ray for Aliens. Hopefully, 3 and Resurrection won't suffer this tragedy if it ever comes out in 4K. If Alien Anthology 4K ever comes out, I will watch Alien, 3, and Resurrection on 4K and Aliens on Blu-ray.
23:10 this is what I’ve been saying day 1 when Lucas only released the special edition of Star Wars on dvd. Do what you want to creatively with your films now with technology but please present us the option to watch the film we all loved originally
This is exactly why I kept my DVHS copy of True Lies. I also have a French copy of T2 on HDDVD the picture quality was always superior to the Blu-ray and unlike the WB HDDVD's it still works.
I think this will become the industry standard or the 'new normal' for future 4K transfers. This certainly will be seen as a beta test for using A.I. more readily, which will further hamper film preservation for those who desire a film to be treated with the respect and the attention necessary to justify an all-around experience of satisfaction. I feel sorry for consumers who buy these 4K films, not understanding the legacy or the backstory to how we arrived at this point. This is very much a regressive step back to the Dark Ages. To a time where technology is actually being applied that disables the image and sends film into a backwards terjectory. Quite honestly, it's become a shit show. But nothing surprises me these days.
I don’t think the situation is that dramatic. Boutique labels show no signs of using A.I. Sony does great restorations and they now have access to a larger catalog. It seems to just be James Cameron and George Lucas who use it to such a heavy degree. Itll probably be used again but hopefully with more restraint. I’m being optimistic though.
@shinycheeto5779 No... not yet! But the industry will embrace this process as time moves forward. All of these Cameron films have been selling like hot cakes. That will give the signal to Hollywood that their's nothing wrong in using A.I. technology on future projects. What's not to say the boutiques won't express some interest in A.I. down the road.
@@shinycheeto5779The boutique labels may not use these tools, but the studio labels sure will. Which is really sad because thats where most of these films are being transferred from anyway
@@dr.impossibleofcounterpunc1984I think AI technology can eventually be incorporated into restorations in a faithful manner. It’s just a tool after all, it doesn’t have to be abused to make films look like a waxy and weird mess, just like DNR. It could be used to still fully preserve the original and accurate film look of its era. Cameron and Jackson have "just" tested new technology that is far from ready, and will still take many years before any possible mass adoption of the industry. They have always done things their own way. Lucas butchering Star Wars film didn’t make all restorations go that route, far from such. True Lies in particular is getting mixed to bad reviews, and is already infamous among videophiles. It will still sell well because otherwise they have to stick with the DVD or import the bootleg spanish blu-ray, but many people aren’t happy. The feeling is more "what can we do, it's Cameron, we just have to take what we get, just like what Lucas does to Star Wars". Also, there are plenty of amazing restorations selling very well all the time in UHD. What makes an UHD sell well is far more tied to the profile of the film itself than the quality of the restoration. The industry learned its lesson after so many complaints for years in the blu-ray era. Even Disney has suddenly turned things around and are making great and truly filmic restorations of their classic animated films! Before that, Disney never needed AI to ruin their films in ways that are just as bad, if not even worse actually, than what Cameron has done now. Again, the problem is never the tool, but the taste of the people using it. Right now, the people employed for head of restorations at the big studios know what they are doing and have good taste, and that isn't changing in the foreseeable future. This is even truer for the most prestigious boutique label, as they have carefully crafted an image of heroes of film preservation, an image that matters a lot for their success and their consumers. They would risk ruining themselves and losing so many consumers if they started to fuck up with their films like Cameron did now. Ultimately, I would be willing to bet that we won’t see any major changes on the restoration process across the industry within the next 5 years if not 10, both by big studios and boutique labels. And we have already gotten, and we keep getting, so many fantastic and definitive 4K restorations of classic films! Park Road, the company behind these Cameron restorations, is Peter Jackson's company. They do all sorts of crazy shit for many years. They are just Jackson's lab experiment, and now for Cameron as well. There is a reason why nearly all of their restoration work is just Jackson and Cameron's films. There is a reason why they aren’t a major play in the industry, why big studios and boutique labels aren’t very willing to work with them and their methods. That hasn’t changed. Jackson has already been screwing things up for so many years. And Cameron has been doing it since the Laserdisc era, and yet there were always plenty of restorations, including by big studios, that strived to do far better than him.
They were saying the green effect we see in The Matrix series were all some film issue. How could that be the case? And that that's why they fixed the green issue on 4K. 😭🤦 And that bit in the beginning with the two grandmasters, brilliant!
Part one wasn't green at release. They added the green to the Blu Rays to match the later parts that had the green. On the 4K it's again closer to the theatrical release.
@@bened22 that's all quite fine and dandy, but I did see it in theatre and one of the aspects that drew me to the film as moth to flame was that distinct colour tone. The tint was way more prominent in the sequels but yes, the original did have the tint; and so did its VHS, VCD, DVD, Blu-ray.
@@Peer165 did you watch it when it came to theatres? Take your online psychology degree and go take a hike, kunting kunt! And once done, be sure to catch that handbasket ride to hell. 👍 Cheerio!
@@shijoejoseph2011 The tint was indeed there, but very subtle in the original film and the subsequent UHD version, but was bumped up in the early home release versions ot match the sequels, similar to how Lucas would change the OT to match the prequels.
I'm surprised you only have one version of the Abyss DVD - It looks like that is the single disc release - There is the original 2 disc special edition and then the later repackaged edition of it.
I love these videos!! Please tell us what the best physical releases of each of these films are. I am new to physical media and I need to know!! I do not want to own these atrocities
This guy is just a cry baby, where are the comparisons, nothing he just complains, no one is arguing that graffiti was bad and so were a few others, but those that are worth their salt will show you what they see, and if you might have to upgrade to a decent player to watch your awesome cool movies to see what they see.
TITANIC = the old Blu-ray from 2012-ish TRUE LIES = The Spanish Blu-ray from a few years ago (with the red case) ALIENS = The original Blu-ray first released in 2010 in the Aliens Anthology Box Set THE ABYSS = The original DVD or the HDTV broadcast version from over 10 years ago.
@blardbful That's it in a nutshell. If you want to go further down the rabbit hole there's LD editions for original audio on some or without any major tinkering on Aliens as the BD has some.
@lazzi-droid1181 This was a simple discussion video but I did link to some very well done comparisons in the pinned comment. It's extremely difficult to get accurate 4K screencaps to begin with and additionally youtube's compression is such that the overall quality is limited at best in a video.
There needs to be a broader discussion of when changing a film goes beyond remastering into a completely new cut. I can’t wait for Cameron’s next T2 Remaster, where Arnold’s T-800 lives at the end. He’s the director and can change the ending to match his new 2024 right? 😂
Lucas absolutely can....Cameron not so much. Unlike Cameron, Lucas fully self funded Empire and Jedi. He put everything on the line that sequels to Star Wars would succeed. Cameron didn't self fund T2, Aliens, True Lies or The Abyss. But then again as Star Wars goes there are NO 4k versions of the Original or the Prequels and they CANNOT exist because the original and prequels were filmed in 2k only 4 of them being actually shot on film. The "4k" that do exist are upscales of the blu-ray releases.
I pre-ordered "The Abyss" and I've watched both versions, I'm happy* with it. "Aliens" on the other hand, I opted not to pre-order because I wanted to see for myself before I made a purchase, I've just managed to get hold of the 4K on rental and compared a number of scenes to my 2012 Blu-ray (from the Quad set) and I cannot bear watching the 4K ! At times I feel like my brain is working extra hard to try and make sense of the image I'm looking at and I think if I were to watch the entire movie I'd have a headache by the end. When there's a relatively static close up of someone's face or something else then it's all brought into high focus/detail and it's absolutely fine but when the image includes lots of background at different depth and multiple actors it feels like it's all been smoothed out with some of it looking very flat but some of it having detail and it doesn't look like "normal focus" to me. I think things get worse when motion is involved as well like a sort of unnatural motion blur, I don't really know how to describe it. The colours/contrast all seem wildly different as well and that alone makes the experience worse than the blu-ray for me. As soon as I switch back to the blu-ray I feel like my brain relaxes and can enjoy what I'm seeing and it all looks much more natural (and enjoyable !). I totally get that a lot of people seem to like this 4K and I 100% believe them, I think this highlights that we don't all see/experience artifical things/motion in exactly the same way. I remember watching the Sopranos and being totally freaked out by the "CGI Mom" episode but a friend of mine who loved the show had absolutely no idea what I was talking about, it looked fine to him. I showed him some *obviously* fake CGI jokey stuff once and he was asking me if it was real (because to him it looked real). I think we have something similar going on here, some of us are more sensitive to this artificial "enhancement" than others and that's why this is so polarizing. I guess we just have to accept that some people will be very happy with this "look" and some wont. For myself, I'm very happy with my blu-ray of Aliens (even more so now !) and I definitely wont be "upgrading" to this 4K. I'm hoping to be able to check out "True Lies" soon. *EDIT* Although I'm happy with "The Abyss" I know that if it had been "restored properly" then the 4K would be a LOT better ! but I can watch/enjoy the 4K of "The Abyss" but I cannot watch/enjoy the 4K of "Aliens". I "forced myself" to stick on my non-anamorphic DVD of "The Abyss" after I posted this and sitting closer to the screen (because my TV will not zoom this image so I have massive black borders on both sides as well as top/bottom) I gotta say that it highlighted to me a bit more that DVD does indeed look more natural, especially on the "ship scenes". The colours were also more natural as well, on the 4K the colours are very nice and rich in some scenes and dulled or blued in others which I thought was down to the lighting but I can see it's a definite change now. Oh well, as I say, I can watch and enjoy the 4K of "The Abyss" (I've done it twice) but I'm forced to lament the fact that it could have been so much better.
The Abyss is the only one of these where the master was at least newer and a 4K master. Thus it had the least amount of crazy processing applied to it for this release and is the one most people are able to live with but the other two are without any possible redemption.
I was able to settle on the abyss. They really put effort into that one, changing a lot of the color grading on top of the ai stuff. Obviously it's not the ideal version of the movie in my books, but it doesn't feel lazy like the other films.
I see positive reviews everywhere. What is going on here? Cover art and transfers are worse than they've been for quite some time, and the reviews I see have gotten more ignorant. These transfers are not good. Like, at all. Like, they are clearly 0 out of whatever. It doesn't matter how good you want a disc to look, that doesn't make it better than it really is, and I get to thinkin' that is what is happening here. That would also explain how the hideous Dragon Ball Z steelbooks are magically "good enough." People want good transfers so much that they wind up praising garbage. It makes no sense but I see that happening.
A lot of this can be blamed on the fact that news outlets as a whole, regardless of industry, have been dumbed down due to a combination of talent loss, publications and online news-sites hemorrhaging money (forcing them to rely on clickbait, access reviews and AI articles to fill the void) and so many carbon-copy reviewers all relying on PR statements and pre-approved comments without doing any legwork themselves.
I heard that the Terminator blu-ray uses a lowry digital master and if that's really the case then do you know if they also degrained it and then added fake grain like on Aliens and the older Bond movies?
@@Jb991-q9x yes you are right. They did it to make the grain "even" and not varying from normal shots to ones with optical elements which have more grain in it. I am completely against it and grain should never be tempered with.
It's impossible to ever know for sure especially since they've gotten much better at hiding it since the earlier days of say the Bond masters that have it really bad.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader yes thats true. In Terminator and Aliens it's not noticeable at all while watching the movie normally. Maybe I will rewatch them in the future with that in mind and then notice some anomalies in the picture.
With what Cameron did to the 4ks (which anyone who knows Cameron could've seen coming a mile away), what's the best version of these three movies I can obtain? I'll find laserdisc rips if I have to. You're very knowledgeable on this stuff
Basically the Spanish BD of True Lies, previous BD of Titanic and Aliens will cover the bases. The Abyss does have an hdtv master floating around in a more open ratio which is pretty much the best quality edition from before this new crazy master. Otherwise you’re forced to go back to LD territory for more purist options but in standard def older masters. True Lies doesn’t look very good on any release sadly.
I won't be purchasing any of these i've never seen the abyss and i don't care to as for aliens im very happy with the blu ray. True lies is truly disappointing though i will be getting the spanish bootleg for sure now per your advice. After everything cameron as done i have zero hope in a proper original terminator 4k release and that is the most disappointing of all since it's easily the best and my favorite work from cameron. As always very informative information from your channel your videos have been a godsend in helping me with my physical media collection.
Thank you! I do think that the screencaps I linked to and glancing at the same masters on streaming are enough to convince anyone of how bad these are. At least with Aliens the BD is a solid option and there's the Spanish disc for True Lies.
That's sad to hear Spencer was looking forward to getting these for my Physical Media Collection. Sadly though I've owned many titles in my collection with not so great transfers and QC issues cough cough I'm looking at you WB with the Superman 4K Set.
If you're curious definitely look at some of the online comparisons and the streaming version. It's the exact same master so the streaming versions will give you a way to see exactly what the physical release has but in higher quality.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader Thanks Spencer I'm still a physical media guy and collector at heart I just wished the major film studios would care more about making sure their catalog titles for the different IP's Star Wars , Star Trek , Marvel , DC Comics , Disney etc. would put more care and respect for catalog titles like the other labels do like Warner Archive.
I saw The Abyss 'restoration' presented in digital 4K on that one special showing and it was definitely the same master as was used for the encode on the disc. Honestly that showing was pretty good, and now looking at the disc I do think it looks miles better than any of the 'definitely legit' versions I have when doing direct image comparisons on my PC. Aliens is not as good and arguably trades blows with the existing BDs at points, but True Lies is just awful. I can't look at True lies for more than a couple minutes and do not understand how that was OK'd. I am glad I have the lionsgate 2D BD of T2 since every other version of that movie is bad too.
Another top notch episode, on a sad set of releases. Going forward could you note what you feel is the "best" (or least bad) existing physical media version in the show notes?
Years and years ago, I saw an interview with Cameron. He acted normal and polite but the feeling I got was that he was a prick. I think you proved that here.
I feel like I could have a good conversation with him unless it turned to film preservation and his pitiful video history. Plus there's numerous stories about his set behavior...
What i cannot fathom is - Cameron is no idiot. He must know and see the issuesso why does he think these are acceptable? Its not like they have no budget for these products or that they have been rushed- we've been waiting since 2006 for The Abyss on Blu-ray. Cameron delays and procrastinates while diverted by Avatar films and then THIS is what is finally arrived at? I cannot understand why he doesn't want his past work archived and represented properly. As I say, he is no idiot. So why? It just doesn't make any sense to me.
That's one of the really bizarre and perplexing things. I hated to use the term idiocy but unfortunately in these certain areas that's exactly what it is. Cameron isn't alone in this as many other directors have had some similar boneheaded approaches to preserving their catalog but no one leads the charge with digital tools and new toys more than Cameron does...when he decides to look at the films again that is.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader Cameron seems to have disdain for his earlier work, like he feels they were made before he ‘worked the testosterone out of his system’. He’s turned into a woke eco-nut obsessed with Avatar and scornful of his older, superior classics.
Cameron is not an idiot. He just has very bad taste, it’s that simple, he likes this look. These UHDs are only like this because it's what Cameron actively requested and demanded. It’s not some beta test of the industry for AI restoration. It’s just Cameron being Cameron.
Cameron is no idiot. The issue comes back to the film industry being a business. In business, you get told to promote new things, whether you want to or not. People forget that movies are a part of a much bigger machine. That machine dictates what needs to be promoted as the next level forward for the industry. A.I. is viewed as the next step toward moving the film industry into another money-making arena. Cameron is fully aware of what he's doing and why he's doing it. When you're selected to promote this technology in the industry, you do it or else....This also sets a trend toward a new technological age. But for me, it's total regression.
He was not selected. This goes directly against the trend of how film restorations are done, including Disney, which has recently turned over a new leaf with finally proper restorations of their classic animated features. The only reason the Cameron films look like this is because it's what he likes and wants, that’s all there is, it’s the same situation as what Lucas does to Star Wars. If anyone advised Cameron to use anything, it’s Peter Jackson. I give up. It’s clear that you want to do nothing but spread complete doomerism and sensationalism. I've had enough of that, and not just from you. Wanna take that bet I asked? In 5 or even 10 years, restorations will still not be done like this, including among the big studios, and Cameron's UHDs will remain the exception, not the rule.
in crusader i trust technical reviews , boycott AI DNR and near field mixes and fake atmos upmixes where they never spent $millions on dub stage to do proper atmos mix which would take many months , nope they do quick cheap mix then cash cow brand it Dolby Moooomosss opening of the video says it and sums it up all , lol george : hey JC you really know how to apply the pigs lipstick to your AI versions
New to the channel but love your in depth and detailed reviews ! This Cameron 4K kerfuffle is so wrongheaded and damn frustrating and as you said hopefully it doesn't set a new standard for future releases to come Boggles the mind why the hell they can't just release a disc that includes both a more true to the original restoration, and Avatar Cabrons AI-fied wonky playground version as well
Out of my 26 years on my life the only movie I’ve seen on almost every format is Aliens. I’ve seen it on DVD, blu-ray and was even fortunate enough to see it on 70mm (even though the print was badly damaged) on my 20th birthday back at 2018. Definitely can say I’m not sure how I feel about this…time to smoke my weed bowl and cannot wait to hear your take on it!!!
Believe it or not Aliens is one of the better ones from these new transfers. It’s not bad. At least when you pop it in it’s not as bad as some are making in.
@@HOTD108_ the PQ and coloring is drastically different from what I remember on the 70MM print. At least the first couple reels still had its natural grain and color timing while the 4K is going for something completely different, Not sure if I like it at all…
Preach I got my father into physical media and no matter how hard I explained to him and showed him examples he has always loved the worst 4ks ever made and he pre ordered True Lies absolutely loved it.
You mention reviewers actually liking these Cameron transfers, and it seems to be more of a feature than a bug of online home video reviews. I still love the cartoons of my childhood (warts and all), and they’ve been treated tremendously bad since the rise of DVD, with DNR, time-compression (mainly the famously abused and desecrated Filmation library), awful color timing, issues with re-takes (a great majority of which seem to only exist on video), censorship, bad audio remixes, and digital alterations, but most of them got glowing reviews on release. The reviewers don’t necessarily know what the things they review originally looked and sounded like, and will be easily awed by the increased clarity and fancy surround sound. I remember when the ‘80s Twilight Zone hit DVD as straight transfers of the video masters, and it got HAMMERED in reviews for “looking like an old VHS” so hard that one of the showrunners felt the need to post a review on Amazon explaining that the video master was the ONLY way that a complete version of the show could exist without essentially remaking the show from scratch. And then years later CBS did just that with Star Trek: TNG and made all sorts of revisions to the special effects (especially the CGI effects) and even computer displays (because Mike Okuda has totally let his status as being in charge of Star Trek’s continuity go to his head, it seems) to massive praise all around.
wait are you saying the TNG blu rays aren't respected and appreciated among some videophiles? i ask this in sincerity, i'd always assumed they were loved and appreciated for the efforts they went to in getting them to look good in HD?
Cameron overprocessed the video for True Lies and Titanic (1997) LaserDisc releases are already troublesome, with the former film's best version is the 35mm print and the latter film having to regrade the 2007 10th Anniversary DVD (without the changes and no encoding errors) or the 2012 Blu-ray (2D or 3D Open Matte) releases which is an embarrassment to those pop in the discs (syncing with the DTS Theatrical/Cinema audio or LaserDisc). The 35mm fan scan exist on Titanic. Aside for retaining the grain as the color tint is too warm (likely not storage that well) shown it deserves a regrading process using the 1998 LaserDisc and DVD sources. Since The Terminator 2013 "restored" uses Aliens BD method (DNR the transfer before adding back as "fake grain" and revisionist), the best bet are stick to the open matte, the 1995 LD release or the 35mm fan scanned version of the film. Aliens and The Abyss' special editions are stuck the best with the LaserDisc or HDTV rips (as the DVD releases and later sucked). And Terminator 2 Japanese DTS DVD release has an unaltered CDS track (in full bitrate) which only the theatrical cut has (there is a Special Edition hybrid which takes the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Japanese Premium Edition for SE scenes and adjusted to the CDS mixing). These are the reason why fans have to mux the various resources to give the best versions of the Cameron movies by preserving them into their storage without having to pop in the discs (as the mkv files).
As far as I know the best you can do on The Abyss pre-new AI tomfoolery is the HDTV broadcast master that's floating around and is opened up a bit in the aspect ratio.
Maybe the man just does not care anymore about his decades upon decades old work. He's 70 now and human lives are short. If imdb stats are true, he got a whopping $350,000,000 from the first Avatar alone, so there's that too. I can imagine a scenario where someone calls him and says "hey people would really like to see some of your old movies made into 4K to watch on their big new oled TVs" "Not this again? Ok.. so what is the quickest way to approach it?" "DNR and AI upscale but home video fans despise it.." "Just do that then.. and get off my back" I'm just guessing these.. but maybe he sees his old work differently than we, his devoted fans. I've been on the fence whether or not to get the 4K releases but based on this video, I just went from probably to not likely..
Im not a huge Cameron fan myself but I do love the first Terminator film. I never got the blu ray because its missing the mono mix and have held on to my dvd (which holds up ok). I have been hoping that mgm would release a 4k themselves via a boutique and maybe we might get a nice HD image with the mono. Like what they did with Mad Max. Hearing that Cameron is somehow involved with mgm to restore that one makes my heart sink. Is that legitimate? I have not heard that anywhere. Also, i dont plan on buying these Cameron 4ks but Aliens (which is another Cameron film I do like) has a stereo track included. The old blu ray is 5.1 only. Do you know if Aliens was released in stereo exclusively back in 1986? Or was there a 6 track mix? Im okay not buying Aliens in 4k but Im curious about that stereo mix.
The rumor is indeed that both terminator films will be getting the same treatment, but will check to wait and see. Aliens did have Dolby stereo on the general release and was blown up to 70 mm so there is a six track version available. Seemingly that was what was used for the initial 5.1 on home releases on Laserdisc. The 2.0 matrix surround would represent the Dolby Stereo. The extended cut had its own home video mix.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader yeah I watched True Lies on stream a few months ago and got this weird feeling of it not looking quite as I remembered from its theatrical run. Now it all makes sense.
I pretty much agree with everything you said here. Even though I'm getting the Abyss,there aren't many other options although I do own that Laserdisc box set and was there to see it opening night in theaters,there should be an option to have the original. A perfect example of how to do a film like this right is the 2001 4K release. That film looks and sounds great but you can still tell it's actually film and that it was made in a certain time and place. That's nothing to be ashamed of. It's like recently I picked up the 4K of Oshii's Ghost in the Shell. I was really pissed off at the end when they completely took out the original music and replaced it with the bland techno garbage that Manga had made for it. Not even an option. Just a straight up removing of the music even on the subtitled version. Terrible but not many people talk about it. Or they think it's acceptable. It's not. Not when you are straight up removing the original. So I understand your frustration.
I still might pick up those new releases of Abyss and True-Lies, mainly for the new retrospectives as opposed to the picture, but I will not pick them up full price. Instead, I will wait until they hit bargain prices (which should be quick). In terms of transfers, I have two bootleg blu-rays of those films, and their transfers are fantastic, much better than what I've heard about the official releases. I still respect Cameron as a filmmaker, as he's made some of the most classic films in his career, but I'm still weary about the transfers of his films. The best looking transfers of his films (outside of bootlegs) were the first Blu-ray of Aliens, the 2013 Blu-ray of Terminator 1 (despite the darker color grading, and the lack of mono, the detail looked great), and the 2015 blu-ray of T2, whose transfer was based on the Japanese Laserdisc.
I respect Cameron in a lot of ways but damn we have very different tastes for what film should look like on home video. I buy 4ks because I want to see all of that natural grain hopping around like intended. Screwing around with the core aesthetic and applying DNR and other AI manipulations is a major hang up for me. No sir I do not like it!
It's a shame this effects more than just Cameron. Steven Spielberg's Duel, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Indiana Jones trilogy, and Jurassic Park also were revised after release.
The only revisions done to Jurassic Park is the DTS remixing, right? IMHO the 2023 4k 35mm mastering looks pretty phenomenal. But again I wouldn't know how to spot the differences on the 4K's Dolby track as I don't own the Laserdiscs or tapes of JP so can't compare. I'd like to imagine Spielberg didn't overboard this time with mixing the ATMOS transfer.
Oh geez these films can't catch a break. The constant little tweaks and changes in the Spielberg catalog also kill me. Duel and ESPECIALLY the Indy trilogy most of all.
Coppola appears to have played this about right. Yeah, he’s played around with Apocalypse now but the fans demanded it as there was so much unseen footage, but he’s restored the actual stock film beautifully. I had the pleasure to ask Walter Murch a question during the promotion of Apoc N Redux. I asked if Coppola was tempted to do what Lucas did with Star Wars and change or tweak with CGI and he looked at me bemused. That was best answer I could get. Ha.
I think a lot of this could be avoided if they actually sold an untouched version from the 4K scans with they’re doing. I mean, it shouldn’t be too hard to have two masters done, especially since all they really have to do for the untouched version is run the real and copy to a drive, they could list it as pure, uncut, film, or untouched, and the new version could be called. AI restored, see what people like Best when it comes to these films. 11:26
Hollywood has always been about profit, the fact that it sometimes produced art was a byproduct or subterfuge. As you said, the majority of the public buying these discs will be happy. I saw The Abyss theatrically, had the laserdisc boxset, fullscreen DVD (for 4:3 TV) & have seen previous HD transfers streaming, only True Lies disappointed. I don't have a 4K player (for fear of another upgrade cycle) & my eyesight (& visual memory) is not as good as yours, so my approach is to wait for the $4-6 ATV+ rentals, when there's little to lose and enjoy. Otherwise, I've already sunk enough money into the abyss!
Some of it is guesswork and some of it is analysis since we don't have concrete information about the process on any of these. True Lies definitely seems like the old previously unreleased master made years ago and Aliens is essentially the master used for the Blu-ray. Each was hit with all of this crud processing to varying degrees. The official statement seems to claim otherwise but only The Abyss seems to have gotten a newer (though who knows from what year) scan and less of the processing which is why it looks the most palatable of these three.
Graffiti's grain elimination, then adding in a fine layer of digital "grain", is a crying shame, because its color grade is really beautiful. I would've just reduced natural film grain by 20% and called it a day.
That intro was good, its just sad they do this to these beloved movies, i wonder if james Cameron and others see these videos, now they Are working on t1 and t2, some body should please tell Cameron please leave the film grain alone and dont change the color timing on these 2 classics.
I really hope that someone find and scan a 35mm or even 16mm print of The Abyss (they already did this with True Lies and Aliens), any grindhouse old print will be better than this goddamn disc.
In Spain there is apparently some loophole that allows bootlegs to be released. I imported off Amazon Spain to the U.K. the True Lies disc. It’s a proper pressed disc it’s not a BD-R which surprised me. It’s worth getting anyway. It’s even got some extras that are very unique including Cameron mentioning Spiderman being his next film at a press event. Shame we have to do this of course but I’m not paying for wrecks. The Abyss is the only one I’m annoyed about most as the bootleg of that you just can’t find outside of means I don’t want to get involved with.
It does seem to be something more like an official release and is sadly the only option there is for something that isn't completely screwy. I need to import it finally.
Don't you love it when directors claim that now their movies look the way they would have looked like had they had the technology and tools then (35+ years ago) that they have now?
Another aspect probably is the fact that they (Cameron and Lucas) have and had a limited output compared to other directors and spend more time to look at their "few(er)" "babies" to make them look and feel "perfect" (Whatever that means). Unlike other directors that simply move on to the next project. Someone like Clint Eastwood for example would never engage in anything like that. He simply makes movies ;)
I don't understand... Anime fans can find original negatives and do unbelievable restorations like Super Mario 86' Movie & the Project Ako movies, which looks absolutely fantastic, but multi billion dollar companies can't do it???
Thanks! I try to keep things informative yet conversational and cram in whatever goofy humor I can. This was more of a loose video editorial about these masters but I couldn't think of another way to cover them properly.
Wonderful and extremely helpful comparisons from fkid from the bluray.com forums:
Aliens: forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=21969300&postcount=6652
The Abyss: forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=21959279&postcount=3645
True Lies: forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=21963232&postcount=3841
True Lies Spanish import BD (do keep in mind it seems to be a bootleg but is available on Amazon): amzn.to/43BSf97
Quite interesting that the filmmaker who first gained fame by making a film about the dangers of A.I uses A.I to butcher his own films. But, in the world that is modern Hollywood & filmmaking, maybe its not that surprising.
i think i do live webcam on facebook where ranting can be XXXX rated at slagging off dolby atmos , i hardly now use my processor for Dolby atmos , system is now mostly used for Dolby Stereo matrix or Dolby Stereo 5.1
these fake JC atmos upmixes are to be avoided
Game over man, game over.
He can’t be bargained with, he can’t be reasoned with. He doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And he absolutely will not stop, ever, until your favorite movies are dead!
Grain over man, Grain over
Haha! Beautifully put!
ok, that's funny
@@RememberThisShow you should be on deep background , i call you deep throat on DNR AI grain
😂😂😂😂 “ Are you finished “
I said it before and I'll say it again: even Ridley Scott let the previous versions of BLADE RUNNER exist alongside his director's cuts. He understood the importance of preserving different cuts.
I'm starting to wonder if the original negatives have been destroyed somehow and that's why they won't go back to them.
No it's not a negative loss it's just stupidity. (Warner won't go back and handle BR properly either-especially the original and earlier versions and they really need to.) One wishes everyone could follow Scott's lead but sadly some refuse to...
Even Ridley Scott who admitts he only makes his films for himself and not his audiecess, even he has enough grace to give the consumer alternative cuts of his work. Scott, Scorsese, and (to a degree) Coppola and Spielberg all love and respect the format for it's preservation potential. Whenever Cameron speaks about the easthetic and art of film I can only roll my eyes and take it as pseudo-expert quackery. Jimbo's living proof that too many deep oceanic dives can't be good for the brain. Doesn't do much harm to the ego, though.
I can’t find the original version of blade runner and it’s totally different and better
I've never fallen out of love with a filmmaker faster than when I was a teenager, buying my DVD copy of Terminator 2 (my favorite movie at the time), turning on Cameron's commentary in order to get his juicy insight, and becoming increasingly crestfallen as half the commentary seemed to consist of his shitting on the innovative special effects and filmmaking techniques, openly wishing that he could just redo the whole thing with digital effects and CGI.
It's fascinating how arguably one of the most talented filmmakers of all time just seems to have zero respect for filmmaking as a medium, instead only seeing films as valuable if made with the newest toys on the market. It's such a sad approach to art.
He even admit that he wanted to do The Terminator to get the job to do Aliens, It's really sad when you think about that.
True Lies and Aliens are so bad in 4K that the 35 MM scans online with print damage and other flaws are a million times better. And that's just pathetic and sad. Both films including The Abyss deserved so much better than what they got from James Cameron and the Park Road crew.
The Abyss looks very good. Aliens is ok. True Lies is very very bad. Looks better if turn off HDR for me. Aliens might even look better if turn off HDR. Pretty sure the HDR is messed up especially on True Lies
oh hey mike
Cameron is the kind of guy that doubles down. “Oh you don’t like papyrus font on avatar? I’m using it for everything in the sequel.”
Not even George Lucas dared to do something as outrageous as this
Yep....which is why he has a cameo in the opening...
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader 😱 oh, now i must see this! 🙈😇🤣
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusaderGeorge Lucas ruined the first 3 episodes.
@@ScruffyWarlordAnd so far it's probably easier to get all Eric Stoltz footage from the 1st BTTF than 4K/1080p releases from SW theatrical cuts.
I don't know the 4K release of American Graffiti is certainly a contender.
My iTunes copy of Aliens is about to be destroyed by what is sold as a “free 4K upgrade” 💀… just goes to show that you have to own the media you care for in a physical form that nobody can manipulate retrospectively!
It's such a travesty because Alien 4K is like my top PQ disc on an OLED. perfect amount of grain, detail. I absolutely hate this Aliens digital look.
Yeah putting Aliens against the UHD of Alien will be a NIGHT AND DAY difference.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader I agree 100 percent. Alien 4k looks fucking amazing. That release floored me!
Me when I see Cameron descrate all of classic his films in HD: "ITS GAME OVER MAN! ITS GAME OVER!! WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO NOW?!!! WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO?!!!!!
Maybe we can build a fire. Sing a couple of songs, huh? Why don't we try that?
I think you underestimate videophiles, considering they're basically holding up the UHD platform. Bad press seemed to send T2 to the bargain bin. People won't just buy whatever's put out.
Except that they’re already sold out and people are selling them on ebay for massively inflated prices 🤦🏻♂
@@mowazeem644Because people still want to upgrade from DVD, a format that looks truly awful in OLEDs and modern TVs in general. But there is still plenty of criticism against these UHDs.
Adding one more thing, to complement my previous reply: how much a title sells also depends on how popular a film is. A horrible restoration of a very famous film is still gonna sell more than a fantastic restoration of a very obscure film, even with most people complaining about the quality of the restoration of that very famous film. I bet that T2 on UHD still sold more than The Roaring Twenties on UHD ever will, despite T2's UHD being a disaster that everyone agrees aboug.
Unfortunately I have already bought The Abyss. If the DVD was anamorphic I would be selling this on. If anyone comes up with a fan made restoration of an old print then I will scrap my 4K copy. Sadly I am stuck with it for now but I will not be buying Amy of the other titles.
@@matheus5230Not enough to dent the hugely successful sales. We’re screwed.
Finally someone who will speak the truth!!!
Reminder that supporting these releases tells the studios that this AI process is a success and is accepted! Supposedly they are already looking into using this process to save money when doing 4ks for other 20th Century back catalog and WE NEED TO STOP THAT.
Because I swear to god if after years and years of waiting, if they actually finally come out with The Fly (1986) on 4K UHD Blu-ray and it has been AI'd, no power on earth will contain my anger towards those responsible ! (thats a joke I would not harm those that supported this.......or would I???!?!....No, buuuut)
Hopefully Cronenberg and the Cinematographer for The Fly would stop that process being used on that film though. Maybe Sony will stop them as well??? Doubtful though.
This needs to be nipped in the bud like real quick or the whole physical media and restoration industry will literally crumble real quick if this starts to take root.
Some people already have their favourite films on 4k or are blind and enjoy these Cameron "remasters" (they aren't remasters they are fake), but my favourite film of all time The Fly (1986) is DIRECTLY in the crosshairs of this AI process and the success of these releases could very well determine the direction taken for a 4k for that film, and if not just that and other 20th Century films but this could spiral wildly out of control to every 4k release outside of Boutique Labels that have braincells and wouldn't do this.
I implore you to fight the need to have these films on 4k even when you know they are bad because on their own sure maybe they aren't the absolute worst and maybe it isnt that bad Cameron can do what he wants (he can't and shouldn't but whatever) but this could have explosive ripple effects throughout the industry and change everything and not for the better. This could be how they kill physical media off for good becuase eventually people won't accept this kind of trash anymore.
Dear god dont let this go any further. And please keep the AI process away from the films we care about. Don't let this happen to The Fly.
The problem is these will be HUGELY successful because we've had to wait so long for them, everyone will buy them because they love the films and just want to watch them again. Try watching The Abyss DVD on a 55" OLED. It can't be done, it's unwatchable. I feel stupid buying it, but the 4K Abyss is at least some way of revisiting one of my favourite films.
Stop inventing BS and spreading lies. There is no information of such AI being used in The Fly, or any Fox film besides Cameron's. It really is just Cameron.
I think AI technology can eventually be incorporated into restorations in a faithful manner. It’s just a tool after all, it doesn’t have to be abused to make films look like a waxy and weird mess, just like DNR. It could be used to still fully preserve the original and accurate film look of its era. Cameron and Jackson have "just" tested new technology that is far from ready, and will still take many years before any possible mass adoption of the industry. They have always done things their own way. Lucas butchering Star Wars film didn’t make all restorations go that route, far from such. True Lies in particular is getting mixed to bad reviews, and is already infamous among videophiles. It will still sell well because otherwise they have to stick with the DVD or import the bootleg spanish blu-ray, but many people aren’t happy. The feeling is more "what can we do, it's Cameron, we just have to take what we get, just like what Lucas does to Star Wars".
Also, there are plenty of amazing restorations selling very well all the time in UHD. What makes an UHD sell well is far more tied to the profile of the film itself than the quality of the restoration. The industry learned its lesson after so many complaints for years in the blu-ray era. Even Disney has suddenly turned things around and are making great and truly filmic restorations of their classic animated films! Before that, Disney never needed AI to ruin their films in ways that are just as bad, if not even worse actually, than what Cameron has done now. Again, the problem is never the tool, but the taste of the people using it. Right now, the people employed for head of restorations at the big studios know what they are doing and have good taste, and that isn't changing in the foreseeable future. This is even truer for the most prestigious boutique label, as they have carefully crafted an image of heroes of film preservation, an image that matters a lot for their success and their consumers. They would risk ruining themselves and losing so many consumers if they started to fuck up with their films like Cameron did now.
Ultimately, I would be willing to bet that we won’t see any major changes on the restoration process across the industry within the next 5 years if not 10, both by big studios and boutique labels. And we have already gotten, and we keep getting, so many fantastic and definitive 4K restorations of classic films!
Park Road, the company behind these Cameron restorations, is Peter Jackson's company. They do all sorts of crazy shit for many years. They are just Jackson's lab experiment, and now for Cameron as well. There is a reason why nearly all of their restoration work is just Jackson and Cameron's films. There is a reason why they aren’t a major play in the industry, why big studios and boutique labels aren’t very willing to work with them and their methods. That hasn’t changed. Jackson has already been screwing things up for so many years. And Cameron has been doing it since the Laserdisc era, and yet there were always plenty of restorations, including by big studios, that strived to do far better than him.
@iansmith6166 That's very true. I totally get people wanting something that's compatible with their current TVs because for the old masters you really need a separate setup for legacy formats to look good on-or you have to go the route of trying to upscale and improve the old DVD master yourself or on The Abyss be looking at the HDTV versions of the old master for example.
I watch LD, VHS and DVD on a separate setup with my HDCRT. Trying to run anything besides BD or UHD on OLED is a hideous joke unless you're running all kinds of professional scalers because manufacturers no longer care about legacy formats.
The AI of these Cameron UHDs is exclusively because Cameron wants it. It’s not because of Disney, they are blameless.
Have you ever seen the 35mm scan of "True Lies"? I found it through the Original Trilogy forums. Interestingly, it's graded differently than the D-Theater version. The 35mm version has blue tints in certain scenes (as intended by Cameron and originally shown in theaters), whereas these tints were removed for the D-Theater release.
Save film grain at all costs! Yes, there are some 4k discs from boutique labels that do a great job of restoring the original film elements but they are few and far between. For me the 4k format has been incredibly frustrating. Even trying to find a film that has it's original audio or god forbid it's original aspect ratio... ha hum (Robocop Arrow 4k) is a complete hassle. Great video!
He needs to let go of Avatar. Working on those films ruined his brilliant eye for detail! And maybe Arrow, if not Criterion (why, even Shout Factory), could do a brand new 'from scratch' restoration, ie., if they are lucky enough to somehow get their hands on those film negatives being guarded now, I am sure, with such ravenous hunger by the unforgiving witch of a dragon, Disney!
And perhaps, film companies could make their directors sign binding contract that prohibits them from changing the visual traits of their film after release. Director's cut, and black and white are all ok but tweaking the colour from theatrical tone to something else entirely, grain removal, botoxian waxing hysteria, teal and green madness... it seems to be some sort of a plague affecting directors alone!
I agree. Even if he still wanted to this-it should have been after proper restorations and then allow people to have the choice of the original or newest director's version.
The Director's Guild Of America, the syndicate of directors, forbids studios from overruling directors in home media releases if I'm not mistaken.
@@matheus5230 no wonder they are abusing that loophole. And who bears the brunt of it all? We, fans, without whom this whole industry would come crumbling down! 🥴 Peter Jackson with Lord of the Rings 4K, Nolan with his spectacularly bad case of dialogue-music mixing in Oppenheimer (visually brilliant but i need to hear dialogues too atleast 98%), and 'the King of the world' Lord Cameron with T2 and Aliens... A sort of saturated plague affecting the good ones. Spielberg experimented with ET but thank God, he didn't repeat his folly a second time.
@@shijoejoseph2011While I don’t like what Cameron and Jackson do, for example, I also understand why the rule is in place. For the vast majority of directors, they aren’t powerful people in the industry. The rule is to protect those small directors from having their films butchered by studios.
@@matheus5230 right, that makes sense. It is sad, all the same, that those with power choose to willingly abuse it, behaving as rich spoilt little children.
Thanks for your hard work on this! Looking forward to watching it (right now).
Wow, thank you!
Excited to see how Cameron’s fans are going to react to this, so excited for this video :D
I'm a Cameron fan and while I was willing to give him the benefit of a doubt, now that the cards are on the table I'm so very, very disappointed by him. I wish I could enjoy all those favourite films by him in their original filmic form but instead we are all stuck with ugly revisionistic crap.
Thank you a lot for always keeping your objectivity and integrity. I still dont understand why many other reviewers suddenly decided to turn off their brains to review these releases and judged them under different standards and criteria than they use to judge any other home media release. Why suddenly everything they complained about turned now to be "good" and "aceptable"? Is it because is Cameron? Because Cameron contradicts himself like George Lucas now his fandom has to do it too? That's when fanaticism reaches unhealthy levels, when somebody goes so far to deny reality itself just to defend what they love, blindly.
I don't get it, I love this movies too, and It is precisely because I love them that I want the best treatment and respect for them, the best quality possible which is definitively OUT THERE. If independent studios can give us outstandingly superior quality than these studio releases... how come that Cameron, with all the money in the world, specially after the last 2 Avatar movies, is not willing to put a penny to do a PROPER JOB and go back to the negatives to do a proper restoration? Nobody is asking him to do it for free, people pay for this things. But why should we pay for a blown up 1080p movie that we already have in Blu-Ray, DVD, Laser disc, and VHS, if the only thing that is new here is something that any TV does automatically and for free. DNR is ugly and something that we always tun off. Even THX tells you to turn it off. See the rabbit hole of contradictions? And one thing should be clear to those who complain about us complaining about these releases, that is that most people who buy physical media are people who care about film preservation, people who wants more quality than what streaming offers, we notice details that the average consumer wont, because we are film geeks, cinephiles, and some of us are filmmakers or aspiring to be filmmakers. Every detail counts. Among all people and potential costumers studios have, we are the demographic that will always be willing to PAY MORE TO OBTAIN THE BEST.
I wholeheartedly agree with everything you've said however, unfortunately, these films are so beloved by fans who have waited decades for them to receive a new release beyond DVD, that they are better than what they had. So I don't necessarily blame them for wanting to purchase them.
As you pointed out if you're only being offered a turd the only thing you can do to it is polish it or flush it down the loo where it belongs........ and wait for a sympathetic restoration that will probably never come.
It's hard to believe that JC has delayed the release of these films only to do such a poor job 😭
What really stings here is that there is no real good alternative for The Abyss. The DVD of The Abyss is almost like a VHS format onto the DVD, but it at least doesn't have the ugly teal tint. The Stinky Tuna Blu-Ray doesn't have that teal tint either, but although it is better than the DVD, it isn't the best video quality because it looks pixelated. Plus, the Stinky Tuna Blu-Ray only has the extended cut and not the theatrical cut. The 4K UHD transfer is definitely better as it includes both cuts of the film, however, what ruins the 4K is the DNR usage in the whole film as well as that teal tint, and that's incredibly disappointing. I seriously hope that there is a fan film restoration that can do a much better job, and therefore give The Abyss the proper treatment it deserves. As for True Lies, the Spain Blu-Ray is 1,000,000 times better than the new 4K. And for Aliens? The 2010 Aliens Blu-Ray is 100,000 times better than the 4K. Yeah, for Aliens, it could be better, but decent to my eyes, At least there is some grain included for the 2010 Blu-Ray. Overall, awesome analysis sir. You sure know what you are talking about. You really should get hired to work in a film mastering studio to fix any disc problems on Blu-Ray and 4K.
The only other way to watch true lies in hd is buying a copy of the short lived D-theater format
I was waiting for your to do a video like this. I couldn't have said it better myself. James Cameron is far closer to Lucas and his Special Edition revisionism than people would like to admit and these 4Ks are proof of that.
I saw your rant video on this OCP aka Mike. I agree with everything you said about James Cameron and his issues with film grain. He thinks film grain is bad. He is wrong! Grain is suppose to help make a film look natural. Yes, I am very upset about what James Cameron did.
I have to admit, I did order The Abyss, as it seemed like the only one worth getting (with Titanic and Aliens having already fantastic Blu-rays, while True Lies is stuck in limbo with that okay but kinda crummy Spanish bootleg BD). I did watch a very low bitrate stream of the theatrical cut when it was uploaded to Amazon Prime Japan (randomly was checking it with a VPN and was shocked to see it was there, new master and all), and I gotta admit, the low bitrate sure helped hide a lot of the issues.
So I guess I’m part of the problem for getting one of them, but at least I held off the other three, so I’ll take a partial victory here. The one slight positive of them selling well is that Disney might take notice and release more of the Fox back catalog on UHD. One can hope…
Disney isn't known for being the kindest when it comes to home media preservation, so I highly doubt it
@@Eva01-jy2qu7pu9rDisney is improving, as they started to release Disney+ shows on physical media. Also, the deal with Sony may give another hope for improvements, as the decision for what titles to release on physical media will be made mutually between Disney and Sony.
I completely get that and that's at least one possible positive that it might make Disney more approachable on Fox catalog titles. The Abyss is definitely the best of these three and will be the only one most people will likely think is livable with.
Streaming issues and lower quality will definitely mask some of this crud as the discs were well made by Disney to reveal all the craptasticness...
Aliens bluray is now outdated
@@tannerbartko1203Yes but still the best way to watch the movie at home.
I think to the people that say things like "It's the directors movie. He can make changes to the look of the film if he wants to." It's not like that. He didn't make these films alone in his backyard. Hundreds to thousands of people worked to make these projects come to life. Do the cinematographers, set designers, actors, sfx department etc not deserve to have their hard work shown not just in the best light but also in an proper unaltered state?
This just makes me sad because generative ai in its nature is making up detail. How long before they get so good you won't know If you're looking at a proper remaster or something that looks really good and proper but is nothing like the original film that was shot?
EXACTLY!!
Technically YES Lucas can do whatever the hell he pleases with Star Wars. He created Star Wars, he wrote Star Wars ALL 3, YES I know people love to claim someone else wrote Empire and Jedi. NO Lucas wrote them someone else directed them.
Lucas self funded 100% of Empire and Jedi put everything on the line, his life was screwed he would be broke if Empire flopped because he didn't want to take money from Fox. There is a massive difference between Lucas and Cameron. Cameron didn't actually self fund anything, he sure as hell didn't create Aliens. He was selected to direct Aliens by the studio that paid for everything.
I watched the uhd of True Lies. I could tell there was a lot of DNR, as there wasn’t much film grain at all. But I didn’t know about the use of AI. It’s a damn shame we can’t just get a good 4k remaster without all that processing from major studios.
Highly thoughtful video essay on JC's relentless pursuit to cut and splice and atomize his filmography. I think your video here just proves how much fuller of himself he actually really is. I think he likens himself to be the Prince Prospero of the digital age. He or his lackeys wave their hands or magic walking sticks over their consoles in hopes to "keep up to date" with his films. Apart from the original The Terminator from 1984, never was a die hard fan but the arguments you posed here should be shared with people who really obsess over his filmography. Your video here just reinforces the idea that its good to hold onto physical media copies of one's favorite films because things just continually seem to be disappearing and or being deleted for the next "shiny and brand spanking new and up to date" version. JC's been power tripping for years now and hopefully will reach an age where he'll just let all of this nonsense go. Someone needs to tell him to read Walter Benjamin's essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" so he can get back to his un-AI senses.
If they had just properly restored each film and presented that alongside his latest version....but apparently that's too much to ask....
As long as there is breath in his lungs, Cameron will work to make sure we never get proper releases of his classics, because he hates them and us.
This is so frustrating, and it sucks that some of these movies still look best on laserdisc. Especially because so many of us can’t even play laserdiscs. Getting a working player for a good price is almost impossible as is, much less one with digital audio capabilities. So for the majority of us, the only realistic way of seeing these movies is a dvd port
I’m just thankful I’m not a Cameron fan at all, so I don’t have to touch these with a ten foot pole. I can happily live with my dvd copies of the movies since I pull them off the shelf next to never
Not to mention telling people they need a good LD player and it's best on a CRT or specific setup for standard def...and that I watch them on my Laserdisc setup because I have to have multiple setups for different formats...
This has spiraled out of control so much, that I've basically just resorted to VHS. I've grown used to watching films on inferior formats anyway.
If Cameron has any control over Strange Days, and decides to go after that one next, hey, I got that on VHS, too. Studio labels don't often get my money anymore.
I totally agree, I refuse to pay money for trash like this, all that does is encourage these people to do the bare minimum in the future to take our money. I'll happily just pirate them instead, if the people who made these films don't care enough about the movie, or the customers, to do the work to make these look like they should, they don't deserve my money. If boutique labels can make old, cheaply made movies look amazing there's no reason Cameron and Disney couldn't have spent the money to master these properly.
Remember The Terminator’s remixing of the mono sound to 5.1 and altering the sound effects… 🤦🏻♂️
That actually sound ed really good that 5.1 mix
@@benjaminjensen7402oh yeah? What about the Magnum? Went from sounding like Dirty Harry’s hand cannon to a nerf gun.
Unfortunately the masses just see the film titles and the words 4K and will end up buying it anyway. All are now virtually sold out in the states. I weep for the future of 4K.
Not only that they're going for high prices on ebay due to short supply!
With films so famous, they will still sell well even if literally every buyer loudly complained that they were awful releases. T2's UHD is universally maligned, but I feel pretty sure it didn’t sell poorly, and it's gonna keep selling more than fantastic restorations of obscure films. And this is even truer when it’s big films that are not even on regular blu-ray! The Abyss is gonna be the best seller of these three, easily, as the old DVD already sucked back then and it is borderline unwatchable in modern TVs. Aliens already has a good blu-ray despite the teal, and True Lies UHD is already infamous for how bad it looks.
These Cameron UHDs suck, but I can’t see them significantly changing the big picture of film restoration and the 4K blu-ray format anytime soon. So many fantastic classic films have already gotten amazing 4K restorations, and they always keep coming. For as long as Grover Crisp is employed as head of restoration at Sony, I can't see Sony ruining their catalogue like this, and the same applies to varying extents for other studios. Ultimately, the taste of the people in charge of restoration at the studios are what matters. These Cameron UHDs look horrible because Cameron has horrible taste, he likes them looking like this. It was his request to restore the films in this manner, not Disney's, especially when considering how Disney last year turned a new leaf regarding their classic animated features.
Now, there will always be the people who passionately defend these restorations for one reason, and one reason only: they want to feel validated by their purchase, they hate the idea that what they bought is bad, and they delude themselves into thinking it is good.
They are printing more. These are going to be mass produced and available everywhere within the next 30 days so the scalpers can sit on their hundred dollar pricing forever.@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader
It’s so odd. Some parts of all 3 look pretty decent but at times, you can tell there’s some weird tweaking added to it. The Abyss looks the best of the 3 to me but that doesn’t say much. Do I think it’s horrible? Not so much. To me, the picture is a mixed bag, but the sound on the other hand was well done. Great atmos tracks and the option of having the original 5.1 mixes on the included Blu-rays. I’m just split on it. Oh and also they must’ve done the weird AI upscaling on the documentary for True Lies because the VHS quality stuff looks weirdly enhanced to be in 1080p.
Legacy standard def extras have been a minefield of problems but I'm sure the AI upscaling will continue...like the horrendous presentation of the original cut of DUEL recently.
I remember watching a bonus feature on a German Blu-ray release of The never ending story, where they proudly talked about taking the grain out completely and adding it later again. It's a tragedy
Horrifyingly, I don't think we've seen anything yet. The ridiculous mandate of the use of generative AI in EVERYTHING is going to devastate film and films in so many ways (Along with our lives and the planet) even more going forward.
Unfortunately, understanding things like the importance of preservation and the ethical and philological aspects of restoration requires some degree of culture and intelligence, something that's lacking even in some comments below this video (only a few, but if they're indicative of a larger audience, movie preservation is screwed forever).
Considering that modern home displays are usually 16x9, and Cameron has fully embraced 16x9/1.78/1.85 ratio for the Avatar films...I'm a little shocked that Cameron hasn't done the "open matte" thing to present ALL of his films in 16x9 for these releases.
I sadly can't find a rip of the laserdisc for The Abyss. You said the DVD is bad, but compared to the 4K, is it better/more acceptable?
Of course the 4k is better than the DVD. Come on man.
@@qasimmir7117
NOT WHAT IM ASKING YOU 🤡. No crud quality wise it'll look better in pixels. If you watched the video you'd realize this is about color timing, use of AI, DNR, etc.
@damnfooolidealisticcrusader HAS SHOOK UP THE WHOLE TH-cam PHYSICAL MEDIA REVIEWER COMMUNITY. THEY ALL KNOW WHO THEY ARE 😂😂😂😂
I guess I will stick to Blu-ray for Aliens.
Hopefully, 3 and Resurrection won't suffer this tragedy if it ever comes out in 4K.
If Alien Anthology 4K ever comes out, I will watch Alien, 3, and Resurrection on 4K and Aliens on Blu-ray.
Yeah it's best to stick with the Aliens BD and thankfully if the other series entires get new masters they will escape this treatment.
Alien 3 Blu-ray transfer was already bad because of DNR. I watched it a few days ago and it was painful.
23:10 this is what I’ve been saying day 1 when Lucas only released the special edition of Star Wars on dvd. Do what you want to creatively with your films now with technology but please present us the option to watch the film we all loved originally
This is exactly why I kept my DVHS copy of True Lies. I also have a French copy of T2 on HDDVD the picture quality was always superior to the Blu-ray and unlike the WB HDDVD's it still works.
YES! I also love my HD DVD of T2!!!!
I think this will become the industry standard or the 'new normal' for future 4K transfers. This certainly will be seen as a beta test for using A.I. more readily, which will further hamper film preservation for those who desire a film to be treated with the respect and the attention necessary to justify an all-around experience of satisfaction.
I feel sorry for consumers who buy these 4K films, not understanding the legacy or the backstory to how we arrived at this point. This is very much a regressive step back to the Dark Ages.
To a time where technology is actually being applied that disables the image and sends film into a backwards terjectory.
Quite honestly, it's become a shit show. But nothing surprises me these days.
I don’t think the situation is that dramatic. Boutique labels show no signs of using A.I. Sony does great restorations and they now have access to a larger catalog.
It seems to just be James Cameron and George Lucas who use it to such a heavy degree. Itll probably be used again but hopefully with more restraint. I’m being optimistic though.
@shinycheeto5779 No... not yet! But the industry will embrace this process as time moves forward. All of these Cameron films have been selling like hot cakes.
That will give the signal to Hollywood that their's nothing wrong in using A.I. technology on future projects.
What's not to say the boutiques won't express some interest in A.I. down the road.
@@shinycheeto5779The boutique labels may not use these tools, but the studio labels sure will. Which is really sad because thats where most of these films are being transferred from anyway
@@dr.impossibleofcounterpunc1984I think AI technology can eventually be incorporated into restorations in a faithful manner. It’s just a tool after all, it doesn’t have to be abused to make films look like a waxy and weird mess, just like DNR. It could be used to still fully preserve the original and accurate film look of its era. Cameron and Jackson have "just" tested new technology that is far from ready, and will still take many years before any possible mass adoption of the industry. They have always done things their own way. Lucas butchering Star Wars film didn’t make all restorations go that route, far from such. True Lies in particular is getting mixed to bad reviews, and is already infamous among videophiles. It will still sell well because otherwise they have to stick with the DVD or import the bootleg spanish blu-ray, but many people aren’t happy. The feeling is more "what can we do, it's Cameron, we just have to take what we get, just like what Lucas does to Star Wars".
Also, there are plenty of amazing restorations selling very well all the time in UHD. What makes an UHD sell well is far more tied to the profile of the film itself than the quality of the restoration. The industry learned its lesson after so many complaints for years in the blu-ray era. Even Disney has suddenly turned things around and are making great and truly filmic restorations of their classic animated films! Before that, Disney never needed AI to ruin their films in ways that are just as bad, if not even worse actually, than what Cameron has done now. Again, the problem is never the tool, but the taste of the people using it. Right now, the people employed for head of restorations at the big studios know what they are doing and have good taste, and that isn't changing in the foreseeable future. This is even truer for the most prestigious boutique label, as they have carefully crafted an image of heroes of film preservation, an image that matters a lot for their success and their consumers. They would risk ruining themselves and losing so many consumers if they started to fuck up with their films like Cameron did now.
Ultimately, I would be willing to bet that we won’t see any major changes on the restoration process across the industry within the next 5 years if not 10, both by big studios and boutique labels. And we have already gotten, and we keep getting, so many fantastic and definitive 4K restorations of classic films!
Park Road, the company behind these Cameron restorations, is Peter Jackson's company. They do all sorts of crazy shit for many years. They are just Jackson's lab experiment, and now for Cameron as well. There is a reason why nearly all of their restoration work is just Jackson and Cameron's films. There is a reason why they aren’t a major play in the industry, why big studios and boutique labels aren’t very willing to work with them and their methods. That hasn’t changed. Jackson has already been screwing things up for so many years. And Cameron has been doing it since the Laserdisc era, and yet there were always plenty of restorations, including by big studios, that strived to do far better than him.
@@Eva01-jy2qu7pu9rPlease, see my reply right below yours. My reply to shinycheeto5779.
They were saying the green effect we see in The Matrix series were all some film issue. How could that be the case? And that that's why they fixed the green issue on 4K. 😭🤦 And that bit in the beginning with the two grandmasters, brilliant!
Part one wasn't green at release. They added the green to the Blu Rays to match the later parts that had the green. On the 4K it's again closer to the theatrical release.
@@bened22 that's all quite fine and dandy, but I did see it in theatre and one of the aspects that drew me to the film as moth to flame was that distinct colour tone. The tint was way more prominent in the sequels but yes, the original did have the tint; and so did its VHS, VCD, DVD, Blu-ray.
@@shijoejoseph2011Mandela effect.
@@Peer165 did you watch it when it came to theatres? Take your online psychology degree and go take a hike, kunting kunt! And once done, be sure to catch that handbasket ride to hell. 👍 Cheerio!
@@shijoejoseph2011 The tint was indeed there, but very subtle in the original film and the subsequent UHD version, but was bumped up in the early home release versions ot match the sequels, similar to how Lucas would change the OT to match the prequels.
The opening "interview" would make a great standalone video!
I'm surprised you only have one version of the Abyss DVD - It looks like that is the single disc release - There is the original 2 disc special edition and then the later repackaged edition of it.
I've had more in the past for sure. Yeah this is just the single disc reissue.
I love these videos!! Please tell us what the best physical releases of each of these films are. I am new to physical media and I need to know!! I do not want to own these atrocities
This guy is just a cry baby, where are the comparisons, nothing he just complains, no one is arguing that graffiti was bad and so were a few others, but those that are worth their salt will show you what they see, and if you might have to upgrade to a decent player to watch your awesome cool movies to see what they see.
@@lazzi-droid1181Dang man are you okay? If you don't like his opinion, why are you complaining?
TITANIC = the old Blu-ray from 2012-ish
TRUE LIES = The Spanish Blu-ray from a few years ago (with the red case)
ALIENS = The original Blu-ray first released in 2010 in the Aliens Anthology Box Set
THE ABYSS = The original DVD or the HDTV broadcast version from over 10 years ago.
@blardbful That's it in a nutshell. If you want to go further down the rabbit hole there's LD editions for original audio on some or without any major tinkering on Aliens as the BD has some.
@lazzi-droid1181 This was a simple discussion video but I did link to some very well done comparisons in the pinned comment. It's extremely difficult to get accurate 4K screencaps to begin with and additionally youtube's compression is such that the overall quality is limited at best in a video.
I sincerely love the justified bitchiness of this vid.
Roast'm all
Haha thanks. I was afraid it was a bit too snarky but said to heck with it...we've had years and years of these frustrations.
Still the best 4k transfer of an old film I have ever seen is JAWS. If you can use the team that worked on that restoration then your're winning.
There needs to be a broader discussion of when changing a film goes beyond remastering into a completely new cut.
I can’t wait for Cameron’s next T2 Remaster, where Arnold’s T-800 lives at the end. He’s the director and can change the ending to match his new 2024 right? 😂
Lucas absolutely can....Cameron not so much. Unlike Cameron, Lucas fully self funded Empire and Jedi. He put everything on the line that sequels to Star Wars would succeed. Cameron didn't self fund T2, Aliens, True Lies or The Abyss.
But then again as Star Wars goes there are NO 4k versions of the Original or the Prequels and they CANNOT exist because the original and prequels were filmed in 2k only 4 of them being actually shot on film. The "4k" that do exist are upscales of the blu-ray releases.
I pre-ordered "The Abyss" and I've watched both versions, I'm happy* with it. "Aliens" on the other hand, I opted not to pre-order because I wanted to see for myself before I made a purchase, I've just managed to get hold of the 4K on rental and compared a number of scenes to my 2012 Blu-ray (from the Quad set) and I cannot bear watching the 4K ! At times I feel like my brain is working extra hard to try and make sense of the image I'm looking at and I think if I were to watch the entire movie I'd have a headache by the end. When there's a relatively static close up of someone's face or something else then it's all brought into high focus/detail and it's absolutely fine but when the image includes lots of background at different depth and multiple actors it feels like it's all been smoothed out with some of it looking very flat but some of it having detail and it doesn't look like "normal focus" to me. I think things get worse when motion is involved as well like a sort of unnatural motion blur, I don't really know how to describe it. The colours/contrast all seem wildly different as well and that alone makes the experience worse than the blu-ray for me. As soon as I switch back to the blu-ray I feel like my brain relaxes and can enjoy what I'm seeing and it all looks much more natural (and enjoyable !). I totally get that a lot of people seem to like this 4K and I 100% believe them, I think this highlights that we don't all see/experience artifical things/motion in exactly the same way. I remember watching the Sopranos and being totally freaked out by the "CGI Mom" episode but a friend of mine who loved the show had absolutely no idea what I was talking about, it looked fine to him. I showed him some *obviously* fake CGI jokey stuff once and he was asking me if it was real (because to him it looked real). I think we have something similar going on here, some of us are more sensitive to this artificial "enhancement" than others and that's why this is so polarizing. I guess we just have to accept that some people will be very happy with this "look" and some wont. For myself, I'm very happy with my blu-ray of Aliens (even more so now !) and I definitely wont be "upgrading" to this 4K. I'm hoping to be able to check out "True Lies" soon.
*EDIT* Although I'm happy with "The Abyss" I know that if it had been "restored properly" then the 4K would be a LOT better ! but I can watch/enjoy the 4K of "The Abyss" but I cannot watch/enjoy the 4K of "Aliens". I "forced myself" to stick on my non-anamorphic DVD of "The Abyss" after I posted this and sitting closer to the screen (because my TV will not zoom this image so I have massive black borders on both sides as well as top/bottom) I gotta say that it highlighted to me a bit more that DVD does indeed look more natural, especially on the "ship scenes". The colours were also more natural as well, on the 4K the colours are very nice and rich in some scenes and dulled or blued in others which I thought was down to the lighting but I can see it's a definite change now. Oh well, as I say, I can watch and enjoy the 4K of "The Abyss" (I've done it twice) but I'm forced to lament the fact that it could have been so much better.
The Abyss is the only one of these where the master was at least newer and a 4K master. Thus it had the least amount of crazy processing applied to it for this release and is the one most people are able to live with but the other two are without any possible redemption.
I was able to settle on the abyss. They really put effort into that one, changing a lot of the color grading on top of the ai stuff. Obviously it's not the ideal version of the movie in my books, but it doesn't feel lazy like the other films.
Awesome video again. Thank you so much for all of your very hard work.
Thanks!
Thank you!!!
I see positive reviews everywhere. What is going on here? Cover art and transfers are worse than they've been for quite some time, and the reviews I see have gotten more ignorant. These transfers are not good. Like, at all. Like, they are clearly 0 out of whatever. It doesn't matter how good you want a disc to look, that doesn't make it better than it really is, and I get to thinkin' that is what is happening here. That would also explain how the hideous Dragon Ball Z steelbooks are magically "good enough." People want good transfers so much that they wind up praising garbage. It makes no sense but I see that happening.
The Abyss looks very good. Aliens is ok. True Lies is very bad. Looks better if turn off HDR for me
A lot of this can be blamed on the fact that news outlets as a whole, regardless of industry, have been dumbed down due to a combination of talent loss, publications and online news-sites hemorrhaging money (forcing them to rely on clickbait, access reviews and AI articles to fill the void) and so many carbon-copy reviewers all relying on PR statements and pre-approved comments without doing any legwork themselves.
I heard that the Terminator blu-ray uses a lowry digital master and if that's really the case then do you know if they also degrained it and then added fake grain like on Aliens and the older Bond movies?
@@Jb991-q9x yes you are right. They did it to make the grain "even" and not varying from normal shots to ones with optical elements which have more grain in it. I am completely against it and grain should never be tempered with.
It's impossible to ever know for sure especially since they've gotten much better at hiding it since the earlier days of say the Bond masters that have it really bad.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader yes thats true. In Terminator and Aliens it's not noticeable at all while watching the movie normally. Maybe I will rewatch them in the future with that in mind and then notice some anomalies in the picture.
I just noticed that you passed 6k subscribers; congrats:)
With what Cameron did to the 4ks (which anyone who knows Cameron could've seen coming a mile away), what's the best version of these three movies I can obtain? I'll find laserdisc rips if I have to. You're very knowledgeable on this stuff
Basically the Spanish BD of True Lies, previous BD of Titanic and Aliens will cover the bases. The Abyss does have an hdtv master floating around in a more open ratio which is pretty much the best quality edition from before this new crazy master. Otherwise you’re forced to go back to LD territory for more purist options but in standard def older masters.
True Lies doesn’t look very good on any release sadly.
These are really bad Masters, should not be consumed by the public but the public does not care.
I won't be purchasing any of these i've never seen the abyss and i don't care to as for aliens im very happy with the blu ray. True lies is truly disappointing though i will be getting the spanish bootleg for sure now per your advice. After everything cameron as done i have zero hope in a proper original terminator 4k release and that is the most disappointing of all since it's easily the best and my favorite work from cameron. As always very informative information from your channel your videos have been a godsend in helping me with my physical media collection.
Thank you! I do think that the screencaps I linked to and glancing at the same masters on streaming are enough to convince anyone of how bad these are. At least with Aliens the BD is a solid option and there's the Spanish disc for True Lies.
That's sad to hear Spencer was looking forward to getting these for my Physical Media Collection. Sadly though I've owned many titles in my collection with not so great transfers and QC issues cough cough I'm looking at you WB with the Superman 4K Set.
If you're curious definitely look at some of the online comparisons and the streaming version. It's the exact same master so the streaming versions will give you a way to see exactly what the physical release has but in higher quality.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader Thanks Spencer I'm still a physical media guy and collector at heart I just wished the major film studios would care more about making sure their catalog titles for the different IP's Star Wars , Star Trek , Marvel , DC Comics , Disney etc. would put more care and respect for catalog titles like the other labels do like Warner Archive.
Oh this is going to be great
so to sum it up in a perfect world these would of been licenced out to Arrow/Shout factory and Fidelity in motion
I saw The Abyss 'restoration' presented in digital 4K on that one special showing and it was definitely the same master as was used for the encode on the disc. Honestly that showing was pretty good, and now looking at the disc I do think it looks miles better than any of the 'definitely legit' versions I have when doing direct image comparisons on my PC. Aliens is not as good and arguably trades blows with the existing BDs at points, but True Lies is just awful. I can't look at True lies for more than a couple minutes and do not understand how that was OK'd. I am glad I have the lionsgate 2D BD of T2 since every other version of that movie is bad too.
Agree. True Lies 4K disc version with HDR turned off does help for me
Another top notch episode, on a sad set of releases. Going forward could you note what you feel is the "best" (or least bad) existing physical media version in the show notes?
I feel like I probably have to a video on each because it's so nuts....
Years and years ago, I saw an interview with Cameron. He acted normal and polite but the feeling I got was that he was a prick. I think you proved that here.
There's a commentary on The Rock where Ed Harris has choice comments on Bay's and Cameron's natures for being hard on set.
I feel like I could have a good conversation with him unless it turned to film preservation and his pitiful video history. Plus there's numerous stories about his set behavior...
What i cannot fathom is - Cameron is no idiot. He must know and see the issuesso why does he think these are acceptable? Its not like they have no budget for these products or that they have been rushed- we've been waiting since 2006 for The Abyss on Blu-ray. Cameron delays and procrastinates while diverted by Avatar films and then THIS is what is finally arrived at? I cannot understand why he doesn't want his past work archived and represented properly. As I say, he is no idiot. So why? It just doesn't make any sense to me.
That's one of the really bizarre and perplexing things. I hated to use the term idiocy but unfortunately in these certain areas that's exactly what it is. Cameron isn't alone in this as many other directors have had some similar boneheaded approaches to preserving their catalog but no one leads the charge with digital tools and new toys more than Cameron does...when he decides to look at the films again that is.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader Cameron seems to have disdain for his earlier work, like he feels they were made before he ‘worked the testosterone out of his system’. He’s turned into a woke eco-nut obsessed with Avatar and scornful of his older, superior classics.
Cameron is not an idiot. He just has very bad taste, it’s that simple, he likes this look. These UHDs are only like this because it's what Cameron actively requested and demanded. It’s not some beta test of the industry for AI restoration. It’s just Cameron being Cameron.
Cameron is no idiot. The issue comes back to the film industry being a business. In business, you get told to promote new things, whether you want to or not. People forget that movies are a part of a much bigger machine. That machine dictates what needs to be promoted as the next level forward for the industry. A.I. is viewed as the next step toward moving the film industry into another money-making arena. Cameron is fully aware of what he's doing and why he's doing it. When you're selected to promote this technology in the industry, you do it or else....This also sets a trend toward a new technological age.
But for me, it's total regression.
He was not selected. This goes directly against the trend of how film restorations are done, including Disney, which has recently turned over a new leaf with finally proper restorations of their classic animated features. The only reason the Cameron films look like this is because it's what he likes and wants, that’s all there is, it’s the same situation as what Lucas does to Star Wars. If anyone advised Cameron to use anything, it’s Peter Jackson.
I give up. It’s clear that you want to do nothing but spread complete doomerism and sensationalism. I've had enough of that, and not just from you.
Wanna take that bet I asked? In 5 or even 10 years, restorations will still not be done like this, including among the big studios, and Cameron's UHDs will remain the exception, not the rule.
You collect LD/DVD/Blu-Ray discs like a lot of us collect LP’s. Love it! 🤘
I collect records too! It’s definitely the same mentality for both!
in crusader i trust technical reviews , boycott AI DNR and near field mixes and fake atmos upmixes where they never spent $millions on dub stage to do proper atmos mix which would take many months , nope they do quick cheap mix then cash cow brand it Dolby Moooomosss
opening of the video says it and sums it up all , lol
george : hey JC you really know how to apply the pigs lipstick to your AI versions
New to the channel but love your in depth and detailed reviews !
This Cameron 4K kerfuffle is so wrongheaded and damn frustrating and as you said hopefully it doesn't set a new standard for future releases to come
Boggles the mind why the hell they can't just release a disc that includes both a more true to the original restoration, and Avatar Cabrons AI-fied wonky playground version as well
Thank you! Haha I like the title of "AI-fied wonky playground version" for the new edition.
Out of my 26 years on my life the only movie I’ve seen on almost every format is Aliens. I’ve seen it on DVD, blu-ray and was even fortunate enough to see it on 70mm (even though the print was badly damaged) on my 20th birthday back at 2018. Definitely can say I’m not sure how I feel about this…time to smoke my weed bowl and cannot wait to hear your take on it!!!
Believe it or not Aliens is one of the better ones from these new transfers. It’s not bad. At least when you pop it in it’s not as bad as some are making in.
How can you not be sure how to feel about this?!
Do you prefer the Theatrical or Special Edition?
Special Extended edition for both Aliens and Abyss is way better.@@loremaster6828
@@HOTD108_ the PQ and coloring is drastically different from what I remember on the 70MM print. At least the first couple reels still had its natural grain and color timing while the 4K is going for something completely different, Not sure if I like it at all…
Preach I got my father into physical media and no matter how hard I explained to him and showed him examples he has always loved the worst 4ks ever made and he pre ordered True Lies absolutely loved it.
You mention reviewers actually liking these Cameron transfers, and it seems to be more of a feature than a bug of online home video reviews.
I still love the cartoons of my childhood (warts and all), and they’ve been treated tremendously bad since the rise of DVD, with DNR, time-compression (mainly the famously abused and desecrated Filmation library), awful color timing, issues with re-takes (a great majority of which seem to only exist on video), censorship, bad audio remixes, and digital alterations, but most of them got glowing reviews on release. The reviewers don’t necessarily know what the things they review originally looked and sounded like, and will be easily awed by the increased clarity and fancy surround sound.
I remember when the ‘80s Twilight Zone hit DVD as straight transfers of the video masters, and it got HAMMERED in reviews for “looking like an old VHS” so hard that one of the showrunners felt the need to post a review on Amazon explaining that the video master was the ONLY way that a complete version of the show could exist without essentially remaking the show from scratch. And then years later CBS did just that with Star Trek: TNG and made all sorts of revisions to the special effects (especially the CGI effects) and even computer displays (because Mike Okuda has totally let his status as being in charge of Star Trek’s continuity go to his head, it seems) to massive praise all around.
wait are you saying the TNG blu rays aren't respected and appreciated among some videophiles? i ask this in sincerity, i'd always assumed they were loved and appreciated for the efforts they went to in getting them to look good in HD?
Cameron overprocessed the video for True Lies and Titanic (1997) LaserDisc releases are already troublesome, with the former film's best version is the 35mm print and the latter film having to regrade the 2007 10th Anniversary DVD (without the changes and no encoding errors) or the 2012 Blu-ray (2D or 3D Open Matte) releases which is an embarrassment to those pop in the discs (syncing with the DTS Theatrical/Cinema audio or LaserDisc). The 35mm fan scan exist on Titanic. Aside for retaining the grain as the color tint is too warm (likely not storage that well) shown it deserves a regrading process using the 1998 LaserDisc and DVD sources.
Since The Terminator 2013 "restored" uses Aliens BD method (DNR the transfer before adding back as "fake grain" and revisionist), the best bet are stick to the open matte, the 1995 LD release or the 35mm fan scanned version of the film.
Aliens and The Abyss' special editions are stuck the best with the LaserDisc or HDTV rips (as the DVD releases and later sucked).
And Terminator 2 Japanese DTS DVD release has an unaltered CDS track (in full bitrate) which only the theatrical cut has (there is a Special Edition hybrid which takes the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Japanese Premium Edition for SE scenes and adjusted to the CDS mixing).
These are the reason why fans have to mux the various resources to give the best versions of the Cameron movies by preserving them into their storage without having to pop in the discs (as the mkv files).
Titanic was already unnatural in terms of the look. So I´m fearful of those three titles. The Abyss will hurt the most because there´s no alternative.
True. But, at the same time, The Abyss is also easily the best looking of these three, aside from the teal color timing.
As far as I know the best you can do on The Abyss pre-new AI tomfoolery is the HDTV broadcast master that's floating around and is opened up a bit in the aspect ratio.
@@matheus5230 Oh, that's good to know. Haven't gotten my copies yet. 😉👍🏻
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader It needs to be the Special Editon of course.
Maybe the man just does not care anymore about his decades upon decades old work. He's 70 now and human lives are short. If imdb stats are true, he got a whopping $350,000,000 from the first Avatar alone, so there's that too.
I can imagine a scenario where someone calls him and says "hey people would really like to see some of your old movies made into 4K to watch on their big new oled TVs"
"Not this again? Ok.. so what is the quickest way to approach it?"
"DNR and AI upscale but home video fans despise it.."
"Just do that then.. and get off my back"
I'm just guessing these.. but maybe he sees his old work differently than we, his devoted fans. I've been on the fence whether or not to get the 4K releases but based on this video, I just went from probably to not likely..
Im not a huge Cameron fan myself but I do love the first Terminator film. I never got the blu ray because its missing the mono mix and have held on to my dvd (which holds up ok). I have been hoping that mgm would release a 4k themselves via a boutique and maybe we might get a nice HD image with the mono. Like what they did with Mad Max. Hearing that Cameron is somehow involved with mgm to restore that one makes my heart sink. Is that legitimate? I have not heard that anywhere. Also, i dont plan on buying these Cameron 4ks but Aliens (which is another Cameron film I do like) has a stereo track included. The old blu ray is 5.1 only. Do you know if Aliens was released in stereo exclusively back in 1986? Or was there a 6 track mix? Im okay not buying Aliens in 4k but Im curious about that stereo mix.
The rumor is indeed that both terminator films will be getting the same treatment, but will check to wait and see. Aliens did have Dolby stereo on the general release and was blown up to 70 mm so there is a six track version available. Seemingly that was what was used for the initial 5.1 on home releases on Laserdisc. The 2.0 matrix surround would represent the Dolby Stereo.
The extended cut had its own home video mix.
I was all excited when I heard these Cameron classics were coming to UHD, thank you so much for saving me the money I'd have wasted.
It really sucks. If you're curious definitely take a glance at the streaming versions and see what you think as the masters are exactly the same.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader yeah I watched True Lies on stream a few months ago and got this weird feeling of it not looking quite as I remembered from its theatrical run. Now it all makes sense.
I pretty much agree with everything you said here. Even though I'm getting the Abyss,there aren't many other options although I do own that Laserdisc box set and was there to see it opening night in theaters,there should be an option to have the original. A perfect example of how to do a film like this right is the 2001 4K release. That film looks and sounds great but you can still tell it's actually film and that it was made in a certain time and place. That's nothing to be ashamed of. It's like recently I picked up the 4K of Oshii's Ghost in the Shell. I was really pissed off at the end when they completely took out the original music and replaced it with the bland techno garbage that Manga had made for it. Not even an option. Just a straight up removing of the music even on the subtitled version. Terrible but not many people talk about it. Or they think it's acceptable. It's not. Not when you are straight up removing the original. So I understand your frustration.
I still might pick up those new releases of Abyss and True-Lies, mainly for the new retrospectives as opposed to the picture, but I will not pick them up full price. Instead, I will wait until they hit bargain prices (which should be quick). In terms of transfers, I have two bootleg blu-rays of those films, and their transfers are fantastic, much better than what I've heard about the official releases.
I still respect Cameron as a filmmaker, as he's made some of the most classic films in his career, but I'm still weary about the transfers of his films. The best looking transfers of his films (outside of bootlegs) were the first Blu-ray of Aliens, the 2013 Blu-ray of Terminator 1 (despite the darker color grading, and the lack of mono, the detail looked great), and the 2015 blu-ray of T2, whose transfer was based on the Japanese Laserdisc.
That's a really good way to look at it and as an extras geek I completely get wanting to pick it up on sale or used just for new supplements.
Thanks, man.@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader
I respect Cameron in a lot of ways but damn we have very different tastes for what film should look like on home video. I buy 4ks because I want to see all of that natural grain hopping around like intended. Screwing around with the core aesthetic and applying DNR and other AI manipulations is a major hang up for me. No sir I do not like it!
It's a shame this effects more than just Cameron. Steven Spielberg's Duel, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Indiana Jones trilogy, and Jurassic Park also were revised after release.
What happened to JAWS again?
The only revisions done to Jurassic Park is the DTS remixing, right? IMHO the 2023 4k 35mm mastering looks pretty phenomenal. But again I wouldn't know how to spot the differences on the 4K's Dolby track as I don't own the Laserdiscs or tapes of JP so can't compare. I'd like to imagine Spielberg didn't overboard this time with mixing the ATMOS transfer.
Oh geez these films can't catch a break. The constant little tweaks and changes in the Spielberg catalog also kill me. Duel and ESPECIALLY the Indy trilogy most of all.
In the case of Duel, Jaws and CE3K, as far as grain management, I don't know what you're talking about--their grain is all there, completely intact.
What is wrong with the 4K of Jaws?
Coppola appears to have played this about right. Yeah, he’s played around with Apocalypse now but the fans demanded it as there was so much unseen footage, but he’s restored the actual stock film beautifully. I had the pleasure to ask Walter Murch a question during the promotion of Apoc N Redux. I asked if Coppola was tempted to do what Lucas did with Star Wars and change or tweak with CGI and he looked at me bemused. That was best answer I could get. Ha.
And right now, American Zoetrope is working on a new restoration of The Conversation!
Really? I have a version that has a restored soundtrack but that’s fairly old now, I think?
Such a great film.
I think a lot of this could be avoided if they actually sold an untouched version from the 4K scans with they’re doing. I mean, it shouldn’t be too hard to have two masters done, especially since all they really have to do for the untouched version is run the real and copy to a drive, they could list it as pure, uncut, film, or untouched, and the new version could be called. AI restored, see what people like Best when it comes to these films. 11:26
Thanks
Thank you so much!
Hollywood has always been about profit, the fact that it sometimes produced art was a byproduct or subterfuge. As you said, the majority of the public buying these discs will be happy. I saw The Abyss theatrically, had the laserdisc boxset, fullscreen DVD (for 4:3 TV) & have seen previous HD transfers streaming, only True Lies disappointed. I don't have a 4K player (for fear of another upgrade cycle) & my eyesight (& visual memory) is not as good as yours, so my approach is to wait for the $4-6 ATV+ rentals, when there's little to lose and enjoy. Otherwise, I've already sunk enough money into the abyss!
That's why I encourage people to just look at the streaming versions first and see what they think. The discs are using the exact same masters.
Great review! Where did you get the info that these aren’t using 4K scans?
Some of it is guesswork and some of it is analysis since we don't have concrete information about the process on any of these. True Lies definitely seems like the old previously unreleased master made years ago and Aliens is essentially the master used for the Blu-ray. Each was hit with all of this crud processing to varying degrees. The official statement seems to claim otherwise but only The Abyss seems to have gotten a newer (though who knows from what year) scan and less of the processing which is why it looks the most palatable of these three.
James Cameron is the Mike Love of filmmakers
Graffiti's grain elimination, then adding in a fine layer of digital "grain", is a crying shame, because its color grade is really beautiful. I would've just reduced natural film grain by 20% and called it a day.
That intro was good, its just sad they do this to these beloved movies, i wonder if james Cameron and others see these videos, now they Are working on t1 and t2, some body should please tell Cameron please leave the film grain alone and dont change the color timing on these 2 classics.
I really hope that someone find and scan a 35mm or even 16mm print of The Abyss (they already did this with True Lies and Aliens), any grindhouse old print will be better than this goddamn disc.
In Spain there is apparently some loophole that allows bootlegs to be released. I imported off Amazon Spain to the U.K. the True Lies disc. It’s a proper pressed disc it’s not a BD-R which surprised me. It’s worth getting anyway. It’s even got some extras that are very unique including Cameron mentioning Spiderman being his next film at a press event. Shame we have to do this of course but I’m not paying for wrecks. The Abyss is the only one I’m annoyed about most as the bootleg of that you just can’t find outside of means I don’t want to get involved with.
It does seem to be something more like an official release and is sadly the only option there is for something that isn't completely screwy. I need to import it finally.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusaderIt looks like film at least and the faces have detail. It’s not ideal but worth a purchase
Well done.
great video mate
This guy is right Cameron is up to complete tom foolery.
Don't you love it when directors claim that now their movies look the way they would have looked like had they had the technology and tools then (35+ years ago) that they have now?
Another aspect probably is the fact that they (Cameron and Lucas) have and had a limited output compared to other directors and spend more time to look at their "few(er)" "babies" to make them look and feel "perfect" (Whatever that means). Unlike other directors that simply move on to the next project. Someone like Clint Eastwood for example would never engage in anything like that. He simply makes movies ;)
Great channel, keep up the good work.
I don't understand...
Anime fans can find original negatives and do unbelievable restorations like Super Mario 86' Movie & the Project Ako movies, which looks absolutely fantastic, but multi billion dollar companies can't do it???
for this artwork to say a film by , shouldn't say , a AI by james cameron , to use word film is offensive with this disc
Thank you for what you do! It’s so important!
This is the longest yet most entertaining video on this cameron 4k situation .
Thanks! I try to keep things informative yet conversational and cram in whatever goofy humor I can. This was more of a loose video editorial about these masters but I couldn't think of another way to cover them properly.