Alien Anthology - Page 102

It's simply a choice between FI artifacts or flickery/juddery screen motion. Neither are particularly ideal for modern video presentation, but that is what we are left with given that the movie industry insists on sticking to a 24 fps format.

Btw, if it really is an issue of smearing of skin pore detail while tracking small motions, that is more likely due to temporal noise reduction (in either the mastering of the product or in the end-user display or even in certain configurations of the actual encoding of the video) or use of an older technology lcd. Ironically, it is the newer motion-interpolation-equipped displays that are better set up to accommodate non-smearing detail under motion, by virtue of being capable of rendering 120/240 Hz motion in the first place.

I dread the day movies are shot 48fps. There's something about HD video and high frame rates that seem the antithesis of "art" to me. It's too real. The more "real-life" films look, the phonier they become. It becomes difficult to suspend disbelief, I can practically smell the lunch catering table located just off-camera.

Wow that's actually a great point..

I love the look of movies as they are now, and see no real reason to move to higher frame rates, simply to do so. However, I'd like to see a movie shot at 48fps, to see what it would look like vs 24. I never thought I'd like the look of a movie shot digitally that looks liek it was shot digitally, but Tron Legacy absolutely astounded me with how incredible the "real life" scenes looked.

Whenever I watch deleted scenes, I get that same feeling. When the scene wasn't touched up with the same filters as the theatrical film, it just feels too real... like a home movie. Once the filters have been added and the color balanced and other post-processing effects, it finally has that film "look" to me.

That may very well be the case, but there is no ignoring that reasonable motion depiction in high action/adventure movies are really fubar at the industry standard 24 fps. In those scenarios, 24 is simply inadequate for the job unless you are willing to really blur things up.

Now I'm not saying that everything should be shot in 48, because I agree that 24 still has an important look for "regular" type shots. I'm just acknowledging that all of that goes out the window when it comes to sharply focused detail in moderate to fast motion. There is no need to ignore that fact, because it ultimately keeps movie technology stagnated when we do. If we can devise a solution that gives the best of both worlds, that would best serve everybody in the end.

Odd thing, ordered the anthology from Amazon UK yesterday and it dropped the in-basket price to 16 pounds for us. Anyone hazard a guess as to why? We also bought James May's Toy stories on DVD, but don't see why that would have triggered any combo discount.

Ramp up your dread. Pretty sure Hobbit and Avatar 2 are both being shot at 48.

Luckily, both those films deal with such normal, every day scenarios, you'll probably still be able to suspend disbelief.

It doesn't matter if the subject matter is fantastical or mundane. The point is that that, for me, higher framerates and HD video kill the "film-world". It's too literal. Things that happen in movies don't happen in real-life, so when they are presented in such a clear, precise manner they look even more preposterous. I'm sure you don't agree but that's the way I feel about it.

They remove value added tax from the price for non-EU customers.

Actually, I totally do. I despise the motion interpolation high frame rate crap applied to movies. I find it interesting for certain things, but I can't stand to see it applied to regular motion pictures.

Trumbull's been pushing it for decades though.

Ah mystery (to me) explained. Thanks. That makes the price disparity between US and UK Amazon even more stark, considering ours is without sales tax.

I ordered T2 Judgment Day along with Aliens. Funny thing...they arrived today, coinciding with what some believe to be "Judgment Day", right?

Yeah, I was charged $32 US shipped. And are the single cases the standard for this now? I honestly don't care either way but I'd like to know ahead of time, thanks.

I noticed that AU release of the Anthology (face hugger pack) is now reduced to a 4 disc box set with no extras and a blue alien similar to the green on for the US. Each film is also in a separate case too. Same price though

That's how my UK copy came a few weeks ago.

Yes, that is my impression, as well...the single case product is essentially a movie-only disc. If you were seeking lots of extras type of stuff (which would have been nice, but I'm not that broken out over it), you'll want to stick with the earlier "trilogy collection" version (the one that has an extensive list of extras cited on the box art).

My mistake, did not read carefully.

Mine has all the extras, it is just all in one small box.

I think. I am away and haven't looked at it in 3 weeks.

edit: yep, it is the 6 disk set.

I have seen 60fps via showscan by Douglas Trumbull and I totally lost myself in the imagery and forgot I was watch a film. technology is best when you forget it's there

Hi Everyone

I see that amazon has lowered the Alien Anthology price hugely...my question is:

The Edition is still the same? With the Hard Card Box with the discs on the pages?
Or did they changed to plastic or something?
I just don't want to order something and get dispointed....

Tank you

Hi Everyone

I see that amazon has lowered the Alien Anthology price hugely...my question is:

The Edition is still the same? With the Hard Card Box with the discs on the pages?
Or did they changed to plastic or something?
I just don't want to order something and get dispointed....

Tank you

It absolutely looks beautiful, no doubt- The color timing is an issue though, it completely changes the feel of the movie- i can see how some people won't care but it bothers me unfortunately. its poop for me!

Wow, it absolutely does NOT change the feel of the film. AT ALL. If anything, its closer to what its supposed to look like, moreso than ever before.

Thank god the awful pink hues from the DVD are finally gone.

Agreed. I have the DVDs and always thought they were nice. I guess I never really thought about the color of the films at the time, but man, the blurays just blow me away. The color change must have been created for people like me because I absolutely love it. I've watched 1 and 3 twice now, and I just can't take my eyes off of the screen. Maybe its just that I don't own a lot of blurays, and I haven't been overwhelmed by the orange and teal thing that people keep talking about.

Yeah, IDK the pinkish original was okay but at times was awful and that goes for all those 80s films with way too warm color grading. I cannot stand that stuff but neither do I need everything bathed in blue. I have yet to see this release but it looks great. Blade Runner benefited heavily from retiming the film. The original just looks lost in the 80s to me.

Movies in the '80s were not teal. That's a fad that started in the 2000s. I'm not saying that the DVD colors were perfect, but this teal BS is absolutely not what the movie was originally photographed to look like. If James Cameron says so, he is simply being a revisionist. This is no different at all than William Friedkin insisting that The French Connection was always supposed to be tinted purple, even after his own cinematographer called him out as a liar.

I think the distinct warm hue look prior to the color timing change came all the way back from the LD version, not just the earlier DVD set. Anybody remember how the mini blow torches used to have a pinkish flame?

My theory on the increasing use of teal-push to spice up masters of old movies is that they are exploiting a vibrance effect of newer display technologies with larger effective color gamut than was possible back in the CRT and NTSC days. Whereas red/blue/green were pretty much all you could count on in the old days, there is now increased range in the directions of cyan and magenta, which can take on a vibrant, electric blue or hot fuchsia effect. By explicitly pushing these color mixtures, it tends to give the highlights in cool colors more vibrance and the warm colors more luminosity...hence "old" looking movies suddenly take on a modern "new" look. The viewer is responding to the stimulation of additional colors at the extremes of the classic color gamut triangle and also from the modern state of digital displays and fully-digital transmissions which can reliably carry/display these color extremes w zero attenuation/degradation.

I have slightly different theory. When I purchased my first 'big screen TV" (back when a 29" TV was considered big) which was a SONY Trinitron TV in the 1990's, no one seemed to know about video calibration. My first exposure to video calibration was when JPK released VIDEO ESSENTIALS on LD. And I didn't get a colorimeter until about 3 years ago. I gave that TV away recently but measured it with the colorimeter just before doing so and it was 9300K on the low mode

I decided to watch my DVD copy of Crocodile Dundee a few weeks back and could not believe how red this film looked. The DVD was taken from a release print because it has "cigarette burns" at the top right of the image.

I've calibrated my projector to 6500k since new and recalibrate every 100 hours and this film only began to look exceptable at over 8000K (I used a factor set mode on the projector to see how the higher temp might affect the image). So I do wonder if there was a deliberate push to the reds in the older LD/DVD releases to compensate for the blue tint from consumer displays running too high a colour temperature.

Viewing ALIENS on my display with a friend (that is anal about video calibration) and neither of us had a problem with this so called "tealification".

Just came back from an awesome 25th anniversary screening of Aliens in Hollywood. Supposedly a new 35mm print was struck and that was what was shown. It was obviously derived from the new master as it featured the same teal shifted color timing as the Blu-ray (oddly enough the flubbed shot of Bishop was unaltered). I think the teal works for a few sequences but about midway through the film it becomes tiresome. IMO 80s films especially iconic 80s films shouldn't be recolored to look like the sc-fi junk of today. A really nice print of The Terminator played before Aliens and all the textures and subtle colors of the lighting were on display. With the newly graded Aliens the lighting is pretty much all the same hue so you lose a lot of tones in the photography. I really hope Cameron leaves The Abyss intact but I doubt it.

Yeah, you've gotta wonder if True Lies, T2, T1 and Abyss will get the same treatment. I don't mind it myself, but having everything in Cameron's back catalogue looking exactly the same will get tiresome.