Total Recall Review Thread

I just got this the other day, and while I admit its nothing stellar, I certainly didn't think it was that bad. Its obviously 17 years old and it shows. But I certainly found it watchable and pleasing.

It's same master as the dvd. It was never remastered prior to being put on Blu-ray.

Total Recall, The Punisher, Jay and Silent Bob Striekback, xXx, Devil Wears Prada, Silent Hill, Talladega Nights, American Psycho, and Crash all need to be redone. Some of them actually look worse than the DVD versions.

I completely agree. It is the most disappointing transfer on either format for me to date. It's one thing when FMJ looks horrendous, and it's another thing entirely to ruin a classic sci-fi action flick like TR.

glad i don't own nor do i plan on purchasing any of those listed titles.

are there any movies that are old worth even buying in HD..makes no sense to me to bother doing so, just buy the old one and have it upscaled..Your not going to get a TRUE hd anyways from a pretty old flick..or am I wront..

You have to understand that many were rush jobs, although they knew HD was coming and started the process way before now. Also, you KNOW that these studios who jump into this first won't sell as much as they could on a DVD, so once the format sells like 20 million players or so(maybe 10-15 million), you can be that you will see "special editions" with pristine transfers and the best sound, as they could have done from the start, but they knew that they would sell but so many.

My player comes tomorrw so I can finally see how the older films stack up. I don't mind too much film artifacts IF the film was at least attempted to be cleaned. If they just put it on disc like a lot of DVD's of lesser fame, then that is not good.
I just hope that they do Shaft(original) and Superfly right this time!

Yeah, I think you are wrong. I guess they give certain films the high class treatment based on popularity and box office sales. I expect all but the worst of films to have the full HD treatment. I mean, I like The Toxic Avenger, The Final Comedown(Bille Dee Williams) and a few other obscure films. I don't expect them to get the AAA treatment. I don't even expect to see them on HD! If they did come it, I expect it to be of quality, picture wise.

upscaled?

true hd?

are you talking audio codecs? cuz there is no such thing as TRUE HD.

Film is higher resolution than anything out for sets now, cept maybe CRT (which can be closer to original film res)


film (even 1965) is like 4k res.

The HD DVD is superb... there's grain yes.. but there's almost no print damaged and there's some scene that are so clean, that makes everything look fake. At the End when Arnold takes the Elevator, you can clearly see the cutout, it flash in you're face. I watched the DVD a lot and never saw that so obvious.

I compared it to the German WMVHD 720p release and the German is the same master as the NTSC DVD, with TONS of print Damage!

Lionsgate need to get the French Master...

The Blu-ray version is still better than the DVD. However, I agree it's a bit disappointing. I have the same opinion regarding a few other Lionsgate titles (Basic Instinct, Terminator 2, etc.).

I don't believe they would look worse than the DVD. In fact, Jay and Silent Bob, Silent Hill, American Psycho, and Talledega Nights I know for sure were definitely better than the SD DVD versions.

xXx had some scenes which looked better than DVD while some other scenes which were very close.

I would expect nearly all movies to be better than dvd, but for those that bought into dvd when that was new, there is a night and day difference between many of the first (a lot of bad ones) vs the recent ones that all seem close to stellar (barring limitations in the format of course) for that format. History will to some degree repeat itself I'm sure.

The Punisher is by far the worst Blu-Ray movie I've seen. It has more grain and blur than the DVD, it's really weird. Silent Hill looked good in some scenes, and in others there was nearly zero difference. Same goes for Jay and Silent Bob, and American Psycho. Talladega Nights was barely better than the DVD, but it was still unacceptable. Total Recall really bugs me though because that's one of my favorite movies of all time.

The image quality on Total Recall is not that bad as some here would make it out to be. It does not have the pop of the new films, but it's much better than the SD DVD version.

And to say that Black Hawk Down has poor image quality is pure HD-FUD. Simply untrue.

These threads pop up all the time and are simply a complete waste of bandwidth.

None of the professional reviews support any of these claims.

Reviews:

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/totalrecall.html

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read....=23982&___rd=1

Warner's Adventures Oof Robin Hood, 1930's is awesome on HD-DVD. It'll be on Blu at some point. It has some nice HD cartoons to boot. Casablanca, 40's, it nice on HD-DVD also. It'll bloom in Blu too someday. A pixel is a pixel no matter how old or what aspect ratio the film has.

I also have the Studio Ccanal HD-DVD of Total Recall. It's flat out better visually. The BD has numerous motion artifacts and the bleached out colour is the pits. The HD-DVD's audio doesn't bother me as much as Steeb but it's not the strong point for sure. Pick your poison.

Lionsgate's first 10 discs were distributed by Sony in a hurry and they didn't do a very good job on most of 'em.

Trading Places looks absolutely amazing.

I love the movie Total Recall, and have it on dvd, but because the blu-ray reviews of it have been less than spectacular, I'm probably not going to double-dip again.

Try "The Searchers - 1957?" with John Wayne. I am not a fan of westerns (or John Wayne for that matter) but I saw the HD DVD version and it was WOW. I don't doubt the blu-ray is any less WOW.
Folks who think older films can't look fabulous in HD? Shakes head.

There's nothing wrong with Devil Wears Prada. In fact, it looks great.

Not enough time and money was spent on TR as far as I'm concerned. I agree with you about BHD though...it's beautiful IMO.

I'll wait for the inevitable improved re-release on this, much like Stargate (no theatrical cut? come on!).

One thing, you can guarantee all the Lionsgate catalog titles will be released over and over and over again. How many Total Recall releases were there on DVD? How many Stargates? The first was a flipper, sucked. Then two non-branching versions on one side of the disc, sucked. Then the cleaned up ultimate edition (or whatever they called it), not perfect, but vastly superior. When we get the equivalent of that on BD I'll buy.

As for Total Recall. Still waiting for an unrated cut.

I'll hold out on this title or wait until it hits the bargain bin. Let's bring on Running Man in the meantime.

I have to disagree to some extent. However, the Blu-ray versions while maybe not showing a ton more detail in some scenes do have fewer or no digital artifacts and better color rendition.

I wondered about this myself, I got this movie when it was released and don't recall it looking that bad. I guess I need to view it again.

it's quite poor for the first 10-15 minutes or so but picks up considerably after that. But I agree. Around Tier 3.

Anyone know if the BD uses the same master as the unreleased D-Theater tape? I looked up the BD and it's MPEG-2 at a lower bitrate than what D-Theater was (I believe), but I have a D-Theater demotape which has some footage from this movie and I'm wondering if it's probably the same PQ. I thought the PQ on the footage of that tape looked pretty good, and really wish it would have been released as I love this film.

Oh, I guess this Blade Runner set that I was going to watch tonight will suck. The one with a TrueHD track, and a super amazing restoration. I'll just watch my 1992 Director's Cut DVD from eons ago, since it'll be the same quality.