Quote:
Originally posted by IAM4UK
The Vista Series release of Tombstone is very nice. It's such a superior film to Wyatt Earp that I haven't bothered with the DVD of the latter. Looks like smddoc has provided the feedback you need on that matter. |
I love Tombstone, and have since I first saw it at the cinema. But I also love Wyatt Earp...a more character-driven, darker account of his life, etc. Kevin Costner did an excellent job no matter what some critics says...
By the way...Tombstone was released theatrically before Wyatt Earp, so by the time the latter made it to the cinema people already had a taste of one of the most significant Westerns made in the last 30 years and were too jaded to sit through yet another Wyatt Earp-related film.
Theatrically both films looked superb in LPP film stock (Eastman Kodak).
On standard resolution video Wyatt Earp is by far the better transfer, but as Matt says the HBO high-definition version is simply jaw dropping and would be THE reference version to have if it weren't for HBO's stupidity in exhibiting an scope-ratio-ed film in 16x9...which results in severe cropping (if Tombstone would have been shot in Super35 then things would have been different because this film format allow a lot of leeway when it comes to re-framing movies...much like it occurred with a recent showing of a new transfer of TRUE LIES on HBO in 16x9 ratio--thanks, Matt!--but that's another story best left for a soon to be posted direct comparisons "review" of four versions of it

), although coloration is dead-on and since EE is nearly absent, both of these parameters add up to produce superlative PQ spite image cropping...
-THTS