Quote:
Originally Posted by Geoff D
".... are the timing discrepancies there on both cuts of the film? You don't say which version you watched..."
|
I only had time to watch and compare one version, and I chose the extended cut on the 4k, since the extended cut blu ray was handy right there in the 4k pack.
I agree that the old 1080p blu ray actually does hold up pretty well despite its age. I remembered it being a bit uglier than it really is, and perhaps due to the hazy, frantic combat footage and pervasive, steamy, smoky jungle scenes, I underappreciated how much excellent detail it actually presents in light of the photographic content it has to deal with.
I forgot to mention in the good points of the 4k, that the night scenes really do benefit greatly on the new 4k uhd, pretty much across the board. As I had suspected, the revised contrast and decent blacks make night shots look much more natural and a bit more realistic. The blu ray, with its hyped contrast and heavy blue filtering of several night scenes, always exposed the strong artifical, directional lighting they were filmed under, and things were just too bright for anything that would have been thrown off by the small, dim outdoor lamps of the enemy encampment, for one example.
When I mention the unnatural look of the foliage on the new 4k, where the colors have been knocked down with a dull, olive-brown cast, I'm also taking into consideration the fact that the film is set in the tropics. I live in South Florida and have spent many years in tropical and subtropical climates. The Burmese inland swamp's palmetto scrub and acacia trees simply shouldn't be the same color as a cluster of Ohio maples in the spring....In this regard, I think the 1080p blu ray presents a color palette of green foliage and harsh, hazy yellowish sunlight conditions, that is actually more consistent with the look of an actual humid, hazy, tropical/subtropical jungle. We're not in Kansas anymore....Yet some of the jungle scenery on the 4k disc now looks like it was shot in the woods in Brandywine, Pennsylvania....
