Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt89
Yeah, the opening is really stunning in 4K.
~Matt
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The photography itself is luvverly but what helps MASSIVELY is that the title sequence isn't an optical, that's a fresh digital overlay of the titles onto cherry camera original. Kubrick being Kubrick he was a fiend for quality, and not content with having the film put on A & B rolls - so that the huge amount of dissolves would be done using overlaps of two reels of first-generation material, well done Warners for not botching any of them unlike 2001
- he also seems to have ensured that he kept the 'clean' version of the titles too.
The opening titles simply had to have been an optical for the actual theatrical release as there was just no other way around it, and on the initial home video transfers they seem to have used a theatrical print (cue markers and all, as can be seen in that Shining version comparison on youtube) which is very dirty and you can see the flecks of dirt sitting atop the titles when they appear, so the titles are definitely "burnt in" on the prints.
But on the newer 1999 'remastered' 4:3 DVD the title text looks completely different, like it was totally reformatted for that version. Someone earlier in the thread mentioned how tacky and 'electronic' they look, like they were done with a crude video overlay of the kind you got on TV broadcasts back in the day, and it's not just the position and size that has changed as the font even has a drop shadow which none of the other variants of the titles before or since have carried.
Example:
[Show spoiler]
When we get the mid-Noughties Warners 1.78 HD transfer then the titles are more like how they were before, whether they're another (vastly improved!) electronic representation is unclear but you know what the crazy thing is? That 1999 DVD actually has BETTER detail during the title sequence than the old Blu-ray does, the striations in the rock are more clearly defined. I can only think that the HD transfer was done from an IP (as was the rest of the movie, pretty standard for the mid-Noughties) while the 1999 DVD's titles were redone from the 'clean' camera negative, thus baking more detail into the inferior SD format.
Example:
[Show spoiler]
Then we get to the new 4K transfer (as seen on BD and UHD) which is also using that camera original like the DVD seemingly did, with newly generated digital titles overlaid on top with no loss of resolution and it looks so stunning as a result. The titles are placed differently yet again (these three images are all the exact same frame), and look at the colour of the UHD vs the other two as well.
Photos should never, ever be used as a definitive guide but even so, we can see how lush and green the trees look on the old HD 1.78 transfer, turning slightly more yellowy on the older 4:3 DVD and going full-on autumnal for the new 4K 1.78 which I thought was a great touch, seeing as winter isn't far away.
Example:
[Show spoiler]
PS
Is it me or does anyone else hear the title music in their brain from just seeing those still frames above?
