The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004) 4K UHD

[SCS_Shoug]

With the 20th anniversary of the first movie coming up, as well as the recent 4K Dolby Vision remaster of the movie being put up on streaming last month, I'm really hoping Paramount has plans to release this new remaster on disc.

It's an incredibly interesting remaster too, being sourced from a 4K scan of what seems to be the original fimlout negative that was used to make the theatrical film prints, rather than whatever digital master was used for the Blu-ray and DVD. I suspect the latter are actually sourced from an HD home video master rather than the DI, because there is edge enhancement present in both the DVD and Blu-ray that is nowhere to be found on the 4K stream, which we know is a scan of a DI filmout. Colors are also incredibly different, lining up with stuff like theater bootlegs, old trailers (which are sourced from filmouts), and fan-made scans of 35mm trailers. Whether they're more accurate is up for debate, and of course people used to the older digital colors are likely to be biased towards them, and it's possible that either could be correct, considering the method of production, but also some artifacts like poor highlight detail in background paintings on the Blu-ray. No doubt that this remaster could prove controversial for a lot of people used to the old Blu, and I don't blame them for that, but personally this new master's grown on me. Funny how Paramount has consistently put out better and more filmic remasters for old Nickelodeon movies (this, Jimmy Neutron, Rugrats, Snow Day, etc) than they have for stuff like Friday the 13th or Grease.

Stream HDR is mastered at 4000 nits, MaxCLL 1035 and MaxFALL 288.

Screenshots (KEEP IN MIND THESE ARE TONEMAPPED TO SDR USING MPC-HC AND MADVR, THESE ARE NOT GOOD REPRESENTATIONS OF THIS REMASTER'S COLOR GRADING IN ACTUAL HDR!):

[Show spoiler]

If you wanna see how the master looks in SDR, the digital HD version on all platforms has been upgraded to the new scan, even if it's still only HD!