The Abyss 4K UHD (1989)

[SpacemanDoug]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Exactly, yep, it's those wider shots where it drops off dramatically but even some of the closeups shit the bed, like Bud and Lindsey talking after she first sees the NTIs. Her face is so smooth it's ridiculous.

is there any grain left behind at all?

[VideoPhonic]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Watching the 4K HDR stream (theatrical) right now and yeah...this been Titanic'd alright. The level of clarity/detail in some shots, expecially big fat close ups, is astonishing. Then other shots come along that look incredibly smudgy and plasticky and wholly ersatz. Others are somewhere in between. At its best I don't hate the effect, it really does make the fine detail zing, but at its worst I just wanna gouge my eyes out. As a great philosopher once said: nobody ever ruined anything by leaving it alone.

Something that I think is absolutely fookin hilarious though is the amount of negative dirt and scratches on display. It ain't some Grindhouse flick covered in crap, I ain't saying that, but there's a regular smattering of little white specks and occasional scratches which, for all of the AI technobollox and Jim "every last pixel" Cameron signing off on it, is a surprising development. You go to all that trouble of degraining and "enhancing" your film, using all sorts of fancy computery shit, for the purpose of not making it look like crusty old timey film any more, right, but you somehow leave in the crustiest old timey film artefact of them all? Absolutely bonkers. I'm beginning to think that T2's slapdash 4K remaster wasn't a fluke after all...

I imagine the dirt wasn’t all that noticeable after restoration (probably less visible within a regular grain structure) but came to light after being hit w the degrain/sharpening/ai stick.

[Trekkie313]

Originally Posted by SpacemanDoug

is there any grain left behind at all?

I could see grain in shots with pouring water and some interiors when I saw it projected.

[nick4Knight]

Originally Posted by Bolty

Feel bad for the folks who expected a different outcome.

I feel bad for the outcome itself but not for people who seriously thought these were gonna be handled with some filmic wonder or something. I've tried delusional as a (formerly most harsh) term for these folk but how they are melting down harder than the image itself... insanity is what it appears they suffer from. They keep expecting a different result each time. As the saying goes.

Knowing what we know about Cameron, how could you is a mighty mental gymnastic feat.

[starmike]

Originally Posted by nick4Knight

I feel bad for the outcome itself but not for people who seriously thought these were gonna be handled with some filmic wonder or something. I've tried delusional as a (formerly most harsh) term for these folk but how they are melting down harder than the image itself... insanity is what it appears they suffer from. They keep expecting a different result each time. As the saying goes.

Knowing what we know about Cameron, how could you is a mighty mental gymnastic feat.

Insulting people that have been waiting a very long time for this isn't cool.

[nick4Knight]

Your gripe is with reality and/or James Cameron. The choice of how you interface with expectations is your own.

[Crysist]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Exactly, yep, it's those wider shots where it drops off dramatically but even some of the closeups shit the bed, like Bud and Lindsey talking after she first sees the NTIs. Her face is so smooth it's ridiculous.

Would you say it's consistent with what the ProRes trailer shows? Because that's... well, coming from the True Lies thread, I think anything is doing better than that. Plus, the ProRes trailer was one of the most hope-giving things when it came out.

Was it just inconsistent in quality? That weird too-smooth look to Lindsey's forehead, etc mentioned even about the ProRes trailer, stuff like that happening here and there? Riding the edge between great and shit??

I'm curious how it compares to the HDTV version.

[stricho]

Man I hope we're not waiting until the physical release (March?) for the SE + Bonus Content.

[starmike]

Originally Posted by nick4Knight

Your gripe is with reality and/or James Cameron. The choice of how you interface with expectations is your own.

I'm just making a statement. Your assumptions are your own.

[JMDiaz718]

Yup, they scrubbed the image so much, people look freaky in many scenes. Some scenes look way too bright as well. At the end, when the mothership rises out of the ocean, were the towers always pinkish? I thought I remember them being more of a blue color.

Watching it again after all these years, I see the Close Encounters rip off even more. Right from the opening on the sub, with a very young Michael Beach, Cameron is mimicking CE’s air traffic control scene. The ETs zipping around brightly underwater, is just CE’s UFOs shooting across country roads in Indiana. Cameron loves to lift ideas from previous movies.

Still a good movie. Not a favorite, but an okay watch.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by VideoPhonic

I imagine the dirt wasn’t all that noticeable after restoration (probably less visible within a regular grain structure) but came to light after being hit w the degrain/sharpening/ai stick.

Perhaps, but a few vertical scratches snuck in too. My overall point though is that with all that wonderful technology they couldn't have done one last sweep to remove it?

Originally Posted by Kris Deering

yeah, I see it the most in her and Hippy's face, but they are both really fair skinned. I also wonder if her makeup hurts the process as well (women use concealer, so it may make it look worse).

Except that the reverses of Bud in the same scene are similarly smoothed over, while other shots of her like the closeups when she's in the decompression chamber with the SEALs are stunningly detailed.

I tell you what though, their eyes are kinda freaking me out as they're so cartoonish. Sharpening at its most basic level is about making contrasting edges even contrastier, right, and with the darker irises set against the whites of the eyes there's some primo sharpening potential there. But as there's not a lot of detail left within the whites themselves for the AI to exploit, especially in the wider shots, you're left with the irises sitting upon a gleaming white featureless sclera and boy is it freaky. At least the OG grain would help to dither that effect, but alas...

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Trekkie313

I could see grain in shots with pouring water and some interiors when I saw it projected.

Same here with the stream, and you know why? Because even all this fancy AI bullshit still craps itself at the sight of such a temporally inconsistent image as a raging torrent of water, whereupon it has two choices: smooth the shit out of it completely or just leave the grain where it is.

[thesaxmaniac]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Perhaps, but a few vertical scratches snuck in too. My overall point though is that with all that wonderful technology they couldn't have done one last sweep to remove it?



Except that the reverses of Bud in the same scene are similarly smoothed over, while other shots of her like the closeups when she's in the decompression chamber with the SEALs are stunningly detailed.

I tell you what though, their eyes are kinda freaking me out as they're so cartoonish. Sharpening at its most basic level is about making contrasting edges even contrastier, right, and with the darker irises set against the whites of the eyes there's some primo sharpening potential there. But as there's not a lot of detail left within the whites themselves for the AI to exploit, especially in the wider shots, you're left with the irises sitting upon a gleaming white featureless sclera and boy is it freaky. At least the OG grain would help to dither that effect, but alas...

The sharpening is what killed titanic for me. It’s honestly unbelievable that it got such great reviews from all these YouTubers and Blu-ray.com, I don’t understand how they think it’s ok. I guess it was naive of me to hope The Abyss wasn’t sharpened also. Titanic looks like DLSS with sharpening at max, truly disappointing outside of the closeups. What’s really sad about this whole thing is all the positive feedback these transfers are getting is going to signal to other directors that sharpening the hell out of your movies is totally fine. I guess I’ll just have to watch The Matrix again as eyebleach.

[SpacemanDoug]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Same here with the stream, and you know why? Because even all this fancy AI bullshit still craps itself at the sight of such a temporally inconsistent image as a raging torrent of water, whereupon it has two choices: smooth the shit out of it completely or just leave the grain where it is.

Didn't you just describe like 98% of Paramount's 4K transfers with that last sentence?

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by thesaxmaniac

The sharpening is what killed titanic for me. It’s honestly unbelievable that it got such great reviews from all these YouTubers and Blu-ray.com, I don’t understand how they think it’s ok. I guess it was naive of me to hope The Abyss wasn’t sharpened also. Titanic looks like DLSS with sharpening at max, truly disappointing outside of the closeups. What’s really sad about this whole thing is all the positive feedback these transfers are getting is going to signal to other directors that sharpening the hell out of your movies is totally fine. I guess I’ll just have to watch The Matrix again as eyebleach.

Sharpening is the oldest trick in the book, just look at the glowing reviews which met the Hobbitses which are some of the most glaringly oversharpened content yet released on UHD. Tells you all that needs be said.

Originally Posted by SpacemanDoug

Didn't you just describe like 98% of Paramount's 4K transfers with that last sentence?

Not really. Paramount get up to some shit but it's rare they end up looking this squeaky clean and sharp at the same time. It's the unholy alliance of all these things at once which make these JimCams™️ look so unnervingly weird.

[WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW]

Originally Posted by thesaxmaniac

The sharpening is what killed titanic for me. It’s honestly unbelievable that it got such great reviews from all these YouTubers and Blu-ray.com, I don’t understand how they think it’s ok. I guess it was naive of me to hope The Abyss wasn’t sharpened also. Titanic looks like DLSS with sharpening at max, truly disappointing outside of the closeups. What’s really sad about this whole thing is all the positive feedback these transfers are getting is going to signal to other directors that sharpening the hell out of your movies is totally fine. I guess I’ll just have to watch The Matrix again as eyebleach.

Haven't seen the new Titanic UHD yet. I did see the new theatrical release. The faces did seem oddly oversharpned in some cases. This uncanny look, a hint of uncanny valley effect.

Maybe I was just too thrilled by seeing it in 4k laser for the first time, but the Titanic Dolby Cinema re-release a few years back I thought looked really nice and natural. I have a slight feeling they took that and then did some AI sharpening to that. If so, it's a shame we didn't get the UHD right after that initial DC 4k theatrical release.

[SpacemanDoug]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Not really. Paramount get up to some shit but it's rare they end up looking this squeaky clean and sharp at the same time. It's the unholy alliance of all these things at once which make these JimCams™️ look so unnervingly weird.

So on a scale of 1-5 what would be your rating for at least what's on the stream for The Abyss?

I just wanna get an overall impression score

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by SpacemanDoug

So on a scale of 1-5 what would be your rating for at least what's on the stream for The Abyss?

I just wanna get an overall impression score

I don't do scores

[SpacemanDoug]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I don't do scores

Valid

[starmike]

So far my ranks would be:

Titanic
The Abyss
True Lies

Still waiting on iTunes to get Aliens (I know it's on Vudu but I buy on iTunes)

EDIT: Listing Titanic might be unfair since it's on disc.