The Abyss 4K UHD (1989)

[rubystone356]

Originally Posted by Cliff

Just got back from the Dolby Cinema and I'm happy to report that the missing frames that were unavoidable when they reconstructed the Special Edition in 1993 have been (what I can only assume to be) digitally repaired/recreated. The film no longer has those occasional jumps when new footage was introduced. But, yes, the ending overhead shot is astonishingly bad and I don't remember it looking that way prior. Not sure what happened.

I also noticed no jumps

Jacob

[Nick Michalak]

Originally Posted by Cliff

Just got back from the Dolby Cinema and I'm happy to report that the missing frames that were unavoidable when they reconstructed the Special Edition in 1993 have been (what I can only assume to be) digitally repaired/recreated. The film no longer has those occasional jumps when new footage was introduced. But, yes, the ending overhead shot is astonishingly bad and I don't remember it looking that way prior. Not sure what happened.

I believe this was the shot in question, grabbed from my Region 1 DVD.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by chewbabka

Fake news. 20th Century Fox

Aye, like most of what matey posts. Just bullshit found on Reddit.

[motorheadache95]

First time watching The Special Edition and loved it. I thought the 4K remaster looked great— Cameron seems to have pretty much nailed down minimizing grain but stopping short of making it look unnaturally filtered and waxy. That overhead shot looked a bit weird but I just chalked it up to an aging effect shot.

[suspiciouscoffee]

Took my boyfriend, who had never seen it. I myself have only ever seen the theatrical cut on VHS. I’m darn pleased with the look overall. Grain is managed and overmanaged sure, but I didn’t mind except on the tidal wave process shots. I imagine those were just grainier and Cameron just had to crank the dials higher to get the same lack of grain and it killed detail. I can live with smooth as long as we avoid the wax museum. That and the bizarre SD overhead shot were my only complaints. It’s not a Peter Jackson Get Back C.F., so I accept it.

Also got the Cameron intro and posters. I made the whole theater laugh saying “Thanks, Jim,” before the movie proper started. I also got chills when they came over the ledge to see the ship.

[Danespina]

Originally Posted by suspiciouscoffee

Also got the Cameron intro and posters.

Originally Posted by Nick Michalak

No posters handed out at my theatre. I've contacted Cinemark about this oversight.

I just thought it was cool to see physical media advertised out in the wild again.

I overheard two people pointing out the True Lies release and laughing, and felt like I was back in the 2000s.

[Robojaws]

Having read the feedback on the PQ I know that I will probably be extremely bothered by it, simply because of the ever-changing quality in its grain management and visible smoothing on some faces and such. If you have a nice filmic looking shot with little grain, then a smooth close up followed by a lackluster VFX shot, then a DNR'ed wide shot with no grain and then a filmic sequence/shot with little grain again, this absolutely distracts me from the movie, takes me out of the watching experience and makes me furious. Reminds me of Lord of the rings triligy on UHD, which was almost unwatchable to me.

Yes, there will be more details than on DVD (obviously), the picture will look robust and all, but in the end it was tinkered with in ways that make it look distracting to my eyes. Damn ����
Will wait for reviews and hopefully some screen caps comparisons, but as it feels right now, I won't buy that UHD; maybe 2nd hand for like 10 bucks in the future.

Too bad, that Aliens and True Lies will have the same issues on UHD... maybe even look worse.

So, the finger goes out to Cameron and Disney for once again f***ing with a classic and botching it up (at least in some mayor parts), just "like" they did with all their big franchises on UHD. Talking Star Wars, Pirates, T2, Avatar and now The Abyss and probably True and Aliens ��

[ghostof82]

So the rat scene hasn't been updated, and there's still no pre-order for the film in the UK... I've a bad feeling about this....

Sure, I'll just import a copy but man, you wait decades and it finally gets a 4K disc release and your country simply doesn't get it at all? Now I know what it feels like to be Australian ..

[Geoff D]

Whoever seriously thought that the rat scene would be updated with CG?!?

[joenostalgia23]

I think that even if Cameron didn't produce a new 4K master, and instead we just got a BD of whatever master was created for the original Special Edition on Laserdisc in 1993, there would be fluctuations in quality.

I watched it tonight and there were some bad looking shots, but they were almost always VFX shots from the Special Edition. Most of the film honestly looked great to me, it was a very clean image but there was a fine grain. Sometimes I felt it looked too smooth (out of focus shots + DNR + terrible results), but it was never to T2 levels except in the Tidal Wave sequence at the end. But these shots were mastered at a way lower resolution than 4K in the 90s, intended for LaserDisc, so I don't think there was any way they could ever make it match a shot with no VFX scanned from the negative. They probably used AI to upscale which resulted in some of the strange artifacts I noticed, and other software to degrain the image. I actually think a layer of fake grain could've saved these images, but I can forgive Cameron and crew for the limitations of their source. I don't think it's purely an aesthetic choice by Cameron, otherwise the whole film would look so smooth and textureless.

[Telemachus]

thediscfather saw this for me so I didn't have to and told me it looked filmic with lots of film like qualities preorder is a lock boys watching the dvd right now

[joenostalgia23]

Originally Posted by Nick Michalak

I believe this was the shot in question, grabbed from my Region 1 DVD.

Here is the same shot in a fanmade "open-matte" version of the Special Edition

[chip75]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Whoever seriously thought that the rat scene would be updated with CG?!?

[Poya]

Cameron says of the film’s overdue upgrade on disc. “I’m very particular in my transfers. I make sure it’s absolutely optimized for the format that it’s going into.”

Then what the hell happened with T2?

[drush9999]

Originally Posted by Poya

Cameron says of the film’s overdue upgrade on disc. “I’m very particular in my transfers. I make sure it’s absolutely optimized for the format that it’s going into.”

Then what the hell happened with T2?

He approved the 3D transfer and Studio Canal used the wrong part of that one to create a 2D one.

[Cliff]

Originally Posted by joenostalgia23

I think that even if Cameron didn't produce a new 4K master, and instead we just got a BD of whatever master was created for the original Special Edition on Laserdisc in 1993, there would be fluctuations in quality.

I watched it tonight and there were some bad looking shots, but they were almost always VFX shots from the Special Edition. Most of the film honestly looked great to me, it was a very clean image but there was a fine grain. Sometimes I felt it looked too smooth (out of focus shots + DNR + terrible results), but it was never to T2 levels except in the Tidal Wave sequence at the end. But these shots were mastered at a way lower resolution than 4K in the 90s, intended for LaserDisc, so I don't think there was any way they could ever make it match a shot with no VFX scanned from the negative. They probably used AI to upscale which resulted in some of the strange artifacts I noticed, and other software to degrain the image. I actually think a layer of fake grain could've saved these images, but I can forgive Cameron and crew for the limitations of their source. I don't think it's purely an aesthetic choice by Cameron, otherwise the whole film would look so smooth and textureless.

That's actually not true. The Abyss Special Edition VFX and edit were all finished on film. Cameron regretted that the Aliens Special Edition cut existed only on video and could never be projected theatrically. So when it came time to do The Abyss, Fox spent another half a million dollars for ILM to finished the VFX and Cameron had the Special Edition finished on film. As such, there were a handful of beautiful 35mm Dolby SR theatrical engagements in the Spring of 93 (which is where I initially saw the SE cut). The only initial anomalies were that when they added material back in, there were frames missing from the initial cuts to the original negative when creating the theatrical cut. Those missing frames have been restored now.

[tankryankr19]

Originally Posted by Poya

Cameron says of the film’s overdue upgrade on disc. “I’m very particular in my transfers. I make sure it’s absolutely optimized for the format that it’s going into.”

Then what the hell happened with T2?

James Cameron had nothing to do with the T2 4K Transfer, it was all StudioCanal, he only approved the 3D Version, then StudioCanal got too greedy and since Cameron approved the 3D Master they assumed it would've been okay to release the Disaster of a 4K Master which I heard Lightstorm was not too happy about

[bilbofett]

Originally Posted by joenostalgia23

Here is the same shot in a fanmade "open-matte" version of the Special Edition

another version, 4k HDR

[chip75]

Originally Posted by tankryankr19

James Cameron had nothing to do with the T2 4K Transfer, it was all StudioCanal, he only approved the 3D Version, then StudioCanal got too greedy and since Cameron approved the 3D Master they assumed it would've been okay to release the Disaster of a 4K Master which I heard Lightstorm was not too happy about

Do we really think that what we may get with a James Cameron Approved™ release would be that different? It's all well and good saying he or Lightstorm weren't happy, but it's been over five years since StudioCanal released it.

Alfonso Cuarón wasn't happy with the initial DVD of Children of Men, and he got that changed pretty quickly. Yes, it was DVD heyday, but you could balance the status of Cameron and make them pretty even.

Honestly, I think if he was that bothered (he could have got the Directors' Guilkd involved), it would have got a new release. Was he happy with the Skynet Edition?

[Geoff D]

I still say T2 looks like it's had the Poundland version of the JimCam™️ process applied to it (degrain + sharpening), so if he did it again and got it looking more like Titanic I could live with that.