Back to the Future Trilogy 4K UHD (1985-1990)

[dallywhitty]

Originally Posted by batman2000

Yeah are these upscales?

No.

[batman2000]

Originally Posted by dallywhitty

No.

How does one come to the upscale conclusion then if they aren’t?

[DR Herbert West]

Originally Posted by batman2000

How does one come to the upscale conclusion then if they aren’t?

They don't know what they're looking at.

[clortho]

If one thinks the UHD releases are upscales, I would have to suggest consulting your nearest optometrist.

In the modern home video era, Universal has struck new masters twice.

Once was in 1998 in preparation for the 15th Anniversary of the franchise in 2000. The second time was in 2018 in preparation for the 35th Anniversary in 2020.

For various reasons, Universal delayed the DVDs using the 1998 masters many times until they finally saw the light of day randomly in the Fall of 2002. Every DVD and Blu-ray release since then used said masters until the new ones were struck for the UHDs.

Bob Gale talked about the 1998 masters many times over the years and agreed with fans that they looked a little dated even by 2002. He mentioned in an interview (or maybe it was Twitter, I don't recall exactly) when work started on the new ones and confirmed they were from the OCNs. I remember he touched on how the effects used in the first film look with the new scan compared to 20 years ago.

Some of this was probably already mentioned in this thread over the past 3 years but it bears repeating if people think these were upscales.

[Scott in UK]

There's a possibility the masters used for the DVDs arnt the same as the masters used for the first Blu-Ray release.

Because I own the 2005 DVD trilogy set (in a blue coloured box) and I kinda knew this anyway, but iv literally just a few minutes ago double checked, and for the Part 3 trailer that shows at the end of Part 2, on the dvd disc it doesn't come up on screen saying 'coming summer 1990' whereas on the Blu-Ray it does.

Unless they decided to specifically remove 'coming summer 1990' off of the image, which would be abit of a strange thing to bother doing, then surely it must be because different versions were used for the DVDs & Blu Ray's.

[Dsneybuf]

Also the end credits for the first movie looked distorted on the 2010 and '15 Blu-ray Discs.

[nick4Knight]

Originally Posted by DR Herbert West

They don't know what they're looking at.

Or they don't understand the format.... at all. I can't think of a non-digital-intermediate era film that has defaulted to using previous 2K scan and just upscaled.

I might go as far to say it simply hasn't. Or that it's so rare it would be kind of weird to randomly think that Back to the Future of all things is a potential to be one that has done such a gross disservice when 99.99% of catalog film content gets 4K OCN scans.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by nick4Knight

Or they don't understand the format.... at all. I can't think of a non-digital-intermediate era film that has defaulted to using previous 2K scan and just upscaled.

I might go as far to say it simply hasn't. Or that it's so rare it would be kind of weird to randomly think that Back to the Future of all things is a potential to be one that has done such a gross disservice when 99.99% of catalog film content gets 4K OCN scans.

Bourne Identity. But that’s it.

As for matey, I’ll bet cash money he’s been letting YouTube fill his head with nonsense

[Ben_UK]

Any idea why part II looks noticeably less sharp?

[NYorker]

Originally Posted by WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW

3 trilogies and 3 additionals
11 movies of perfection and a 12th that at least got a good and eventually great TV show going

You have the original classic trilogy, and the "appendix" prequel trilogy.
Anything made by Disney is total and complete crap.

[nick4Knight]

Originally Posted by Ben_UK

Any idea why part II looks noticeably less sharp?

None. Hope that helps.

[Mark Malmstrøm]

Originally Posted by Ben_UK

Any idea why part II looks noticeably less sharp?

DNR

Same issue with original BOURNE SUPREMACY BD

It did not look that sharp. It was the same master as the dvd and a comparrison i did showed it only has slighly better detail but i still looked soft (presumably becaurse of the DNR)

And let’s be honest - DNR is not all that bad - as someone wrote on this Forum about ALIENS and those who did the DNR there had a good sence on how much to use it there

However, Universal tends to overdo the DNR for the worst - like those who did PREDATOR UHE

[emailking]

Originally Posted by thekrouser56

Am I the only one who likes Part III the best??

Originally Posted by clortho

Nope. It's my favorite one as well.

It used to be my favorite too, but now Part I is my favorite. Before that, Part II was my favorite lol.

[Uptight]

BTTF 2 Biff Tannen Museum - YouTube

Is this video available as an extra content? If so, where in this boxset? I wonder if has survived in HD...

[BIGREDjaw]

Originally Posted by Ben_UK

Any idea why part II looks noticeably less sharp?

This is what TheDigitalBits specifically has to say about this issue:

Back to the Future II and III look good overall as well, but the situation is a little more complicated. While the original film was released in 1985, the sequels were shot back-to-back and released 1989 and 1990 respectively. In the intervening years, ILM was pioneering the technology for CG animation and digital compositing. BTTF II was one of the very first feature projects to fully employ it, which allowed the filmmakers to create complex scenes involving the same actors playing themselves at different ages in the same shot. BUT… that early film scanning and digital workflow resolution was low by today’s standards. The product of that work was scanned back out to photochemical IP film stock, but the effective result is that all of the visual effects shots have a softer appearance than the live action footage. Every bit of film was scanned in native 4K for this new presentation, so there is a detail improvement and organic film grain is still present—though again there’s a bit of light DNR employed in spots. But obviously, there’s only so much VFX detail to be had. Again though, the OCN footage looks fantastic. And the rest of the footage still benefits from the expanded contrast and enhanced color depth of HDR. The upshot of all this is that BTTF II looks better than ever before, but the improvement isn’t as dramatic as it is for the first film.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by BIGREDjaw

This is what TheDigitalBits specifically has to say about this issue:

Which is kinda nonsense because BTTF II didn’t use much “CG” and digital compositing. There was some digital work, but most of it was still very much analogue. Not that there isn’t more VFX in the movie than the first one, there’s lots more, but scenes with no VFX at all get thwacked with the DNR stick for no particular reason in Part II’s 4K transfer, while shots like the VFX composite of the two Biffs in the car look amazing. Go figure.

[emailking]

Originally Posted by Uptight

BTTF 2 Biff Tannen Museum - YouTube

Is this video available as an extra content? If so, where in this boxset? I wonder if has survived in HD...

The guy sounds different than he does in the movie, I wonder if it's a different recording.

[batman2000]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Which is kinda nonsense because BTTF II didn’t use much “CG” and digital compositing. There was some digital work, but most of it was still very much analogue. Not that there isn’t more VFX in the movie than the first one, there’s lots more, but scenes with no VFX at all get thwacked with the DNR stick for no particular reason in Part II’s 4K transfer, while shots like the VFX composite of the two Biffs in the car look amazing. Go figure.

Why couldn’t the back to the future trilogy have not been botched again first with the original blu rays and then with the uhd blu rays.

[jerclay]

Originally Posted by batman2000

Why couldn’t the back to the future trilogy have not been botched again first with the original blu rays and then with the uhd blu rays.

It's not botched. It could have been better but look up the definition of botched and you'll find Terminator 2 or Lord Of The Rings.

[Mcfly88]

All 3 movies have extras on iTunes now. About damn time!