Back to the Future (1985) 4K Dolby Vision review, UK UHD disc. HDR metadata: DCI-P3 colour primaries. Mastering display levels: 4000/0.005 max/min nits. Maximum Content Light Level: 1000 nits. Maximum Frame Average Light Level: 755 nits.
Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin. BTTF was shot spherical on
the two main 35mm taking formats of
the period, high-speed and grainy as balls 5294 (
the same 'infamous' stock as used on Aliens) for night exteriors, some interiors and VFX, with slower but still grainy-ish 5247 for daylight exteriors, some interiors and any bluescreen VFX shots (as
the 94 stock was terrible for bluescreen but was used for general compositing here). Add
to that
the workmanlike cinematography and BTTF just isn't a 'pretty' film by any conventional standard, that's not a slight on DP Dean Cundey's work so much as Bob Zemeckis' direction, he's not known for expansive visuals and yet because he never got too bogged down in style or technique it means that his work ages nicely, it's not beholden
to the pervading aesthetic of
the period. I mean, I love uber-80s stuff like Manhunter as it's totally a product of its time, and its director, but it rubs some people
the wrong way and what I love about BTTF's look is that it's just there
to tell
the story, not
to do it up all flash like. It's a time travel film of coursh, so that perception of timelessness plays into it, ditto for something similarly '80s-bound like
The Terminator, but even so, that's not a 'get out of temporal jail free' card when you start predicting
the future. BTTF Part II's depiction of '2015' is
the most hilariously dated thing in this entire trilogy as it somehow looks more screamingly '80s' than anything BTTF does!
So, with
the caveat that this movie was never going
to be some ultra-sharp eyes-a-poppin' experience, what have Universal, Bob Gale and Dean Cundey cooked up for us in this brand new 4K transfer?
The original Universal logo is still there and so are
the original optical titles & opening credits, this is no digital rebuild for
the text like on
the UHDs of Blues Brothers or
The Goonies. That's not a bad thing though as
the opening sequence is a very slow reveal (and rather crafty exposition dump) of Doc's place, it looks fine for what it is, with moderate detail and some visible grain.
The opticals remain until Marty finally strikes his guitar and blows
the giant speaker, that first close-up of MJF emerging from under
the mess sets
the tone for what is
to follow in this transfer, mostly: nice layer of grain, some excellent detail on
the reflection in his glasses (which has HDR
to thank as much as anything), and just a really solid sense of filmic texture that was simply gone on
the horribly over-processed 2010 edition Blu-ray. There's just a touch of sharpening perhaps but nothing like
the old BD! Has
the grain been rolled off some? Undoubtedly, as this is no Sony-style shower curtain of grain, more a gentle veneer, though it still spikes in darker scenes and interiors.
The VFX shots are very clean, clearly de-noised, but even they still look nicely filmic. From shot
to shot
the grain generally doesn't look too frozen or sticky, maybe in one or two scenes if you really look in
the background as people move.
There is however an entire block of
the film that got "
the treatment", for when Marty arrives in 1955 and he gets
to the 'Lyon Estates' sign it instantly turns into a pasty-faced wax fest when he steps out of
the car and it doesn't stop until he enters
the cafe in Hill Valley, so look out for it from 33m58s
to 37m25s. If I were being charitable, I'd say there's a possibility that this was done after
the fact as a creative decision and not
to gloss over any opticals or dupes as such, in order
to play up
the "it's gotta be a dream!" bewilderment that Marty feels. (Dean Cundey even says in
the extras that he certainly lit
the 1955 scenes more softly than
the harsher present-dat stuff.) I may be giving Universal and Mr Gale far too much credit, and it still sucks that they did it in any case, but nowhere else in
the entire film is
the "grain management" this blindingly obvious so there must be some reason why they did it. Look at Marty when he starts
the long walk into town along
the road, a literal bubble of smoothness follows him as he moves.
But, even if that stuff was 100% intended as a stylistic effect, there is an actual fault during this sequence as well from 36m13s
to 36m41s, it's in
the big pullback
to the wide shot of Marty in
the square and then
the shot directly after of him looking up at
the clock tower as it tolls. Those two shots lose a big chunk of resolution which results in visible aliasing on slanted details and that's nothing
to do with opticals but with downright poor 4K mastering. How do I know it's poor?
Because the exact same shots on the newly remastered 1080p BD are in the proper resolution and show more detail with no aliasing, this will be obvious when/if capsaholic get
the caps of
the new BD
to compare
to the UHD. How does this happen with concurrent 4K/2K mastering workflows? It's one thing that Spartacus got a bit of fiddling for
the 4K HDR master five years after
the remastered BD was done but come on, these new editions of BTTF were all struck from
the same new transfer so this sort of silliness should not be happening. Or maybe they did
the UHD first and spotted it too late
to correct there but did so for
the 1080p master? Either way, it's like Universal feel
the need
to add some kind of calling card
to their new transfers, that we should never get too complacent because you never what kind of incompetence will sneak in, lol
If it sounds like I'm being harsh on it over a 3½ minute sequence looking a bit funky then you're right, I
am being harsh but only because
the rest of
the movie looks so darned luvverly. Well, almost
the rest of
the movie as there's something else weird that happens later on. (Yes, I'm getting
the complaints out of
the way early.) This is not DNR-related as such which is why it's escaped scrutiny thus far but there's an entire reel of
the movie which has very blurry chroma. As above, it's nothing
to do with opticals and is certainly not there on
the previous HD transfer. From 1h14m28s when Marty and Doc are setting up
the 'weather experiment' in
the square
to 1h24m15s when Marty implores Marvin's band
to play after he's cut his hand,
the colour is essentially defocused and bleeds horizontally, especially reds and blues. This has nothing
to do with HDR10 vs DV (like
the minor ghosting in one shot in JAWS' UHD) as
the effect is there on both
the HDR layer and
the rebuilt FEL DV encode, it's even visible on
the newly remastered BD albeit not as obvious owing
to the lower chroma resolution of that format, so it's something that's baked in at a fundamental level
to this new transfer. Maybe it was a cock-up during mastering, maybe
the physical scan itself was faulty for this reel, dunno, but it's almost like you're watching smeary analogue video in a way because
the colour is so ill-defined. There's still plenty of grain so it doesn't go all smooth and that will be enough
to placate most people and hey, they'll remind me that "you just said this movie ain't gonna be pretty, chief", which is fair enough, but there's a difference between a so-so source presented as well as possible and a so-so source that's been fudged via unnecessary stupidity.
Aaaaaand.....breathe. But hang on - didn't I say I "enjoyed
the shit" out of
the UHD before? I did, because I did. Despite what seems like a lot of nerd rage - more like geek disappointment - written above,
the affected scenes only amount
to ~14 minutes of wànkery in a 116-minute feature,
the rest of it finally brings
back the filmic flavour we've always wanted so desperately for this film. As I said at
the top, it's not
the most unfettered grain field you're ever gonna see which makes
the transfer look a little dated somehow, and that will be more of a distraction for some people than others, but
the increase in finer details over
the previous versions is massive at times, even if it doesn't appear
to "pop" like we may always expect 4K UHD
to do. As I also said at
the top, sometimes you just can't wring that much more from a source and people's expectations with "event movies" like this tend
to run riot because they think that just because it was a big blockbuster movie that it was shot
to look like Lawrence of Arabia. Nah. And as much as people might feel that BTTF isn't doing all that it can on 4K UHD, just compare it
to the previous Blu or even
the newly remastered one and that brings home how good it actually is, for what it is.
The lack of resolution on
the older BD is laughable at times,
the new BD beats it up and
the UHD goes up another notch,
the grain in particular is more refined on
the UHD whereas it looks a bit more 'digital' on
the new BD, though
the compression of
the new BD isn't amazing so that may be part of it.
Where
the UHD wins by KO is
the colour grading, I absolutely adore how this looks in HDR. It's not some blindingly bright light fest which is what I love about Universal's attitude towards older catalogue remasters (though
the APL is quite high for a change, average brightness doesn't look dimmer than
the SDR viewed @ 120 nits), but
the amount of range it brings
back in comparison
to the old transfer is simply amazing. Not just on
the usual lights and windows and stuff but in deep backgrounds, e.g.
the views out of
the 1955 cafe aren't blown out
to nuclear levels any more,
the background behind Doc and Marty in
the school as they do their walk and talk, any kind of brighter background,
the depth it gives
to the imagery is stunning.
I mean, it's so naturalistic that I guarantee some people will watch it and go "is that it?" because they're so desperate for everything
to have been shot out of
the Light Cannon™
to justify their HDR mania, and maybe we're just getting used
to HDR so something needs
to be ass-kick for us
to notice it - though MaxCLL still hits 1000 nits - but my god:
the irony is that
the HDR on BTTF blows every other edition out of
the water. (One area where they may have actually gone too far is with
the animated lightning bolts that strike
the clock tower,
the increase in range is remarkable vs
the old BD but it makes it look a bit more, ah, impressionistic while
the old transfer with its clipped highlights made it feel more like bright lightning. You'll see what I mean in
the photo section.)
The old transfer was old, yes, with those typical blown highlights of a near 20-year-old HD telecine of an IP (as
the previous transfer was done in 2002 for
the DVDs), and
the new 1080p BD does indeed bring
back a lot of range even though it's in SDR but, again,
the UHD just takes it a few steps further and shows even more range. And
the new BD has that kind of hard, overly bright 'SDR downconversion' look that seems so common
to new SDR discs from
the studios these days.
If there's one thing that annoyed me more than
the DNR and EE on
the old Blu-ray it was
the colour, it was just horrible
the way that skin tones had this hot orange look that also felt weirdly desaturated at
the same time.
The "DCP" version corrected this
to a degree with more of a pinker flush
to skin but
the colour still felt very tired, Biff's red shirt in 1955 looks more a dark orange colour.
The new SDR BD has a warmer look than either of them, not drenching
the image in yellow but dialling out
the greenier cast of
the older transfer, and yet
the skin tones in
the new BD still lack pep and vitality, as do primaries. As said, it's just got that 'SDR conversion' look that makes it feel a bit pale, a bit flat. But
the HDR colour on
the UHD? Superb! Skin tones are full and rich, on
the warmer side of
the spectrum as noted (partly due
to Cundey adding gels
to the lighting in
the 1955 scenes) but not lacking for nuance which is
the crucial thing, and it's a world away from
the one-note orange-peel look of
the old BD. Primaries have a nice amount of zing and when this is all combined with
the expanded dynamic range you get a colour grade that looks so 'complete', so at ease with itself, that it's like it was always meant
to look like this. As such, some people will look at it and see nothing special, that's up
to them and their blinkered perceptions/unrealistic expectations of what 4K HDR should be, but I can't emphasise enough how much I enjoyed this.
Black levels do some interesting things between
the separate versions as
the old transfer was really heavy for black, it sucked up a ton of shadow detail. It didn't look bad necessarily as it gave
the SDR image a lot of contrast but, as is quite common for HDR grades, they've been able
to greatly open up
the lower end while still maintaining contrast. Dark backgrounds like
the Twin Pines Mall or Marty hitching a ride
back to Lyon Estates have a load of shadow detail that's simply not there on previous editions yet they still look dark where they should look dark. Conversely,
the shot of old man Peabody's house where they turn
the lights on and come outside has been graded
to look a bit darker than
the previous transfer so this isn't some crass 'set and forget' application of black level, it's been carefully tended throughout.
The new BD generally shares this increase in shadow detail so it's not an HDR thing per se, but that extra kick that you get
to the highlights in HDR sets
the UHD apart and makes it feel more expansive in
the darker moments.
Does this come across as an Apologist Review™ for BTTF on 4K HDR? Eh, I wouldn't necessarily disagree, but we've all got our own tolerances and likes/dislikes that outweigh others and this UHD does far more right than it does wrong IMO. Now, it's not that I can't see it's been generally fiddled with, separate from
the actual technical snafus, and I said above that it looks a little dated as a result. If this had been what we were given 10 years ago it would've been lauded as state of
the art (god knows people gushed enough about
the grotty 2010 BDs, this would've blown their ****ing minds) but it's behind
the times now, and not just in relation
to what x other studios are doing as even Universal themselves are capable of providing an un****ed transfer of an '80s classic e.g. Blues Brothers (well, aside from
the botched audio editing on
the theatrical, this is Universal after all). Some movies don't ever seem
to escape
the gravitational pull of fudgery and BTTF is one of them, but it fights through it on 4K HDR and it could've been so much worse,
the old BD is literal proof of that. And
the compression is stellar, Universal have lavished a UHD100 disc on it that includes
the previously released extras but not at
the expense of
the main encode, it's got a gigantinormous bitrate and I spotted no compression-related nasties at all.
I love
the movie like life itself, it's special
to me, but this
the first time in a long time where
I Stopped Worrying About the Transfer and Watched the Movie w/ref
to BTTF and its chequered past on 5" disc. It might not seem that way, given
the reams of nit-picking above, but
the overall look is not so offensive that it set me on edge, I just relaxed into it and
the colour and HDR were so beautifully done that they drew me into
the movie in a way I've not felt for a while. When
the music swells at
the end of 'Earth Angel' and George kisses Lorraine, wow, literally full body chills. I'm even feeling a little tingly as I think about it now, though that could just be
the flu jab I had yesterday.
THESE IMAGES ARE NOT INTENDED TO CONVEY THE ENTIRETY OF EITHER SDR OR HDR WITH 100% ACCURACY BUT ONLY SPECIFIC ASPECTS. THEY CAN ALSO BE MUCH DARKER THAN THE CONTENT ACTUALLY APPEARS OWING TO THE EXPOSURE NECESSARY TO CAPTURE THE DYNAMIC RANGE.
The framing on several of
the following snaps isn't perfick either because I did
the ones of
the new BD later on and couldn't quite get
the same angle, but they convey what I wanna convey. First one here is Marty's pick when he about
to play
the guitar at
the start of
the movie, as soon as that glint reflected off it I was like "oooooooh yeah, that's some nice HDR".
DCP
[Show spoiler]
2010 BD
[Show spoiler]
2020 BD
[Show spoiler]
UHD
[Show spoiler]
Jennifer talking
to Marty in
the town square,
the colour isn't exact here as
the camera (Sony RX100) is still oversaturating it but you can see how
the older transfer (DCP and 2010 BD) has that greenier balance while
the 2020 discs are warmer, though
the UHD has more colour
to her face and jacket vs
the new BD.
DCP
[Show spoiler]
2010 BD
[Show spoiler]
2020 BD
[Show spoiler]
UHD
[Show spoiler]
This is
the '
future boy' stuff with 1955 Doc and Marty,
the new transfer looks so much moodier. (Black levels are being slammed by
the camera so don't take any 'crush' as gospel. New BD looks way more effective than
the DCP or
the shabby old BD, but again
the UHD makes it come alive and retains more fine detail than any of them.
DCP
[Show spoiler]
2010 BD
[Show spoiler]
2020 BD
[Show spoiler]
UHD
[Show spoiler]
Doc in
the school, god I hated how
the old BD looked in this scene, just that nasty orange hue
to the faces with all
the sharpening ladled on and yet his face still looks really smooth, blech.
The DCP adds a load of texture but is soft, soft, soft,
the new BD is a nice combo of colour and detail while
the UHD makes it look even betterer.
DCP
[Show spoiler]
2010 BD
[Show spoiler]
2020 BD
[Show spoiler]
UHD
[Show spoiler]
This is a closer-in shot that shows
the colour bleed I was talking about, look at
the red of
the guitar, how it bleeds across into
the tremelo bar and
the dials while it's clean and clear on
the old BD. You can even see
the vertical smearing in
the colour noise, how it looks all analogue-y. Yes,
the UHD shows way more detail on
the neck of
the guitar because
the luminance resolution isn't affect, it's
the chroma channels that are wrecked. Hmmm.
BD
[Show spoiler]
UHD
[Show spoiler]
This is just a quick comparison of
the VFX shot of Marty's see-through hand, Ken Ralston told American Cinematographer that he thought this was
the worst shot they did in
the entire show but it's still effective in its own way.
The new transfer hasn't been recomposited as such (IMO) but
the mattle lines around
the fingers seem less prominent than
the old transfer, it's got a nicer blend. And
the colour is way better.
BD
[Show spoiler]
UHD
[Show spoiler]
This is
to show
the lightning that I referenced before, how it pulls
back a massive amount of range but makes
the animated effect far more obvious. It still looks okay in motion as these shots amount
to a few seconds at most, but it's a definite change of destination and I'm not sure it was needed, i.e. just because they could do so in HDR doesn't mean they had
to. Ah well, it was a small price
to pay
to get
the HDR looking as luvverly as it does in
the rest of
the movie. (Framing isn't great on these photos, soz.)
2010 BD
[Show spoiler]
2020 BD
[Show spoiler]
UHD
[Show spoiler]
Another one, this time of Doc hooking up
the connector just as
the lightning hits. Same dealio.
2010 BD
[Show spoiler]
2020 BD
[Show spoiler]
UHD
[Show spoiler]
Last photo, this is during
the final VFX shot of
the DeLorean flying into camera.
The old BD blows out
the 'temporal flashes' like mad while
the new BD retains a load more range...but again,
the UHD laughs at them both and provides even more range whilst adding more zing
to the brightness.
2010 BD
[Show spoiler]
2020 BD
[Show spoiler]
UHD
[Show spoiler]
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