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

[Pyoko]

Watched Back to the Future yesterday. Grain-managed pretty much throughout, but not too bad, mostly just a bit sluggish grain. Only noticed a couple of shots with distracting force-fielding, the worst being around Strickland's bald head as they walk through the school corridor. I rate the grain maybe 7/10 on a scale of T2 to untouched.

Could have been better, but I was enjoying it, until that 10-minute section came up. Didn't keep up with this thread so I was completely surprised, didn't know what it was at first, DV layer failure or something? OK fine, whatever, maybe some freak accident during the restoration for these shots, but then it just kept going and going and going and eventually I had to start fiddling with the controls to see if something was broken and if the whole rest of the movie was going to be like this. It really bugged me and left a sour note for the remainder of the presentation. In my opinion fixing this would have been a more worthy and worthwhile replacement than the missing mono on Psycho.

If I didn't know better I'd swear someone accidentally left a VHS noise plugin in the filter chain when exporting that section. I've never seen any film artifacts like this and that colorful, horizontal, stretchy noise really looks video-ish, but the resolution was still mostly there and I don't know how any actual analog video would have gotten in there anyway. Another super-specific theory that struck me is there's a particular tool for re-graining in Nuke (compositing application) where you can analyze an even section of grain and from that it'll try to synthesize the grain for use elsewhere. But it's historically been very buggy and on occasion I've seen the analysis freak out completely and render the grain as a similar large, colorful noise (and it always happens at render-time, so if you didn't bother to look at the actual files you produced, you'd think everything was OK.)

I think I'm just as annoyed at them not catching and fixing something so obvious as I am about it being there at all.

[jonam]

Originally Posted by rick88

I just finished watching the first film. I thought it looked great, and it played flawlessly on by Sony UBP-X800.

Speaking of the X800, I have had it for 3 years this month. It has had a good bit of use and it has been trouble free. I've read where some have had issues with freezing up with some discs but this has not happened once with mine.

Touch wood

[sockableclaw]

One thing I want to mention about the sequels is that even though I love them, I always thought the sets in Part III looked rather cheap. On 4K, even more so. Still a great movie though!

[pigmanjoe]

Originally Posted by bobbyh64

I guess in BTTF it’s more like they’re seeing how the future will be once they get back and live out their lives.

This is basically what Bob Gale says in the commentary, that the future they see is what would probably happen if Doc, Marty and Jennifer made it back to 1985. He also admits that there's no logic in time travel, no matter how hard you try. Those tracks, along with the Q&A's with Zemeckis at USC, address a lot of the issues people are discussing in this thread.


I don't have a UHD player yet, and this release has me seriously considering it, since the original discs were so lousy and it's one of my favorites. Reading about the problems on the first film and all the issues with players and skipping and pixellating has only left me more undecided. Technology can be a pain in the ash.


Anyway, how 'bout that Universal backlot? The more it burns down, the more it stays the same.

[Rulocal]

Back in stock at Gruv.com so hopefully they can clear out the back orders now...

[phobicsquirrel]

Originally Posted by Rulocal

Back in stock at Gruv.com so hopefully they can clear out the back orders now...

Going on two weeks later...

[Rulocal]

Originally Posted by phobicsquirrel

Going on two weeks later...

I take the view that they could easily have cancelled the orders so will be patient. It will be a bit annoying if they cancel now though.

[Vict]

What about George & Lorraine at the end of BTTF1 not acknowledging that their son Marty looks exactly like their high school friend Marty back in 1955?

[erlinmeyer]

Originally Posted by Rulocal

Back in stock at Gruv.com so hopefully they can clear out the back orders now...

That's only the $49.99 version.

[bobbyh64]

Originally Posted by Vict

What about George & Lorraine at the end of BTTF1 not acknowledging that their son Marty looks exactly like their high school friend Marty back in 1955?

Who says they never acknowledged it? It’s not like on the day Marty comes back they’re going to suddenly say, “Ya know, I’ve never thought about this before, but as of right now I think Marty looks a lot like that one kid we knew for a week thirty years ago!” If they did notice it, it probably would’ve been at least a few years before. Also, maybe they never noticed it because they only knew him for a week and that was decades ago and they don’t have any pictures of him so their memories could be fuzzy.

[Bluyoda]

Watched Part II today, and I am not impressed. It looks like a pretty decent Blu-ray to me, but far from impressive. Luckily, I don't care for that one anyway, as it's annoying as hell, and riddled with plot inconsistencies, etc.. Definitely more DNR at work here, and due to the nature of elaborate VFX in many shots, definition suffers quite a bit too. Dolby Vision was less than stellar too. Nothing really awed me.
Film: 2/5
PQ: 3/5
AQ: 4/5

[RodChester]

Originally Posted by Rulocal

Back in stock at Gruv.com so hopefully they can clear out the back orders now...

I’m hoping mine will ship next week as well. Has anyone contacted Gruv to ask if they might know when these orders will ship?

[Markgway]

Originally Posted by Vict

What about George & Lorraine at the end of BTTF1 not acknowledging that their son Marty looks exactly like their high school friend Marty back in 1955?

The only explanation is that Lorraine had sex with Calvin Klein and George stepped up to raise his baby.

[ToEhrIsHuman]

Originally Posted by Markgway

The only explanation is that Lorraine had sex with Calvin Klein and George stepped up to raise his baby.

Except then Marty would have been first born and 29 years old in BTTF 1985. Also, he would be his own dad.

[bradnoyes]

Originally Posted by 1924

The opening of the second film just bugs me. There’s no reason for Doc to be so agitated and In such a hurry to save Marty’s son when he has a literal time machine.

I've always wondered why Doc (apparently) never looked up Marty in the future like he said he would towards the end of the first film. I would have thought he'd establish a relationship with older Marty, and if he had you'd think it would have been a lot simpler to just backtrack a few weeks and let older Marty help his son. Of course, if he had done that the movie wouldn't exist, so...

Anyway, after finishing the trilogy I was left with mixed feelings about the PQ. On the one hand I always want to give props to a UHD that makes some of my childhood favorites look better than they ever have. At the same time I just don't like how these look. Depending on the movie/scene it often felt like there was too much DNR and it looked like something that was shot yesterday, or it was at the other end of the spectrum and the image retained a filmic quality but was a it rough around the edges. Even when the grain management is done well and detail is retained, it still creates a sterile look to my eyes.

I was really hyped on Universal throughout most of 2020 but now I'm back to wondering what we're going to get from them with their new releases. The tinkering they've done on this set, some of the Hitchcock releases, and even Goonies isn't my cup of tea.

[Gold Ranger]

Originally Posted by ToEhrIsHuman

Except then Marty would have been first born and 29 years old in BTTF 1985. Also, he would be his own dad.

Phillip J Fry is his own grandfather...

[kristoffer]

Originally Posted by bradnoyes

I've always wondered why Doc (apparently) never looked up Marty in the future like he said he would towards the end of the first film. I would have thought he'd establish a relationship with older Marty, and if he had you'd think it would have been a lot simpler to just backtrack a few weeks and let older Marty help his son. Of course, if he had done that the movie wouldn't exist, so...

Anyway, after finishing the trilogy I was left with mixed feelings about the PQ. On the one hand I always want to give props to a UHD that makes some of my childhood favorites look better than they ever have. At the same time I just don't like how these look. Depending on the movie/scene it often felt like there was too much DNR and it looked like something that was shot yesterday, or it was at the other end of the spectrum and the image retained a filmic quality but was a it rough around the edges. Even when the grain management is done well and detail is retained, it still creates a sterile look to my eyes.

I was really hyped on Universal throughout most of 2020 but now I'm back to wondering what we're going to get from them with their new releases. The tinkering they've done on this set, some of the Hitchcock releases, and even Goonies isn't my cup of tea.

Couldn't agree more. They look a lot better than the old BDs, but they should also have looked better. Too much DNR still! Just get rid of DNR altogether.

[TheHutt]

Originally Posted by leocan

I have noticed what I believe can be a sign of DNR. See the image (if it was uploaded successfully). I don't know if anybody else has noticed that too. It's at the end of Part II and the artifact is consistent.

* This is my first post after a number of years of reading this forum.

Geoff did notice it, I think.

[panasonicst60]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Hi Leo. To add to the above post, where I didn't actually explain why it's doing that: the ghosting is a result of corruption in the encoding of the Dolby Vision enhancement layer which is why it 'lags' like that.

Sounds like we should be getting a replacement disc...What to you guys think?

[dallywhitty]

Originally Posted by 1924

The opening of the second film just bugs me. There’s no reason for Doc to be so agitated and In such a hurry to save Marty’s son when he has a literal time machine.

They kinda wrote themselves into a corner with the ending to the first film. They didn't have a sequel in mind and I guess they just wanted a fun conclusion to send audiences out on a high.

Kind of me reminds me of these nonsensical endings you get in horror films in which it's like, SURPRISE, THE KILLER AIN'T DEAD AFTER ALL. And then the sequel comes along and kinda retcons it? I suppose Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis could've done something similar, but instead they decided to directly acknowledge it.