Forrest Gump 4K UHD (1994)

[andreasy969]

Going by some comments, I would've thought that caps or a "trusted review" have been posted already, but (luckily) didn't find any.

I for one don't really care about (most) reviews and with the BD looking rather poor at times (as well), I'll take the risk and am keeping my pre-oder up. The BD has DNR and EE to offer in the CGI scenes as well and if this is a new scan with some mild DNR applied to it, it might still be an upgrade.

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I'll take a fudged upgrade to be an upgrade only so far, people said the same thing about the horrible DNR-strewn Star Trek TOS and TNG movie Blu-rays (Paramount, take a bow) but I can't stand most of them, I'll gladly watch the respective DVD instead of those Blus. Same goes for MI, if Paramount screw that particular pooch hard then I'll happily go back to watching the AVC-encoded Blu. At least Grease - as botched as it is - has the 70mm audio going for it.

Speaking of Trek, other than Khan, I have little confidence in the TOS movies when their UHD BD day comes.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by andreasy969

Going by some comments, I would've thought that caps or a "trusted review" have been posted already, but (luckily) didn't find any.

I for one don't really care about (most) reviews and with the BD looking rather poor at times (as well), I'll take the risk and am keeping my pre-oder up. The BD has DNR and EE to offer in the CGI scenes as well and if this is a new scan with some mild DNR applied to it, it might still be an upgrade.

David Vaughn who writes for Sound & Vision had the below to write:
"Unfortunately, something is definitely lost in translation on this 4K rendition of the movie. While the detail is outstanding given the native 4K scan, the special effects stand out like a sore thumb versus the superb-looking 1080p Blu-ray."

Seems to be another confirmation that the 1080p BD just looks better for this movie.

[GasmaskAvenger]

Originally Posted by moviecriticsonline

Funny how the same guy who reviewed "Forrest Gump" gave "Grease" a higher rating, when it fact "Grease" looked way worse than "Forrest Gump" on 4K. I don't trust that guys reviews anymore.

Don't judge based on images, watch the film in motion. I have a review copy of "Forrest Gump" and it doesn't look bad at all, and it's nowhere near the 2 1/2 rating that he gave.

Wasn't he the same guy who gave the 4K version of Goodfellas such an awful rating and claimed the 4K of Central Intelligence didn't look like much of an upgrade from the 1080p disc?

[GenPion]

Originally Posted by moviecriticsonline

Funny how the same guy who reviewed "Forrest Gump" gave "Grease" a higher rating, when it fact "Grease" looked way worse than "Forrest Gump" on 4K. I don't trust that guys reviews anymore.

Don't judge based on images, watch the film in motion. I have a review copy of "Forrest Gump" and it doesn't look bad at all, and it's nowhere near the 2 1/2 rating that he gave.

Well that sounds somewhat promising. Hopefully there are more comparisons soon.

[buckeye1]

I've been waiting for this since it was first announced back in March and pre-ordered in April. And now a week before the release we get bad news about the transfer. I wonder if Paramount knew how bad the transfer was but kept it quiet and let the orders keep coming in? I'm really on the fence here about keeping my order. As I said before I don't have my copy of the Blu-Ray but do have the extras disc. $25 is not a lot of money but canceling that order will keep my Best Buy bill down a bit. I'm pretty sure lack of sales and couple of weeks the price will lower.

[andreasy969]

Originally Posted by Ruined

David Vaughn who writes for Sound & Vision had the below to write:
"Unfortunately, something is definitely lost in translation on this 4K rendition of the movie. While the detail is outstanding given the native 4K scan, the special effects stand out like a sore thumb versus the superb-looking 1080p Blu-ray."

Seems to be another confirmation that the 1080p BD just looks better for this movie.

OK. Thanks. I also think it's highly likely that they really effed up at least the CGI scenes with Gump by now then (even the guy who wrote the review here has spot on comments sometimes, but there's also Grease which is where my skepticism is coming from in this case). Anyway, still one week left to cancel my pre-order.

[buckeye1]

Originally Posted by Ruined

David Vaughn who writes for Sound & Vision had the below to write:
"Unfortunately, something is definitely lost in translation on this 4K rendition of the movie. While the detail is outstanding given the native 4K scan, the special effects stand out like a sore thumb versus the superb-looking 1080p Blu-ray."

Seems to be another confirmation that the 1080p BD just looks better for this movie.

Do you have the link to that review?

[wildphantom]

I expected the SFX sequences to be soft and troublesome. That’s ok, as they’d have dated. The rest of the movie should look excellent though. That’s a minimum expectation.

I’m sceptical until I read more reviews and see the film with my own eyes.

[HeavyHitter]

The effects will look best non-DNR'd. This goes for all movies.

[nick4Knight]

Yeah okay there is nothing inherently wrong with a 24 year old movie' scanning potential, but let's not kid ourselves... This is one year after Jurassic Park and they did more SFX (optical/CGI megafest). I'm sure the extra clarity to the scanning will make the dated effects (the ones rushed or poor by today's expectations) stand out.

This just makes sense.

[Brightstar]

First it was Terminator 2 then jurassic park now this ! who is gonna jump on the 4k band wagan if they carry on like this?

[imsounoriginal]

Originally Posted by nick4amber

Yeah okay there is nothing inherently wrong with a 24 year old movie' scanning potential, but let's not kid ourselves... This is one year after Jurassic Park and they did more SFX (optical/CGI megafest). I'm sure the extra clarity to the scanning will make the dated effects (the ones rushed or poor by today's expectations) stand out.

This just makes sense.

Why is it such a bad thing if VFX from 24 years ago look like... VFX from 24 years ago? Movies are products of their time. It would be great if studios would accept that and kindly stop doing extra "work" to spruce em up. It's not like modern VFX look significantly better, given some of what we've seen recently...

[Geoff D]

There really is a trend right now to massage the shit out of opticals and/or VFX shots. Not everyone's doing it, and the boutique labels know well enough to leave it alone, but it's something of a fascination with the majors it seems.

[Blu Balls]

Sadly disappointed about the sub par transfer. Another 4K UHD bust.

[imsounoriginal]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

There really is a trend right now to massage the shit out of opticals and/or VFX shots. Not everyone's doing it, and the boutique labels know well enough to leave it alone, but it's something of a fascination with the majors it seems.

And didn't this movie win the Oscar for its VFX, like Jurassic Park did? Stop messing with stuff that was literally recognized by the industry as THE BEST EXAMPLE OF ITS YEAR.

[OutOfBoose]

Team of greasers greased this one too? Ouch.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by imsounoriginal

And didn't this movie win the Oscar for its VFX, like Jurassic Park did? Stop messing with stuff that was literally recognized by the industry as THE BEST EXAMPLE OF ITS YEAR.

I should think that the mindset behind such tweakery goes a lil' something like this: "BUT IT LUKS VERR DIFARANT TO DE MAIN MOOVIE! PPLES WIL COMPLANES!"

To be fair you only only have to look at the comments about the lap dissolves in the River Kwai 4K thread (some people having literally never seen anything like that before) to realise why the people in charge of these things are doing this. Not that I condone it, but if you MUST do it then there are certain ways to approach such things without wrecking the underlying filmic expression. It was said in the Kwai thread that years ago RAH apparently investigated the possibility of digitally recreating the dissolves in Kwai, he even had David Lean's blessing but Sony said no.

That would be going to the ultimate lengths to 'fix' such issues admittedly, i.e. going back to the original material and recreating it, but even if they didn't go that far then with today's tools they should still be able to degrain the opticals/VFX and then regrain with something commensurate to that of the surrounding 1st-gen footage. Alas, given the prevailing mindset of grain being this evil thing that must be disposed of then I guess we're lucky that Grease and (apparently) Gump weren't completely sandblasted from start to finish to better match the over-processed opticals/VFX!

[Malagant]

I have always enjoyed this film and was considering getting it on 4K BD until I read poor reviews of this disc. Now I am a little uncertain, but I may still get it.

It seems to me that there is GrainoPhobia on the one side and DNRPhobia on the other.

Most of my friends (non AV-enthusiasts) are in the first category while a majority of members here in the forum (AV-enthusiasts) appear to me to be in the second.

I am fairly flexible if I like the movie and have found that I don't mind DNR (or grain for that matter) if the movie still looks good to me. Perhaps I miss out on 'greatness in picture' because of it but I also don't get as disappointed by transfers as many others. Whether this is good or bad I don't know, but it works fine for me.

[bookcase]

I was able to order this for less than $20 from Target's 20% off sale and I'm keeping it. I love the movie, I find that oftentimes reviews vary wildly between viewers for a multitude of reasons, and I find myself being more forgiving than others (Jurassic Park, for instance -- nowhere close to perfect, but not the disaster people made it out to be).