Superman: The Movie 4K UHD (1978)

[mar3o]

I always hate it when the trailer is still an old 480p trailer from 20 years ago. Definitely give us the trailers in 1080p. Many from Shout Factory literally look like they come form Youtube, broken frame rate and all.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by mar3o

I always hate it when the trailer is still an old 480p trailer from 20 years ago. Definitely give us the trailers in 1080p. Many from Shout Factory literally look like they come form Youtube, broken frame rate and all.

Some folks try and recreate them and often do great work, but it's tough when they have alternative footage.

[starmike]

There are several people on YouTube who have been posting 4K trailers for a few years now.

EDIT: BTW - I never found an HD version of this

Superman Returns - Original Theatrical Trailer - YouTube

[IndyMLVC]

Originally Posted by chip75

Some folks try and recreate them and often do great work, but it's tough when they have alternative footage.

And then there are the ones that watermark the video

[ShellBeacher]

Originally Posted by IndyMLVC

Interesting. Where did they confirm that?

George Feltenstein, head of WarnerArchive, on the phone here around 1:58 -- from last year.

LET'S GET PHYSICAL MEDIA #044: (Week of JAMES BOND'S NO TIME TO DIE in the US...!!!) - YouTube

But he's hard to hear on that particular audio -- you can view this summary from the CapedWonder guys who summarize and quote everything he said:

https://twitter.com/CapedWonderJim/s...Cp8frRkcQoAAAA

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gzlcsyba0u...ement.mp4?dl=0

Warner Bros. hasn't officially announced anything re: Superman IV workprints, etc., it's only been Feltenstein who has confirmed that the studio seems to have a copy in the archives. But I don't know if he's even looked at it, yet...

I think Warners will test the waters again with these 4Ks of the Theatricals and see if they sell well enough to warrant putting anything else out...but if they allow a release of any of these alternate cuts to go to a WarnerArchive release (like the hybrid disc containing the Extended TV cut of Superman I), Feltenstein controls the WarnerArchive releases. It will be about whether he thinks the titles will sell enough to warrant a release. Personally, I would push for a WarnerArchive release containing the alternate/TV/workprint cuts of all four films!

[ShellBeacher]

Originally Posted by J999

Wow. I hadn't heard that. That's just sad.... It's the best overall version of the movie IMO, and would love an official release... Sure hope it can be found. You'd think things like that would be better taken care of, especially since they already had been for over 20 years until that point.

Of course, Supergirl's 134 minute "Director's Cut" couldn't be found either anymore for the Blu-ray (again, how does that happen??), but they at least were able to include the DVD for that.

Somewhere when Warner Bros. relinquished the distribution rights (to the Salkinds and Tri-Star) things surely got lost along the way...the film was basically a bomb, anyway, in any of the versions originally released. It's a miracle any longer cuts were preserved/found by the time DVD rolled around! I think many in the studio or otherwise simply didn't care about the movie... I have the Anchor Bay Limited DVD release and the newer WarnerArchive Blu and not letting go of either!

[starmike]

Originally Posted by starmike

There are several people on YouTube who have been posting 4K trailers for a few years now.

EDIT: BTW - I never found an HD version of this Superman Returns - Original Theatrical Trailer - YouTube

...and look what showed up in 4K today...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbQEc89Z6dA

[jess1581]

Originally Posted by starmike

...and look what showed up in 4K today...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbQEc89Z6dA

Sigh.... this cockteasing is bullshit. I never thought Returns was anything except a mixbag, but a better presentation could sway my opinion of it. The status quo image is ugly as fvck.

[Jay Mammoth]

Originally Posted by starmike

...and look what showed up in 4K today...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbQEc89Z6dA

Sweet would much rather this than Superman IV.

[brysenji]

Originally Posted by jess1581

Sigh.... this cockteasing is bullshit. I never thought Returns was anything except a mixbag, but a better presentation could sway my opinion of it. The status quo image is ugly as fvck.

I'd love a 4K disc of "Returns" but I think it's worth mentioning, I don't believe the footage in that trailer is reflective of the final color grade of the film as seen in its theatrical release and all home video releases since.

Fun unrelated fact (if my memory is correct) the company I work for cut this trailer (and other trailers and TV spots/promos for the film).

[starmike]

This was my favorite of all the Returns trailers, but I could never find one that was larger than 500px. It was nice to see a 4K version show up the other day.

[kenkraly2004]

Glad that the issues with the Superman: The Movie’s 2018 4K UHD release are being worked on and dealt with. Will be interesting to see how the Superman Sequels will look on the 4K UHD format. I would imagine a ton of color correction work has to be done with Superman III and IV. Really super looking forward to these releases in 2023 !!!

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by starmike

...and look what showed up in 4K today...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbQEc89Z6dA

Sweet baby Kal-El that's amazing.

[kenkraly2004]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Woah, I missed that bit about fixing up the 2018 disc! I would still love to have the SE in there (and it’ll be an odd development if it’s not) but I’ll take a fixed theatrical any day of the week! Sort out the orange flash in the credits, the terrible grading of the Krypton council scenes, the visible garbage mattes as kal’s pod flies to earth, the weird posterised noise in some other scenes, the dreadful quality dupe in Luthor’s lair and the giant vertical bands during the iconic sunrise shot at the end and I’d be so happy. Oh, and give the split-surround 70mm mix a lossless encode too.

As for Warners maybe redoing other stuff, I dunno. For some reason they’ve always been open to rejigging Supes’ discs, the first Blu of STM had lossy audio with VC-1 for video but it got redone for the anthology boxset with lossless and AVC. They also snuck out a stealth upgrade for Superman Returns to add PCM and TrueHD 5.1 and then redid it a third time for the boxset version to add the Return to Krypton deleted scene! They never did re-encode the haggard VC-1 video though. Doesn’t look like they ever will

Agreed on all of this also one thing that I hope gets fixed for the 2023 version of Superman The Movie Theatrical on 4K UHD is the inconsistent brightness issues the 2018 4K disc had from start to finish. The 3 prior Blu-Ray Discs both Theatrical , Special Edition and Extended Cut never had these brightness issues yes SDR is different from HDR I get all that but how come other 4K UHD HDR movies don't have brightness issues? I think it had to do with the film not being scanned in 8K liked the WB MPI guy explained when the 2018 4K STM Theatrical disc came out on the Caped Wonder Superman Podcast. The WB MPI guy said WB Home Entertainment was in a rush to get the 2018 STM Theatrical 4K UHD out for the 40th and it showed sadly. Hopefully the 2023 Box Set of all 4 Christopher Reeve Superman films will be great including STM Theatrical.

[SpacemanDoug]

you know I find it funny that for 2018 4K releases, Grease and Superman were undoubtedly the two most controversial releases and in legacy still remain controversial, however both titles had strange major parallels in the past 25 years or so with their home video releases

both had awful remixes created in the late 90s/early 2000s that added many new sound effects and both were based off of elements they had to give special treatment since they deteriorated near beyond use

both were stuck mostly in these mangled forms for near 20 years until both of their 4K releases happened and both had their theatrical sound mixes restored based off of unearth 70mm elements

and the 4K releases themselves were based off of newer 4K scans of their negatives, though while Grease was controversial for its DNR, Superman had the exact opposite and some thought it was "too grainy" (even for Geoff's liking which was a first for me)

honestly my opinion on Superman's 4K transfer is it could be better, but at the same time, past home video versions were much worse and the theatrical sound mix alone is worth the purchase (FAR better than the stereo track on the 2011 BD)

[SpacemanDoug]

Originally Posted by Croweyes1121

According to Jim Bowers who created CapedWonder.com (and whom I implicitly trust), they have two colorists working on these new discs - one who worked on I-II, and another who worked on III-IV. The fact that Warner has hired these guys to specifically address the colors is, in and of itself, a very good sign IMO.

I'd say that's very very much a good thing

because I recall the theatrical cut BD of II and the BDs for III and IV had EXTREME contrast boosting (even to the point of certain effects shots having more detail on the DVD releases), it looked so terrible

one thing I also hope is the original logos are finally restored to the openings, afaik they were plastered as far back as their DVD releases

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by SpacemanDoug

you know I find it funny that for 2018 4K releases, Grease and Superman were undoubtedly the two most controversial releases and in legacy still remain controversial, however both titles had strange major parallels in the past 25 years or so with their home video releases

both had awful remixes created in the late 90s/early 2000s that added many new sound effects and both were based off of elements they had to give special treatment since they deteriorated near beyond use

both were stuck mostly in these mangled forms for near 20 years until both of their 4K releases happened and both had their theatrical sound mixes restored based off of unearth 70mm elements

and the 4K releases themselves were based off of newer 4K scans of their negatives, though while Grease was controversial for its DNR, Superman had the exact opposite and some thought it was "too grainy" (even for Geoff's liking which was a first for me)

honestly my opinion on Superman's 4K transfer is it could be better, but at the same time, past home video versions were much worse and the theatrical sound mix alone is worth the purchase (FAR better than the stereo track on the 2011 BD)

Eh? The grain looks fine to me in STM. It's the fubar Krypton grading, the awful dupe neg in the Luthor's Lair scene, the multitude of haggard VFX shots and some other weird posterised noise that put me off that transfer. The sweet sweet 70mm audio makes it a must-see (or must-hear?) but I'm not overjoyed with the video quality, it's like Nolan and his stupid "unrestored" credo also infected the people doing this transfer.

[SpacemanDoug]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Eh? The grain looks fine to me in STM. It's the fubar Krypton grading, the awful dupe neg in the Luthor's Lair scene, the multitude of haggard VFX shots and some other weird posterised noise that put me off that transfer. The sweet sweet 70mm audio makes it a must-see (or must-hear?) but I'm not overjoyed with the video quality, it's like Nolan and his stupid "unrestored" credo also infected the people doing this transfer.

I just remember you saying once you didn't like the unfiltered nature of the opticals or somethin

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by SpacemanDoug

I just remember you saying once you didn't like the unfiltered nature of the opticals or somethin

No, it's that the opticals show several artefacts like vertical lines and garbage mattes that were buried/bypassed on previous transfers, mainly because they had the sense to use the C roll from the 2000 SE (containing VFX fixes) to plug the gaps on those transfers, whereas the 4K theatrical transfer would appear to be nothing but the conformed 1978 negative with all the crud baked in.

How the grain looks is entirely separate from that, I even said (having checked my review) that some shots are virtually grainless.

[Croweyes1121]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Eh? The grain looks fine to me in STM. It's the fubar Krypton grading

I honestly had issues with the grading for the whole film, not just the Krypton scenes. That's where things were the most glaringly obvious for sure, but the skin tones are really off on that disc, and the contrast is extremely strange. As I've said before, it's like I'm seeing HDR employed improperly (which perhaps I am). The brights are too bright and the darks are too dark. The reds in Superman's suit, for example, are closer to a deep blood red or maroon on the 4K, while skin tones are a sickly yellowish / salmon, and the whites of eyes are too bright. At the same time, it is also too dim overall (and not just on Krypton - it's a blanket problem over the whole film when compared to prior transfers). It's just incredibly strange and offputting. This movie should be vibrant. I know it's not my setup, because other discs look completely fine, so it's clearly something that was done to this film in particular. I'm extremely excited for the coloring to be fixed on this one as it's one of my favorite films of all time.