The Matrix 4K UHD (1999)

[Spiritual_Chaos]

Originally Posted by Warm Gun

If you want a shaking picture, raised/crushed blacks, tens of thousands of scratches and pieces of dirt, excessive grain, bad encoding and inconsistent colors (or discoloration)

[MuffinMcFluffin]

If the subway fight scene was always supposed to look that orange, then I'm not in need of that 35mm color grade personally.

I don't know if people on here are going by director's/cinematographer's intent or what is most aesthetically pleasing to them. For myself, the BD with the 'green' color grade in the Matrix scenes matching that of Reloaded and Revolutions gives it my favorite aesthetic, and the teal look of the UHD is hideous.

If those clamor for the days of the 35mm film because "that was the original intent," I'm hoping y'all also aren't the same people saying Die Hard is a Christmas film, because John McTiernan himself said it wasn't originally intended as being one. Basically, choose a lane with that nonsense.

For the most part though, that 35mm scan doesn't look bad at all. Once Reloaded and Revolutions come into the fold, suddenly things change and it becomes inconsistent.

[Spiritual_Chaos]

Originally Posted by MuffinMcFluffin

If those clamor for the days of the 35mm film because "that was the original intent," I'm hoping y'all also aren't the same people saying Die Hard is a Christmas film, because John McTiernan himself said it wasn't originally intended as being one. Basically, choose a lane with that nonsense.

You have missed that, that whole debate is a joke.

[russweiss1]

Originally Posted by MuffinMcFluffin

If the subway fight scene was always supposed to look that orange, then I'm not in need of that 35mm color grade personally.

I don't know if people on here are going by director's/cinematographer's intent or what is most aesthetically pleasing to them. For myself, the BD with the 'green' color grade in the Matrix scenes matching that of Reloaded and Revolutions gives it my favorite aesthetic, and the teal look of the UHD is hideous.

If those clamor for the days of the 35mm film because "that was the original intent," I'm hoping y'all also aren't the same people saying Die Hard is a Christmas film, because John McTiernan himself said it wasn't originally intended as being one. Basically, choose a lane with that nonsense.

For the most part though, that 35mm scan doesn't look bad at all. Once Reloaded and Revolutions come into the fold, suddenly things change and it becomes inconsistent.

I have lobby cards for The Matrix from 5 different countries that have a shot from the subway fight. They vary from minor green tint, minor blue tint, and more brown. It seems to boil down to personal preference.

[jordanjabroni]

Originally Posted by MuffinMcFluffin

For myself, the BD with the 'green' color grade in the Matrix scenes matching that of Reloaded and Revolutions gives it my favorite aesthetic, and the teal look of the UHD is hideous.

[Telemachus]

Batman avatars and caps everywhere in a Matrix thread I can't even

[En Ex]

Batman is Bruce Wayne's residual self image.

[jordanjabroni]

Originally Posted by Telemachus

Batman avatars and caps everywhere in a Matrix thread I can't even

What is Batman? How do you define Batman?

[suspiciouscoffee]

I know Batusi!

[Mierzwiak]

Originally Posted by En Ex

Batman is Bruce Wayne

[KMFDMvsEnya]

Originally Posted by Mierzwiak

[Show spoiler]

What's next, Bat Wayne is fictional?!?
Woah!

[Shane Rollins]

1. I was seriously teetering on rebuying those 4Ks...not sure why...but thanks for swaying me back to sanity.

Originally Posted by Spiritual_Chaos

Isn't The Exorcist due to Friedkin more than Warner.

Also, is that trailer and it's colors 1:1 with the actual film months later.

2. The look of The Exorcist is as much Friedkin's fault as the look of The Matrix is the Wachowskis' faults.

Both are cases of the director/directors getting revisionist on a film months or years after the fact.

The first case of tinkering with The Exorcist I can find is the 1979 rerelease, where the colder tint was first introduced (it looked nothing like any DVD, Blu-ray, or 4K release; it actually looked more tasteful, and it was done so well that I mistakenly thought it was original), the sound was upmixed to six-track (70mm), then downmixed to 4/2/4 Dolby Stereo (35mm) and mono (35mm). Just to be clear, they didn't use the mono mix in 1979. Rather, they used a fold-down of the six-track mix, resulting in the muddy-sounding track that was in use for 19 years on home video in the US.

With The Matrix, the movie dropped in April of 1999, and by August of 1999 the color tint had been added. While no one print scan, no one fan restoration, no one trailer, etc can be taken at face value, when you take them all as a whole, you quickly realize that no home video release has accurately represented the theatrical version of The Matrix. Not even close. "Closer", but not "close".

When I first watched The Matrix on tape over a decade ago, the green was so strong that I thought it looked like a boot, either a screwy boot filmed in theater, or a legit copy-to-blank boot where the Macrovision kicks in. It was a legit tape, but that's what it looked like.

In terms of color timing specifically, the rental VHS, fullscreen collector's VHS, widescreen collector's VHS, 1999 DVD, 2001 DVD, 2004 Ultimate DVD, and the 2008 Ultimate Blu-ray are all more or less the same. This scene's more green on the tape than it is on the DVD, that scene's more green on the DVD than it is on the tape. To sit and break down every individual shot, frame, and scene would amount to splitting hairs. None of them look remotely close to how they originally looked.

The 4K, that's not perfect either. While DP Bill Pope did the work, the buck stops at the Wachowskis. They had final approval, and had more say than Pope did. They were the ones who initially ordered the oppressive green tint in 1999, and they're the ones who kept it there. I think the 4K was more of a compromise. "We want it one way, the other 99% of people want it another way, so we'll meet somewhere in the middle." In some regards, the color's better. In other ways, the color's worse.

Just doing two discs per format, one with it looking their way, one with it looking the right way, and let us decide what we want.

Originally Posted by MuffinMcFluffin

If the subway fight scene was always supposed to look that orange, then I'm not in need of that 35mm color grade personally.

I don't know if people on here are going by director's/cinematographer's intent or what is most aesthetically pleasing to them. For myself, the BD with the 'green' color grade in the Matrix scenes matching that of Reloaded and Revolutions gives it my favorite aesthetic, and the teal look of the UHD is hideous.

If those clamor for the days of the 35mm film because "that was the original intent," I'm hoping y'all also aren't the same people saying Die Hard is a Christmas film, because John McTiernan himself said it wasn't originally intended as being one. Basically, choose a lane with that nonsense.

For the most part though, that 35mm scan doesn't look bad at all. Once Reloaded and Revolutions come into the fold, suddenly things change and it becomes inconsistent.

3. I watched Reloaded and Revolutions on 4K ages ago once, and haven't played them since, so I'm not the best one to refer to on those two. I can say, however, that between VHS, the widescreen DVDs, the 2004 Ultimate DVDs, and the 2008 Ultimate Blu-rays, they looked almost the same in terms of color timing. And in the case of those two, they did in fact look like that originally, so a 4K looking the same as the Blu-rays looked in terms of color timing would be good.

4. With "director's intent" I'm all for it...I want the director's intent when they made the damn movie, not their intent today. When I watch Star Wars I want George Lucas' intent in 1977, 1980, and 1983, not his intentions the last time he played in his sandbox. When I watch The Exorcist, I want what Friedkin intended in 1973, not in 1979 or 1998 or 2000 or 2010 or 2023.

When I watch The Matrix, I want the film that was released in theaters in 1999, the film that clearly the Wachowskis were cool with or they wouldn't have signed off on it. I want the film their intent created before their intent changed.

If you're going to change things, give us a choice. Because otherwise you're not going to force people onto your new versions, you're just going to piss us off that we're not getting the old versions.

[Shane Rollins]

Originally Posted by KMFDMvsEnya

What's next, Bat Wayne is fictional?!?
Woah!

There is no Batman.

[Uptight]

These caps-a-holic pictures show me the 2018 remastered Blu-ray (and 4K) reduced the green tint, compared to the old 2009 editions, but it's still there:

https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=11852&d2=11855&c=4671

I am thinking they also remastered the sequels (Reloaded and Revolutions), but the old discs while not looking that sharp, didn't have the same color grading. Am I wrong?

[Mierzwiak]

Originally Posted by Shane Rollins

There is no Batman.

There is no spoon.

[sojrner]

Originally Posted by Shane Rollins

There is no Batman.

Originally Posted by Mierzwiak

There is no spoon.

[jordanjabroni]

Originally Posted by Shane Rollins

In terms of color timing specifically, the rental VHS, fullscreen collector's VHS, widescreen collector's VHS, 1999 DVD, 2001 DVD, 2004 Ultimate DVD, and the 2008 Ultimate Blu-ray are all more or less the same.

[blakninja]

There are no Bluray or UHD releases that look like the original theatrical colors, for any movie.

[En Ex]

I was good with the DVD, then the blu-ray for years, I'll eventually get around to the UHD. the color sitch has always been a little weird but I roll with it.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by MuffinMcFluffin

If the subway fight scene was always supposed to look that orange, then I'm not in need of that 35mm color grade personally.

I don't know if people on here are going by director's/cinematographer's intent or what is most aesthetically pleasing to them. For myself, the BD with the 'green' color grade in the Matrix scenes matching that of Reloaded and Revolutions gives it my favorite aesthetic, and the teal look of the UHD is hideous.

If those clamor for the days of the 35mm film because "that was the original intent," I'm hoping y'all also aren't the same people saying Die Hard is a Christmas film, because John McTiernan himself said it wasn't originally intended as being one. Basically, choose a lane with that nonsense.

For the most part though, that 35mm scan doesn't look bad at all. Once Reloaded and Revolutions come into the fold, suddenly things change and it becomes inconsistent.

Oh i hated the BD. Hated it. The way that they forced the green onto it ruined the skin tones. Does the UHD grade do its own ruining? Sure. But I vastly prefer the UHD's ruination.