Spartacus (1960) (Restored Edition)

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Poya

Amazing you said this, considering Spartacus was shot in (high resolution) 35mm while Ben Hur and Lawrence Of Arabia were both shot in 65mm.

True, but flip dat 35mm sideways and it still covers a fair old bit of real estate in 8-perf, even when compared to 5/65mm. Add the above-mentioned anamorphic squeeze for Technirama and you've got a tremendous quality widescreen image. But even 'regular' VistaVision still looks the bollocks, I watched Vertigo a few months back on Blu and was stunned by how magnificent it looked. 8-perf 35mm is truly a "large format", and no mistake.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by anephric

I think the cynicism and atheism of Spartacus (pretty uniquely for a historical epic of the time) is pretty strongly Kubrickian, but then again all of that could have come out of Douglas/Trumbo, so...

Yeah, it's really quite typically Kubrickian if you look at it from that angle, but given how late he came to the picture and how little control he was able to exert over it, it was just a happy coincidence that it was there in the source material (I mentioned the same thing in my review of the remastered disc, "great minds.." etc etc).

[Arch Stanton]

Originally Posted by stratford

Eyes wide shut is a good movie, who's Blu is let down by a transfer gives VHS a bad name

Bit of an exaggeration. It's not exactly a demo disc and could do with a nice remaster (grain and all) but it's always going to be very soft because of the conditions it was shot under.

[Trax-3]

Originally Posted by Arch Stanton

Bit of an exaggeration. It's not exactly a demo disc and could do with a nice remaster (grain and all) but it's always going to be very soft because of the conditions it was shot under.

It was shot on 500T pushed 2 stops (I might be wrong in the exact number of stops). I's intended to be grainy as hell, in other words it's no Spartacus.

[pawel86ck]

IMHO the best remaster I have ever seen. Because they already have 4K master, I hope UHD version will come out someday (split on 2x 100GB discs preferably).

BTW. guys I know you dont like overprocessed pictures, but after contrast boost and color change this 4K scans downsampled to HD looks bright and colorfull like real photos. Spartacus was shot in 1960, but for me it almost look like if it was filmed yesterday.
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/164475
http://postimg.org/image/qosk83h3r/full/
http://s15.postimg.org/42n8vd3dl/image.png
http://s15.postimg.org/u9ofrblnd/image.png

[Geoff D]

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/164475

Jesus. You can keep your "contrast boost/colour change" version. Without wanting to sound like a prick, I'm glad you're not at the controls in the colorist's suite.

[Cook]

The brighter image looks a lot more natural and better to me. The other version looks like it's being seen through a pair of 3D theater glasses.

[infiniteCR]

Will we get an eventual HDR version from this effort soon?

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Cook

The brighter image looks a lot more natural and better to me. The other version looks like it's being seen through a pair of 3D theater glasses.

So whenever you look at something bright you'd prefer to have the detail be simply obliterated because the contrast is so high? It's no wonder the studios did this sort of shit on a regular basis to home video transfers back in the day...it's all about dat "pop". Reminds me of the old vs new discussion in the Apollo 13 thread, with the horribly hard clipped contrast of the 15th anniversary edition claiming plenty of victims.

[Sky_Captain]

Sadly, HDR seems tailor made for such silly-billys.

[Geoff D]

That's not even HDR though, that's plain old contrast-boosting up the wazoo.

[Sky_Captain]

Oh, I know. I just find HDR as a selling point hilarious.

[Blu-21]

What the hell is HDR? I've been seeing that mentioned a lot around these parts recently.

Originally Posted by Geoff D

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/164475

Jesus. You can keep your "contrast boost/colour change" version. Without wanting to sound like a prick, I'm glad you're not at the controls in the colorist's suite.

It would work nicely as my desktop wallpaper, but that's about as far as it goes.

[Oblivion138]

Originally Posted by Cook

The brighter image looks a lot more natural and better to me.

The one with the hideous blown-out highlights?

[Riddler95]

I'm confused. I want to buy the newly restored version of Spartacus on Blu-Ray.

Now Amazon.ca has two versions of it available.

$14.96
https://www.amazon.ca/Spartacus-Blu-...ords=Spartacus

$10.44
https://www.amazon.ca/Spartacus-Blu-...ords=Spartacus

Does anyone know if there are differences between the two or are they identical?

[AlexHarvey]

The $14.96 version is the Canadian Blu-ray with French and English audio. The cover is bilingual. The $10.44 version is the American Blu-ray. If you don't need the French audio buy the cheaper version.

[MobFu72]

I bought what I thought was a remastered copy at my local used outlet, someone put the old disc in a new remastered case.......... BUMMER!!!

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by MobFu72

I bought what I thought was a remastered copy at my local used outlet, someone put the old disc in a new remastered case.......... BUMMER!!!

Can you return it?

[Riddler95]

Originally Posted by AlexHarvey

The $14.96 version is the Canadian Blu-ray with French and English audio. The cover is bilingual. The $10.44 version is the American Blu-ray. If you don't need the French audio buy the cheaper version.

Thanks for the info. I don't need the French audio so I'll order the American version. $10.44 is a pretty good deal.

[MobFu72]

I traded it in at FYE and told them it was switched but they still gave me credit using the UPC on the back cover. I still haven't seen this remastered version yet, I still plan on getting it in the future.