Jurassic Park - 30th Anniversary Edition UHD

[VickPS]

Originally Posted by GRSN

saw this in 4DX 3D (didn't liked it) on Saturday, got to say; even with 3D,
you can tell this has a good underlying master buried underneath,
sometimes when i take my glasses off, there would be some grain in the image.

thought it was a new master when i saw the (new) 2013 Universal Pictures intro,
but figured that's the same one they used for the 2013 3D release.

Well, it's the only Spielberg supervised master afterall.
But it's undoubtedly too clean, being destined for the (awesome) 3D conversion, and they definitely went overboard with orange at times, probably to get rid of those fluorescent outdoors greens in order to better portray Costa Rica instead of Hawaii, like the original theatrical color timing did.
And yet even with those orange skies, result of the quick and cheap digital grading, and the way too warm final Rotunda scene, which should look gold/amber instead of red, it still manages to be by far the most appealing release in terms of color and gamma.
Most of the movie looks legit stunning, with proper filmic Kodak colors and accurate dark night scenes.

I'd say it's overall the best release thanks to its awesome 3D, followed by the MUSE Hi-Vision LaserDisc, which can get pretty damn close to the original presentation at times:

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Left column: 35mm, Hi-Vision LaserDisc and 3D BD; right column: LaserDisc, UHD BD and BD.

[Ben_UK]

It’s my belief that all major 4K releases are grain managed in some form, it’s only smalller indie studios like Arrow and Scream / Shout who perhaps don’t or if they do, it’s a very minimal DNR scrub. However I think Universal are one of the worst studios for DNR (in my view). Whilst Back To The Future now looks passable on a home format, the image on all 3 movies is undeniably still very grain scrubbed, Jaws is similar. One of the few Universal films I can pick out that seems to have escaped that heavy DNR is Scarface, that has quite a nice grain texture to the UHD release, but that seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

[VickPS]

Originally Posted by Ben_UK

It’s my belief that all major 4K releases are grain managed in some form, it’s only smalller indie studios like Arrow and Scream / Shout who perhaps don’t or if they do, it’s a very minimal DNR scrub. However I think Universal are one of the worst studios for DNR (in my view). Whilst Back To The Future now looks passable on a home format, the image on all 3 movies is undeniably still very grain scrubbed, Jaws is similar. One of the few Universal films I can pick out that seems to have escaped that heavy DNR is Scarface, that has quite a nice grain texture to the UHD release, but that seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

On the other hand, some Arrow releases can be just as bad when it comes to accurate timing and saturation levels.

At least during the BD era, the releases I enjoyed the most were from Warner. Some of their catalog titles like Demotion Man, In the Mouth of Madness, Deep Blue Sea, Nightmare on Elm Street sequels etc. are absolutely perfect transfers of 35mm movies. They may lack the microdetail of OCN scans and could use superior encoding but when it comes to color grading and gamma they were the absolute best.

Speaking of which, a couple more comparisons showing how saturated and pink overloaded the current UHD is even next to previous formats:

[Show spoiler]In order, 35mm, LaserDisc, MUSE Hi-Vision LD and UHD.

This one is hilarious:

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[WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW]

Originally Posted by VickPS

A faded Eastman print from the 90's?

Yes, sure, if a theater showed it 5 times a day for a couple straight months.... I recall back in 35mm days that showings at many places looked crappy compared to first week if you caught them a couple months into the run. Projector bulbs run very hot and toss out a ton of light and that does fade stuff out over time.

Anyway those particular 35mm scans are very drab and a different color tint than what most saw from 35mm prints of this.

[The Rider]

Originally Posted by VickPS

Humble apologies for the premature Thread, but i've figured the earlier we start properly discussing the upcoming edition, the more chances we might have of getting the very first proper Home-Video edition of this movie. Since, with the exclusion of Jurassic Park 3D Blu-Ray (the most criticized version of the movie we got, yet only one supervised by Spielberg and actually stunning in 3D) every single Home-Video release since 1994 has been a complete disaster in capturing Dean Cundey original cinematography.

For those unfamiliar with the film's original presentation, here a video compilation of every VFX shot in their original 35mm form:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-4fWASG_xE

Here a long and insightful interview with the DOP after a 35mm screening:

Jurassic Park Q+A with Dean Cundey CSC ASC - YouTube

And here an American Cinematographer article:

https://ascmag.com/articles/jurassic...the-box-office

After hearing/reading about what he had to say, how important "visual storytelling", "mood", "painting with light" and "subtract light from a scene" are to him, you might get the sense he's describing a completely different movie than what we watched in our homes for 30 years.
We know he wanted an extremely realistic look, because we had to "believe the unbelievable", a contrasty, dark and shadowy presentation because we "had to understand what's going on, but not enough to figure how they made it". We know he wanted every scene to look different from the other, from comfortable and warm to cold and pitch black in the next scene. A never flat nor samey looking movie.
The exact opposite of what Universal gave us, in short, as Jurassic Park in Home-Video always looked colorful and joyous thanks to the extreme pink push in white balance, bright and plain flat thanks to its brightened shadows and compressed highlights, and especially samey due to the adjustments carried to every single scene.

Saying this groundbreaking motion picture went from a horror, classy looking film with immortal visual effects, to a children TV serial shot on video with dated CGI, isn't actually hyperbole. But who's to blame?
While this isn't a "Star Wars Special Edition" situation in the slightest, one would still picture hardcore fans fighting for years to get the chance to see their favorite movie in its intended presentation, even just for wanting to see dinosaurs looking real again instead of dated CGI creations. But no: most fans of this movie actually love what we currently have, and are actually responsible for the UHD first release's familiar grading due to the insane level of criticism aimed towards the 3D version at the time. All you have to do is look at comments under "Sicky T" Youtube and Twitter comparisons: lots of people love pink, flat and colorful video presentation. They think that's the original movie.

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*The above 35mm video and frames are sourced from an untouched 4K scan of a positive, made on top of the line equipment by a competent and professional projectionist who also compared the finished 1080p encoding to the actual film projected.
The UHD frames are from highdefdiscnews, the absolute best when it comes to UHD uncompressed screenshots and SDR conversion, except for the last one from Caps_a_holic.

Will we finally get a faithful official release of Jurassic Park next year? And in the remote case, will it be harshly criticized for being "revisionist"? Do we actually want a faithful release, or are many among us too accustomed to colorful and "appealing" video presentations?

P.S. Apologies again for opening this Thread before an official announcement (and for such an heavy pictures loaded OP), but Universal already started announcing merchandise for the 30th Anniversary, which is where the logo on top of the Thread is from, and we know for a fact an announcement of this UHD edition is imminent.
I think between the movie presentation across formats, the severe cropping happened since LaserDisc, and the superior, Award Winning revolutionary Cinema DTS track, there's plenty to discuss regardless.

It's a shame Jurassic Park didn't get the release it deserved. The film is a milestone in film history and started a franchise that Universal is still making good money from.

The 4K Blu-ray Disc has the wrong colour grading and DNR. The colour grading of the 3D Blu-ray Disc was not perfect (too much teal) but came closest to the look of the time. Steven Spielberg's wish was to bring back the original look with the 3D release.

Here is an interview with Stereo D:
https://www.fxguide.com/fxfeatured/w...jurassic-park/

With the 3D Blu-ray Disc, you have to remember that the colours are designed for the dark glasses. The 2D screenshots therefore look brighter and more colourful.

It would be important for Steven Spielberg and Dean Cundey to release a new colour grading together.

[The Rider]

Originally Posted by nick4Knight

You can say it more if you like. There is no comparing JP to T2. Jurassic Park is just the product of having used an older 4K scan source, not a "travesty" perfomed from a fresh one, like T2. Even if Lawrence Kasdan picked the 35mm scans for all the reasons you BELIEVE he did so? I'd merely find him to be as insufferable about it as you are. But I think it's just you, and you haven't even backed up this theory w/ a quote from the horses mouth.

Enjoy your fixation.

The 4K scan of Jurassic Park is good, this is not the problem. Take Blade Runner as an example, the 4K scan is from 2007 or 2006 and the Blu-ray Disc and 4K Blu-ray Disc are very good.

The problem with Jurassic Park is the poor postproduction with too much DNR (although not as bad as T2) and the wrong colour grading.

Waterworld has a similar problem, the colour grading of Arrow Video is much better.

[nick4Knight]

"The 4K scan of Jurassic Park is good, this is not the problem." <--- That is quite the assertion and I'm not really sure how you, a random user on an internet board, could make such a claim. I thought the speculation it was a 2008~ if not earier scan. You can point to some other scan from that time if you want, but this was Universal who commissioned it, who "baked in" a lot of stuff into their scan data, historically.

[IndyMLVC]

[The Rider]

Originally Posted by nick4Knight

"The 4K scan of Jurassic Park is good, this is not the problem." <--- That is quite the assertion and I'm not really sure how you, a random user on an internet board, could make such a claim. I thought the speculation it was a 2008~ if not earier scan. You can point to some other scan from that time if you want, but this was Universal who commissioned it, who "baked in" a lot of stuff into their scan data, historically.

What are we even talking about here?

The 4K scan of Jurassic Park was created in 2013 for the 3D conversion. There is no reason to doubt the quality of this scan.

You are also just a random user on an internet forum making claims.

[The Rider]

The 30th anniversary was unfortunately very disappointing, with neither a new restoration nor new bonus material for this classic of film history.

What is interesting, however, is that according to rumours there is a new DCP with a different color grading and more film grain. This is supported by this trailer, whose color grading differs from all previous home video releases.

Jurassic Park: 30th Anniversary | Official Trailer | Park Circus - YouTube

I think the night scenes look very good, the daylight scenes are a bit too cool in places.

I would be interested to hear Dean Cundey's opinion on this. Has anyone ever been in contact with him?

[Mierzwiak]

Looks like someone slightly modified the look of the 3D version:

Jurassic Park 3D - Trailer - YouTube

[The Rider]

I compared the two trailers again. This "new" master was merely recut from the 3D trailer.
The colors here are different from the 3D trailer, much cooler but different from the well-known 2D masters. You also see less yellow tones in the grass and the night scenes contain more blue.

[The Rider]

Here are three remastered 35 mm trailers that give an impression of what the original color grading looked like:

Jurassic Park (1993) 35mm film trailer, flat open matte, 2160p - YouTube

Jurassic Park (1993) Theatrical Trailer #1 [5.1[ [4K] [FTD-1270] - YouTube

Jurassic Park (1993) Theatrical Trailer #2 [4K] [FTD-1419] - YouTube

Basically, the film had a warm look, with more yellow and less magenta in the daylight scenes. In the night scenes, the picture was cooler with more cyan.

[The Rider]

Has anyone seen Jurassic Park in theaters in the last two years and can tell anything about the rumors about the new DCP?