Night of the Living Dead (1990) - Out of Print

[enigma]

Originally Posted by Clark Kent

Someone get Tom Savini a copy immediately.

If they still ran Terrormania in Monessen, I'd personally deliver him mine. I've met here there on two or three different occasions in the past. Pretty nice guy.

[Kentai]

Originally Posted by retablo

I'm still laughing at people who think TT should have "quality control" and should somehow magically know if any frames of color timing have been changed.

So... it's laughable to think that a label dedicated to bringing films to the masses should know what those films look like? Seriously?

I get that color timing is subjective to a degree, but Twilight Time could have bought the 13 year old Columbia DVD for less than ten dollars and at least had a point of reference. Alternately, they could do what Universal is doing with that Hitchcock box set; pick a trusted reviewer, send them a check disc, and then don't replicate a damned thing until someone familiar with the material has had a chance to weigh in.

Twilight Time is selling themselves as a botique label focused on quality. So far, they've left it up to the studios they're licensing materials from to handle that end. The fact that Sony did the work isn't a good enough excuse; at the end of the day Twilight Time paid for those materials and didn't inspect them thoroughly enough to make sure they were right. Twilight Time's reputation for providing a quality product at a premium price is on the line here; Sony has made it clear they don't much care about these films to begin with. They pocketed the chump change this deal made them and have already forgotten about it. At best, they'll hand Twilight Time the unmolested HDTV master and say "enjoy eating the costs on the new run".


My copy won't be here until tomorrow, so I've got a question for anyone willing to check: Are the opening credits covered in dirt and "sparkle", like the HDTV broadcast? I'm betting that someone at Sony spent quite a bit of time and money to make this film look better than ever, but at some point in the chain the colorist went wild and ruined whatever hard work might have otherwised surfaced.

The fact that there's a scene 20 minutes in that shows the sun setting proves that whoever color corrected the film didn't have a damned clue what he was doing in regards to this film. Applying a day-for-night filter 20 years later is murky waters to begin with, but when you apply it on a scene that objectively takes place before the sun goes down... well, I think the only real term for that is "messing it up"...

...so I'll take five and be back once my copy's here.

[ian2009]

Originally Posted by Kryptonic

You must know him quite well.

Originally Posted by Dickieduvet

Hey folks,

Just had a direct reply to my personal massage from Tom Savini on FB.

His reply:

" I heard about this but I havent' seen it yet...."

Did you offer a happy ending with that?

[Dickieduvet]

Thankfully he didn't want extras, Just like the Blu-ray

[Kryptonic]

Originally Posted by Dickieduvet

Thankfully he didn't want extras, Just like the Blu-ray

Snap!

[ian2009]

Originally Posted by Dickieduvet

Thankfully he didn't want extras, Just like the Blu-ray

Tease. Just left him with blue -- er, nevermind. A blue movie. Yeah, that's it!

[enigma]

Originally Posted by ian2009

Tease. Just left him with blue -- er, nevermind. A blue movie. Yeah, that's it!

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by ocielz

First pic is the actual movie and the second picture is from the Trailer on the special features.

Originally Posted by ocielz

The trailer is on the Disc with correct Color

If you're actually interested in how the trailer on the disc compares to the movie then there are already screen captures available in this post. These are accurate compared to any photos taken with a camera from a display.

Originally Posted by rdodolak

Since you asked, here are some comparisons between the film and trailer found on the disc. The film is on the left and the trailer on the right. Click on the images for the uncompressed images. The captures may not be the exact same frame, between the two, but are close enough. The framing between the film and trailer is also slightly different.

Note the sixth set of images of the emergency broadcast system message show a blue hue to the white lettering on the tube tv. However, the lettering in the fourth set of images with "directed by Tom Savini" is actually white although the picture is darkened. This would make the changes appear to be a purposeful decision rather than a blanket error.

[jedilips]

Just finished watching - the onset of the dark color is so gradual in onset that it has to be an intentional, stylistic choice. can't wait for someone to chime in and end this nonsense because the truth is that the transfer itself doesn't look bad at all - just different from what people are used to.

someone somewhere along the way made a style decision on the color timing. this is clearly not an error.

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by Kentai

My copy won't be here until tomorrow, so I've got a question for anyone willing to check: Are the opening credits covered in dirt and "sparkle", like the HDTV broadcast? I'm betting that someone at Sony spent quite a bit of time and money to make this film look better than ever, but at some point in the chain the colorist went wild and ruined whatever hard work might have otherwised surfaced.

I don't remember any dirt or sparkle in the opening credits. It appears to have been cleaned up compared to the other sources.

[donidarko]

That is really bad. Why would a colorist lay the dark blue tint over the ENTIRE movie? There are scenes in the house that shouldn't be that dark. The TV broadcast is even BLUE! I'm sorry. This has to be remastered. It really is unacceptable.

[Kryptonic]

Originally Posted by jedilips

Just finished watching - the onset of the dark color is so gradual in onset that it has to be an intentional, stylistic choice. can't wait for someone to chime in and end this nonsense because the truth is that the transfer itself doesn't look bad at all - just different from what people are used to.

someone somewhere along the way made a style decision on the color timing. this is clearly not an error.

Someone who apparently was not Tom Savini or was not a part of the production in any way.

There's a world of difference between a filmmaker altering the color timing of his film and supervising a transfer and a technician screwing with the way a film should look with no input from the filmmakers. This is why I'm fine with the new Aliens and Terminator remasters, but not this. If Savini had supervised this transfer it definitely wouldn't look so bad and I would at least know that it was the intention of the filmmaker.

[Stinky-Dinkins]

That new color grading is awful, completely awful. Ugh, I'm getting tired of this trend of giving every remastered film a trendy, modern color regrading (often just hosing it down with teal paint and calling it a day.)

I can't see Sony offering a replacement (through TT) for an obscure release with such a small run. If anyone should push hard for it TT should, because I had complete confidence in the quality of their Sony releases prior to this and absolutely no confidence in them now. If TT gets a reputation for releases with poor PQ they can kiss their business goodbye. When you're dealing exclusively in niche videophile and collector circles word of poor quality travels like wild fire, whatever cachet they had managed to cultivate through releases like Fright Night would evaporate given a few releases like this.

I won't be returning my two copies for a refund, too much hassle and I could always just flip them and recoup their cost... but if this trend continues I won't have to worry about doing that in the future (I'll have no copies of any of their releases to begin with.)

[donidarko]

Seems they actually went through the trouble of making a Blue tritone out of this movie. There is no white point in the entire footage that has been colorized. the whites are blue! come on here.

[hamchuck1]

Originally Posted by Stinky-Dinkins

That new color grading is awful, completely awful. Ugh, I'm getting tired of this trend of giving every remastered film a trendy, modern color regrading (often just hosing it down with teal paint and calling it a day.)

I can't see Sony offering a replacement (through TT) for an obscure release with such a small run. If anyone should push hard for it TT should, because I had complete confidence in the quality of their Sony releases prior to this and absolutely no confidence in them now. If TT gets a reputation for releases with poor PQ they can kiss their business goodbye. When you're dealing exclusively in niche videophile and collector circles word of poor quality travels like wild fire, whatever cachet they had managed to cultivate through releases like Fright Night would evaporate given a few releases like this.

I won't be returning my two copies for a refund, too much hassle and I could always just flip them and recoup their cost... but if this trend continues I won't have to worry about doing that in the future (I'll have no copies of any of their releases to begin with.)

exactly!

[xxBachelor1981xx]

Just think if HD-DVD would have won the format war then instead of blue tint we would have read tint on Night of the living dead and all the other transfers..

[coolkev1701]

Just got my copy in the mail today and popped it in the player. That opening daytime scene (supposed to be, anyway) was so dark, I had to check to make sure i still didn't have my sunglasses on. It looks crisp and clear, just dark with a blue hue to everything. Me not overly happy about this one...

[sperezmore]

Maybe the correct name will be,

Night of the "BLUE" living dead - The Limited 3000 Dark Vader Blue Edition Series (BlueDark-ray)


Regards,

[coolkev1701]

Originally Posted by sperezmore

Maybe the correct name will be,

Night of the "BLUE" living dead - Limited 3000 Dark Vader Blue Edition (BlueDark-ray)


Regards,

Nice! I like that.

[psicon]

Originally Posted by sperezmore

Maybe the correct name will be,

Night of the "BLUE" living dead - The Limited 3000 Dark Vader Blue Edition Series (BlueDark-ray)


Regards,

If it was Paramount I'd guess they wanted it as part of their Sapphire Series.