The Matrix 4K UHD (1999)

[ROSS.T.G.]

Oh boy...

[VonMagnum]

Originally Posted by ROSS.T.G.

Oh boy...

The truth hurts, I know.

[ROSS.T.G.]

[Bourne1886]

Keep it green!

[nick4Knight]

I'm not basing my stern defense of the "green" aesthetic over the claimed theatrical colours upon seeing ANY images in this thread. I maintain that I believe there is a cyan push in the UHD, though. I'm basing it on;

a) Self evidence screens which show a cyan push in it
b) Wachowski's wanted a green uniformity across the 3 films, as hardcoded into the cinematography in the second onward. (and parts of the first as it turned out)
c) Bill Pope's memory seems to be as shoddy and utterly human as the rest of us, despite being the original artist who you would defer to if not listening to that historically relevant article.

[OutOfBoose]

VonMagnum, I sympathize to your cause, because I'm also rather mixed on the new color grading, which frequently goes against what the filmmakers said and filmed back in the day.

For the most part they took all gray neutrals and with selective color tool or something like that and just infused them with cyan of various intensity. In both the real world and the Matrix world. But they admitted themselves they wanted to make it better than theatrical presentation (thus changed it), so there's no point in trying to prove anything. Either you like it or not.

By the way, the columns are dark gray-green on the new master (they look right for the most part), except for cyan shots. And using green-tinted old BD as a reference for anything is a bad idea. Unless tint is removed.

[KazzPetrelli]

Originally Posted by ROSS.T.G.

LMAO! Damn it Ross! That's hilarious!

[Pgcmoore]

there is no green

[Roonan]

Originally Posted by OutOfBoose

And using green-tinted old BD as a reference for anything is a bad idea.

I'd say it's even more of a bad idea to use the new BD (not the 4K) as a reference.

[VonMagnum]

Originally Posted by OutOfBoose

VonMagnum, I sympathize to your cause, because I'm also rather mixed on the new color grading, which frequently goes against what the filmmakers said and filmed back in the day.

For the most part they took all gray neutrals and with selective color tool or something like that and just infused them with cyan of various intensity. In both the real world and the Matrix world. But they admitted themselves they wanted to make it better than theatrical presentation (thus changed it), so there's no point in trying to prove anything. Either you like it or not.

The cyan push makes no sense regardless. Cyan is blue + green. That indicates instead of removing green from the film, they added blue to it. I don't believe the film ever had cyan like that in 1999, regardless of the actual green levels. What we do know is that green was the intent for the Matrix scenes and blue for the real world. Having cyan in the Matrix defeats the color scheme. We'd be better off with just the normal colors filmed than an inconsistent or altered scheme, IMO.

By the way, the columns are dark gray-green on the new master (they look right for the most part), except for cyan shots. And using green-tinted old BD as a reference for anything is a bad idea. Unless tint is removed.

There's a very big difference between "gray" and "green". The floor has obvious green in some shots on the remaster, but most of the green has been removed from the columns. This is not added green. The columns were actually dark green according to Pope.

Over zealous and inconsistent recoloring. That's my biggest issue with the remaster. The BD may have been too green, but at least it was consistent. The Matrix was supposed to look slightly unappealing and "off". It now looks better than the real world in the film. I simply get the feeling the actual grunts doing the real work on the color regrading weren't all onboard wth the original concept and thus some scenes are more consistent than others.

What I see here from the locals (other than a lot of childish insults) is, this looks great! No horrible green tint in most scenes now! Except it was supposed to look unappealing and hence Neo's feeling something wasn't right with the world, an artificialness you can't quite put your finger on. I agree it was a bit too much on the BD. It was probably originally a lot more subtle, but not so subtle that people actually thought there was something wrong with the film exposure when it first came out. Now it looks good, a little too good in some scenes, IMO (save where the cyan is really way too high).

I don't know why this is so controversial that it generates so much hate here other than people want to believe the movie is now perfect and telling them something is still off pops their bubble of the perfect illusion.

[OutOfBoose]

@VonMagnum

The original color grading didn't have consistent green or blue either. Every scene had it's own look. Like it was stated before in this thread, color ideas evolved during the filming. At first they tried to separate two worlds via production design (eliminating blue from the matrix scenes as much as possible and making the real world scenes dark and blue-ish) and onset lighting. But they also tinkered with color in post.

It's inconsistency within some scenes that distracts me. I can even swallow cyan that wasn't there to begins with.

[OutOfBoose]

Originally Posted by Roonan

I'd say it's even more of a bad idea to use the new BD (not the 4K) as a reference.

Strictly speaking, we don't have much reference of the theatrical presentation. Aside from a few photos, it's mostly guess work, horrible quality camrips and fan "preservations", scattered memory, comparing releases to figure out the artistic intent and analyzing of what the filmmakers said in the past. As home releases we have the brown Matrix, the green Matrix and the cyan Matrix.

[VonMagnum]

I was referring to changes within scene shots. You couldn't originally see green in every Matrix shot, but it didn't change from green to blue to normal as the camera shot changed in the same scene. It was at least relatively consistent per scene location. The lobby/elevator attack scene is particularly disturbing as the amount of blue/cyan seems to change every time they change the camera view. It's not self consistent which is why I imagine teams of people breaking it up in the regrade. I can't imagine one person being so inconsistent from shot to shot. Someone really liked blue/cyan. I wonder if they're partially color blind that they can't apparently tell cyan from green.

[Agent Kay]

Originally Posted by VonMagnum

I was referring to changes within scene shots. You couldn't originally see green in every Matrix shot, but it didn't change from green to blue to normal as the camera shot changed in the same scene. It was at least relatively consistent per scene location. The lobby/elevator attack scene is particularly disturbing as the amount of blue/cyan seems to change every time they change the camera view. It's not self consistent which is why I imagine teams of people breaking it up in the regrade. I can't imagine one person being so inconsistent from shot to shot. Someone really liked blue/cyan. I wonder if they're partially color blind that they can't apparently tell cyan from green.

Shot to shot could be different colour and grain levels in the same location.
Especially multicamera setups.

[VonMagnum]

Grain, yes (exposure affects grain and they used a lit of varying light levels for faster exposures, etc.), but color is less likely. Saturation, perhaps, but green doesn't become blue and grey doesn't become cyan without some digital manipulation, IMO. I do a lot of still photography with film and I've never had something grey turn green or something green turn blue. The saturation, grain and contrast vary with light and exposure, but if dark green is turning into medium tinted blue, something very fishy is going on. On the contrary, it's quite easy to change green to blue in something like Photoshop.

My point is if the columns really are dark green, they could become grey with low saturation, but they won't turn blue as some of the remastered shots show a blueish tint over everything not skin colored (might be there too, but less noticeable since there's little to no blue in skin tones to enhance).

[HD Goofnut]

All I know is that I saw this several times theatrically and the UHD is fairly close to what I saw in terms of colors.

[puddy77]

Originally Posted by VonMagnum

Interesting interview. I couldn't help but notice this tidbit, though referring to the assault on the building with the columns that get blown apart to rescue Morpheus:



It then shows a picture from that scene and the columns are, oddly enough, dark green.

Note that this interview and the photos are from the original interview in 1999, not after the Blu-Ray was released with the supposed tons of green added.

Links to pictures in question:

https://cms-assets.theasc.com/Matrix...20180913033056
https://cms-assets.theasc.com/Matrix...20180913033100
https://cms-assets.theasc.com/Matrix...20180913033058

[Show spoiler]Yet when I look at the remastered Blu-Ray and UHD Blu-Ray (and even the "corrected" fan film version), the columns are not the slightest bit "green" at all. They look like bluish tinted marble (remastered BD/UHD) or grey/orange-tinted marble (fan-film).

I'm starting to think the "green" Matrix movie might have had it more correct than even the fan-film/DVD, after all, at least for some of the scenes.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle with some shots, but it's pretty clear there's a "blue" tint (that makes
white and/or green into cyan in some scenes) that was most likely NOT there in the original 35mm film. I've said this all along, but this article pretty much proves it, right out of Mr. Pope's mouth in the interview. I guess he didn't oversee the remaster too well....

(Shootout1.jpg = Same shot as 2nd link above but from the Remastered BD/UHD)
(Shootout3.jpg = Same Shot as 2nd link above but from the Fan-Film color correction based on the DVD)
(Shootout4.jpg = Same Shot as 2nd link above but from the "Green" Blu-Ray)

As you can see, the "Green Blu-Ray" matches the article picture almost exactly. The other two aren't even close.

For you, I went back to the print. Those photos are not in the original article. I've attached two crappy cell phone pics of the only two images that show the lobby scene, one being the cover. Neither show any green.

[Roonan]

Those are publicity stills... They don't necessarily reflect true colors nor artistic intent.

[mikematt101]

Apologies if this has already been answered in this huge thread, but does the UK release include the remastered BD, and what is the verdict on it?

[brian9229]

As stated in the release, the Wachowskis left the new transfer to Mr. Pope, who oversaw the hdr grading. He also signed off on it, obviously. He, with the exception of the Wachowskis, knows how this film should look. This release represents how Mr. Pope wants the film to look. This is quite simply, good enough for me.