Superman: The Movie 4K UHD (1978)

[Dragon Ranger]

Originally Posted by nick4Knight

It's cool. We (at least me) feel sorry that you have to revert to a childlike state to see all these things in the glowing light you once did.

I can step into my 10 year old shoes to REMEMBER (as pure memory) Indiana Jones again since the first time I saw on VHS. But never have I slipped back into that mindset to watch it now as I also love it as an adult in an entirely different and equally profound way. The movie transcends time and this mental game you are having to pull off.

Superman: The Movie is hard to see in the same light in an adult 2020 lens

[Show spoiler], as a 30 something year old I have been when last watching. It really is a kids adventure movie. Even the love scene is like a teenage girls diary with a lowkey overture an adult might read into. Very veiled though.

The movie was groundbreaking. Had cinema magic (at the time)... No doubts. But iconic is a stretch, to me. That implies it holds up today and always. It's just going to get more quaint and irrelevant in culture. I have a deep fondness for it that lives in the past.

I appreciate Superman in a different way to when I was a kid and slightly outdated effects are never going to be a barrier to strong storytelling and rich characterisation which the movie has tonnes of.

[Batfreakforever1939]

Originally Posted by hoejunter

Love both but Spider-Man 2001 is my favourite.

Thats a great movie too.
I didn't mean anything mean by it. We are on a forum about pointing out the smallest details in the audio and visual of movies and someone just got something as big as the year wrong and I corrected him. Honest mistake thats all.

[TXMoviebuff77]

Originally Posted by Dragon Ranger

I enjoy II but when it comes to the theatrical cut the comedy is overplayed; using Lara instead of Jor El just smacks of cheapness and ruins the whole father/son dynamic running through the first movie which should have continued into the second and the action scenes lack the impact seen in the Donner cut. I love that the Donner cut exists but it will forever be a piece of frustration that we never got to see it fully realised.

And Junior? I'll be 40 in a couple of months but thanks for the passive/aggressive compliment/put down.

My bad I put that before I read your great post, that’s why I edited my post.

[Dragon Ranger]

Originally Posted by TXMoviebuff77

My bad I put that before I read your great post, that’s why I edited my post.

No worries my friend; all good.

[MOS3]

I don’t know if this has been discussed before but are the kryptonian suits supposed to look like that in the 4k version? They no longer have that brightness like in the bluray. They look very dull. I love how the rest of the movie looks like, but the krypton scene looks odd. Again, is it some issue on my disc/player/tv or did they adjust the brightness on that scene?

PS: the faces also look odd. On the bluray they look... normal I guess. Warmer for sure. On the 4k they almost look grey (krypton scene)

[bytor]

I picked this up and remember reading a while back that it's better to view in HDR10 than Dolby Vision. Is that still the consensus with this disc?

[mar3o]

Originally Posted by guachi

The only effects sequence I think looks poor is one I've always thought looked poor and that's the dam breaking and the water rushing everywhere. Water flowing in miniature never looks good, imo.

Water in miniature shots is notoriously difficult to pull off convincingly. I've always been a huge fan of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's shows, including their supermarionation shows. I was always impressed with their miniature shots, which were heavily relied upon even for later live-action shows like UFO and Space:1999, and their explosions always looked huge and spectacular. But any time there were water shots, especially of ships crashing into the ocean, the water always ruined the illusion of scale. Something about the way the water moves that gives away that it's all miniature - water doesn't scale well for miniature shots.

[mar3o]

Originally Posted by MOS3

I don’t know if this has been discussed before but are the kryptonian suits supposed to look like that in the 4k version? They no longer have that brightness like in the bluray. They look very dull. I love how the rest of the movie looks like, but the krypton scene looks odd. Again, is it some issue on my disc/player/tv or did they adjust the brightness on that scene?

PS: the faces also look odd. On the bluray they look... normal I guess. Warmer for sure. On the 4k they almost look grey (krypton scene)

It's definitely been discussed before.

They do look surprisingly dull imo considering I thought the HDR would add some additional punch to those suits if anything. It's really the thing that disappointed me the most with this disc. It still beats the old blu-ray though, other than that scene. I really don't believe that was the original/intended way for it to look. I don't know what went wrong there, but what would the point be of wearing special reflective costumes if they were meant to just look dark and dull?

[Agent Kay]

Originally Posted by mar3o

It's definitely been discussed before.

They do look surprisingly dull imo considering I thought the HDR would add some additional punch to those suits if anything. It's really the thing that disappointed me the most with this disc. It still beats the old blu-ray though, other than that scene. I really don't believe that was the original/intended way for it to look. I don't know what went wrong there, but what would the point be of wearing special reflective costumes if they were meant to just look dark and dull?

They filmed it how they filmed it, they didn't film it for a Goldstar 8k TV

[MOS3]

Originally Posted by mar3o

It's definitely been discussed before.

They do look surprisingly dull imo considering I thought the HDR would add some additional punch to those suits if anything. It's really the thing that disappointed me the most with this disc. It still beats the old blu-ray though, other than that scene. I really don't believe that was the original/intended way for it to look. I don't know what went wrong there, but what would the point be of wearing special reflective costumes if they were meant to just look dark and dull?

Yeah it really is odd. But what really bothers me even more so than the glowing suits is the faces. The whole krypton sequence almost looks like a black and white movie. Faces look really dark almost grey. I didn’t remember that. I was watching the extended edition on bluray and during the krypton scene I remember the glowing suits issue, so I put the 4k disc on I had completely forgotten about the skin tones. They look absolutely terrible. So my first thought was there must be an issue on my player or tv. I don’t have Dolbi Vision so I don’t know if that has something to do with it but the rest of the movie looks fine. Such a shame. I really love the krypton sequence. Is there any official comment by wb on why it looks like that on the 4k disc?

[Geoff D]

I totally agree MOS3, the Kryptonian stuff looks plain weird. I'll concede that the Dobly playback on my TV is making it a fraction dimmer than it should be but even in properly calibrated HDR10 the suits aren't exactly blinding - barely higher than SDR levels of peak brightness when I measured some of them with a colourimeter - and worse than that is the colour, yes.

I could deal with the dimmer-looking suits (even though they've never looked like on any other version I've ever seen) but the faces in the council scene are so drained of colour it's kinda silly. Things improve a little when we get Lara and Jor on their own with baby Kal and I haven't got a problem with the grading anywhere else in the film (technical niggles aside) but I'd also love to hear a rationale as to why they did that to the council scene.

[Geoff D]

In a way, I wonder if the dull suits and pasty faces link to what we know about colour volume e.g. https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...2#post17535872, that because they dimmed them down so much it robbed the scene of its colour too.

[The Fallen Deity]

Yeah the Krypton scenes look really dark and muted for some reason.

The transfer improves considerably afterwards though.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by mar3o

Something about the way the water moves that gives away that it's all miniature - water doesn't scale well for miniature shots.

Because when you splash something, the water droplets are always a certain size.

For Temple of Doom and later features ILM came up with an additive that "broke up" water into tinier droplets.

For some films (notably The Phantom Menace) they used salt being poured out to simulate waterfalls.

[Bolty]

I prefer the extended edition but I really wanted it on UHD 4K but the reports about The Krypton opening turn me against buying the UHD 4K disc.
The Krypton opening is one of my favorite scenes in the movie and I can't believe it's been apparently botched. I know it only lasts 10 or 12 minutes but still. I doubt if they'll ever go back and release the extended version and even if they did would they bother to it fix the opening unless they admit that there's something wrong with it in the first place.

[david_blu]

This transfer is seriously flawed, its not just the Krypton scenes, look at the helicopter rescue and the part where Clark walks out of the DP it looks just grey. Compare that to the blu ray and you will be stunned how much better the blu ray looks. The DC blu ray is the best the film has looked in my view.

If anyone feels inclined find my earlier posts in this thread where I have listed all the things wrong with it.

Im 50/50 about any of the other Superman films on 4k if they are as bad as this, I would rather WAC do Superman 2 the TV Cut like they did the first film.

[spider-neil]

I loved turning back time when I was a kid (technically he's flying back in time rather than reversing the direction Earth spins). As an adult reversing time is a horrible Deux Ex Machina as this wasn't set up early. Worse, there is no consequences of those actions (the aliens were freed by the explosion not the reversal of time. And worse still, there are no stakes for future movies as he can simply reverse time if he isn't pleased with the outcome of any conflict.

[HeavyHitter]

I don't recall being too bothered by the Krypton scene although the suits were toned down, but the BD was over-boosted. I do remember a few moments were facial tones looked a little different. I don't know if this was really a knockout release per se, but definitely an improvement over the BD with its clipping and teal push. I'm going to have to re-visit it soon.

[1924]

Is the included Blu ray the /006 or 2022 one?

Also I think this looks great on UHd. It was like watching it again for the first time

[ltb2.0]

Originally Posted by 1924

Is the included Blu ray the /006 or 2022 one?

Also I think this looks great on UHd. It was like watching it again for the first time

I can rule out the 2022 Blu-Ray.