Predator (1987) (Ultimate Hunter Edition)

[PurpleJesus74]

Originally Posted by the blob

I liked the look of the original and if it's been scrubbed then it's a definite no go for the new one. I also still have the dvd for the extras so it's looking at quite a bargain for the $5 I paid for the BD at Target with the infamous $5 coupon before Christmas.

Yep,that will always be a bargain in my book.

[DetroitSportsFan]

More DNR talk....

But after putting the disc in and clicking on “Play” we are confronted with a soft and blurry version of the 80’s FOX logo. It is quite unlikely that this BD originates from a new HD master drawn from the original camera negatives. The credits were treated in a similar way: no grain and a bit of edge enhancement to make the letters stand out. In the smoky scene were Carl Weathers meet Arnold Schwarzenegger, Weathers looks like he has been filmed through a fog filter or a fine net stretched across the lens. Thus, his face has neither pores nor wrinkles and it looks like a waxwork from Madame Tussauds, like a lot of faces in “The Longest Day” or “Patton”. The degrain/denoise filter was not optimised for movement and creates hazy/soft edges. In the jungle scenes where the camera pans are much slower, the filter works better and the edges are cleaner and sharper. So (from a distance) the picture offers even a sense of 3-dimensional depth. However, the picture looks a bit “digital” and/or artificial, with sharp edges and low detail inbetween these edges. This effects is not like those of “The Untouchables” or “The Italian Job” - the picture quality of those BDs was still somehow bearable. The picture is sometimes a bit too dark, sometimes the black levels are a bit weak and look greyish. For the so called “film grain haters” this new version may be a welcome improvement - however, this picture quality has nothing to do with a filmlike reproduction of the source material.

http://www.hd-reporter.de/blu-ray-re...ition-blu-ray/

[danman227460]

Thanks. . Looks like I better pick up the original release before they end production and only have the new version for sale.

Originally Posted by DetroitSportsFan

More DNR talk....



http://www.hd-reporter.de/blu-ray-re...ition-blu-ray/

[HD Goofnut]

Even more reasons to hold onto the MPEG-2 version of Predator.

[ScuseMe]

Originally Posted by DetroitSportsFan

More DNR talk....



http://www.hd-reporter.de/blu-ray-re...ition-blu-ray/

Very sad news

I just canceled my Predator pre-order and purchased the original blu. I will not support the Ultimate Hunter Edition as a DNR restoration.

[DetroitSportsFan]

Originally Posted by danman227460

Looks like I better pick up the original release before they end production and only have the new version for sale.

That would be a smart move for anyone who wants the film, because that's what will happen.

[Lionel Horsepackage]

Originally Posted by mredman

yeah i actually think the original BD was good. it was the way it always should look like very gritty and dirty

If anyone were to ask director John McTiernan whether or not his film was "supposed" to have looked like a swarm of Mexican mosquitoes were obscuring many of his shots, I'm sure he'd probably disagree with you.

There's a huge difference between how a director wants their film to look at the time it was originally shot, and how it could look today, with the digital cleanup technology now available to us which allows a filmmaker to tone down whatever Iraqi-sandstorm dust spatterings that permeate a print -- and which they couldn't reduce back in, say, 1987 or thereabouts.

I'm certainly no film-grain hater or anything, but if McTiernan was unable to get his movie cleaned up better back 23 years ago, but could do so today, he should take advantage of it to the best extent available.

[HD Goofnut]

Originally Posted by Lionel Horsepackage

If anyone were to ask director John McTiernan whether or not his film was "supposed" to have looked like a swarm of Mexican mosquitoes were obscuring many of his shots, I'm sure he'd probably disagree with you.

There's a huge difference between how a director wants their film to look at the time it was originally shot, and how it could look today, with the digital cleanup technology now available to us which allows a filmmaker to tone down whatever Iraqi-sandstorm dust spatterings that permeate a print -- and which they couldn't reduce back in, say, 1987 or thereabouts.

I'm certainly no film-grain hater or anything, but if McTiernan was unable to get his movie cleaned up better back 23 years ago, but could do so today, he should take advantage of it to the best extent available.

The strange thing is McTiernan's film The Hunt for Red October looks fantastic on BD and was made just a couple years later.

[Gaius Marius]

Think I will be holding on to my copy. For moment, I thought my luck was just bad as I picked the movie up just before this was announced (I hesitated picking it up because I figured a 'special edition' would be announced after I picked it up).

[HD Goofnut]

Originally Posted by Gaius Marius

Think I will be holding on to my copy. For moment, I thought my luck was just bad as I picked the movie up just before this was announced (I hesitated picking it up because I figured a 'special edition' would be announced after I picked it up).

It was: Predator: Ultimate DNR Edition.

[ScuseMe]

Originally Posted by HD Goofnut

It was: Predator: Ultimate DNR Edition.

[HeavyHitter]

Honestly, I don't mind they DNR'd it. I was happy with the original version, although I would have been curious what a higher bit rate AVC encode would have looked like with no DNR. I suspect just a very minor improvement at best. Fox just saved me money really. It just allows me to buy a different BD instead.

[TheOneWithThePrize]

Too bad, well, I went ahead and ordered the current BD. The extras on the DVD edition will have to make do.

[ScuseMe]

Stupid me - I guess I was hoping for an upgrade in PQ/AQ similar to Twister UK vs. Twister USA; I always get my hopes up way too high

Oh well, I'm sure I'll love the "regular" Predator; I also loved the LD

[worth]

Originally Posted by Lionel Horsepackage

There's a huge difference between how a director wants their film to look at the time it was originally shot, and how it could look today, with the digital cleanup technology now available to us which allows a filmmaker to tone down whatever Iraqi-sandstorm dust spatterings that permeate a print -- and which they couldn't reduce back in, say, 1987 or thereabouts.

I'm certainly no film-grain hater or anything, but if McTiernan was unable to get his movie cleaned up better back 23 years ago, but could do so today, he should take advantage of it to the best extent available.

There's no technical reason why Predator couldn't have been made to look very clean and virtually grain-free in 1987. It could have been shot using slower film stock or a larger film format, but that might well have necessitated a larger budget and a longer shooting schedule due to more complicated lighting set ups.

McTiernan and cinematographer Donald McAlpine were well aware of what the film would look like when they were making it - it was either a deliberate aesthetic choice, or a compromise resulting from the combination of budget, schedule and available technology.

But those are limitations faced by every single filmmaker on every single movie. All movies are a product of their time.

[KubrickFan]

Originally Posted by Lionel Horsepackage

If anyone were to ask director John McTiernan whether or not his film was "supposed" to have looked like a swarm of Mexican mosquitoes were obscuring many of his shots, I'm sure he'd probably disagree with you.

There's a huge difference between how a director wants their film to look at the time it was originally shot, and how it could look today, with the digital cleanup technology now available to us which allows a filmmaker to tone down whatever Iraqi-sandstorm dust spatterings that permeate a print -- and which they couldn't reduce back in, say, 1987 or thereabouts.

I'm certainly no film-grain hater or anything, but if McTiernan was unable to get his movie cleaned up better back 23 years ago, but could do so today, he should take advantage of it to the best extent available.

The movie is what it is, why change that? McTiernan originally wanted to shoot it anamorphically, so should that give him the right to crop it to 2.35:1? Or to make other changes he might want to make? The movie is grainy because it was shot that way, and there's absolutely no reason to alter it after the fact.

[42041]

Originally Posted by Lionel Horsepackage

If anyone were to ask director John McTiernan whether or not his film was "supposed" to have looked like a swarm of Mexican mosquitoes were obscuring many of his shots, I'm sure he'd probably disagree with you.

There's a huge difference between how a director wants their film to look at the time it was originally shot, and how it could look today, with the digital cleanup technology now available to us which allows a filmmaker to tone down whatever Iraqi-sandstorm dust spatterings that permeate a print -- and which they couldn't reduce back in, say, 1987 or thereabouts.

I'm certainly no film-grain hater or anything, but if McTiernan was unable to get his movie cleaned up better back 23 years ago, but could do so today, he should take advantage of it to the best extent available.

What's the point? You're not going to make it look like a cleanly shot film. You'll just be replacing grain with grain removal artifacts. The end result is annoying either way.

[Lionel Horsepackage]

Originally Posted by KubrickFan

The movie is what it is, why change that? McTiernan originally wanted to shoot it anamorphically, so should that give him the right to crop it to 2.35:1? Or to make other changes he might want to make? The movie is grainy because it was shot that way, and there's absolutely no reason to alter it after the fact.

I wasn't talking about altering the aspect ratio, or changing it in any other fashion -- those things are 100% controllable by the director right there on the set.

What I was talking about was grain-reduction that McTiernan probably would've undertaken back in 1987, had he the means and opportunity.

Originally Posted by worth

There's no technical reason why Predator couldn't have been made to look very clean and virtually grain-free in 1987. It could have been shot using slower film stock or a larger film format, but that might well have necessitated a larger budget and a longer shooting schedule due to more complicated lighting set ups.

McTiernan and cinematographer Donald McAlpine were well aware of what the film would look like when they were making it - it was either a deliberate aesthetic choice, or a compromise resulting from the combination of budget, schedule and available technology.

This could be true, although given how smooth and good most of his other movies look on BD, you'd have to think that he'd be the first person to agree that the grain levels in this particular film are probably way off the charts, relatively-speaking.

We as Blu-Ray owners need to understand is that film grain is/was an unfortunate, aesthetically-undesirable monkey on the backs of filmmakers in past decades. It's NOT some beautiful and essential element in age-old film composition. Grainstorms were/are acne on the face of classic cinema, and if there had been some first-rate acne medication back in the day, we wouldn't be talking about it right now. Grain has been sentimentalized out of all proportion by the monks.

Criterion, for example, is one of the monk institutions that worships grain as something that bestows "authenticity" upon classic film restorations. Which it does, in a way. Except it doesn't add anything to the artistic intentions of the filmmakers. Nothing except a kind of smothering, sandstorm-effect to the final product, I mean.

[markbr]

Just look at the older Bond movies, they look like new films. So how come Fox can't improve the Predator blu ray.

[42041]

Originally Posted by markbr

Just look at the older Bond movies, they look like new films. So how come Fox can't improve the Predator blu ray.

It seems Fox would rather spend that money remastering Showgirls