Predator (1987) (Ultimate Hunter Edition)

[retablo]

Originally Posted by mrrant_33

If this version of the movie isn't the "way it's supposed to look" why did Mctiernan ok the transfer? And if he didn't ok it, why not get the word out to fans that the studio screwed him, he doesn't endorse the product, and urge people to not buy it.

He didn't endorse the transfer. He didn't endorse either transfer. He's probably too busy with his 4 year FBI investigation to care.

Studios don't have to involve the director unless its in their contract, but they all should to ensure junk like this doesn't happen.

Then again, they let Friedken screw up French Connection....

[Nikka488]

IMO it really boils down to the viewer's preferences. I own the 2008 version and thought it was ok. I ended up picking up the Ultimate Hunter Edition today and will watch it tonight. I bought it for two reasons:

1. It was $14.99 with $10 in movie cash to see Predators (which I want to see) which make the new blu around $4.99 plus tax for me, since I will see Predators anyway.
2. All of this debating makes me curious to see what side of the fence I'll fall on.

I understand and do want the Blu-Rays that I buy as close to what the director intended. That being said there are movies that I own and that I enjoy that are NOT what the director intended. For example:

1. Avatar - was MEANT to be seen in 3D, which I cannot do at home.
2. Any special extended edition. EVEN Aliens if you watch the extended edition is NOT what Cameron cut for the theatrical release. Now he may have wanted to fix it at a future date, but it's NOT what I saw in the theater.
3. Blade Runner - I have 4 different versions in my set
4. Anything censored - this generally applies to DVD and not many of my blus (ex: Cannibal Holocaust, etc....
5. Star Wars - special editions.......vs. theatrical versions need I say more....
6. Kill Bill - the ending of the first movie where the bride fights lucy lu (SP?) is suppose to be in color, but in the US release it flashes between color and black and white.
7. Lots of horror films from the late 70s and early 80s edited for gore.
8. Apocalypse Now - the original widescreen version is OOP. The REDUX is not what was intended and the way the DVD versions are cropped are not what was intended.........

etc....

You can even say that Clash of the Titan 2010 or Alice in Wonderland weren't shown (for the most part) theatrically the way they were intended because they were converted to 3D in post production.

Like I said just my opinion. I see validity in all of your opinions. Some I agree with more. Regardless of what side of the fence I fall on (like it or not) I do hope that the people & technicians who encode and work on future blu-ray releases have the film maker and cinematographers intent at the forefront of their minds.

[tvine2000]

Originally Posted by Bomberman

While every one is right, Honestly grain that detracts from the overall film is annoying. I watch a movie to watch it, not to watch a sandstorm.

LITTLE over the top with that statement....a ''sandstorm?'' do you have any idea what a film should like.the point is film should look like film,not f@$KIN video game

[retablo]

Originally Posted by Nikka488

IMO it really boils down to the viewer's preferences.

Again, no... It's simply not your choice HOW a movie is made, unless you're the one making it. You don't get to change actors you don't like, or change the script, but somehow people think they should have a choice as to how the film looks? 20+ years after the fact, for that matter? Why do you even think that should be an option? What entitles you to say how someone else's art is presented?

Besides, by that logic, then EVERY movie should have several altered viewing choices, and that's just absurd.

[Mitsuomi]

You can get it at Best Buy right now for $15.00 - it's listed for over $20 at other places. Thought I'd try to help you guys save some money.

[Post Prod]

There's a healthy amount of drama queening going on both sides.



I am equally embarrassed for the posters I agree with as I am the ones I disagree with.

If you are seeing a sandstorm when watching Predator, or any movie not involving an actual sandstorm, it is most likely either your display having it's contrast too high and it's detail/edge enhancement options turned on/cranked, or you are most likely hallucinating.

I'm being serious. People who are being annoyed by grain need to ask your selves. Does grain bother me like this when I'm, at the movie theater? No? Well why is it bothering me at home? Well, it's either the display or the brain. Or both.

[tvine2000]

Originally Posted by Cliff

So you agree that the new one is as bad as you considered the old one? Why are you spending all this time defending the new release then? From this very statement, you consider both discs a wash. So, at the very least, you should be MORE outraged about the Ultimate Hunter because Fox has blundered a second time and created a disc "just as bad as the old one."

Lets be clear about this ,fox didn't blunder this a second time,they did this on purpose ,because of the grain haters.i hope this is not the future of blu-ray ,if it is blu-ray won't last as long as dvd.

[tvine2000]

Originally Posted by Mike1981

He likes it. And to him there is more detail. Why does he have to be "wrong?"

Duh because of what goofnut said is true ,thats why

[ScuseMe]

Originally Posted by tvine2000

Lets be clear about this ,fox didn't blunder this a second time,they did this on purpose ,because of the grain haters.i hope this is not the future of blu-ray ,if it is blu-ray won't last as long as dvd.

Amen.

[Fallon Angel]

I just finished my second viewing of "Ultimate", and while I can appreciate the view that more original source material would have been nice, I found the presentation entirely watchable. Twice. Hell, it's such a rollar-coaster movie to start with, that there's no time to tour the film. It's just giddyup from start to finish. Great action. Great sci-fi. Now, for me, I judge on a scene by scene basis. I agree with the review that the opening briefing scene was pretty bad. But it seemed like one of the poorer shot segments, (that long shot of Weathers sitting at the table in the other room was awful, but then the lighting improved in the reverse shot of Arnold and the General during the map briefing). The CU of Carl was waxy, but "melting"? I think that was a bit of an exaggeration. It just wasn't crisp as BD CU can be. On the other hand, the reviewer was right-on about some scenes being excellent, particularly many wide shots in the jungle. In all fairness, I have never seen the first Predator BD, so I need to reserve final judgement on those who think this one is so bad. I will get my hands on it for a comparison, but for now, I think the problems with this one are tolerable, when noticed through all the great action, so it's a keeper for me. I score the video as 3/5.

[Chiyo_chichi]

Not sure if this was posted, but it completely captures my feelings.

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/#mytwocents

Honestly, whats the point? If you're going to scrub away this much detail, is it even that much an improvement from an upscaled dvd?

[PurpleJesus74]

Originally Posted by Fallon Angel

I just finished my second viewing of "Ultimate", and while I can appreciate the view that more original source material would have been nice, I found the presentation entirely watchable. Twice. Hell, it's such a rollar-coaster movie to start with, that there's no time to tour the film. It's just giddyup from start to finish. Great action. Great sci-fi. Now, for me, I judge on a scene by scene basis. I agree with the review that the opening briefing scene was pretty bad. But it seemed like one of the poorer shot segments, (that long shot of Weathers sitting at the table in the other room was awful, but then the lighting improved in the reverse shot of Arnold and the General during the map briefing). The CU of Carl was waxy, but "melting"? I think that was a bit of an exaggeration. It just wasn't crisp as BD CU can be. On the other hand, the reviewer was right-on about some scenes being excellent, particularly many wide shots in the jungle. In all fairness, I have never seen the first Predator BD, so I need to reserve final judgement on those who think this one is so bad. I will get my hands on it for a comparison, but for now, I think the problems with this one are tolerable, when noticed through all the great action, so it's a keeper for me. I score the video as 3/5.

Hey,i agree with you,i think its just getting way overreacted about.I know it may not look the way it was intended to,but so be it.I had a reward zone coupon to use also,with the free movie ticket code,i'm fine with it.I have the original blu ray,it did have alot of grain as intended,but the new version completely removed it.Would've like to seen a happy median there.

[Inspector Toschi]

People are honestly still defending this new release, even after they've watched the debacle? It would be fascinating to see what the settings are like on some of these defenders TVs. I fear for any future Predator release.

This is like when Anchor Bay first released Evil Dead 2 in 2000. It was an absolutely beautiful picture and still to this day could be a reference for low budget horror on DVD. But then in 2005 they released the Book Of The Dead edition and completely boosted the color and DNR'd the crap out of the thing. Ash's 5 O'clock shadow was completely gone! Why am I bringing this up? Because every release since 2005 has used the DNR'rd version, including the Blu-ray, and it looks awful. A 10 year old DVD should not show more detail then a Blu-ray.

I fear this new "remastered" print of Predator will be the only one used for a long time. And in many years people will still be saying "How can a poorly encoded Blu-ray from 2008 be better then my new super-duper-special-pixar edition from 2015?"

[Spanbauer]

So, I've watched the new Predator blu-ray release twice now. This much I know for sure: Predator is a terribly inconsistent, often-times poorly assembled film. Cinematography ranges from beautiful to awful, lighting is sometimes non-existent, audio dubs and fading of down mics is painfully obvious, and perhaps more than any of that — Predator must hold some kind of record for the number of out of focus shots and zoomed in shots in a single film. All of that combined, even at its best I don't believe Predator could deserve more than a 3/5 for picture quality, just due to the sheer number of problematic shots.

First the good news. This new encode has eliminated all of the problems the original had; there's absolutely no debris or dirt on the film. No pixelation (explosions are incredibly crisp). No red or blue hue cast over shots. Colors and contrast are vibrant and natural, as if the film was shot just in the past year or so. Where the film allowed, shadow detail is super clean instead of dark and muddy. The invisible predator special effects look fresh and modern because of how clean the film is. Perhaps the most dramatic change is that the constant bobbing of the film as it were running through a projector — as it appeared on the last DVD release — is completely absent in this release; the image is absolutely rock solid, with no shake whatsoever. For some reason that has had a huge impact for me, as I've seen this film so many times I'm so accustomed to the 20th Century Fox logo and the opening titles bobbing up and down as the film opens. Have to say, I'm a fan of the stable image.

When the cinematography is good, the film looks better than it ever has. That is to say, when the light is good and the camera is actually in focus, it looks incredible; better than I ever imagined it could. If the whole film was well lit and in focus, I'd argue this would be one of the best remasters ever, grain be damned. However, the fact that the film contains so many problematic shots leads me to what's bad about this transfer.

When the focus is soft or the light is poor (or both), the extremely overzealous digital noise reduction leaves the picture looking flat-out bizarre. I won't use the constant "wax figure" comparison; it looks like a moving oil painting. And unfortunately as I mentioned, there are a lot of out of focus shots in this film. A little grain goes a long way in letting your eye know its seeing an out of focus shot, and not a living oil painting, because the grain obviously doesn't go soft when the shot does; it also makes the soft focus far more apparent for the very same reason. So by cleaning up the crappy shots in the film, they've actually made their badness more obvious.

The ideal release would have everything this release does, but with half of the grain put back in. I still believe some digital noise reduction was necessary, because the last DVD release was absolutely filthy, but they certainly went way, way overboard with the DNR. Now, if the entire film was on par with the well-shot cinematography, the DNR would be far less an issue (hence why everyone constantly refers to those two poor shots of Arnold and Carl from the first scene). But because they've just made the bad shots a whole different kind of bad, they should have leaned toward maintaining the original presentation since they didn't actually make those shots any better by DNR'ing them.

All that said, I do believe this to be the superior of the two releases; my justification being simply that the digital remaster works on more shots than it doesn't, and when it works the film looks better than it ever has. If they'd dialed down the digital noise reduction by half, I think this would have been one of the best remasters of all time. Since this is probably the last release of Predator we'll see on blu-ray, I think it's a shame some people have dedicated themselves to a version that's bad all of the time, instead of the version that's bad (in a different way) 25% of the time. But the greater shame is that Fox dialed the DNR to 200% on this release, turning so many people off a transfer that would have otherwise been universally loved (IMO).

[Fallon Angel]

Originally Posted by Chiyo_chichi

Not sure if this was posted, but it completely captures my feelings.

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/#mytwocents

Honestly, whats the point? If you're going to scrub away this much detail, is it even that much an improvement from an upscaled dvd?

Well, I read the Digibits column, and the author is certainly not happy with this transfer. No sir. I get the feeling that he is fighting for the "purity" of film, the very film-stock itself, it seems. That seems more like a film-historian, preservationist kind of deal. But again, this isn't, in my opnion, a disaster. Predator, Ultimate is just not a top-notch transfer, but it tells it's story and the story is entertaining right through. On my Panny S1 65, (set to Vivid for more contrast), it looks damned good, love the colors. The DTS-HD kicks hard, and the soundfield is fairly generous. Is it right they did this? Well, perhaps not, but I don't think these guys purposefully set out to screw-up a multi-million dollar project. It seems to me this transfer business is a rather in-exact science, with many hits and misses. I beilieve these guys did what they thought would be appreciated, and not "let's see how many fans we can piss off". It's dissapointing to not have more, but what we have is a 20 or 20 million dollar project playing at home for $15 (Walmart and Best Buy this week). You really can't lose here.

[Fallon Angel]

Originally Posted by Spanbauer

So, I've watched the new Predator blu-ray release twice now. This much I know for sure: Predator is a terribly inconsistent, often-times poorly assembled film. Cinematography ranges from beautiful to awful, lighting is sometimes non-existent, audio dubs and fading of down mics is painfully obvious, and perhaps more than any of that — Predator must hold some kind of record for the number of out of focus shots and zoomed in shots in a single film. All of that combined, even at its best I don't believe Predator could deserve more than a 3/5 for picture quality, just due to the sheer number of problematic shots.

First the good news. This new encode has eliminated all of the problems the original had; there's absolutely no debris or dirt on the film. No pixelation (explosions are incredibly crisp). No red or blue hue cast over shots. Colors and contrast are vibrant and natural, as if the film was shot just in the past year or so. Where the film allowed, shadow detail is super clean instead of dark and muddy. The invisible predator special effects look fresh and modern because of how clean the film is. Perhaps the most dramatic change is that the constant bobbing of the film as it were running through a projector — as it appeared on the last DVD release — is completely absent in this release; the image is absolutely rock solid, with no shake whatsoever. For some reason that has had a huge impact for me, as I've seen this film so many times I'm so accustomed to the 20th Century Fox logo and the opening titles bobbing up and down as the film opens. Have to say, I'm a fan of the stable image.

When the cinematography is good, the film looks better than it ever has. That is to say, when the light is good and the camera is actually in focus, it looks incredible; better than I ever imagined it could. If the whole film was well lit and in focus, I'd argue this would be one of the best remasters ever, grain be damned. However, the fact that the film contains so many problematic shots leads me to what's bad about this transfer.

When the focus is soft or the light is poor (or both), the extremely overzealous digital noise reduction leaves the picture looking flat-out bizarre. I won't use the constant "wax figure" comparison; it looks like a moving oil painting. And unfortunately as I mentioned, there are a lot of out of focus shots in this film. A little grain goes a long way in letting your eye know its seeing an out of focus shot, and not a living oil painting, because the grain obviously doesn't go soft when the shot does; it also makes the soft focus far more apparent for the very same reason. So by cleaning up the crappy shots in the film, they've actually made their badness more obvious.

The ideal release would have everything this release does, but with half of the grain put back in. I still believe some digital noise reduction was necessary, because the last DVD release was absolutely filthy, but they certainly went way, way overboard with the DNR. Now, if the entire film was on par with the well-shot cinematography, the DNR would be far less an issue (hence why everyone constantly refers to those two poor shots of Arnold and Carl from the first scene). But because they've just made the bad shots a whole different kind of bad, they should have leaned toward maintaining the original presentation since they didn't actually make those shots any better by DNR'ing them.

All that said, I do believe this to be the superior of the two releases; my justification being simply that the digital remaster works on more shots than it doesn't, and when it works the film looks better than it ever has. If they'd dialed down the digital noise reduction by half, I think this would have been one of the best remasters of all time. Since this is probably the last release of Predator we'll see on blu-ray, I think it's a shame some people have dedicated themselves to a version that's bad all of the time, instead of the version that's bad (in a different way) 25% of the time. But the greater shame is that Fox dialed the DNR to 200% on this release, turning so many people off a transfer that would have otherwise been universally loved (IMO).

Well said.

[retablo]

Originally Posted by Fallon Angel

Well, I read the Digibits column, and the author is certainly not happy with this transfer. No sir. I get the feeling that he is fighting for the "purity" of film, the very film-stock itself, it seems. That seems more like a film-historian, preservationist kind of deal. But again, this isn't, in my opnion, a disaster. Predator, Ultimate is just not a top-notch transfer, but it tells it's story and the story is entertaining right through. On my Panny S1 65, (set to Vivid for more contrast), it looks damned good, love the colors. The DTS-HD kicks hard, and the soundfield is fairly generous. Is it right they did this? Well, perhaps not, but I don't think these guys purposefully set out to screw-up a multi-million dollar project. It seems to me this transfer business is a rather in-exact science, with many hits and misses. I beilieve these guys did what they thought would be appreciated, and not "let's see how many fans we can piss off". It's dissapointing to not have more, but what we have is a 20 or 20 million dollar project playing at home for $15 (Walmart and Best Buy this week). You really can't lose here.

You CAN lose. Instead, pick up the original blu for even less - save money AND get the more film-like transfer. Predator never had vibrant colors. What used to be a grimy and gritty jungle movie is not a colorful smeary circus romp.

I find it ironic that fanboys complain about every single detail if filmmakers change just ONE little thing on a superhero's costume, or his origin etc... but have no problems when the look and feel of an entire film is changed into something that it never was nor was ever supposed to be. Hypocritical to say the least....

[Beast]

Originally Posted by Spanbauer

[Show spoiler]So, I've watched the new Predator blu-ray release twice now. This much I know for sure: Predator is a terribly inconsistent, often-times poorly assembled film. Cinematography ranges from beautiful to awful, lighting is sometimes non-existent, audio dubs and fading of down mics is painfully obvious, and perhaps more than any of that — Predator must hold some kind of record for the number of out of focus shots and zoomed in shots in a single film. All of that combined, even at its best I don't believe Predator could deserve more than a 3/5 for picture quality, just due to the sheer number of problematic shots.

First the good news. This new encode has eliminated all of the problems the original had; there's absolutely no debris or dirt on the film. No pixelation (explosions are incredibly crisp). No red or blue hue cast over shots. Colors and contrast are vibrant and natural, as if the film was shot just in the past year or so. Where the film allowed, shadow detail is super clean instead of dark and muddy. The invisible predator special effects look fresh and modern because of how clean the film is. Perhaps the most dramatic change is that the constant bobbing of the film as it were running through a projector — as it appeared on the last DVD release — is completely absent in this release; the image is absolutely rock solid, with no shake whatsoever. For some reason that has had a huge impact for me, as I've seen this film so many times I'm so accustomed to the 20th Century Fox logo and the opening titles bobbing up and down as the film opens. Have to say, I'm a fan of the stable image.

When the cinematography is good, the film looks better than it ever has. That is to say, when the light is good and the camera is actually in focus, it looks incredible; better than I ever imagined it could. If the whole film was well lit and in focus, I'd argue this would be one of the best remasters ever, grain be damned. However, the fact that the film contains so many problematic shots leads me to what's bad about this transfer.

When the focus is soft or the light is poor (or both), the extremely overzealous digital noise reduction leaves the picture looking flat-out bizarre. I won't use the constant "wax figure" comparison; it looks like a moving oil painting. And unfortunately as I mentioned, there are a lot of out of focus shots in this film. A little grain goes a long way in letting your eye know its seeing an out of focus shot, and not a living oil painting, because the grain obviously doesn't go soft when the shot does; it also makes the soft focus far more apparent for the very same reason. So by cleaning up the crappy shots in the film, they've actually made their badness more obvious.

The ideal release would have everything this release does, but with half of the grain put back in. I still believe some digital noise reduction was necessary, because the last DVD release was absolutely filthy, but they certainly went way, way overboard with the DNR. Now, if the entire film was on par with the well-shot cinematography, the DNR would be far less an issue (hence why everyone constantly refers to those two poor shots of Arnold and Carl from the first scene). But because they've just made the bad shots a whole different kind of bad, they should have leaned toward maintaining the original presentation since they didn't actually make those shots any better by DNR'ing them.

All that said, I do believe this to be the superior of the two releases; my justification being simply that the digital remaster works on more shots than it doesn't, and when it works the film looks better than it ever has. If they'd dialed down the digital noise reduction by half, I think this would have been one of the best remasters of all time. Since this is probably the last release of Predator we'll see on blu-ray, I think it's a shame some people have dedicated themselves to a version that's bad all of the time, instead of the version that's bad (in a different way) 25% of the time. But the greater shame is that Fox dialed the DNR to 200% on this release, turning so many people off a transfer that would have otherwise been universally loved (IMO).

Fantastic Review. *Gives you a glowing green Predator cookie*

[Volume11]

Originally Posted by Fallon Angel

Well said.

Not really.

How about turn off the DNR as much as possible and give the newly mastered film a proper encode on a larger 50g disc...

The sad part is that the few improvements that are on this disc would have made it worth owning over the original and proved (even if marginally) that a newer codec being used on a larger disc WITHOUT the DNR would have been better than what we got both times.

[DaleDark]

Any word yet from John McTiernan on this "debacle"?
How about the DP, Donald McAlpine?
Well then, anybody got any reports that they can link to about mass consumer demand for a recall?
No?
Oh thats right, the only people up in arms about this release are a vocal minority of self proclaimed " film enthusiast" who crusade for the director's intent (except when they want to revisit their works and have Greedo to shoot first, or for government agents to carry walkie-talkies) while watching their films w/ the DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 track at reference volume.
Here's the thing, I'm not gonna insult you if you feel like venting about this release, but I gotta tell ya that the reports about this title have been grossly exaggerated, seemingly by those who feel that even the slightest digital manipulation is an affront to the filmmakers intentions. I picked up the new edition for the same reasons that alot of you have - it was $15 and came w/movie cash to see Predators. I popped the disc in preparing myself for a horrible transfer along the lines of True Romance or Hannibal. What I got instead was an impressive, albeit not perfect catalog release that blows my 2 disc DVD out of the water.
I should point out that I'm not a "grain-hater" (I love my BDs of Ghostbusters and the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre), but to say that all the detail has been "scrubbed out" of this release is just not so.
I'm quite satisfied with my purchase, so if that means that I'm not a true film fan, or that I must not have a properly calibrated set (which mine is), or whatever belittlements you wish to hurl in my direction, so be it. I love films (movies, flics, or whatever the #$%^ you wanna call them), and I will continue to partake in my hobby, and will save my venom for releases that truely deserve it (I'm talkin' to you, Dog Soldiers).

P,S,: The ire over this BD reminds me of the newspaper headline from the Simpsons, "Old Man Yells At Cloud".