Inception (2010)

[42041]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

But that is how it's done. They don't create copies from a film source directly

Eh? Yes they do. How do you think prints were made before digital?

[TauHeel05]

Originally Posted by RichM

mine arrived this morning

Let's get some screen captures. How 'bout it?

[jojocircus]

Originally Posted by DRS

There's really nothing in Inception that hasn't been done before (and better).

Not saying a movie has to be innovative...but Inception isn't inventive or imaginative at all...in fact it pretty much turns away from Imagination and is content with modern warfare levels, despite the promise of seeing amazing and unreal things in the Paris sequences.

Are you crazy?

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by 42041

Eh? Yes they do. How do you think prints were made before digital?

Using an invasive process which degrades quality and can potentially damage the source material.

But I'm sorry. Was Inception released to theaters before the advent digital cinema? Or after?

I guess I could have been clearer. I said:

But that is how it's done. They don't create copies from a film source directly

When I really should have said:

They used to use an invasive process to copy from a film master directly, but that's not how they create copies anymore, especially when one is talking about major studio productions. These days, they use a digital intermediate between the source film and the desired copy to ensure the highest quality transfer while being less invasive, not to mention the fact that digital cinema uses the digital intermediate directly and the very same DI goes on to be used in the home video release and broadcast masters.

Seriously. Do you know what intermediate means? Dictionary.com says "being, situated, or acting between two points, stages, things, persons, etc."

Between two points. These points are:

#1: The source material, in this case, a film master.
#2: The print which is exhibited in a theater, in this case, either a 35mm film copy or a digital print.

The intermediate allows for efficient and high quality copying. If they used a film intermediate, quality would be lower, it would be more difficult, and then they'd STILL need to produce a digital copy eventually anyway for digital cinema, advertising, home video, and broadcast. Often times, people use DI to refer to the digital color correction process, but that is an unnecessarily narrow understanding of what the entire process entails. The point of an intermediate in film making is to go from the master to copies, and digitally is the best way to do that today. They don't make copies today the same way they did 10 or more years ago.

[42041]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

Using an invasive process which degrades quality and can potentially damage the source material.

But I'm sorry. Was Inception released to theaters before the advent digital cinema? Or after?

I guess I could have been clearer. I said:


When I really should have said:



Seriously. Do you know what intermediate means? Dictionary.com says "being, situated, or acting between two points, stages, things, persons, etc."

Between two points. These points are:

#1: The source material, in this case, a film master.
#2: The print which is exhibited in a theater, in this case, either a 35mm film copy or a digital print.

The intermediate allows for efficient and high quality copying. If they used a film intermediate, quality would be lower, it would be more difficult, and then they'd STILL need to produce a digital copy eventually anyway for digital cinema, advertising, home video, and broadcast. Often times, people use DI to refer to the digital color correction process, but that is an unnecessarily narrow understanding of what the entire process entails. The point of an intermediate in film making is to go from the master to copies, and digitally is the best way to do that today. They don't make copies today the same way they did 10 or more years ago.

Please source your claims. It's well known that Nolan and his DP do not use digital intermediates, and I can find a slew of articles that talk about how Inception, Dark Knight, etc, were traditional photochemical finishes.

http://www.theasc.com/ac_magazine/Ju...tion/page1.php
http://www.studiodaily.com/filmandvi...ish_12353.html
http://www.technicolor.com/en/hi/abo...film-inception

[Sponge-worthy]

Originally Posted by DRS

There's really nothing in Inception that hasn't been done before (and better).

Not saying a movie has to be innovative...but Inception isn't inventive or imaginative at all...in fact it pretty much turns away from Imagination and is content with modern warfare levels, despite the promise of seeing amazing and unreal things in the Paris sequences.

I thought it was clever...similarly to how Memento is also clever. I give Nolan credit for basically keeping it a tightly edited affair. At least, I was interested all the way through.

I did, however, have the same question about Inception as I did for The Matrix: you would think that if you developed technology to invade a 'dream space,' you would also develop a fail safe or firewall so that if something does go wrong (for example, you 'die' in the other realm), you would still survive the process unharmed. Even the most dangerous factory equipment out there has a kill switch of some sort. Otherwise, it's like BP drilling for oil under the ocean floor without first having the ability to avoid potential problems. But maybe that sort of recklessness is just life imitating art...

As an aside, I also thought Avatar was quite clever...probably as clever as a 'Dances With Smurfs'-type movie could possibly be.

[DRS]

Its definitely clever, but a lot of fans seem to want to paint the movie as a sort of 100% original Intellectually Highbrow classic that no other modern hollywood can touch. There's a pretty huge distinction between the two.

For my part, I think Inception is a great action movie, a very typical heist film seen through a clever lens, but the movie isn't doing anything that hasn't been done before as far as I'm concerned, despite the fact that some people seem to love to think it does. Again, there's nothing wrong with this, there's just no need to pretend the movie is something its not

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by 42041

Please source your claims. It's well known that Nolan and his DP do not use digital intermediates, and I can find a slew of articles that talk about how Inception, Dark Knight, etc, were traditional photochemical finishes.

http://www.theasc.com/ac_magazine/Ju...tion/page1.php
http://www.studiodaily.com/filmandvi...ish_12353.html
http://www.technicolor.com/en/hi/abo...film-inception

...

I never said he didn't master to film.

All I've said is that a digital intermediate was used to create the 35mm prints and the digital prints that went out to theaters. Just because he did not use digital color correction or other common DI techniques, it doesn't mean he was somehow able to MAGICALLY create copies of his film for distribution without using an intermediate. The film was scanned digitally and this digital intermediate is what was used to create every copy of the movie we saw in theaters, and it is the source of the copy we'll be seeing on Blu-ray shortly.

Do you contest this point, really? How do you believe the copies were made for theaters to exhibit? Specifically the digital cinemas. How did they exhibit this film without a digital intermediate being used? Did they receive traditional film copies that were made using a film intermediate? How did they make these obsolete lengths of film play on their modern digital projectors? Did they just throw the film at the projector and somehow the digital projector was able to project the film onto the screen without a digital copy which is normally required?

[Tech-UK]

Originally Posted by DRS

Its definitely clever, but a lot of fans seem to want to paint the movie as a sort of 100% original Intellectually Highbrow classic that no other modern hollywood can touch. There's a pretty huge distinction between the two.

For my part, I think Inception is a great action movie, a very typical heist film seen through a clever lens, but the movie isn't doing anything that hasn't been done before as far as I'm concerned, despite the fact that some people seem to love to think it does. Again, there's nothing wrong with this, there's just no need to pretend the movie is something its not

Valid point. could you give us a few examples?

[Sponge-worthy]

Originally Posted by DRS

Its definitely clever, but a lot of fans seem to want to paint the movie as a sort of 100% original Intellectually Highbrow classic that no other modern hollywood can touch. There's a pretty huge distinction between the two.

For my part, I think Inception is a great action movie, a very typical heist film seen through a clever lens, but the movie isn't doing anything that hasn't been done before as far as I'm concerned, despite the fact that some people seem to love to think it does. Again, there's nothing wrong with this, there's just no need to pretend the movie is something its not

For me the movie is a bit of a balancing act. One thing that the film's more hardcore fans seem to hang their hats on is the notion that Inception might be too complicated for many viewers, and as such they simply don't "get it." However, I would say that complexity is all well and good, but the more screen time you put into laying the ground work of all that complexity for the audience, the less you have left over for story, character...you know, the reasons we watch film in the first place. So I agree with you, what we end up with is a fairly straightforward heist-type film (with a dash of regret/redemption impetus driving our protagonist along) presented in a clever way.

On the plus side, a film like Inception would, in most cases, normally be produced as a more independent project with tighter resources, so it is kinda cool to see a more novel use of millions and millions of dollars thrown up on the screen.

[42041]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

...

I never said he didn't master to film.

All I've said is that a digital intermediate was used to create the 35mm prints and the digital prints that went out to theaters. Just because he did not use digital color correction or other common DI techniques, it doesn't mean he was somehow able to MAGICALLY create copies of his film for distribution without using an intermediate. The film was scanned digitally and this digital intermediate is what was used to create every copy of the movie we saw in theaters, and it is the source of the copy we'll be seeing on Blu-ray shortly.

Do you contest this point, really? How do you believe the copies were made for theaters to exhibit? Specifically the digital cinemas. How did they exhibit this film without a digital intermediate being used? Did they receive traditional film copies that were made using a film intermediate? How did they make these obsolete lengths of film play on their modern digital projectors? Did they just throw the film at the projector and somehow the digital projector was able to project the film onto the screen without a digital copy which is normally required?

I assume the 35mm prints were made like all movies were made only 10 years ago: the negative was printed to the interpositive, the IP was printed to dupe negatives, and and the theatrical prints were made from the dupe negs.

The color-timed interpositive was scanned for the digital master. As such, Inception won't look like most new blockbusters, where the digital master is made from the camera negative.

[DRS]

Originally Posted by Sponge-worthy

For me the movie is a bit of a balancing act. One thing that the film's more hardcore fans seem to hang their hats on is the notion that Inception might be too complicated for many viewers, and as such they simply don't "get it." However, I would say that complexity is all well and good, but the more screen time you put into laying the ground work of all that complexity for the audience, the less you have left over for story, character...you know, the reasons we watch film in the first place. So I agree with you, what we end up with is a fairly straightforward heist-type film (with a dash of regret/redemption impetus driving our protagonist along) presented in a clever way.

On the plus side, a film like Inception would, in most cases, normally be produced as a more independent project with tighter resources, so it is kinda cool to see a more novel use of millions and millions of dollars thrown up on the screen.

True, Nolan definitely put the money to good use.

In regards to the movie being "complicated," I just feel that it isn't complicated in a way that matters (thematically, character wise or story-wise) it just comes off as a more complicated due to the fact that some concepts just aren't presented clearly enough, despite all the exposition (or perhaps due to it?) and that the movies pace is pretty relentless, so it can get tough to keep track of everything on a first viewing (and then there is the score that is sometimes so overbearing that you can't hear the dialogue). And that's something that kinda ticks me off, a movie being complicated for the sake of it, and is really my main problem with the film.

[kingcorwin]

Can anybody confirm that if the image quality is not impressive as mentioned previously on this thread? Actually this is something sounds very unlikely to me; considering the box office success and reception of the movie. Why wouldn't WB do the best for the transfer?

[DRS]

Originally Posted by kingcorwin

Can anybody confirm that if the image quality is not impressive as mentioned previously on this thread? Actually this is something sounds very unlikely to me; considering the box office success and reception of the movie. Why wouldn't WB do the best for the transfer?

Those screens are from a pirated version I think. You should definitely wait for official Blu-Ray caps, I have no doubt the film will receive a good transfer

[kingcorwin]

Originally Posted by DRS

Those screens are from a pirated version I think. You should definitely wait for official Blu-Ray caps, I have no doubt the film will receive a good transfer

Thanks for information and good news dude . I was a little bit worried about image quality when I saw them. I missed that part, so that's why I'm asking this; what is the point of releasing screenshots from a pirated version on this particular forum about blu-ray stuff? It might give people wrong impression about the quality of the blu-ray. I am waiting patiently to get my copy from the store at the day it gets released .

[Shallow_]

Originally Posted by kingcorwin

Can anybody confirm that if the image quality is not impressive as mentioned previously on this thread? Actually this is something sounds very unlikely to me; considering the box office success and reception of the movie. Why wouldn't WB do the best for the transfer?

Finished watching it about an hour ago. Rest assured the picture and audio is stunning.

The film was entertaining enough, but like others have said, nowhere near as 'original' as the hype would suggest. A 6.5/10 film, with 10/10 PQ & AQ.

edit: I dont have equipment for screengrabs (other than a photo of the screen).

[ArrestedDevelopment]

Originally Posted by Shallow_

Finished watching it about an hour ago. Rest assured the picture and audio is stunning.

The film was entertaining enough, but like others have said, nowhere near as 'original' as the hype would suggest. A 6.5/10 film, with 10/10 PQ & AQ.

edit: I dont have equipment for screengrabs (other than a photo of the screen).

[Starbuy]

Yes, this film is excellent, but even though it's worth the investment, no it isn't something that hasn't been done and I don't think any of the producers claimed as such. Look at Dark City. Alex Proyas has always been fascinated by dreams and took a similar idea for his flm Dark City (puts the citizens asleep while the strangers manipulate the world around them). He had plans to produce his film 'Book of Dreams' years ago, but that hasn't happened yet. I was in the process of writing some dream sequences for him, until I realized I would only get name credit and no money. Who needs that. Show me the money and I'll show you script. No wonder that film hasn't got done.

[neo78956]

sigh.... maybe one day people will view movies on their own terms and not review the hype and fan-bases.

[Blu-Malibu2009]

Originally Posted by neo78956

sigh.... maybe one day people will view movies on their own terms and not review the hype and fan-bases.

EXACTLY. Nolan would be the first one to admit his influences and he's also the first one to say that it's just a heist film influenced by sci-fi stuff like the Matrix and Dark City. Nothing more. It's a damn good sci-fi heist flick and I appreciate it for what it is.