The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

[AreaUnderTheCurve]

Originally Posted by saprano

Inception had something similar in one scene. But thats how it looked in the theater. Which is the point of bluray. This is the way Nolan shoots his films.

I don't think he shoots things out of focus in purpose. If he does, then Pfister is a hack for going through with it. I do not recall such blurriness in Inception, Insomnia, or The Prestige. What is shown in those screencaps reminds me of the horrid 35mm experience of TDKR in an IMAX theater. This may even be the IMAX master, but I don't know if we can really know.

[joenostalgia23]

Nolan simply has a visual style that makes his films look soft and murky. Personally, I love the way all of his films look. He's not trying to make The Avengeds where everything is lit up so you can see light and textures, he wants you to look at the shadows and the atmosphere, which are very film noir influenced.

I do think TDKR and Inception look way softer than they did in theaters. I remember them having very fine grain, and I think on BD it looks much softer because the grain isn't as apparant. It's not supposed to look like 300 or Sucker Punch, but I was expecting more film grain. Along the lines of The Godfather or Alien or Pulp Fiction. Or even Nolan's film The Prestige.
But since it's a newer film, unless it's intentionally grainy, they try as hard as possible to make it *not* look grainy. I'm just glad that this time around, it looks naturally soft, and they didn't try to use DNR to take away the grain and then EE to compensate for lost detail.
Still, it's a damn good looking disc and the sound is impeccable.

[Jumpman]

Originally Posted by AreaUnderTheCurve

Examples of the out-of-focus look during the 35mm scenes:

http://www.doblu.com/wp-content/uplo...trises5529.jpg

http://www.doblu.com/wp-content/uplo...trises5915.jpg

http://www.doblu.com/wp-content/uplo...trises2719.jpg

I would have taken these myself, but the dude at Doblu did it for me.

If you sit far away from your TV, it's fine. But when I watch movies from a 4 ft distance, I hate the look of the 35mm scenes on this transfer.

Whether you hate them or not, they are exact to director's intent and exact to the theatre experience. Simple as that.

[Eraserheaddf]

This movie felt like a mixture of ideas and various scenes, that didn't fully come together into something cohesive. It feels choppy. I didn't think it was bad, just kind of bland and lacking a strong structure. I started to get the feeling, about half way through, that this wasn't a "Batman" movie; but a mediocre drama that happened to feature the character of Batman/Bruce Wayne (plus a few "ok" action bits).

[Nightwing Begins]

Wanna see soft? Put in the dvd. The opening scene looks terrible and you'll be glad you have what you have on blu-ray. I have to replace the lens in my PS3 for the second time in 5 years (Sony sucks. Shite products.) so the dvd is all I'm left with for now. And man is it soft.

But on to a nitpick about the film. Does anyone else get bothered at 9:10 in when the maid/waitress says "disfiggerred" instead of saying "disfigured"??? It makes me wanna Archie smack her.

[Jack Burton]

Originally Posted by Jumpman

Whether you hate them or not, they are exact to director's intent and exact to the theatre experience. Simple as that.

Its a strange thing Nolan does, because he does not do the same with the IMAX shots, were he uses sronger contrast and different lighting sytle. The results this time cause a more 0ff balance film when going from 35mm to 70mm and at times this time takes me out of the experience. Its like two different directors put their work and style together to make one film.

[Jumpman]

Originally Posted by Jack Burton

Its a strange thing Nolan does, because he does not do the same with the IMAX shots, were he uses sronger contrast and different lighting sytle. The results this time cause a more 0ff balance film when going from 35mm to 70mm and at times this time takes me out of the experience. Its like two different directors put their work and style together to make one film.

I think that has more to do with the IMAX format than what Nolan does. No matter what he does, 35mm isn't going to look like IMAX.

The 35mm elements in Transformers Revenge of the Fallen were done in DI and yet you could still tell a stark difference between the 35mm elements and that Forest Battle that was shot in IMAX.

[Todd Smith]

Originally Posted by Jack Burton

Its a strange thing Nolan does, because he does not do the same with the IMAX shots, were he uses sronger contrast and different lighting sytle. The results this time cause a more 0ff balance film when going from 35mm to 70mm and at times this time takes me out of the experience. Its like two different directors put their work and style together to make one film.

I agree with this. The inconsistency really took me out of the movie at times and I just dont feel this technique worked. It would be much better to have the visuals consistent IMO then what we get with BOTH DK and DKR. Throw in the variable aspect and it feels like a bit of a cluster **** visually.

[42041]

Originally Posted by AreaUnderTheCurve

I don't think he shoots things out of focus in purpose. If he does, then Pfister is a hack for going through with it. I do not recall such blurriness in Inception, Insomnia, or The Prestige. What is shown in those screencaps reminds me of the horrid 35mm experience of TDKR in an IMAX theater. This may even be the IMAX master, but I don't know if we can really know.

Sometimes accidentally-out-of-focus shots make it into the film. The focus pullers are only human, and sometimes, for whatever reason, they don't reshoot a bungled shot. You see it more often in these true anamorphic films, since the lenses have half the depth of field as a normal lens, everything else being equal, so they're that much harder to focus.

There's a few other photographic reasons why Nolan's films tend to be soft. He loves shooting anamorphic and he loves shooting handheld, but modern, sharp anamorphic lenses tend to be very big and heavy (The handheld cameraman isn't going to appreciate lugging one of these around: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ZmFHOGBURt...sion+primo.jpg ), so he uses Panavision's older, more compact lenses from the 1970s, which are much less sharp and optically refined than the more modern ones.

His DP tends to shoot low-light stuff at nearly wide-open apertures, and that both reduces of depth of field and degrades the sharpness of the lens a lot ... you can see how most of low-light stuff has very little depth of field, with the backgrounds completely out-of-focus.

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by 42041

The sharpness control just applies a sharpening filter to the image, and should probably be whatever "off" is on your TV normally, otherwise you're just introducing artifacts into the picture. But if you feel a given transfer is too soft... that's why it's there. The appropriate amount of sharpening is dependent on your viewing distance... which is one of the many things wrong with baking it into the blu-ray encode.

Every TV model is different and sharpness needs to be determined with a calibration/sharpness patterns for a given display as any pro ISF calibrator will tell you. On some sets, having sharpness at zero will limit the detail and frequencies one can set as confirmed by test patterns. The last three pro cal'd displays I've owned required some degree of sharpness, but not a ton either.

[lghaze42]

This movie is really loud.The scene where Batman comes flying out of the alley actually shut my receiver down.I was playing it at -20 so I turned it down a few db's and it was ok...Anyone else have this happen?

[42041]

Originally Posted by joenostalgia23

I do think TDKR and Inception look way softer than they did in theaters. I remember them having very fine grain, and I think on BD it looks much softer because the grain isn't as apparant. It's not supposed to look like 300 or Sucker Punch, but I was expecting more film grain. Along the lines of The Godfather or Alien or Pulp Fiction. Or even Nolan's film The Prestige.

I've seen Inception several times in perfectly-projected 35mm and once in 4K digital; TDKR in 70mm IMAX and digital, and I have to disagree, to my eyes the TDKR 35mm stuff looks very similar to how these films appeared theatrically, a bit weaker due to blu-ray's compression and lower resolution but not way softer.

[saprano]

Originally Posted by Jack Burton

Its a strange thing Nolan does, because he does not do the same with the IMAX shots, were he uses sronger contrast and different lighting sytle. The results this time cause a more 0ff balance film when going from 35mm to 70mm and at times this time takes me out of the experience. Its like two different directors put their work and style together to make one film.

Did you feel this way about TDK? It's like nobody cared. The differences between the 35mm and 70mm was more apparent than in rises. That actually took me out of the film. It was so bad. Rises is on a completely different level, man. It stays consistent imo. Yes you can tell it's lower quality, but it looks good. It's natural.

[saprano]

Originally Posted by lghaze42

This movie is really loud.The scene where Batman comes flying out of the alley actually shut my receiver down.I was playing it at -20 so I turned it down a few db's and it was ok...Anyone else have this happen?

That scene didn't cause any problems for me. I was at -15 to -12.

What kind of receiver do you have?

[Jumpman]

Originally Posted by 42041

Sometimes accidentally-out-of-focus shots make it into the film. The focus pullers are only human, and sometimes, for whatever reason, they don't reshoot a bungled shot. You see it more often in these true anamorphic films, since the lenses have half the depth of field as a normal lens, everything else being equal, so they're that much harder to focus.

There's a few other photographic reasons why Nolan's films tend to be soft. He loves shooting anamorphic and he loves shooting handheld, but modern, sharp anamorphic lenses tend to be very big and heavy (The handheld cameraman isn't going to appreciate lugging one of these around: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ZmFHOGBURt...sion+primo.jpg ), so he uses Panavision's older, more compact lenses from the 1970s, which are much less sharp and optically refined than the more modern ones.

His DP tends to shoot low-light stuff at nearly wide-open apertures, and that both reduces of depth of field and degrades the sharpness of the lens a lot ... you can see how most of low-light stuff has very little depth of field, with the backgrounds completely out-of-focus.

In other words, Nolan's very old school and kind of stubborn...which is his choice/right.

[Jack Burton]

Originally Posted by saprano

Did you feel this way about TDK? It's like nobody cared. The differences between the 35mm and 70mm was more apparent than in rises. That actually took me out of the film. It was so bad. Rises is on a completely different level, man. It stays consistent imo. Yes you can tell it's lower quality, but it looks good. It's natural.

Even though i hated the processed look of the TDK 35mm shots and the EE baked into it, the 35mm to Imax does not bother me as much as TDKR change. There is lot more 35mm to 70mm and back 35mm this time and the colour pallet between the two, the lighting, the really soft focus shots of the 35mm then back to Imax is really jarring this time.

[aherron]

Finally watched this last night (never seen it in theaters) and I loved it! Awesome! Really blown away by the effects.

[Todd Smith]

Originally Posted by lghaze42

This movie is really loud.The scene where Batman comes flying out of the alley actually shut my receiver down.I was playing it at -20 so I turned it down a few db's and it was ok...Anyone else have this happen?

I was watching at -1 with an Onkyo 885/Sherborn 7/2100 combo and no issues. Awesome scene though!

[khollister]

Originally Posted by lghaze42

This movie is really loud.The scene where Batman comes flying out of the alley actually shut my receiver down.I was playing it at -20 so I turned it down a few db's and it was ok...Anyone else have this happen?

-8 here - no issues with Denon 4311 and B&W speakers.

You need a bigger receiver

[s2mikey]

Originally Posted by Eraserheaddf

This movie felt like a mixture of ideas and various scenes, that didn't fully come together into something cohesive. It feels choppy. I didn't think it was bad, just kind of bland and lacking a strong structure. I started to get the feeling, about half way through, that this wasn't a "Batman" movie; but a mediocre drama that happened to feature the character of Batman/Bruce Wayne (plus a few "ok" action bits).

Excuse me nail - you've just been hit on the head! I agree completely as my own review a few pages back stated about the same thing. Something was missing here. I think Bain hurt it along with the somewhat uselessness of Catwoman. Its the weakest of the three which isnt supposed to hapen but it did. Not a bad film at all, just not as good as the other two. I was *slightly* underwhelmed.