King Kong 4K UHD (2005) (Ultimate Edition)

[yandybox]

Originally Posted by Mierzwiak

I'm sorry about asking here, but international subforum seems empty.

Does anybody here bought UK edition? Can you take a picture of the back cover? I would like to know if there are polish subtitles on the UHD disc.

Thanks!

Not by the back of the box there isn't. Sorry.

[foxborough]

Originally Posted by Mierzwiak

I'm sorry about asking here, but international subforum seems empty.

Does anybody here bought UK edition? Can you take a picture of the back cover? I would like to know if there are polish subtitles on the UHD disc.

Thanks!

I've got the UK edition and there is no mention of polish subtitles on the cover.

[Mierzwiak]

I'm asking because they are on the french UHD disc, and from what I've heard there's BBFC logo there so I thought UK edition might have the same disc.

[SS-3]

Originally Posted by gwsat

For those who are interested, the very entertaining sequence from the King Kong Ultimate Edition Bonus Disk, in which Naomi Watts toured the heights of the Empire State Building, is indeed in Recreating the Eighth Wonder: the Making of King Kong. The specific segment containing Watts' Empire State Building tour is the one entitled, Pre-Production Part 1: The Return of Kong.

That was it, thank you!

[Sky_Captain]

Originally Posted by Mierzwiak

I'm asking because they are on the french UHD disc, and from what I've heard there's BBFC logo there so I thought UK edition might have the same disc.

I have the Spanish release, which also includes the UK UHD disc and it does have Polish subs.

[yandybox]

Originally Posted by Sky_Captain

I have the Spanish release, which also includes the UK UHD disc and it does have Polish subs.

You know what, you made me want to check the actual disc and yes I can now confirm too that the disc does include "polski" subs.

False/incorrect info on the back of a Universal box? Nothing new there.

[Mierzwiak]

Thank you!!!

[Lt_Cobretti]

Originally Posted by gwsat

For those who are interested, the very entertaining sequence from the King Kong Ultimate Edition Bonus Disk, in which Naomi Watts toured the heights of the Empire State Building, is indeed in Recreating the Eighth Wonder: the Making of King Kong. The specific segment containing Watts' Empire State Building tour is the one entitled, Pre-Production Part 1: The Return of Kong.

Ah, I was close.

[tyrok]

Sony seems to be the only studio that actually lists all the subtitles on the box. Everyone else just has the "highlights."

[Geoff D]

Yep, it's not really fair to slate Universal for this as Fox are terrible for it too. Most of their discs are worldwide 'one size fits all' jobbies but if you pick up a UK Fox edition then most of the time it'll just have English listed on the cover. Those idiots STILL put the sped-up PAL running times on their covers too.

[AngelGraves13]

What's the point of 4K if you're just going to DNR it to hell? Some shots look great and detailed, but others look extremely processed. Needs a new 4K master. Not worth it.

[Geoff D]

Most of the blatant digital fudgery on this movie is baked into to the DI itself, this was still early days for those digital tools and they're done no favours in UHD. I only spotted one instance of the UHD specifically looking more processed than the Blu.

It does make me wonder just what the hell LOTR is gonna look like in UHD because those flicks are in the same boat: very early 2K digital finish with masses of processing slathered on (ESPECIALLY Two Towers, you can see some blatant DNR smearing during the Dead Marshes sequence, smearing which has been there right from the start).

[StingingVelvet]

Yeah, I don't expect many DIs to be redone, which means lots of this marring our films in a permanent way. Anne Darrow will have face and neck smoothing in this film for all time probably. At least LotR is popular enough there's a chance, however small, it will be redone from the base elements.

[Rory]

The last time I saw some of this movie on satellite, I was a little surprised at how dated the CGI has begun to look. I think in just a few more years this version of KONG will look as dated as the original, but without any of the original's greatness.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by Rory

The last time I saw some of this movie on satellite, I was a little surprised at how dated the CGI has begun to look. I think eventually this version of KONG will look as dated as the original, but without any of the original's greatness.

Kong himself definitely looks a little flatter and less impressive in 4k. The rest of looked about the same to me, by which I mean never that great. The HDR lighting helps some scenes though IMO, like the T-Rex attack.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by StingingVelvet

Yeah, I don't expect many DIs to be redone, which means lots of this marring our films in a permanent way. Anne Darrow will have face and neck smoothing in this film for all time probably. At least LotR is popular enough there's a chance, however small, it will be redone from the base elements.

That'd be awesome but seeing as Warners weren't willing to rebuild the extras for a special edition release (to reshape the LOTR stuff into a day-to-day chronological telling for each movie, like what they did on the Hobbitses) then I think the movies don't stand a snowball's chance in Mordor of getting a rebuild for UHD.

And yes, a hell of a lot of that smoothing on Naomi Watts' forehead in Kong was specifically to cover the seams of the wig, leaving her with this ****ing bizarre Egghead-looking pate throughout the film. I tried to stop staring at it but almost every scene that she's in my eyes just keep getting drawn to that perfectly smooth dome atop her head. The added resolution of the UHD - yes, even for a mere upscale it clearly adds spatial resolution over the extremely low bitrate Blu-ray, average 16 Mb/s! - does stuff like that no favours at all whereas it all kinda smooshes together a bit better on the Blu.

Saw something similar in Spidey 3, thankfully the movie isn't chronic for these kinds of "beauty" touch-ups but in one of the close-ups of MJ at the beginning (when they're on the web together) there's this big round splodge of digital muck underneath Kirsten's eye, clear as anything. But on the BD you'd never know it was there...

[Pgcmoore]

i thought the t-rex scene with the fallen tree looked amazing

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by StingingVelvet

Kong himself definitely looks a little flatter and less impressive in 4k. The rest of looked about the same to me, by which I mean never that great. The HDR lighting helps some scenes though IMO, like the T-Rex attack.

Yeah, the CG was never that great to begin with (Bronto stampede, anyone?) but the improved lighting blends it a hell of a lot better than on the BD. It's just ironic that the digital tweaking done to the actual real-life hooman beans looks so much more distracting (to me) than any amount of giant CG beasties.

To continue with the Spidey 3 theme, the maligned CG in that one looked pretty damned good to me, yes you can still spot the digital doubles and whatnot in the Harry/Peter fight near the start but it really does blend that bit better in HDR.

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

That'd be awesome but seeing as Warners weren't willing to rebuild the extras for a special edition release (to reshape the LOTR stuff into a day-to-day chronological telling for each movie, like what they did on the Hobbitses) then I think the movies don't stand a snowball's chance in Mordor of getting a rebuild for UHD.

And yes, a hell of a lot of that smoothing on Naomi Watts' forehead in Kong was specifically to cover the seams of the wig, leaving her with this ****ing bizarre Egghead-looking pate throughout the film. I tried to stop staring at it but almost every scene that she's in my eyes just keep getting drawn to that perfectly smooth dome atop her head. The added resolution of the UHD - yes, even for a mere upscale it clearly adds spatial resolution over the extremely low bitrate Blu-ray, average 16 Mb/s! - does stuff like that no favours at all whereas it all kinda smooshes together a bit better on the Blu.

Saw something similar in Spidey 3, thankfully the movie isn't chronic for these kinds of "beauty" touch-ups but in one of the close-ups of MJ at the beginning (when they're on the web together) there's this big round splodge of digital muck underneath Kirsten's eye, clear as anything. But on the BD you'd never know it was there...

Do you still prefer the UHD BD to the BD? This is one title I need to revisit on my new projector in HDR.

[Geoff D]

What, King Kong? The benefits outweigh the drawbacks but it's a VERY uneven presentation because of all the digital fiddling that's been laid bare, plus a strange kind of colour grade choice for the opening 'New York' stuff. It's quite desaturated and has this much warmer tone to it than the BD, some of the colour even bleeds a bit which I thought was odd but it gives it this kind of old-timey Ektachrome feel.