Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow 4K UHD (2004) (Shout! Factory)

[FSTargetDrone]

Originally Posted by Jlouisbarrett

If we’re doing these late 90s/early 2000s early CGI-soaked effects films, then I’d much rather have had “Speed Racer” or even “A.I. — Artificial Intelligence” before this, but I’ll still take it!

(No but seriously though… where on earth is “A.I.”!? Such a perfect candidate for this format).

Oh, yes, Speed Racer for sure.

[Chedwiggen]

OMG YES! I love this film.

[CrimsonG80]

I just remember this was, like, the 80th movie starring Jude Law that released in 2004

[Poya]

Only way this movie could be better if Rachel Brosnahan was in Paltrow's role. You need someone with a Fleishers' Lois Lane flair to her.

[levcore]

Originally Posted by Poya

Only way this movie could be better if Rachel Brosnahan was in Paltrow's role. You need someone with a Fleishers' Lois Lane flair to her.

Wouldn't she have been like 14 when the movie came out?

[Mierzwiak]

Originally Posted by Poya

Only way this movie could be better if Rachel Brosnahan was in Paltrow's role. You need someone with a Fleishers' Lois Lane flair to her.

And you know this because you already watched Superman, right?

[PonyoBellanote]

I also think "NEW 4K Transfer From The 35mm Digital Negative" it's Shout's weird fancy way to say ''filmout negative'' or, more to say the negative struck from the digital composite made in 2004. I really don't think this will be an upscale - upscales only work for movies from the 2010s and up. And even so. Paramount has been doing most 1990s-2000s DI works from filmouts, so this one shouldn't be a surprise.

I also expected no new extras, being that this is a Shout! Select title, and that the director doesn't seem to be up to the task to reminisce the movie much, even if they're proud of the people that love it. I suppose it's a constant reminder of the hurt, the dissapointment of the years after.

Either way, while no new extras suck - the original 2004 ones are more than amazing. And it's nice to have them in the same package.

[deet]

Variety had a phone call with Kerry Conran last year that sort of answers some questions about what happened with this movie and his career:

Were you satisfied by the finished result? And if not, was there a point of distance that gave you a clearer perspective on the film?

At the time I thought it certainly was far from perfect, and that fell entirely on my shoulders. And I’m accepting of that. I don’t think I failed as much as I wish the film had done better in the box office, but there are reasons for that. It was never engineered to be what it was later presented as. I genuinely was hoping to get the film into Sundance when I was making it by myself and be this independent film that was different from the other independent films because it felt bigger. What it became was something different. I would say that Jon and certainly the studio gave me more opportunities and stayed away as much as they could, so I would not characterize it as a horror story where someone came in and completely changed things. We cooperated and I did my best to accommodate them.

But in retrospect, because a film’s success these days is whether it makes money or not, it didn’t do the ultimate thing it was supposed to. As it was, there’s a lot of misconceptions about what the film cost. Like I said, when we first started making it, our budget went from $3 million to $10 million, in that range. The film ultimately cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $12 million or something like that. That additional money wasn’t from me, it was making it color. Also, Paramount had a “Mission: Impossible” film that wasn’t going to be ready, so they needed something for their winter release. I didn’t promise it because at the time it was simple math to tell you how long it was going to take us, because our little meager render farm could generate only so many frames per hour. So that’s when additional money came online to kind of buy more computers. There was also a lot of money at stake for [financier Aurelio de Laurentiis], who sold it. And that’s where the budget discrepancy, I think, comes from: he made a lot of money off the sale of the film, and we didn’t apply that to the film itself. But again, even as a $12 million film, I think it would’ve been regarded as very successful, but not as whatever the projected budget was in the end. And Paramount did pay a lot of money, but that was above my pay grade, as they say.

So the $70 million that was previously reported refers to the cost of selling it to Paramount, or that Aurelio made from picking up distribution?

I know what Paramount paid for the film when we had 10 minutes of footage that we ended up showing to every studio in town. Aurelio was claiming the film costs a lot more than it did, and it looked like it. So the amount being bid on the film was high — high enough that I heard that Aurelio bought a soccer team with the amount of money. So somebody probably did lose a lot of money, but it wasn’t because of this film. That is sort of where the disappointment comes from … my naivete. You make these things, and Aurelio took a gamble himself certainly, and if he made a profit on it, good for him. I think it came a little bit at my expense, if not a lot, but that is business. But that sort of made the effort harder in terms of what the film had to make back.

How much did that perception impact the opportunities that you got afterward?

Hugely. The perception was there was a lot of money lost in the film, and it just had nothing to do with me or the film itself. But at the time I was working with Sherry Lansing, who was the head of Paramount at the time, and she really loved what I’d made. They had the rights to “John Carter of Mars” at the time, and that was going to be the follow-up film to this. So we started on it using similar techniques, and it was coming along great. But Sherry left Paramount, and so this new regime came in that I had no history with, and all they saw was, why is this kid that lost us all this money working on this big film?

I had probably worked on “John Carter” for nearly a year, and we were very, very close to casting and shooting. But the person that ultimately made the decision had a strong relationship with Jon Favreau at the time and was looking for something for him. So that was kind of handed off to him. And then I briefly was doing something with DreamWorks, a live action animated thing. And two years probably after [“Sky Captain”] had come out, I decided this is not for me. I mean, I can’t spend a year on something that I put all this effort and work into and walk away from it. So I decided to go back and just try to do my own things again. But I do think had the film made $100 million, I think we’d be talking about a different body of work. But I’m not dead yet.

[punisher]

I saw it when it was first released in my local Imax theater..fantastic. At home using my projector is the way to go watching Sky Captain.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by leethompson

I might pick this up especially since it looks like the aspect ratio is correct.

It was shot 1.78 digital. A few extra scanlines (which gets eaten by overscan on a lot of displays) doesn't mean the Blu-ray wasn't OAR.

[PonyoBellanote]

Originally Posted by deet

Variety had a phone call with Kerry Conran last year that sort of answers some questions about what happened with this movie and his career:

Thank you so very much for this article, it was a lovely read. It's also updated, since the other, much more almost melancholic article I saw was from 2015, and more his brother than the director himself. I'm glad to see he's still working and has been working all these years, but to himself, and what he loves, still hoping to get things going but on his own to save himself the heartache.

This man is so talented and deserves better. Really hoping he can make things one day..

[PonyoBellanote]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

It was shot 1.78 digital. A few scanlines (which gets eaten by overscan on a lot of displays) doesn't mean the Blu-ray wasn't OAR.

Yeah, but it was screened at 1:85 in theaters. It's not that big of a ''crop'' anyway.

[Poya]

Originally Posted by levcore

Wouldn't she have been like 14 when the movie came out?

That's why I have a Time Machine.

Originally Posted by Mierzwiak

And you know this because you already watched Superman, right?

I've seen Mrs. Maisel and that's pretty much the same.

[BorisKarloffice]

Reminder to everyone that this is 1440x1080 8-bit SDR footage. Just keep expectations in check. HDR and WCG have to be painfully wrung out of the material like squeezing blood from a stone.

[Steel76]

I'm not sure what to expect from this.
Always hated the ugly smeary digital look.
But maybe the negative, will help it look more like film, thanks to real filmgrain, but I'm keeping my expectations low, and wait for the reviews.

The movie is fun, but I wish it was shot on film, with real sets, and only kept the CGI for the action scenes. But you could say the same for Attack of the Clones, and other digitally shot films, from the era.

[Robbie The Robot]

I really hope both brothers know that the movie does have an audience and a lot of love and appreciation. It is a rare gem and they totally nailed the tone and references. It's clearly a love letter to a bygone era and you can see their passion on the screen for sure.

[PonyoBellanote]

Originally Posted by BorisKarloffice

Reminder to everyone that this is 1440x1080 8-bit SDR footage. Just keep expectations in check. HDR and WCG have to be painfully wrung out of the material like squeezing blood from a stone.

Some of us know, yeah. Some of us also know sometimes the format can't make miracles. At least not yet. But yeah. I personally don't mind. Small or big, doesn't matter, the format will offer improvement. I think it'll look good. Anyone else who wants the movie to ''pop'' well, that's their problem.

Originally Posted by Steel76

I'm not sure what to expect from this.
Always hated the ugly smeary digital look.
But maybe the negative, will help it look more like film, thanks to real filmgrain, but I'm keeping my expectations low, and wait for the reviews.

The movie is fun, but I wish it was shot on film, with real sets, and only kept the CGI for the action scenes. But you could say the same for Attack of the Clones, and other digitally shot films, from the era.

I'm not sure you realize it, but the ''ugly smeary digital look'' was intentional, and not a product of being shot digitally, it was an intentional choice, to give it a visual ''dreamlike'' flair, a pulp aspect. I do like the look of film as well, but I do like the visual aspect they went for, and while grain is not entirely needed, if they had added it in post, it'd have added another layer to that look. That said.. and sorry if I offend you, I think you don't personally understand the film or what they were going for if you're bothered by the way it looks and it was shot.

Originally Posted by Robbie The Robot

I really hope both brothers know that the movie does have an audience and a lot of love and appreciation. It is a rare gem and they totally nailed the tone and references. It's clearly a love letter to a bygone era and you can see their passion on the screen for sure.

They know; they're just humble, kinda shy, and were just bothered by how Hollywood treated them, and the director just.. hated giving their everything in a project and then it being cancelled like nothing. So he just decided to work on his own, no more of that. I genuinely also hope the future brings us something from them. Like they're so talented, it'd be a massive pity.

[Steel76]

Originally Posted by PonyoBellanote

I'm not sure you realize it, but the ''ugly smeary digital look'' was intentional, and not a product of being shot digitally, it was an intentional choice, to give it a visual ''dreamlike'' flair, a pulp aspect. I do like the look of film as well, but I do like the visual aspect they went for, and while grain is not entirely needed, if they had added it in post, it'd have added another layer to that look. That said.. and sorry if I offend you, I think you don't personally understand the film or what they were going for if you're bothered by the way it looks and it was shot.

I know that they were going for that 40:s Fleischer "Superman" cartoon look.
But in my opinion, they went overboard with the smeary/dreamy filters.
You can tell they also used it, to hide the seams, from the greenscreen, as the edges of the actors, are very blurry.
But let's see how it looks in 4k.

[levcore]

I think this is a 5 star movie, up there with The Rocketeer for me. Perfect pulp adventure.

[RestlessEye]

Remember seeing this in the theater. Never got the blu-ray so this’ll be a definite purchase.