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

[levcore]

To be fair the island stuff takes up about an hour and forty minutes.

[MegatronG1]

Watched this last night, the extended cut and was very impressed with the PQ, the detail when they are on the island was very impressive. I don't know if it's just me but I thought the stampede scene looked a lot better.

[levcore]

I've always thought the stampede scene looks good apart from a few ropey green screen shots. I still maintain overall the fx in this movie are spectacular.

[marsdust]

It's the only scene (stampede) wish had been trimmed back. Even on 4K it looks terrible. The actors look like cut-outs.

[gwsat]

Originally Posted by marsdust

It's the only scene (stampede) wish had been trimmed back. Even on 4K it looks terrible. The actors look like cut-outs.

The scenes on the island mostly bored me. In stark contrast, I thought the final act back in New York, which finished with Kong's death atop the Empire State Building could not have looked better and was dramatically effective too.

[bookcase]

Originally Posted by marsdust

It's the only scene (stampede) wish had been trimmed back. Even on 4K it looks terrible. The actors look like cut-outs.

It was always bad -- it's the only scene that I wish had been cut or re-done. Otherwise, I personally find the film outstanding.

[marsdust]

Sure, if re-done then fine. If only Peter Jackson would pull a George Lucas on us and re-do that scene. Whilst he's at it - the Warg attack in The Two Towers, insert Martin Freeman in FOTR prologue and re-do Legolas on the Oliphaunt in ROTK. We still have the originals so nobody is upset!

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by bookcase

It was always bad -- it's the only scene that I wish had been cut or re-done. Otherwise, I personally find the film outstanding.

There's more bad CGI and over the top moments in act two IMO, but I still overall like the movie. I just consider it a dumb roller-coaster, while others seem to think it's elevated above that. I don't agree.

[B-52 Bass]

Watched this the other day, yup, its on the bright side. Smh, I wonder how movies get approve like this. Didn't they watch this first b4 signing off on it. I'm quite sure Peter Jackson didn't want his film looking so bright And i'm not about to keep changing my tv settings every time a 4k movie come out this or comes out darker.

Everytime a new format come out why we the consumer always have to deal with studio mishaps. We spend so much money for the best cause they push us to upgrade and yet we keep getting shotty quality from them.

[scarpad]

I bought this on Blu ray before they announced the UHD, have'nt even opened it yet, would it be worth me getting rid of it and getting the 4k is it a substantial upgrade?

[levcore]

Yes, I thought it was a huge upgrade.

[aphid]

I thought this was a huge downgrade. They robbed the image of the atmosphere the blu-ray had. They jacked up the brightness, homogenized the color and used severe local contrast boosting to lead people into believing it's 4k and hdr. When Carl is on stage near the end of the movie you will see dark edge haloing around his body and instances where bright edge halos surround the mouths of actors. This haloing is different than your typical sharpening artifact. They are thicker and have a more gradual falloff so as not to immediately jump out as an artifact. Also the portion of the credits where there is a yellow gradient you'll see the gradient does not smoothly transition to black, but makes an abrupt jump to black and banding is among the rest of the gradient.

The complaint I see most other people make is that of the brightness of the image, but that is just one of many problems I encountered in my viewing.

Here is a screenshot comparison which will give you a bit of an idea of the changes the image underwent. See if you consider these changes an improvement. I personally find the changes abhorrent.

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comp....php?id=123308

[madfloyd]

HUGE HUGE uprade imo. The detail is jaw dropping.

[Geoff D]

I like it overall but it looks pretty damned weird at times and is more uneven than a carpet laid over a bunch of legos, looking processed to **** one minute and lovely and organic the next. It'd be great if we could find out if Peters Jackson or Doyle (the original DI colourist) had anything to do with this HDR grade.

[gwsat]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I like it overall but it looks pretty damned weird at times and is more uneven than a carpet laid over a bunch of legos, looking processed to **** one minute and lovely and organic the next. It'd be great if we could find out if Peters Jackson or Doyle (the original DI colourist) had anything to do with this HDR grade.

Agreed. I loved the UHD HDR version too, especially the last act back in New York, but with the caveat that the earlier parts of the UHD HDR version of the film has some weaknesses.

[SexySamSosa67]

I gotta watch this again. Haven't seen it since sophomore class high school on a crappy DVD.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by aphid

I thought this was a huge downgrade. They robbed the image of the atmosphere the blu-ray had. They jacked up the brightness, homogenized the color and used severe local contrast boosting to lead people into believing it's 4k and hdr. When Carl is on stage near the end of the movie you will see dark edge haloing around his body and instances where bright edge halos surround the mouths of actors. This haloing is different than your typical sharpening artifact. They are thicker and have a more gradual falloff so as not to immediately jump out as an artifact. Also the portion of the credits where there is a yellow gradient you'll see the gradient does not smoothly transition to black, but makes an abrupt jump to black and banding is among the rest of the gradient.

The UHD has issues but I don't think it's that bad, and I like it a lot more than the BD. The early scenes and scattered others are super bright, yes, but if you compare it to the BD they're very high contrast scenes in general, the UHD is just following that template with added kick like most Universal catalog conversions. I saw some banding in the boat attack scene and some minor clipping but nothing like you're talking about really, and SDR comparisons don't really mean much.

I would guess it will always be a release some like and some don't though. Luckily the BD looks pretty damn good for its age.

[aphid]

Originally Posted by StingingVelvet

I would guess it will always be a release some like and some don't though. Luckily the BD looks pretty damn good for its age.

I believe that you and I would find agreement on most other 4k releases and that this is just an outlier. I imagine it seems absurd to you when I say I would choose even the DVD over the 4k due to the color alone. Unfortunately, I can't capture my own blu-ray or 4k screenshots, but I have found a 4k screenshot searching the web and captured the matching DVD frame for a simple comparison of color.

From what once had a variety of hues, a 4k master was made and brown was the colorist's favorite color.

[StingingVelvet]

I'll compare them on color tomorrow if I remember, but keep in mind that the way color looks on a UHD depends a great, great deal on the television's color volume and HDR specs. My experience might not be yours, and who's to say which is correct.

Also I'm not sure a warmer look is necessarily wrong. Maybe the DVD and BD were compromised by scaling down to 8-bit. We've seen a lot of color differences on UHD compared to BD that strike me as improvements thanks to more flexible bit depth.

[Geoff D]

I think it's simply a case of the rec.709 passes (in general, I don't just mean for Kong) being given a certain colour wash to make them seem like they're more colourful and intense when they're trimmed out of the wider P3 gamut at source. That default wash is usually a greeny/tealy tinge, whereas with UHD you've got the wider gamut and the increased volume to be able to render individual colours with more precision and nuance so they don't go for such an ugly green tint, preferring it to be more neutral or even substantially warmer looking. Bit depth alone doesn't really enter it.