Predator (1987) (Ultimate Hunter Edition)

[danman227460]

Because sex sells, not Predator kisses lol.

Originally Posted by 42041

It seems Fox would rather spend that money remastering Showgirls

[DetroitSportsFan]

Originally Posted by 42041

It seems Fox would rather spend that money remastering Showgirls

It will probably sell more copies.

[Chaka]

I think many are still missing the point here about Predator. It was shot in a jungle. Low budget at the time. Not a soundstage or sets. Lighting control was minimal. Some are probably right that the director may have not wanted grain but it was the end result and gave it the look of the film that most of us are used to.

You get rid of grain = you lose some detail. Just because this movie was made in 1987 doesn't mean squat as far as how good it should look. Just because you encode it as higher bitrate AVC vs mpeg2 doesn't mean squat either if your original source is weak. Try grabbing a 72dpi jpeg off the internet and throwing that sucker in photoshop. Increase dpi resolution to 300 and save it as a tiff. There is no difference to the final product. All you have is a larger file size of garbage.

[42041]

The source for predator isnt a 72dpi jpeg, but a 35mm negative. The limiting factor here is blu-ray.

[Chaka]

Originally Posted by 42041

The source for predator isnt a 72dpi jpeg, but a 35mm negative. The limiting factor here is blu-ray.

I never said it was a 72dpi jpeg.

[worth]

To me, the ultimate blu-ray is one that replicates the way the film looked in a good theatre on opening day.

If it was smooth, leave it smooth. If it was grainy, leave it grainy. All films are products of their time and are to some degree compromised by financial and technological limitations.

Lowry does good work, but I find even the Bond films to be overly-scrubbed. I saw Dr. No and Goldfinger projected at 2K recently and, while they certainly looked clean and sharp, they didn't really look like film anymore.

[Lionel Horsepackage]

Originally Posted by Chaka

I think many are still missing the point here about Predator. It was shot in a jungle. Low budget at the time. Not a soundstage or sets. Lighting control was minimal. Some are probably right that the director may have not wanted grain but it was the end result and gave it the look of the film that most of us are used to.

You get rid of grain = you lose some detail. Just because this movie was made in 1987 doesn't mean squat as far as how good it should look. Just because you encode it as higher bitrate AVC vs mpeg2 doesn't mean squat either if your original source is weak. Try grabbing a 72dpi jpeg off the internet and throwing that sucker in photoshop. Increase dpi resolution to 300 and save it as a tiff. There is no difference to the final product. All you have is a larger file size of garbage.

Believe me, I know all about the film's production history, as well as the shooting conditions, choice of film stock, et cetera. But you're telling me that, if you were John McTiernan today, examining a newly-minted 1080p HD master taken straight from the negative, you wouldn't maybe try to use some of the new tools that have been invented in the past 20 years to tone down that mosquito-storm, even just slightly?

It is possible to reduce the grain slightly enough so that you avoid loss of detail. That doesn't mean they should be degraded down to a plastic visual realm akin to digital video games. It means de-graining with respect, taste, and affection. But it also means removing the damn sand already, or as much as possible without violating the core intentions of the filmmakers.

Believe me, I love the film's lowdown, gritty, sweaty-jungle aesthetic as much as everyone else here, but it could look so much better than it does at the moment.

Originally Posted by worth

To me, the ultimate blu-ray is one that replicates the way the film looked in a good theatre on opening day.

If it was smooth, leave it smooth. If it was grainy, leave it grainy. All films are products of their time and are to some degree compromised by financial and technological limitations.

Sandstorm-strength grain is a technological blight that classic-era filmmakers had no choice but to work with as best they could. Bring the great directors back to life -- Wilder, Lubitsch, Fleming, Capra, Hawks, Ford, Griffith, Keaton, Hitchcock -- and they all very likely would have Lowry Digital go over their films with some level of digital comb.

Take no notice of the present-day monks who say that grain is beautiful, vital, essential. It is a visual hindrance to be fought tooth and nail down to the last dying breath.

Films shot under less-than-optimum conditions (like Predator or The Third Man) look too filmy on Blu-Ray, so they need to be moderately de-grained. Not wiped clean like that 2002 Paramount Sunset Boulevard DVD, but definitely cleaned up a bit. Because at the end of the day, even most die-hard film Catholics don't want renderings that are overly celluloid-looking (i.e., grainy, speckly, eight-at-the-gate).

We want an image that looks better than what the original filmmakers and labs were able to render. An image quality that the old-time filmmakers would have chosen for sure, if it had been put before them. These great directors didn't love grain. Their films were covered with the stuff because they had no choice. Grain reduction can be done correctly, reverently. Look at the Blu-Rays of Pinocchio or Casablanca, for example.

[42041]

Originally Posted by Lionel Horsepackage

We want an image that looks better than what the original filmmakers and labs were able to render. An image quality that the old-time filmmakers would have chosen for sure, if it had been put before them. These great directors didn't love grain. Their films were covered with the stuff because they had no choice. Grain reduction can be done correctly, reverently. Look at the Blu-Rays of Pinocchio or Casablanca, for example.

That's silly. I have no use for a 1940 movie that looks like it was shot in 2010 (which it won't, mind you, it'll look like a 1940 movie heavily processed to look cleaner). I don't want the image they WANTED, I want the image they got. At least, omitting the generation loss of the theatrical print.

[TheHOYT]

Originally Posted by Cliff

$$$$$$$$$$$

That type of restoration and work costs a lot of money and the Bond films are worth it.

The Bond films are evergreens (like Star Wars, Gone with the Wind, ET, or Wizard of Oz). They have a rotating life cycle that allows them to be sold over and over and over again.

Predator is, unfortunately even with most fans considering it a modern classic, a catalog title. Fox can't mount a big campaign for the return of Predator to Blu-ray and generate much excitement or sales. If Fox is lucky, they can expect to sell maybe 100,000 of the new edition.

However, if Fox were to spend the money on a worthwhile restoration the time would/should be now, considering the fact that they are willing to spend the money to make an entirely new feature-length motion picture.

[Lionel Horsepackage]

Originally Posted by 42041

That's silly. I have no use for a 1940 movie that looks like it was shot in 2010 (which it won't, mind you, it'll look like a 1940 movie heavily processed to look cleaner). I don't want the image they WANTED, I want the image they got. At least, omitting the generation loss of the theatrical print.

Hold up, there...I was talking about just having a few of the excess specks tastefully removed from the print, not a waxy-sheened digital video game restoration.

You can do both, and still have the film look like it was shot back in 1940. It's not an "either/or," zero-sum game.

This is what I can't stand about the grain-purists. They actually maintain with a straight face that Billy Wilder and Orson Welles would have said, back in the day, if given a choice:

"Oh, no -- don't make the image look cleaner and smoother! We prefer our classic films to be a little muddy, clouded up by that whole grain-storm effect. Better that way."

[DetroitSportsFan]

Originally Posted by Cliff

If Fox is lucky, they can expect to sell maybe 100,000 of the new edition.

Something tells me now that the cat's out of the bag, they won't be so lucky.

[gvortex7]

Originally Posted by DetroitSportsFan

Something tells me now that the cat's out of the bag, they won't be so lucky.

And what cat would that be? Did I miss something recently about this latest release?

[DetroitSportsFan]

Originally Posted by gvortex7

And what cat would that be? Did I miss something recently about this latest release?

Go back 2 pages.

[KubrickFan]

Originally Posted by Lionel Horsepackage

I wasn't talking about altering the aspect ratio, or changing it in any other fashion -- those things are 100% controllable by the director right there on the set.

What I was talking about was grain-reduction that McTiernan probably would've undertaken back in 1987, had he the means and opportunity.

Actually, the producers wouldn't let him shoot it anamorphically, so according to your terms, he now has a right to change it. In fact, there are probably many things he couldn't do, due to budget issues or whatever. Not every movie (I think the majority) comes out the way the director exactly wants it to be, let alone satisfy everyone who sees it. You don't like grain, that's a preference nobody can do anything about. That doesn't mean they should remove it when it's thicker than tolerable for you.
Also, claiming what a director might have wanted is useless, since both Wilder and Welles have been long dead. So, isn't it better to leave the film as it is, then?

[Chaka]

Originally Posted by Lionel Horsepackage

Hold up, there...I was talking about just having a few of the excess specks tastefully removed from the print, not a waxy-sheened digital video game restoration.

You can do both, and still have the film look like it was shot back in 1940. It's not an "either/or," zero-sum game.

This is what I can't stand about the grain-purists. They actually maintain with a straight face that Billy Wilder and Orson Welles would have said, back in the day, if given a choice:

"Oh, no -- don't make the image look cleaner and smoother! We prefer our classic films to be a little muddy, clouded up by that whole grain-storm effect. Better that way."

I understand your point but there will always be a debate about is it art or just entertainment. Where do you draw the line? Should you preserve and clean or digitally alter what is left because the director didn't originally want grain. Should we add color to B&W films because it is obvious that the directors saw things in color? Should Lucas keep altering and adding to his trilogy because its a constant work in progress?

The HD revolution has made certain movies and shows look amazing where its so much better than what we were used to its damn right distracting at first glance. With this comes expectations that everything can look that good which I think is very misleading to some.

[Lionel Horsepackage]

Originally Posted by KubrickFan

Actually, the producers wouldn't let him shoot it anamorphically, so according to your terms, he now has a right to change it. In fact, there are probably many things he couldn't do, due to budget issues or whatever. Not every movie (I think the majority) comes out the way the director exactly wants it to be, let alone satisfy everyone who sees it. You don't like grain, that's a preference nobody can do anything about. That doesn't mean they should remove it when it's thicker than tolerable for you.
Also, claiming what a director might have wanted is useless, since both Wilder and Welles have been long dead. So, isn't it better to leave the film as it is, then?

The thing is, for the grain-purists, either it's a mucky-muck grain experience, grain the size of crushed gravel, and glory-be-to-God for that raw, Iraqi-sandstorm effect...or it's the arid, video-game hell of the Patton Blu-Ray. No in-between -- it's "give me librium, or give me meth." There is an in-between, and it can look beautiful. It can look sublime.

If Lowry Digital's John Lowry had been allowed to allowed to moderately de-granulate The Third Man, it would have made for a very significant difference. But no...the grain-purists are like mad, inbred, brown-robed monks living in a secluded abbey in the French mountains. Purity! Purity above all!

Originally Posted by Chaka

I understand your point but there will always be a debate about is it art or just entertainment. Where do you draw the line? Should you preserve and clean or digitally alter what is left because the director didn't originally want grain. Should we add color to B&W films because it is obvious that the directors saw things in color? Should Lucas keep altering and adding to his trilogy because its a constant work in progress?

The HD revolution has made certain movies and shows look amazing where its so much better than what we were used to its damn right distracting at first glance. With this comes expectations that everything can look that good which I think is very misleading to some.

You bring up some good points, although in the case of film grain, I think there probably exists a reasonable compromise-zone between how a film was originally exhibited, versus what their directors likely would've wanted their movies to look like, if they'd had high-grade film stock, etc., available to them at the time.

This issue has only come to the fore with Blu-Ray technology, because now you can visually see the grain much more clearly. I popped in an eight-year-old Dr. Strangelove DVD the other day, and was shocked at how much grainier it looks on my 52-inch Sony plasma, than on my four-year-old, 36" Sony analog flatscreen.

High-def, in short, is exposing the granular reality of how these films look more than ever before. In the exact same way that the most recent digital mastering of George Pal's War of the Worlds ('53) exposed the wires holding up the Martian spaceships, for example. Only an oddball like DVD Talk's Glenn Erickson would say that seeing the wires is an okay thing. ("There was no CG wire removal in 1953," Erickson wrote in '05, "and it would be detrimental revisionism to change the picture now, [so just] learn to live with it.")

The wires obviously weren't intended to ever be seen, and the obvious remedy is to go into the current transfer and digitally remove them -- simple. (And perhaps retain the original, unaltered version for the purists out there.) That's all I'm talking about, in general. Remove the stuff from older films that distracts the viewer from the dream-state that movies are supposed to lull you into. Because grain is the worst waker-upper of all.

[Kirk Out]

[HD Goofnut]

Originally Posted by Cliff

I might be inclined to agree with you in some way if you were right at all.

Your argument carries over into every possible aspect of a film's production.

Should we colorize the original King Kong because the technology is now there to do so. Don't you think if we revived Merian C. Cooper today he would want his film presented in color? It wasn't available to him back then, but surely that would have been his intention. Why not covert Gone with the Wind to 3D? Clearly David O. Selznick and Victor Fleming would want their film to be as cutting edge and epic as possible. This is the kind of thinking that taken away the original Star Wars films as fans have loved them probably forever and has given us a French Connection Blu-ray that is damn near unwatchable.

I said it before and I'll say it again (in fact I'm going to quote it because I'm tired of writing it)...
Blu-ray isn't a barometer for how good a movie should look, but a tool to allow it to do so to the best of its photography and stylistic ability.

The beginning, the middle, and THE END...

So when people say, "Predator isn't a very good Blu-ray because it's so grainy," what they're really saying is... "Predator is a great Blu-ray of a very grainy movie but I don't know enough to tell the difference."

+1 Long live grain and death to DNR. *Smashes staff down*

[Lionel Horsepackage]

Originally Posted by Cliff

I might be inclined to agree with you in some way if you were right at all.

Your argument carries over into every possible aspect of a film's production.

Should we colorize the original King Kong because the technology is now there to do so. Don't you think if we revived Merian C. Cooper today he would want his film presented in color? It wasn't available to him back then, but surely that would have been his intention. Why not covert Gone with the Wind to 3D? Clearly David O. Selznick and Victor Fleming would want their film to be as cutting edge and epic as possible. This is the kind of thinking that taken away the original Star Wars films as fans have loved them probably forever and has given us a French Connection Blu-ray that is damn near unwatchable.

I said it before and I'll say it again (in fact I'm going to quote it because I'm tired of writing it)...
Blu-ray isn't a barometer for how good a movie should look, but a tool to allow it to do so to the best of its photography and stylistic ability.

The beginning, the middle, and THE END...

So when people say, "Predator isn't a very good Blu-ray because it's so grainy," what they're really saying is... "Predator is a great Blu-ray of a very grainy movie but I don't know enough to tell the difference."

Whoa...hold on there just a sec, Cliff. You're automatically presuming some inherent lack of any real knowledge of film production or post-production on my part, to say nothing of outright claiming that you're "right" and that those of us (including many in the film-restoration community) who feel otherwise are somehow "wrong."

A slippery slope, this is: the increased resolution of high-def presentations will undoubtedly cause similar debates in the future. But, then, how does your argument apply to film grain? Shouldn't graininess be considered part of the "look and texture" of an original film? And isn't it strange that film preservation is now increasingly adopting the legal doctrine of "original intent"?

And with the higher resolution of Blu-Ray comes a higher or more distinct preponderance of grain in the Blu-Ray image. Which is why it makes sense to digitally tone the grain down. Tastefully, respectfully, and not radically, but tone it the f*** down. The monks can go on and on and on and on, but there's no way they'll ever convince me that King Vidor and Victor Fleming and John Ford were queer for grain in 35mm film. They lived with it, is all. It was part of what film was, and there was no getting around it.

But if given a chance to tone it down in the future, I can't imagine their ghosts being against this. They certainly wouldn't have said, "Oh, by all means -- make the grain in my 1941 movie look even MORE vivid and grain-stormy than it looked when it actually showed in local Bijous way back then."

Let's use our heads, and calmly look at this for just a moment, here: Why would a visual artist who's obviously familiar with the glories of nature and "magic-hour" light visible to the naked eye prefer that his or her film should present these visual values so that they're covered with millions of tiny little micro-grain pellets?

What artist in his or her right mind say, "Yes, I prefer that! It's better to visually contemplate God's kingdom with millions of grain-pellets covering each and every image."

See my point?

[Bunker]

Is DNRing a film less expensive than just transferring the damn thing to a disc and not manipulating the source? It's just baffling to me that after all the outrage over Gladiator and Spartacus that the studios still do this horse****.