Jurassic Park Collection 4K UHD (1993-2015)

[imsounoriginal]

People put CGI under too intense a microscope. Most of it is fine. Noticeable? Sure. But maybe growing up during the dawn of the CGI era trained me to be more forgiving of bad CGI. The last time I saw CGI that was truly so bad it took me out of the movie (not that the movie had done much to draw me IN anyway) was Baywatch.

And if ANY director knows how to properly use CGI, it's Fincher aka a god among men.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by FilmFreakosaurus

There is still way more bad CGI than good.

Why CG Sucks (Except It Doesn't) - YouTube

[Mobe1969]

Originally Posted by imsounoriginal

People put CGI under too intense a microscope. Most of it is fine. Noticeable? Sure. But maybe growing up during the dawn of the CGI era trained me to be more forgiving of bad CGI. The last time I saw CGI that was truly so bad it took me out of the movie (not that the movie had done much to draw me IN anyway) was Baywatch.

And if ANY director knows how to properly use CGI, it's Fincher aka a god among men.

CGI is a tool. I've watched it since Tron and I've never thought of it in terms of good or bad. Sure it has improved so much. But it really gets down to how the tool is being used. And to me that is where it just get to directors over using it to make some overly long kinetic avalanche of indecipherable action where the story just doesn't matter anymore. Whether the cg is the technically beautiful cg of today or the lower tech cg of the JP1 era, it doesn't matter. The cg isn't what makes anything bad.

In my opinion...

[s_har]

Originally Posted by RalphoR

The 4k JP four movie set is available on Amazon with a release date of 5/28/18. Is this a new listing with a new release date or is it the same date where people are getting canceled notifications about? I'm getting the BB steel book so I never preordered this.

28th? When I look it up the release date still says 5/22/18.

https://www.amazon.com/Jurassic-Park...rassic+park+4k

My pre-order that I made March 3 has not yet been cancelled (crossing fingers).

[jaaguir]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

Can you tell me where the cartoony FX are?

[Show spoiler]Mindhunter VFX Breakdown - Artemple - YouTube

This is the type of CG done most these days.

I support your overall thesis (I thanked one of your other posts) and this reel is full of good stuff, but I have to say, episodes 1 and 2 of Mindhunter are the only ones I've seen, and the cgi planes (which show up at the end of the reel) were super-obvious, the first (and only) time I saw them.
Just the way the scene was shot, it was too clear they were trying to elicit the feeling of an airport while showing as little as possible of it. That alone made the planes suspect, and once you paid minimal attention to them, something about their movement or compositing or just that you would see them at that angle, something was obviously off.
I have to say, it's kind of ironic, that despite all that trickery effort, the show comes across as a typical-tv low-budget affair. At least that's the feeling I got from it.
All that background trickery is fine, it adds atmosphere, it also helps disguise that you're using a one-for-all location, or that you're shooting all in the summer, or whatever, but it really, really cannot fix the truly important things like a broken script, etc. I cannot help but feel that fidgeting to such degree is really kind of an OCD-director-wasting-money thing.

[RalphoR]

Originally Posted by s_har

28th? When I look it up the release date still says 5/22/18.

https://www.amazon.com/Jurassic-Park...rassic+park+4k

My pre-order that I made March 3 has not yet been cancelled (crossing fingers).

I thought it said 5/28 at one point but it definitely does say 5/22 now.

[Pyoko]

Originally Posted by jaaguir

I cannot help but feel that fidgeting to such degree is really kind of an OCD-director-wasting-money thing.

The impression I've gotten is that this is Fincher in a nutshell. I don't agree regarding Mindhunter though, I thought it was one of the best things from Netflix and a definite step up from the usual TV fare, both in terms of production values as well as storytelling in all its aspects (visual, acting, writing, characters etc.) Watching Netflix's similarly-themed Manhunt: Unabomber immediately after only cemented my opinion.

I was rarely bothered by any of the VFX, at least not enough to disengage from the story, and I say this as a compositor. Regardless of the amount of tinkering Fincher productions are typically great in this way. The only thing I didn't get was the weird blanket chromatic aberration which didn't really add anything and more importantly didn't look anything like a convincing, real lens defect.

And if you want to see what budget VFX for TV looks like look no further than the very last shots of Sons of Anarchy.

[Geoff D]

Yep, that's Fincher all over, his latter-day movies have thousands of VFX shots. Obviously these aren't swarming alien armies advancing on a city or anything like that, but they're VFX all the same as he tweaks the SHIT out of his movies. On one recent production the DI techs remarked that he got them to splice together four separate takes into one because he liked the various 'bits' of performances in those respective takes. That practice itself of split-screening different takes together is a lot more common today than people realise, but Fincher's always the one pushing it to extremes.

And, by and large, these enhancements are invisible although certain things catch my eye, e.g. in Dragon Tattoo the anamorphic-style streaking looked a bit off on first viewing because it's clearly not an anamorphic show (Fincher hasn't touched that format for a motion picture since Alien³ IIRC) and, sure enough, the lens flares were added in post.

[jaaguir]

Originally Posted by Pyoko

I don't agree regarding Mindhunter though, I thought it was one of the best things from Netflix and a definite step up from the usual TV fare, both in terms of production values as well as storytelling in all its aspects (visual, acting, writing, characters etc.) Watching Netflix's similarly-themed Manhunt: Unabomber immediately after only cemented my opinion.

I beleve we'll have to agree to disagree on that. Maybe my expectations were too high but I found the show to be quite slow and uninvolving. And it's not Fincher's infamous reputation for chilliness, I have no problem loving "Zodiac" or "Gone girl" or whatever.
I guess it was unavoidable because of period and concept, but this felt too much like an anemic "Zodiac" wannabe, without any specific killer on the loose that the protagonists would engage with, to boot, so no suspense (a couple of cases are picked up and apparently dropped without any fuss). The big drama seemed to be whether the FBI would see the wisdom of this new discipline and allow the protagonists to develop it. I have nothing against true-events stories that we already know the ending of, but they require interesting characters, novel settings and/or very tight writing to pull them off, and I found neither here.
I mean, without the suspense element I thought the characters should be the show's forte, but there was nothing going on there for me. The show feels enraptured only with serial killers and listening to them talk for minutes one end. I guess some people find that fascinating but it just isn't my thing.
Remember I only saw episodes 1 and 2 and of course I will admit the show might get better later but I believe even then, I wouldn't withdraw the charge of the story taking too long to take off. For example, if the protagonist being so unbelievably bland is a set-up for some kind of journey into darkness, well, they certainly couldn't be bothered to give a clue in 120 minutes (or maybe I just didn't pick it up).
And I haven't seen Unabomber, FWIW.

Originally Posted by Pyoko

I was rarely bothered by any of the VFX, at least not enough to disengage from the story, and I say this as a compositor. Regardless of the amount of tinkering Fincher productions are typically great in this way.
[...] And if you want to see what budget VFX for TV looks like look no further than the very last shots of Sons of Anarchy.

I was only bothered by the planes, most of the other stuff I didn't even notice. So I didn't mean to trash the show's vfx in any way, and I'm well aware there are shows with worse vfx. When I wrote that the show came across as cheap to me, I meant the production in general, not the vfx.
And when I said "cheap" I just meant it looks like you would expect a tv show to look (but not worse either), especially the scale or scope of it (it's only logical), period is hard on budgets, you know, it has all the trademarks, like using just a few sets (also I guess there's a fine line between doing an austere or minimalistic look on purpose, and having sets look just under-dressed) a few open-country roads or locations, mostly avoiding big city street shots, etc. I believe no one would mistake this with a decently budgeted movie, but that's just my opinion.
And seeing now in that reel all the effort that went into tinkering with backgrounds, I couldn't help but wonder if some of that money wouldn't have been better spent in other things, since I don't think many people would notice if half those shots hadn't been altered. But you know, I really don't know about that stuff and I imagine those kind of vfx are cheap (unlike cgi animation and the like, I assume) and I guess not doing those wouldn't channel to some other department enough money to make a change. They could have worked harder on the script though...

[Pyoko]

Originally Posted by jaaguir

I beleve we'll have to agree to disagree on that.

I guess so. Personally I try not to think outside the work I'm watching so to speak, so as long as it's engaging it doesn't matter much if the outcome is known or not. I thought the Fincher suspense and chillness was pervasive throughout and was glued the entire time. I recommended it to my brother, who watched it in more or less one go and remarked how fast episodes were going by despite it not being quite his cup of tea either.

The main character duo was great as well. Holt McCallany has a great screen presence that's gone way underused in my opinion, and while I thought Holden Ford would be a boring, good-looking character needed as a front man to get the show greenlit, he turned out to be really interesting to watch. His infectious, naive enthusiasm and that borderline social cluelessness once focused on something are character flaws rarely seen in protagonists unless it's the main point.

Anyway how 'bout them velociraptors in Jurassic Park...

[Geoff D]

I haven't seen the show so won't weigh in on that, but +1 for the Holt McCallany love.

[brainofj72]

I've loved Zodiac since it first came out, but, to be honest, I think Mindhunter is considerably better.

[harpolini]

Originally Posted by jaaguir

I cannot help but feel that fidgeting to such degree is really kind of an OCD-director-wasting-money thing.

The Youtube comments joke around that they made slight, unnoticeable adjustments to the size of curbs in one of the shots. Whats crazy about that in particular is it just shows the intense level of period accurate details that we don't think about in today.

Curbs that ramped to the street level near crosswalks really became a thing in the late 80's/90's with the passing of the ADA (Americans With Disibilities Act) for wheelchair access across street intersections. So for them digitally remove them for period accurate curbs its next-level period accurate OCD.

[Acer2010]

Like I said before, it would be a real shame if the 4K re-masters of the first three JURASSIC PARK movies (I also say this about the 30th anniversary edition of DIE HARD) were not on standard Blu-ray as well. I mean, it would be a slap in the face to people who either don't have or can't afford UHD players.

Does anyone agree with me?

[FilmFreakosaurus]

Originally Posted by Acer2010

Like I said before, it would be a real shame if the 4K re-masters of the first three JURASSIC PARK movies (I also say this about the 30th anniversary edition of DIE HARD) were not on standard Blu-ray as well. I mean, it would be a slap in the face to people who either don't have or can't afford UHD players.

Does anyone agree with me?

If someone can afford a decent 4k display, they can certainly afford a basic UHD player now.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Acer2010

Like I said before, it would be a real shame if the 4K re-masters of the first three JURASSIC PARK movies (I also say this about the 30th anniversary edition of DIE HARD) were not on standard Blu-ray as well. I mean, it would be a slap in the face to people who either don't have or can't afford UHD players.

Does anyone agree with me?

I don't.

Just like I didn't think about the DVD version in the remastered combo packs.

[s_har]

Originally Posted by Acer2010

Like I said before, it would be a real shame if the 4K re-masters of the first three JURASSIC PARK movies (I also say this about the 30th anniversary edition of DIE HARD) were not on standard Blu-ray as well. I mean, it would be a slap in the face to people who either don't have or can't afford UHD players.

Does anyone agree with me?

I agree because these movies are also getting both individual blu-ray releases and a 25th anniversary blu-ray boxset as well. Jurassic Park definitely deserves properly remastered BDs for its 25th anniversary.
If the standard blu-rays were only included in the 4K release however I'd probably disagree.

[Acer2010]

Originally Posted by s_har

I agree because these movies are also getting both individual blu-ray releases and a 25th anniversary blu-ray boxset as well. Jurassic Park definitely deserves properly remastered BDs for its 25th anniversary.
If the standard blu-rays were only included in the 4K release however I'd probably disagree.

Are you telling me that the first three movies' 4K re-masters ARE going to be the sources for standard Blu-ray versions?

[RalphoR]

Let's hope so for the single bd releases for people who haven't gone uhd. I'm all in for the 4k discs so it isn't an issue one way or the other.

[s_har]

Originally Posted by Acer2010

Are you telling me that the first three movies' 4K re-masters ARE going to be the sources for standard Blu-ray versions?

No, that's not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying I agree that they ought to be new transfers because these discs are not merely included in the UHD boxsets, they are getting both individual BD releases and a BD boxset. It would be a real shame if those are simply reprints of the same old discs.


It is interesting to note however that the artwork on the discs in this new 25th anniversary boxset appears to be different to that of the 2015 boxset. At least judging by these pics (these are the UK boxsets by the way):
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jurassic-An...c+park+blu+ray
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jurassic-Pr...c+park+blu+ray

Not sure if that's an indication of anything though. Could be the same old discs with new artwork to match JW I guess. Or perhaps it's even not the finished artwork? Only time will tell.