First Blood / Rambo: First Blood Part II / Rambo III 4K UHDs (1982-1988)

[Sithlord75]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Oh, I meant to say: got my Rambos today!!

Same here. Will have a gander in a bit.

[Leterface]

Ordered the Rambo Trilogy Steelbook from Amazon France today because was afraid they too will increase its price as did Amazon Germany.

[GasmaskAvenger]

I really hope Lionsgate puts out a 4K UHD for the fourth film in time for Last Blood.

[Raphdude]

Just curious, are the original theatrical logos (Orion Pictures) for First Blood and (Tristar)
for Rambo First Blood Part 2 and 3 on the UHD discs?

[Croweyes1121]

Originally Posted by gregmasciola

Just watched the Blu-Ray of Rambo: First Blood Part II. I must say it looks fantastic. It felt reference quality to me. Clarity & detail was amazing. My only problem is they seem like they cranked up the blacks on these movies to a point where I have to turn down my TV's brightness. But when I watched Rambo Takes The 80s Part 2, no such issue when viewing footage from the movie. Blacks were fine. Other than this, I'm mostly happy with the transfers.

There’s absolutely a raised black issue with the mastering on R:FBPII. I have to set my E6’s brightness down two numbers from every other HDR10 movie I own for the letterbox bars to be pure black on it. The other two films don’t have this problem. No worries, though. After changing that one setting, the film looks incredible.

[Bourne1886]

Originally Posted by indisposed

The cutting isn't particularly noticeable and in terms of horsefalls, it's no where near as bad, as something like Conan the Barbarian.

I'll probably go with the German steelbook, because I like the way it looks and it works out cheaper than buying the U.K discs separately, but yeah, it's still annoying that the Russian translation subs aren't gonna be in there. Oh well... They weren't in the original DVDs, either.

I bought the first two American versions on 4k from Wowhd for £13.38 each posted. Took 8 days to arrive from the U.S.

All three would be about £40 if you went that route. Much cheaper than the German Steelbook. They have DTS HD MA sound.

[boo radley]

I went to the site but I still can't find any mention of an Atmos release. What am I missing? Thanks

[Agent Kay]

Originally Posted by Bourne1886

I bought the first two American versions on 4k from Wowhd for £13.38 each posted. Took 8 days to arrive from the U.S.

All three would be less than £40 if you went that route. Much cheaper than the German Steelbook plus they have Atmos sound. Don’t think the European ones have. Just DTS HD MA.

Not JUST DTS HD! Burn them!!
None are original, pick your poison

[Sithlord75]

Originally Posted by Bourne1886

I bought the first two American versions on 4k from Wowhd for £13.38 each posted. Took 8 days to arrive from the U.S.

All three would be less than £40 if you went that route. Much cheaper than the German Steelbook plus they have Atmos sound. Don’t think the European ones have. Just DTS HD MA.

US versions only have DTS-HD MA also on all 3 films.

Just sold my digital copies for these, so worked out at about £11 a film. Can’t argue with that for a 4k catalogue release. Will stick First Blood on tonight after the misses finishes watching the shite factor.

[Gaffer]

Originally Posted by Raphdude

Just curious, are the original theatrical logos (Orion Pictures) for First Blood and (Tristar)
for Rambo First Blood Part 2 and 3 on the UHD discs?

No, the first two just have the Studiocanal logo then jump straight into the film while Rambo III also has the Studiocanal logo but then retains the old Carolco logo. And yes these are the U.S Lionsgate releases.

[Indiana Jonezzz...]

Originally Posted by Agent Kay

Not JUST DTS HD! Burn them!!
None are original, pick your poison

So none of the US UHD discs, including the remastered Blu-rays, have original audio either, just like the UK UHD’s and remastered Blu-rays also don’t have original audio?

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Dude, what decade are you from? Seriously. LOADS of films have been transferred from negative in recent years, it's actually rarer to get a scan from IP these days. StudioCanal already said that, for example, their recent wave of Carpenter movies were all transferred from camera negative and I understand that the same is true for the Rambos. [edit the second] Yes, SC said so here, 4K 16-bit scans from OG negative at Technicolour Hollywood with Eclair Paris handling the restoration (which would explain the move towards a yellowy-cyan look as that's very much their bag):

I was commenting on video transfers in general, not Rambo specifically. That the lack of native subtitles would indicate it was not an IP.
Most studios used the IPs for scans to home video in the '80s and '90s, right up until the digital intermediate age. It's a big deal for them to transfer from the negative and not usually seen outside a major restoration.


See page 2 & 6 in KODAK's guide here.
https://www.kodak.com/uploadedfiles/...l_Workflow.pdf

[Geoff D]

Again though: what decade are you transmitting from? They didn't use negative for transfer back in the day because they didn't want to run such precious cargo through the telecine machines of the period (even the ones that said "from original negative" usually struck a brand new IP and transferred from that) but scanning film with precision and care using pin registered or edge-guided transports was started in earnest by the nascent digital VFX crowd, and naturally those methods migrated their way across into digital restoration and the DI process as a whole over the last 15 years.

When people realised that they could transfer film in this manner, that the negatives weren't in serious danger of being damaged (not any more than they already were), then this became the norm for most new transfers from most major studios & distributors. It's nowhere near as big a deal as it was. WAC tend to specialise in working stuff up from IP, true, but as their IP remasters often look as good as some other people's remasters from negative then I haven't got a problem with that.

Originally Posted by Croweyes1121

There’s absolutely a raised black issue with the mastering on R:FBPII. I have to set my E6’s brightness down two numbers from every other HDR10 movie I own for the letterbox bars to be pure black on it. The other two films don’t have this problem. No worries, though. After changing that one setting, the film looks incredible.

Yes, I noticed this on First Blood as well, having just watched it on my piddly LCD. I thought I noticed the occasional 'flutter' in the letterbox bars in the darker scenes but couldn't put my finger on it, but finally when Rambo is breaking down in the police station at the end the bottom letterbox bar kept changing in brightness, only slightly but enough for a Geoff to notice. If I change my black level from 50 down to 49 then the flutter is gone.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Again though: what decade are you transmitting from? They didn't use negative for transfer back in the day because they didn't want to run such precious cargo through the telecine machines of the period (even the ones that said "from original negative" usually struck a brand new IP and transferred from that) but scanning film with precision and care using pin registered or edge-guided transports was started in earnest by the nascent digital VFX crowd, and naturally those methods migrated their way across into digital restoration and the DI process as a whole over the last 15 years.

When people realised that they could transfer film in this manner, that the negatives weren't in serious danger of being damaged (not any more than they already were), then this became the norm for most new transfers from most major studios & distributors. It's nowhere near as big a deal as it was. WAC tend to specialise in working stuff up from IP, true, but as their IP remasters often look as good as some other people's remasters from negative then I haven't got a problem with that.

I haven't seen anything in the industry to say they're doing it much differently these days. Sure they're scanning off the original negatives usually for 4K restorations - and exactly how many have there been? A handful in comparison to what's already out there. If the IP is in great shape there's no reason to spend the money to go back to the salt mine vaults and pull the negative.

[Crimsoncleaver]

Any benefit of importing US discs or are UK ones pretty much same?

Tempted to Amazon the 3 for Sunday delivery and have a marathon.

[DR Herbert West]

Originally Posted by Indiana Jonezzz...

So none of the US UHD discs, including the remastered Blu-rays, have original audio either, just like the UK UHD’s and remastered Blu-rays also don’t have original audio?

Correct.

[Fat Phil]

Originally Posted by Crimsoncleaver

Any benefit of importing US discs or are UK ones pretty much same?

Tempted to Amazon the 3 for Sunday delivery and have a marathon.

I went for the US discs for a few different reasons (1) They're far cheaper (2) Studio Canal are on my shit list at the moment and I don't want to give them any more money than absolutely necessary and (3) The UK cover art offends my delicate sensibilities.

But, if you want to splurge and get them all for an awesome Sunday marathon, i'd be among the first to endorse that

[Geoff D]

First Blood (1982). It ain't no looker in 4K UHD but then it was never, ever going to be. It was shot 35mm anamorphic and, in keeping with the quality of the glass at the time especially when used in low light levels, it's just not razor sharp across the entire frame. There's still some decent enough detail, particularly on close-ups, and it looks thoroughly filmic thanks to a fine layer of grain that's ever present.

As for the colour grading, the greeny-yellow look I don't have a problem with (even the white lettering in the StudioCanal logo has a yellow tint!) and the primaries like the red and blue lights on the police cars look fine, but there is no such thing as black in this dojo. Even when Rambo's in the cave and is trying to strike a match in complete darkness the image has this light greeny-grey wash rather than being deep and dark - not that previous versions smashed everything to black and crushed it all to shit either, but they had a bit more density during the darker moments, you know?

Heck of it is though I didn't find myself too troubled by it, I think I'm getting far too used to this modern trend for milky blacks, and as I've mentioned before the added brightness from the HDR elements helps to add a greater sense of perceptual contrast, even with everything being greyblack. Not that this is some balls-to-bones HDR reimagining, no sir, it's a very respectful pass on a movie that trades on being gritty and grimly realistic, but there's still a touch of extra brightness here like on the muzzle flashes of the AR-15's that the cops are firing at Rambo when they first go after him in the forest.

What did catch my eye is the aforementioned 'flutter' in the letterbox bars (see post #1022 above) during some of the darker scenes, I think even the borders have been mastered a fraction too brightly but it'll depend on display tech (this kind of thing's not great for FALD LCD) and how the user has set black level for it to be noticed, if at all. Just clicking my black level down by one notch stopped the borders from fluctuating so I'll be doing that when viewing the other two Rambos on UHD.

The underlying restoration itself is pretty good, clean and stable, though I spotted a few white blips and scratches here and there. The dissolves at the beginning with Rambo walking look excellent so one would imagine that this got an A-B neg cut, though opticals like Rambo's flashback scenes do drop in quality, natch. As for the compression it's not as good as it looked in the caps as I noticed some of the trademark StudioCanal blockiness in shots of brighter exteriors in the skies. It's not Fog-bad at all, lemme make that clear in case people think I'm going overboard and throwing this UHD under the bus, and most of it is as good as I'd dared hope coming from them, but SC's compression team still seems to have a problem with encoding HDR and high brightness scenes. FYI I'm reviewing the American disc but make no mistake, this is SC's rodeo.

I didn't listen to the 5.1 sound in surround but it's obvious that this remix hasn't junked the original effects and started over, it's still full of the sort of tinny, plugged-up stock effects for gunshots and ricochets that makes some of our readers yearn for pastures new. Not this reader, mind you.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by Croweyes1121

There’s absolutely a raised black issue with the mastering on R:FBPII. I have to set my E6’s brightness down two numbers from every other HDR10 movie I own for the letterbox bars to be pure black on it. The other two films don’t have this problem. No worries, though. After changing that one setting, the film looks incredible.

The movie itself definitely has thin blacks.

[Fat Phil]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

If I change my black level from 50 down to 49 then the flutter is gone.

Thanks for the tip. That kind of thing usually distracts me so i'll make that black level change if I notice anything.

Originally Posted by Geoff D

FYI I'm reviewing the American disc but make no mistake, this is SC's rodeo.