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

[thestrangestick]

Originally Posted by RYJAPE21

Could not disagree more. Aside from the aforementioned stampede scene (which looked horrible back in 2005 on the big screen, where I had the pleasure of seeing this film twice), I truly feel Weta did a remarkable job. A majority of the CGI stands above some of the films of today. Kong is so lifelike, right down to the strands of fur; the dinosaurs blend in well (for the most part) with the environment, and those damn giant insects are still frightening.

I’m always shocked when I see the CGI bashed for this film.

The insects and dinos looked good, I'll give you that, but I like consistency with my visual effects. If Kong had top tier effects the whole movie and then the last scene was an animated storyboard because they ran out of budget, it wouldn't be disingenuous to say the movie had bad effects overall. There's too many dodgy effects mixed in with the good ones and I personally find that very distracting.

Perhaps the CGI holds up better with the standard blu-ray as Kong on the 4K looked weird and processed (most likely DNR). It also made a lot of the other computer generated imagery stand out like every single blue screen, the rowboats heading to and from Skull Island looked dreadful, I mean coming off the back of LoTR this one has aged (overall) much worse effects wise IMO, at least on the 4K transfer. It's funny people in this thread are implying I'm jumping on a bandwagon for sharing my honest opinion on the movie after watching it for the first time in 15 years lol

[StrayButler91]

Originally Posted by thestrangestick

The insects and dinos looked good, I'll give you that, but I like consistency with my visual effects. If Kong had top tier effects the whole movie and then the last scene was an animated storyboard because they ran out of budget, it wouldn't be disingenuous to say the movie had bad effects overall. There's too many dodgy effects mixed in with the good ones and I personally find that very distracting.

If 90% of the VFX shots look great and the other 10% are dodgy, it’s extremely disingenuous to say outright that a movie has bad special effects. It would be more appropriate to say that it has mostly great effects, with a few exceptions.

If it was the other way around and 10% of the effects shots looked great while 90% looked terrible, then you can say the effects are pretty bad overall.

I would love to see a new cut of Kong with revised effects where appropriate, but as it stands, the majority of the VFX are great and stand up to this day.

[WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW]

the real problem is with the UHD disc and the nuclear HDR grading and odd semi-random DNR

[StrayButler91]

Originally Posted by WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW

the real problem is with the UHD disc and the nuclear HDR grading and odd semi-random DNR

Yep. I’ll be defaulting to the regular Blu in the future. I just wish we got a version of the Blu transfer in MPEG-4 with a healthy bitrate… Oh well.

[slimdude]

The worse aspect about this movie is that Peter Jackson was trying to make another movie into a 3 hour+ epic when unnecessary, especially for a simple King Kong movie. Nobody really cared about Jack Black and Naomi Watts character developments and back stories because the movie wasn't about them, and that portion of the movie could've been edited out completely. The audiences mainly wanted to see King Kong wreak havoc, and King Kong didn't appear in the movie till almost an hour later.

[StrayButler91]

Originally Posted by slimdude

The worse aspect about this movie is that Peter Jackson was trying to make another movie into a 3 hour+ epic when unnecessary, especially for a simple King Kong movie. Nobody really cared about Jack Black and Naomi Watts character developments and back stories because the movie wasn't about them, and that portion of the movie could've been edited out completely. The audiences mainly wanted to see King Kong wreak havoc, and King Kong didn't appear in the movie till almost an hour later.

[WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW]

Originally Posted by slimdude

The worse aspect about this movie is that Peter Jackson was trying to make another movie into a 3 hour+ epic when unnecessary, especially for a simple King Kong movie. Nobody really cared about Jack Black and Naomi Watts character developments and back stories because the movie wasn't about them, and that portion of the movie could've been edited out completely. The audiences mainly wanted to see King Kong wreak havoc, and King Kong didn't appear in the movie till almost an hour later.

except for all the people who did want to see their backstory, especially that of Watts

not all movies have to be a 100% non-stop smash 'em up action scene for 140 straight minutes

and it is relatively rare for the main beast/etc. to show up right at the start of these sorts of films

[motorheadache95]

I do enjoy Jackson's King Kong. I actually hadn't seen it in years, and picked up the original Blu-Ray release used for 3 bucks! I would have gone for the UHD but it sounds like it's pretty dodgy and doesn't look like the way the movie should for the most part.

For anyone that thinks it runs too long, I just do the same thing I do with the E.E Lord of the Rings films-- split the extended cut into two parts, and it works pretty well for pacing. I just go with the official split that was on the DVD, which cuts out about 80 minutes into the film, when the team ventures out to look for Naomi Watts.

[dontpokethebear3893]

Originally Posted by StrayButler91

Yep. I’ll be defaulting to the regular Blu in the future. I just wish we got a version of the Blu transfer in MPEG-4 with a healthy bitrate… Oh well.

So is the consensus that the Blu-Ray is actually superior? I haven't actually seen this in UHD since I've gotten a proper OLED screen and I am curious as to whether or not I should watch it on UHD or original Blu for my next re-watch.

[coolguy25]

Originally Posted by dontpokethebear3893

So is the consensus that the Blu-Ray is actually superior? I haven't actually seen this in UHD since I've gotten a proper OLED screen and I am curious as to whether or not I should watch it on UHD or original Blu for my next re-watch.

Please watch the UHD and confirm for me that by halfway through the movie your eyes will be sore.

Skull Island is so bright and everything stands out more including the waxy people faces.

[Geoff D]

I have watched the UHD the whole way thru and lived to tell the tale. To be honest the DNR on Naomi Watts’ forehead to erase the seams of her wig was far more distracting to me than anything else

[WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW]

Originally Posted by dontpokethebear3893

So is the consensus that the Blu-Ray is actually superior? I haven't actually seen this in UHD since I've gotten a proper OLED screen and I am curious as to whether or not I should watch it on UHD or original Blu for my next re-watch.

sometimes the UHD has more detail

the HDR is tricky, it tries to make a calibrated set look like it's some super fake, dazzling torch mode nuclear processed ugly store demo mode, so you have to tame it lots with custom settings and then sometimes some of it looks better than the blu-ray but some parts can't be fixed and look worse, it's all over the place whatever you do, no one setting tames it all and not all parts can be tamed

[Galactus123]

Originally Posted by Schwartzy

Yea the hdr of the 4K makes the cgi stand out way more than if it was done right... God i wish we could get new release and master but doubt it will happen :/

Its just sucks that two of my favourite films have the worst 4K releases T2 and this.

I think there could be a new release at some point. Peter Jackson might want to supervise a new version if he wasn't involved with this 4K release. I'm pretty sure the studio would let him do it if he wanted do.

[vwnut13]

Originally Posted by Galactus123

I think there could be a new release at some point. Peter Jackson might want to supervise a new version if he wasn't involved with this 4K release. I'm pretty sure the studio would let him do it if he wanted do.

This release is quintessential Peter Jackson.

Garbage.

[WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW]

I always find it weird that so many of these directors get it right and present a fantastic theatrical presentation but then somehow when it comes to the home they suddenly need to somehow fix and improve it and turn their films into looking like wrecks to some extent or another (look at the theatrical releases of SW 1,2,4,5,6 and then compare to home versions; look at T2 original theatrical release and compare to home releases; look at BTTF as it was originally theatrically and then look at all home versions until finally the most recent one (and even then look at part 2 and the new home version on UHD is still muddled); look at King Kong (and from what I hear Hobbit and LOTR) and compare theatrical to home; look at Jurrassic Park original theatrical compared to home (and in this case later theatrical releases too though) and it goes on and on).

[thestrangestick]

Originally Posted by dontpokethebear3893

So is the consensus that the Blu-Ray is actually superior? I haven't actually seen this in UHD since I've gotten a proper OLED screen and I am curious as to whether or not I should watch it on UHD or original Blu for my next re-watch.

I went in to the UHD without reading anything on here about it and found it to be all over the place. The occasional shots with gorgeous levels of detail and grain don't make up for the waxy high contrast mess in 75% of the film sadly. It definitely makes the blue screen so apparent, and there's a lot of blue screen in this movie naturally.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by slimdude

The worse aspect about this movie is that Peter Jackson was trying to make another movie into a 3 hour+ epic when unnecessary, especially for a simple King Kong movie. Nobody really cared about Jack Black and Naomi Watts character developments and back stories because the movie wasn't about them, and that portion of the movie could've been edited out completely. The audiences mainly wanted to see King Kong wreak havoc, and King Kong didn't appear in the movie till almost an hour later.

I think the problem with Jackson's Kong for some is that we knew he was going to adhere to the original to a high degree, so we basically knew the story going in (which isn't always an issue with new adaptations or remakes as there's a portion of the audience that's new to the whole thing). Jackson knew this too, so he expanded the narrative to offer fresh material (he'd later do the same with The Hobbit trilogy) and that extra padding works for some and doesn't work for others. The former enjoy getting sent back in time and the latter feel you could have got there with far quicker with some neat visual storytelling. I think out of all the early New York stuff Watt's vaudeville stuff only has a payoff (there's stuff with Black's character too) when she performs for Kong and we didn't need 20 minutes of stuff to let us know that.

Nothing wrong with liking the whole shebang, or wondering what a slimmer Kong would have played like.

[Abdrewes]

Just bought the 4k. What tint of sunglasses will I need?

thx

[HDMan72]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

Just bought the 4k. What tint of sunglasses will I need?

thx

Polarized lenses for sure.

[martinstraka8282]

Finally watched my copy tonight and this might have been the most visually offensive 4k disc I've ever watched. I've been underwhelmed many times, but this one actually bothered me.