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

[dinosauriac]

Originally Posted by levcore

Almost time for the annual rewatch of this "masterpiece".

Why the quotation marks? Was the masterpiece part meant to be sarcastic there? Kong 2005 has its problems, but I genuinely think it's a great movie personally. And I also uniroincally rewatch it annually (sometimes more than annually!)

I have to wonder after the furore surrounding the new Cameron 4K releases whether Kong was some kind of early precursor to the tools being deployed now. Kinda want to reserve judgement until I have Aliens and True Lies actually on disc, but history gives me cause for concern. With some of the weird stuff in Kong's UHD release, like the smearing of Naomi Watt's hairline.

I'll never forgive them for turning the most suspenseful scene of the movie into an unwatchable cartoon. The original blu ray is lower bitrate, noisy, and a touch dark, but it at least doesn't scrub all detail away from certain scenes or overly sharpen others. That plus the revisionist hot look that has been blanketly applied to Skull Island means I'll keep rewatching that old release.

[rocknblues81]

Is the blu from this set the best o e to watch?

[Blu-Curry]

Love this film. I upgraded from the initial DVD release, so I was happy to have both versions of the film on both blu-ray and 4K UHD. I didn't watch the 4K version yet as I didn't have 4K at the time, but I should at some point to see what all the fuss is about. At least the 4K package gives you both the blu-ray and 4K version. I did watch the blu-ray though. I'm usually a fan of extended cuts and when I was young I wanted more creatures from Skull Island, but I thought it honestly slowed down the pacing of the film. It also made Jack Black's scene with the bugs less epic because he already got an action scene with the creature in the water.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by rocknblues81

Is the blu from this set the best o e to watch?

I'm hesitant to reply since I haven't watched it since it came out, but... My memory is of watching the UHD, seeing all the complaints people had and thinking it looked meh, but then putting the BD in afterward and seeing that the vast majority of those problems were the source. That made me think the UHD was still the better way to watch. Your mileage may vary.

[Mierzwiak]

So... after selling it over a year ago, I decided to gave King Kong's UHD a second chance. My appreciation for Titanic's UHD (along with some personal stuff) and a focus on its positive aspects instead of relying solely on a screenshots analysis, pixel peeping and looking for flaws changed my perspective lately. It doesn't mean I will accept any crap from now on (although, as I said in T2s thread, no matter how bad that UHD is, the movie is so great that it was a pleasure to watch it and I have zero regrets about saying that about probably the worst UHD release of all time), but I don't want or need any bitterness or even anger being a part of what is my passion.

Now, about King Kong.

Aside from some weird and obvious DNR, random patches of blur on Naomi's face or weird (over)processing, which takes place mostly in the first 17 minutes or so, most of the film looks great, actually. I miss movies having a distinct, very contrasty look and King Kong, with its stunning visuals and HDR grade creating a F*CKING HOT contrast takes it to a whole different level. It might be a level or even two too high, but whatever. What I adore about HDR is that you can really get a sense of lighting and here it makes the image beautifully three-dimensional, incredibly rich and eye-catching. How can you resist all those specular highlights in the jungle?

Overall I still think the original color grading is better, but there's a lot to appreciate here and it's not like the movie was altered to the point of being uncrecognizable, no. Gone is the obvious tint from the BD and it's mostly the jungle scenes that are different on the UHD: they have more, I don't know how to describe it, earthy, grounded look?

I will certainly watch the BD in the future, if only because of nostalgia, but the UHD might be my main choice now. It has some flaws (the main one is probably it looking more digital than film), but if you focus on its strengths, you might discover something exciting and highly enjoyable.

[Geoff D]

I never did do my "in defence of Kong" follow up, I took a load of photos too. I know I just said no more reviews but it won't be one of those, it'll just be UHD vs BD. Maybe next week.

[spiltmilk]

The UHD certainly has its issues, but I agree that it beats the BD overall. (Depending on your setup as always.) The opening shot of the zoo is incredibly overexposed on the UHD, but it mostly gets better after that, and the blu ray is rather dull and lifeless in comparison.

[Mierzwiak]

Originally Posted by spiltmilk

the blu ray is rather dull and lifeless in comparison.

I would say almost everything is dull and lifeless in comparison with King Kong's UHD

The thing is there's nothing dull or lifeless about how it looked originally, it's a gorgeously shot movie with a great lighting throughout - something most modern, ugly blockbusters are lacking.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Mierzwiak

I would say almost everything is dull and lifeless in comparison with King Kong's UHD

The thing is there's nothing dull or lifeless about how it looked originally, it's a gorgeously shot movie with a great lighting throughout - something most modern, ugly blockbusters are lacking.

In some respects I guess that's true but my lord the BD is fugly all over.

[RalphoR]

I thought the 4k improved a lot of f/x shots....especially the stampede. Even Jimmy jumping from rock to rock looks a lot better (it's still not great, though). Overall, the movie is too bright in certain scenes but as my projector lamp ages this movie looks better and better.

[I-C-Blue]

I find the night time scenes are at their strongest in compared to day time, which honestly makes me feel like I'm on the verge of getting sunburned.

I'm still going to watch the Blu-Ray next time, even if it's duller in comparison. As long as I'm not experiencing a 1:1 comparison, I know I will enjoy the 2K upscale without any poorly optimized slap-ons the 4K had. And the 5.1 track is still robust.

[WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW]

Originally Posted by StingingVelvet

I'm hesitant to reply since I haven't watched it since it came out, but... My memory is of watching the UHD, seeing all the complaints people had and thinking it looked meh, but then putting the BD in afterward and seeing that the vast majority of those problems were the source. That made me think the UHD was still the better way to watch. Your mileage may vary.

The UHD has a basically untameably insane HDR grading though. If you do crazy things to real it in you can sort of tame it but there are still major issues from that alone. (OTOH the blu-ray can be a touch dull crazily enough) The HDR grading is horrendously unnatural. If you don't have a PC to fiddle with all sorts of parameters you are really sunk. I love this film but man neither disc is all that great. I guess the only hope would be an original 35mm print or a high quality scan of one.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW

The UHD has a basically untameably insane HDR grading though. If you do crazy things to real it in you can sort of tame it but there are still major issues from that alone. (OTOH the blu-ray can be a touch dull crazily enough) The HDR grading is horrendously unnatural. If you don't have a PC to fiddle with all sorts of parameters you are really sunk. I love this film but man neither disc is all that great. I guess the only hope would be an original 35mm print or a high quality scan of one.

I remember stuff like the blazing hot skies in act one, but then I remember seeing the BD had the same blazing hot contrast it just didn't have the nits to back it up. That's what I mean by it being there at the source. I haven't watched the disc since the week it came out though so I should really shut up. It's on my "rewatch soon" list.

[joenostalgia23]

Recently rewatched this and it’s kind of a frustrating release. I’m always more forgiving at release because I want to be positive and like these things but the infamous brontosaurus chase looks really terrible. Worse than I ever remember it looking. Smeary like a YouTube video or a Netflix stream when your connection drops.

Popped in the Blu-ray and this specific section looked much better. The DNR on this release kills a lot of scenes, and I would say it also makes the CGI/VFX look more fake as well. The film grain from the 2K version really helps the aesthetic of the film in general and that texture definitely helps mask the effects.

The HDR grade is intense on this film, it’s a night and day difference from the Blu-ray, but the SDR 1080p still looks good, it has always been a film with beautiful cinematography.

There are some shots here where the 4K resolution bump is outstanding and it looks great. But also so many shots where the DNR make it look like crap. Anything slightly out of focus and it gets this uncanny smoothness.

I’m keeping my 4K steelbook, but will probably stick with the included BD on rewatches.There are definitely improved shots on the UHD, but the bad shots are so bad, I’d rather stick with the BD which has a *consistent* video quality.

[Geoff D]

Reminds me, I really must do my In Defence of Kong post before I can't be bovvered again

[NoFro]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Reminds me, I really must do my In Defence of Kong post before I can't be bovvered again

Please do. I need to revisit this one.

[Geoff D]

King Kong (2005) 4K HDR10 review, US Universal UHD disc. HDR metadata: Mastering display colour primaries: P3-D65. Mastering display luminance levels: 1000/0.005 max/min nits. Maximum Content Light Level: 1000 nits. Maximum Frame Average Light Level: 96 nits. Disc type: UHD100.

I said what I said about King Kong here https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...&postcount=485 a few years ago and stand by every word, what I didn't hammer home tho is the colour, holy hell the Blu-ray is a nightmare of yellow and green, replaced with a much warmer salmon-hued tone for the UHD.

I done took a few photos a while back, they're not great as not all of them line up very well but you get the idea of what I'm getting at. I may well be harming my case given how processed the UHD looks in a lot of these but it's a case of what distracts the most: the ugly green/yellow tint of the Blu plus its downright poor compression that mangles the grain (worth noting here that the average bitrate of the Blu is a mere 16 Mb/s!) or the blatantly overprocessed UHD with its smudgy-yet-sharpened look plus extra highlight range, denser blacks and much warmer/pinkier colour tone. For me the UHD is the more pleasurable of two flawed presentations but by all means feel free to think me insane.

THESE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE NOT INTENDED TO CONVEY THE ENTIRETY OF EITHER SDR OR HDR WITH 100% ACCURACY BUT ONLY SPECIFIC ASPECTS. THEY CAN ALSO BE MUCH DARKER THAN THE CONTENT ACTUALLY APPEARS OWING TO THE EXPOSURE NECESSARY TO CAPTURE THE DYNAMIC RANGE.

There be lots of photos of the luminous Ms Watts coming up, here's a starter. Blu has more 'texture' but even here the skin is horribly sallow on the Blu and the green tint is already corrupting it. UHD does look a lot more 'plasticky' mind you, it's funny how this is much like what Cameron's just done to his movies on UHD but it came out like 7 years ago.

BD

[Show spoiler]

UHD

[Show spoiler]

Denham in the screening room, just a lot less yellowy looking and although the BD's grain is gone on the UHD it's not totally grainless, it's had a layer of something more inoffensive pasted on. There's also what looks like sharper definition on his hair and stubble too, but is it "real detail" or just Memorex?

BD

[Show spoiler]

UHD

[Show spoiler]

Exterior shot of 'New York', the UHD isn't as dark as that but look at how the greeny streets on the BD look a lot more natural on the UHD. Well, to me anyways.

BD

[Show spoiler]

UHD

[Show spoiler]

Ann Darrow about to go into the burlesque theatre. Blu doesn't look terrible admittedly but again it's got that greeny background vibe.

BD

[Show spoiler]

UHD

[Show spoiler]

Same scene, this of her walking away. Again, green be gone!

BD

[Show spoiler]

UHD

[Show spoiler]

Denham making a proposition to Ann Darrow in the cafe. This scene has a lot of funky processing going on in the UHD but the compression on the BD is awful here, the pics don't even show it that much but the 'grain' that might seem so good in comparison is a swirling miasma of blocks. UHD again has a verr fine layer of something else laid in.

BD

[Show spoiler]

UHD

[Show spoiler]

Exterior of the ship before departure. So. Much. Green.

BD

[Show spoiler]

UHD

[Show spoiler]

Talking to the captain before departure.

BD

[Show spoiler]

UHD

[Show spoiler]

Ann in her cabin. Colour looks sooooo much betterer to me here on the UHD.

BD

[Show spoiler]

UHD

[Show spoiler]

Driscoll outside on the ship. Not just colour but the UHD doesn't look anything like as blown out as the BD does.

BD

[Show spoiler]

UHD

[Show spoiler]

And again.

BD

[Show spoiler]

UHD

[Show spoiler]

One more, and not just highlights but it's the much fuller colour that does it for me.

BD

[Show spoiler]

UHD

[Show spoiler]

That beautiful 'sunset' shot. The Blu is naice but the UHD is even betterer IMO.

BD

[Show spoiler]

UHD

[Show spoiler]

Denham on Skull Island. Green toned way down again.

BD

[Show spoiler]

UHD

[Show spoiler]

[Mierzwiak]

The original color grading, while having some of the usual color blankets, still feels to me like exactly what it is - carefully applied, deliberate color pallette. It fits the style of the film and creates specific atmosphere, which, I think, sometimes can be lost on the UHD.

Just for fun:

BD


UHD


Official VFX shot (full range?)

[lateralspin]

It is a pick your poison type of choice. In some cases, the BD looks better. In others, the UHD looks better...

[The hitcher]

My only problem with revisiting this movie is that it is sad AF and makes me feel like blubbering like a little kid

Seriously I will just skip the end next time.