First Blood / Rambo: First Blood Part II / Rambo III 4K UHDs (1982-1988) - Page 63 - Blu-ray Forum

captainsolo · 11-24-2018, 10:12 PM

FB is the film that made me realize Stallone's talent and the level of his undervaluation by most. I think it's not only a great film but his best overall.
I've never been able to stomach the mindlessness of the sequels. Maybe I'll try again.

On these I guess I'll wait for a boxset or something but I just can't quite stomach the look of the new master on FB. It just doesn't seem right to me at all. Heck, I may go track down the import version of the old BD.

Geoff D · 11-24-2018, 10:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PrestonXI

THEY drew first blood!

It was all the fault of that kingshit cop.

FilmFreakosaurus · 11-24-2018, 11:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Geoff D

It was all the fault of that kingshit cop.

They pushed a guy wired and programmed to assassinate people with steely ruthlessness, and so can you blame John for snapping?

Brian Dennehy really was great as the corrupt, slime-ball sheriff.

Lantz · 11-25-2018, 12:32 AM

Thanks Geoff for the info!

I now had a look at the restoration feature on the disc. From the looks of it, seems the restoration team had quite a dark print to work with from the beginning. A layman theory of mine is that blacks were already somewhat crushed in the print they were given and a way to bring out some shadow detail in the end was to increase the brightness of the blacks.

TheSweetieMan · 11-25-2018, 02:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnnyringo7

Cobra and Over the Top in 4K!

We just gonna leave out Nighthawks?

johnnyringo7 · 11-25-2018, 03:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheSweetieMan

We just gonna leave out Nighthawks?

Nighthawks is one of the few Stallone movies that I didn't saw. I read is a very good one

gregmasciola · 11-25-2018, 03:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PrestonXI

THEY drew first blood!

According to the subtitles, it's "they shot first".

PopNLock · 11-25-2018, 03:57 AM

If you want to see First Blood in a sort of amusing way, watch the 4K disc with the subtitles on. Hardly ANY of the dialog is captioned correctly. Our favorite thing to watch for was when a character swears because it seemed like the person doing the captioning never agrees with what the character on the screen actually says. Sometimes they insert a lesser swear word and sometimes the captioner inserts a much stronger word. They didn't even get the captions for "THEY drew first blood" right. It is captioned, "they shot first," instead. In the history of home video film revisions and restorations, the captioner for First Blood (um, er... "Shot First"?) should get an honorable mention.

tcripe · 11-25-2018, 04:24 AM

Watch part 2 earlier today. Obviously the film is inferior to the first but to my surprise I thought the transfer for the first one looked much better than the second. Wonder if the studio didn’t put as much work into the transfers for the second and third films?

Noremac Mij · 11-25-2018, 04:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tcripe

Watch part 2 earlier today. Obviously the film is inferior to the first but to my surprise I thought the transfer for the first one looked much better than the second. Wonder if the studio didn’t put as much work into the transfers for the second and third films?

Transfer for First Blood looked better to me as well. It’s wonderful.

Cherokee Jack · 11-25-2018, 04:35 AM

Set an alarm to grab all three of these at 1am Thursday morning and they should be here by Monday. I've only seen the first but hearing the second described as a big budget Cannon film is enough to get me pumped to do a marathon. Well that, and growing up on Gizmo taking the Rambo sequels as his inspiration to fight back against his gremlin spawn.

And I wanna f*cking kill that police department save for Caruso's character when watching First Blood. The movie pushes all the right buttons.

gregmasciola · 11-25-2018, 04:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PopNLock

If you want to see First Blood in a sort of amusing way, watch the 4K disc with the subtitles on. Hardly ANY of the dialog is captioned correctly. Our favorite thing to watch for was when a character swears because it seemed like the person doing the captioning never agrees with what the character on the screen actually says. Sometimes they insert a lesser swear word and sometimes the captioner inserts a much stronger word. They didn't even get the captions for "THEY drew first blood" right. It is captioned, "they shot first," instead. In the history of home video film revisions and restorations, the captioner for First Blood (um, er... "Shot First"?) should get an honorable mention.

I know. How do you screw up the line that the movie title comes from?

1924 · 11-25-2018, 04:42 AM

Rewatched Rambo 2 and I’m honestly not sure why this is R. Most of the violence is Bloodless and really tame compared to some other R rated films at the time like Die Hard movies, Predator movies and Robocop.

Accelerant_84 · 11-25-2018, 07:39 AM

Watched all 3 films on remastered standard blu and I'm struggling with how anyone can defend the PQ here? The yellow-push color timing I could maybe live with but the grey blacks look just awful. Nothing about the picture pops, there's no depth, it just looks flat, faded, and dated. Is this really from the original negative? There's just no way these films are supposed to look like this.

JohnCarpenterFan · 11-25-2018, 07:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Accelerant_84

Watched all 3 films on remastered standard blu and I'm struggling with how anyone can defend the PQ here? The yellow-push color timing I could maybe live with but the grey blacks look just awful. Nothing about the picture pops, there's no depth, it just looks flat, faded, and dated. Is this really from the original negative? There's just no way these films are supposed to look like this.

Visual evidence suggests that these are from the negative. Color doesn't factor into that as a scan from the negative will require color timing from scratch. It's only that Ritrovata and Eclair (they may as well be the same company), the latter of which was responsible for the look of these masters, couldn't grade anything properly if their lives depended on it.

They are completely incompetent and should be nowhere near a grading suite. That's if they even have one, with the way their crap looks, they may as well be half-assing their work in a public library.

KcMsterpce · 11-25-2018, 08:08 AM

I watched all three 4k movies yesterday. I actually turned on the subtitles during FIRST BLOOD to catch what Rambo says in the beginning when the sheriff pulls out his knife and says "What do you hunt with a knife?"
Rambo mumbles something like "Amy", or maybe "Name me".
The subtitles said "Everything". Two minutes later, I'm like Huh? What the hell is going on with the subtitles? lawlz We're gettin' trolled!
It's as if the person that did the subtitles doesn't understand English as a first language. Maybe they had the German dub, then tried transliterating the German back INTO English or something.

Anyhoo... still love FB. Awesome movie. Looks good in 4k. Makes me feel like I'm watching a vintage 1980 flick (well, actually I watched it on a projector, and had my "critical eye" blinded and shut off).
Rambo II looks decent, but the movie is a little worse.
As for Rambo III... yeah it looks great - those outdoor shots and natural sunlight is glorious (so too, are some of the sets)!
I was fine with it for the first 45 minutes, but then the last half hour keeps flushing itself farther down the drain. The terrible one-liners between Rambo and Trautman feels like something from ACTION JACKSON, not from what the first half of this movie's tone was going for. Ah well, either way, I don't consider as much of a disaster since I last watched it 10+ years ago (or the times before that), but it is undoubtedly the weakest entry in the series.

It was nice to get back

Nothing371 · 11-25-2018, 08:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matt89

I actually think First Blood really works as a dramatic film and it’s one of Stallone’s best performances. His monologue about Vietnam at the end of the film is heartbreaking. The sequels are another beast entirely and lack the depth that the first film had.

~Matt

Better than Tango & Cash?

Member-222782 · 11-25-2018, 11:50 AM

Since the $7.99 Best Buy Black Friday deal is over, Amazon's prices have predictably gone up but they're not all the way up to what they were before the sale, which was $14.99. Rambo II missed the sale boat and is still $14.99 but it's better than Walmart's $17.99 each so I'd better jump on the wagon and grab II at the $14.99 price point before it goes up. Or maybe these will stay at about fifteen bucks a pop for a while. Lionsgate catalog 4K's always seem to hover around the 17 dollar mark.

Petey Parker · 11-25-2018, 12:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cinema84

Since the $7.99 Best Buy Black Friday deal is over, Amazon's prices have predictably gone up but they're not all the way up to what they were before the sale, which was $14.99. Rambo II missed the sale boat and is still $14.99 but it's better than Walmart's $17.99 each so I'd better jump on the wagon and grab II at the $14.99 price point before it goes up. Or maybe these will stay at about fifteen bucks a pop for a while. Lionsgate catalog 4K's always seem to hover around the 17 dollar mark.

I'd hold off a day or so. Best Buy has Rambo II for $9.99 on Cyber Monday. Hopefully Amazon finally matches (although its still sold out for shipping so I don't have much hope)

Daz_85 · 11-25-2018, 01:19 PM

Are the 4K versions of these noticeably better than their remastered Blu-ray counterparts?

I haven't upgraded to 4K quite yet, so I'm wondering if the 4K discs for these are worth the extra cost when I do?

11-24-2018, 10:12 PM	#1241
captainsolo Blu-ray Samurai Member since:Jan 2011 4K collection:155 Blu-ray collection:1268 DVD collection:353 Blu-ray reviews:3 Trading Score:19	FB is the film that made me realize Stallone's talent and the level of his undervaluation by most. I think it's not only a great film but his best overall. I've never been able to stomach the mindlessness of the sequels. Maybe I'll try again. On these I guess I'll wait for a boxset or something but I just can't quite stomach the look of the new master on FB. It just doesn't seem right to me at all. Heck, I may go track down the import version of the old BD.

11-25-2018, 12:32 AM	#1244
Lantz Senior Member Member since:Jul 2012 Location:Uppsala, Sweden. Blu-ray collection:47 DVD collection:23	Thanks Geoff for the info! I now had a look at the restoration feature on the disc. From the looks of it, seems the restoration team had quite a dark print to work with from the beginning. A layman theory of mine is that blacks were already somewhat crushed in the print they were given and a way to bring out some shadow detail in the end was to increase the brightness of the blacks.

11-25-2018, 03:57 AM	#1248
PopNLock Active Member Member since:Apr 2011 4K collection:75 Blu-ray collection:1006 DVD collection:69 MA collection:408 Digital collection:548 iTunes collection:860 Prime collection:476	If you want to see First Blood in a sort of amusing way, watch the 4K disc with the subtitles on. Hardly ANY of the dialog is captioned correctly. Our favorite thing to watch for was when a character swears because it seemed like the person doing the captioning never agrees with what the character on the screen actually says. Sometimes they insert a lesser swear word and sometimes the captioner inserts a much stronger word. They didn't even get the captions for "THEY drew first blood" right. It is captioned, "they shot first," instead. In the history of home video film revisions and restorations, the captioner for First Blood (um, er... "Shot First"?) should get an honorable mention.

11-25-2018, 04:24 AM	#1249
tcripe Blu-ray Knight Member since:Jul 2018 Location:Seattle	Watch part 2 earlier today. Obviously the film is inferior to the first but to my surprise I thought the transfer for the first one looked much better than the second. Wonder if the studio didn’t put as much work into the transfers for the second and third films?

11-25-2018, 04:35 AM	#1251
Cherokee Jack Blu-ray Samurai Member since:Jul 2017 Location:Arizona Trading Score:171	Set an alarm to grab all three of these at 1am Thursday morning and they should be here by Monday. I've only seen the first but hearing the second described as a big budget Cannon film is enough to get me pumped to do a marathon. Well that, and growing up on Gizmo taking the Rambo sequels as his inspiration to fight back against his gremlin spawn. And I wanna f*cking kill that police department save for Caruso's character when watching First Blood. The movie pushes all the right buttons.

11-25-2018, 04:42 AM	#1253
1924 Blu-ray Guru Member since:Apr 2014	Rewatched Rambo 2 and I’m honestly not sure why this is R. Most of the violence is Bloodless and really tame compared to some other R rated films at the time like Die Hard movies, Predator movies and Robocop.

11-25-2018, 07:39 AM	#1254
Accelerant_84 Active Member Member since:Feb 2016 Location:Billings, MT, USA Trading Score:32	Watched all 3 films on remastered standard blu and I'm struggling with how anyone can defend the PQ here? The yellow-push color timing I could maybe live with but the grey blacks look just awful. Nothing about the picture pops, there's no depth, it just looks flat, faded, and dated. Is this really from the original negative? There's just no way these films are supposed to look like this.

11-25-2018, 08:08 AM	#1256
KcMsterpce Blu-ray Samurai Member since:May 2011 Location:Germany 4K collection:168 Blu-ray collection:700	I watched all three 4k movies yesterday. I actually turned on the subtitles during FIRST BLOOD to catch what Rambo says in the beginning when the sheriff pulls out his knife and says "What do you hunt with a knife?" Rambo mumbles something like "Amy", or maybe "Name me". The subtitles said "Everything". Two minutes later, I'm like Huh? What the hell is going on with the subtitles? lawlz We're gettin' trolled! It's as if the person that did the subtitles doesn't understand English as a first language. Maybe they had the German dub, then tried transliterating the German back INTO English or something. Anyhoo... still love FB. Awesome movie. Looks good in 4k. Makes me feel like I'm watching a vintage 1980 flick (well, actually I watched it on a projector, and had my "critical eye" blinded and shut off). Rambo II looks decent, but the movie is a little worse. As for Rambo III... yeah it looks great - those outdoor shots and natural sunlight is glorious (so too, are some of the sets)! I was fine with it for the first 45 minutes, but then the last half hour keeps flushing itself farther down the drain. The terrible one-liners between Rambo and Trautman feels like something from ACTION JACKSON, not from what the first half of this movie's tone was going for. Ah well, either way, I don't consider as much of a disaster since I last watched it 10+ years ago (or the times before that), but it is undoubtedly the weakest entry in the series. It was nice to get back

11-25-2018, 11:50 AM	#1258
Member-222782 Blu-ray Archduke Member since:Jun 2012 4K collection:645 Blu-ray collection:4556 DVD collection:474 Trading Score:140	Since the $7.99 Best Buy Black Friday deal is over, Amazon's prices have predictably gone up but they're not all the way up to what they were before the sale, which was $14.99. Rambo II missed the sale boat and is still $14.99 but it's better than Walmart's $17.99 each so I'd better jump on the wagon and grab II at the $14.99 price point before it goes up. Or maybe these will stay at about fifteen bucks a pop for a while. Lionsgate catalog 4K's always seem to hover around the 17 dollar mark.

11-25-2018, 01:19 PM	#1260
Daz_85 Special Member Member since:Oct 2009 Location:UK 4K collection:189 Blu-ray collection:302 iTunes collection:20	Are the 4K versions of these noticeably better than their remastered Blu-ray counterparts? I haven't upgraded to 4K quite yet, so I'm wondering if the 4K discs for these are worth the extra cost when I do?

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