Gallipoli (1981)

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by Shane Rollins

Are there any special features on the Australian Blu-ray, the 2005 US DVD, or any other copies that weren’t carried over to the US Blu-ray?

- The Aussie BD had separate interview videos with Weir, Gibson and Mark Lee, and a bunch of featurettes about the actual battle

- the featurette from the 2005 Paramount DVD is on the new Paramount BD

- the 1999 Paramount DVD had a different featurette, which was not carried over onto the 2005 SE DVD or the new BD.

[Wtdk]

While it looks better than “Young Sherlock Holmes” released around the same time, it’s still embarrassing this late in the game that a classic film like this doesn’t get a new scan.

[moviemaker]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

Yep, the Aussie disc definitely looks way too red.

I'm really grateful for these caps!

The USA disc looks very red in the skin tones. If the Aussie disc is the first cap then that is definitely faded and washed out. The Aussie disc is washed out (just from the lack of detail in the sky for example) but I imagine in wanting to keep the skin tones natural they left it as is. Doesn't look like they touched a thing, unfortunately. For the US release, it looks as if they turned up the contrast overall (and increased the shadows), and in doing so they darkened the skin tones. The US release has skin tones that are way too red. These are not natural skin tones at all. A middle ground would have been ideal but unfortunately, that requires a proper color grade, and if you're going to do that you need a new scan. I mean we are only talking about one of the greatest war films ever made.


Aussie


USA


Aussie



USA


I guess I'm keeping both discs, for now.

[James Luckard]

The colors on the Aussie disc are all borked, as in the caps below:

Originally Posted by quirkmanly

Fox - Aussie


Paramount - US

Open those two caps in new tabs, fullscreen, and toggle back and forth. Look at the faces of the men and also at the hat in the sand in the far right lower corner. The Aussie transfer has been heavily and poorly digitally manipulated, looks like they turned up the contrast and changed the color balance. The men's faces look neon red, and the shadows inside the hat also look weirdly and unnaturally colorful.

The Aussie transfer is also super pixely. It looks dreadful in motion on my OLED, like an upscaled DVD. The US disc looks a lot better, even though it's a 20-year-old transfer which also has slightly pushed reds.

The audio on the Aussie disc is also ruined by static crackling underneath on both audio tracks for a good portion of the film.

[moviemaker]

The review of the US disc is on the Blu-ray.com site now. Apparently, they turned up the saturation in some scenes which would account for the red. Overall I prefer the US disc.

You can see the review here:

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Galli.../42634/#Review

[James Luckard]

I'm 99.99% sure it's a 2005 transfer, created for the Special Edition DVD. I don't have a working BD drive, so I can't take comparison caps to prove whether the transfer is identical, but I think it is.

It's a tragedy the film hasn't been treated properly on home video, but I do think the Paramount, for all its problems, is leaps and bounds better than the Aussie Fox disc.

[moviemaker]

I just watched both discs back-to-back on a Panasonic UB820 and a 55" SONY X900H. For me, I need to see the film in motion and how a scene plays in cuts versus still images.

I'm convinced they are completely different sources.

With the Aussie release, they tried to lift more detail out of the shadows. There is definitely more grain in the print as well. Things do tend to lean into the orange spectrum overall. Warmer. More golden. Maybe it's how they see it? I know the recent 4K restoration of Picnic at Hanging Rock also leans heavily into the orange/golden yellow palette. In an attempt to even out the image, it lacks sufficient contrast overall. Especially in the bright daylight scenes.

The US release looks like they just used an older HD Master. There is hardly any grain and a lot of the detail is lost in the shadows and the image overall is so muddy. I particularly watched the scene between Archie and his uncle in the cabin at night where he says he wants to join up. You can't make out any of the detail in their faces. You strain to see the light reflected in their eyes, which is everything to me. It has too much contrast which is par for the course with a dated source. The daytime scenes outside look good but with everyone wearing hats, or going from under a canopy to bright sunlight, again, there is too much contrast on their faces. Overall it leans towards a very blue palette which Weir has stated is not Australia at all. and was his biggest complaint with previous versions of Picnic.

I grew up with the US release. That said, the Aussie disc, though flawed, works better from an emotional standpoint. I am never straining to see detail in the image. It just works better for me. The Paramount disc just looks and feels dated, even though that's how I remember it from the DVD and HBO back in the day.

What a sad state of affairs.