Director James Cameron has confirmed that his beloved film The Abyss has been recently remastered in 4K and will be released on Blu-ray in 2017. Mr. Cameron leaked the news while promoting the upcoming 30th anniversary Blu-ray release of Aliens at Comic-Con in San Diego. "We've done a wet-gate 4K scan of the original negative, and it's going to look insanely good. We're going to do an authoring pass in the DI for Blu-ray and HDR at the same time", Cameron said. The news was first reported by Variety.
True Lies, is still unavailable on Blu-ray in USA?? Hopefully after Abyss is out and maybe 2018.....?
True Lies is in the pipeline, but no release date. With physical sales dropping I'm sure there's no hurry to join the $7.50 bin at Wally World.
From: Wet-transfer film gate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia » A wet-transfer film gate, or wet gate for short, is a film gate that is submerged in liquid, used for film restoration and archival scanning. Submerging the film in the gate in a liquid with a suitably matched refractive index reduces the effects of scratches on the film, by reducing the refractive effects which divert light that passes through the scratched part of the film. The liquid also acts to lift other forms of defect from the film. Perchloroethylene, a hazardous substance with multiple health and safety risks, is commonly used as the liquid medium in wet gate systems, requiring substantial precautions to be taken to ensure the safety of operators and to prevent pollution. Wet gate transfer is often preceded by other forms of film cleaning, such as the use of ultrasonic film cleaners.
This is very old but still worth re-posting. The May 2013 dateline gives us outsiders an idea of how long the it takes to bring a deluxe title to your living room. The Digital Bits - Bill Hunt's My Two Cents » "May 06, 2013 - 11:28 am | By Bill Hunt Anyway, we’ve been hearing for over a year and a half now from our industry (and studio) sources that Fox was slowly and quietly working to bring James Cameron’s True Lies and The Abyss to Blu-ray Disc at long last. Back in September we reported that Cameron was finally taking time from deep sea diving and planning Avatar 2 to work on a new HD transfer and master of the films for Blu-ray, but that actual releases were at least 12 or more months away. Well… now we have reports that actress Eliza Dushku was on Chris Hardwick’s The Nerdist program on BBC America on Saturday night. When asked by the host what she’s been up to, she apparently blurted out that she’d just finished participating in work on a True Lies Blu-ray. You’ll recall she played Harry Tasker’s daughter in the film – one of her early roles. (Thanks to all the Bits readers who e-mailed to report this!) So it seems that work continues on True Lies at least, and probably The Abyss too. As to when they might hit store shelves, our best information says next year – 2014 just happens to be the 25th Anniversary of The Abyss and the 20th for True Lies."
I think what did it for me, was at the time I was 21 or so and I popped it in the player not knowing at all what it was about, and the story progressed to a cool and totally unexpected place. I guess it took me by surprise. Cool flick
I had the same exact experience but with a different movie - Predator. Knew nothing about it and thought it would be just another silly Rambo type flick, but then it changed to something really cool!
James is double dipping the chip, with Aliens.. I can get whole making aliens book I don't need a small booklet,,
They stopped using perclor because of the pollution problem, and the fact that it's really hard to get rid of once it's contaminated. They have to haul it out to the Nevada desert in giant 50-gallon drums and drop it into toxic waste dumps. They're using some other simpler chemical now like alcohol or something. The problem with wet-gate transfers is that the light level tends to kind of dissipate in an uneven way depending on how the liquid flows at splices and other film "bounce" problems in the gate. There are actually digital techniques to remove dirt and scratches that are a lot more effectively now, especially when there's a big restoration budget. Some minor films on which they don't have $50,000+ to clean up will go through wetgates in some cases, but in the case of Abyss, that was one of the last films done by Lowry in Burbank, and it was all cleaned up in 4K. I'm assuming they're using the masters that were done 4 years ago. It's very possible the color timing is all new, most likely done through a Fox-affiliated post house. The Abyss is kind of an odd film, but I confess to liking it when it came out. I was really shocked that the audience I was with actually laughed out loud at some of the really grim, downbeat scenes (like the one where Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio dies for a minute or two).
Any indication if this will have both the theatrical and extended cut? I prefer the theatrical cut for this movie. I remember going to see this in the theater on a date. And the girl insisted on leaving with about 30 minutes left because she was "bored out of her mind". I didn't get to see the end until it was available to rent at the video store.
I'd be shocked if it didn't include both cuts. If the ancient DVD had both, I can't imagine the BD wouldn't!
Didn't they use this method with the Dracula 1931 blu-ray restoration? That came out exceptionally well, I thought.