Aggressive revisionist color-correcting in remasters. Thoughts?

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Strat-Mangler, Aug 12, 2017.

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  1. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker Thread Starter

    Location:
    Toronto
    I saw Aliens back on VHS. Saw it on DVD where things didn't look quite right but I couldn't put my finger on it. Then, saw on it on Blu-Ray and the results were so disturbingly inaccurate that I could now verbalize what I had initially thought.

    The colors are wrong!!

    This trend needs to stop! Almost every studio is guilty of this. The strong teal color correction in remasters in an attempt to modernize movies. Makes me puke. This is the equivalent of autotuning The Beatles and resequencing everything to ensure perfect click-track/metronome rhythm.

    [​IMG]

    The right image is the original and the left is what is now the only way to view this film in HD.

    Absolutely disgusting and I sure wish the studios would at least give us options but there are none. That'd be like telling you "the only way you can listen to the Beatles on CD or hi-res is to buy our autotuned ProTool'ed version. If you want the original, listen to it on cassette."

    There's a reason why James Cameron chose this specific color palette initially.
     
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  2. Pinknik

    Pinknik Senior Member

    I agree that it sucks, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Cameron okayed the new transfer. I don't know if he did, but I wouldn't be surprised.
     
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  3. Steve Martin

    Steve Martin Wild & Crazy Guy

    Location:
    Plano, TX
    Hate it. It is the equivalent of remastering audio with heavy compression/limiting.
     
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  4. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker Thread Starter

    Location:
    Toronto
    Here's another example. The Matrix. Somewhere between the DVD and the Blu-Ray, somebody decided this movie needs to be drenched in green tint.

    [​IMG]

    The Blu-Ray is on top and the Blu-Ray color-adjusted to the DVD color scheme is on the bottom.
     
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  5. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker Thread Starter

    Location:
    Toronto
    And another of Aliens for good measure. Man, this is so blatant and extreme, I can't believe anybody OK'ed this ****.

    [​IMG]
     
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  6. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

  7. will_b_free

    will_b_free Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boulder, CO
    The Matrix change was the Wachowskis deciding to match the first film to the technique they used in the two sequels. I prefer the original color scheme, but they have a strong argument that the scenes that take place in the artificial world should be consistent across the trilogy.

    Cameron's changes don't really have any defense.
     
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  8. Wow, it's amazing to see just how much more natural the colors look in the originals! There's a pretty good chance that those so-called "remasters" will probably date quicker than the originals, if you know what I mean; trying to "remaster" and "restore" all of those films in a "hip" and "modern" and "fashionable" way is just plain wrong. Whitewashing history is a bad, bad, thing, people! Please, let's all just make it stop somehow, one way or the other! :shake: :disgust: :thumbsdow :mad:
     
  9. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker Thread Starter

    Location:
    Toronto
    That's not what whitewashing is but I understand what you meant.

    This is a style which will go away and when it does, all the films which adopted that style will seem dated which will ironically make the remasters look more dated. Kind of like when the 80s had that distinctive sounding production. Albums made then sound really dated now. All IMHO, of course.
     
  10. Oops, I guess my understanding of the word was rather naive, wasn't it? :oops:
     
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  11. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker Thread Starter

    Location:
    Toronto
    No big deal.

    Thankfully, in most cases, the changes are more on the subtle side of things but the examples mentioned above are blatant and (IMHO) heinous in the way the films were treated.

    Again, I don't care how they look or sound as long as customers have options. But if choices are removed in order to have bastardized versions exclusively being available, that ain't cool. :(
     
  12. Yeah, akin to how there has never been a high-quality DVD or Blu-Ray release of the original versions of the original Star Wars trilogy! Screw you, George Lucas!! :realmad: :thumbsdow
     
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  13. Scott222C

    Scott222C Loner, Rebel & Family Man

    Location:
    here
    The worst aspect for me is that you can't CHOOSE between options, give me a BluRay with BOTH the old color scheme and the new one if you must. But no, they "force" you to look and accept (because you buy it) that color incorrected crap because you want to have better quality than DVD.
     
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  14. Erik Tracy

    Erik Tracy Meet me at the Green Dragon for an ale

    Location:
    San Diego, CA, USA
    I'm Peter Jackson - and I approve this trend :righton:
    [​IMG]
     
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  15. HGN2001

    HGN2001 Mystery picture member

    Maybe I'll "orange and tealize" my Avatar...

    [​IMG]
     
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  16. I'm still waiting for an accurate The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
     
  17. TheVU

    TheVU Forum Resident

    As a film maker, this angers me to no end.

    I actually watch laserdiscs, I'm also in my late 20's (for reference), and my goal is to try to match those color schemes. They look like prints of movies. Blu rays look like they are new modern films, which most aren't as visually stunning as past films. Or visually intentional. They become movies.

    I think color corrected digital films look boring. They all look the same. However different the process has been done.

    I honestly shoot my films to not "require" any further correction to the image later. I might be able to brighten the image or darken it a little, maybe reduce the saturation. But that's it! The idea of taking the mid-tones here, lassoing this little blurb there... It seems so fake. And everyone's doing it!

    People are selling their older Canon cinema cameras, which are "technically inferior" for color correction, and buying Sony FS7's because they can get more technical data from them to assist in color grading. Only to complain about missing "Canon colors"! It's so ass backwards.

    But back to ruining existing films.

    I've given up trying to get more bits and lines from new transfers. Obviously something's are rare, only finally ending up on blu ray, yada-yada. But if I want to watch a film for what it truly is, I'll find the old copy.
     
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  18. The Hermit

    The Hermit Wavin' that magick glowstick since 1976

    I've read on some forums/message boards that people remember the theatrical print of The Matrix being that green in cinemas and that it was the initial DVD transfer that had the colors wrong... I can't be sure of that, but I will say the scene of Morpheus talking to Neo in the Construct had a WHITE background not the off-white of the DVD... anyone remember what that film looked like in cinemas back in '99, was it that green or is the Blu ray color timing a revision?

    The revised color timing for the Blu rays of both Aliens and The Fellowship of the Ring are only for the extended versions... the theatrical versions have the original timing... which is great news for me, as I only watch the theatrical versions of both films!
     
  19. I don't think James Cameron is the best director to mention when discussing this recent trend, as so much of his work has pursued that steely, blue-heavy aesthetic. In fact, I'd consider him a stylistic pioneer as opposed to a trend follower, and I wouldn't be surprised if the newer version of Aliens is simply closer to his original intended vision, its more extreme timing achievable through recent advances in digital grading technology. After all, this is the guy who gave us the similar-looking first two movies in the Terminator series, plus The Abyss, Titanic, Avatar and several documentaries about his underwater expeditions... Do you reckon we can guess his favourite colour?
     
  20. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker Thread Starter

    Location:
    Toronto
    Yes, the Matrix was green in theaters. I remember that but I didn't especially like it.

    Not sure about Aliens. I prefer the extended version myself.
     
  21. Ghostworld

    Ghostworld Senior Member

    Location:
    US

    I certainly like the cool tones and vibrant red's of Canon cameras. I bought a Panasonic which has that subdued modern look and still regret it
     
  22. Both my Mom and Dad hate his guts with a passion, largely because he clearly seems to see J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth universe as some sort of lavatory that he can do his, you know, "duty" in. :D :laugh:
     
  23. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker Thread Starter

    Location:
    Toronto
    I love those films. People's expectations were *way* beyond unrealistic and since a book allows the reader to create his/her version of what looks like the settings and characters, and also due to their lengths, what events would be portrayed, there's no way whatsoever that these films could have pleased everybody.

    Considering all these factors, he did a hell of a job!
     
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  24. mwheelerk

    mwheelerk Sorry, I can't talk now, I'm listening to music...

    Location:
    Gilbert Arizona
    Is this the video equivalent of audio's loudness War?
     
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  25. Oh wow. Clearly you cannot see that the film adaptions of The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King, along all three of those Hobbit movies, are ****s and pisses all over the integrity of Middle-Earth. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug was an absolute monstrosity; cheap-ass props, poorly set up shots, poorly applied makeup, CGI monsters that look like something out of a video game, and, finally, very bad acting. We literally stopped watching the movie at about 50 minutes into it.
     
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