1954 Godzilla stomps back in Ultra HD 4K

"TOKYO -- At a humble Tokyo laboratory, Godzilla, including the 1954 black-and-white original, is stomping back with a digital makeover that delivers four times the image quality of high definition.
The effort with "4K" technology is carefully removing scratches and discoloration from the films and also unearthing hidden information on the reel-to-reel.
Experts say the chemical reactions used to make old movies stored far greater detail than was visible with the limited projection technology of the era, as well as with subsequent digital updates.
If all the hidden information of a reel-to-reel is ever brought out, quality would approximate 8K, they say."

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/1954-godzilla-stomps-back-in-ultra-hd-4k/

 

Um, did this really have that great of PQ to begin with? Great, now you'll be able to tell even more that it's a guy in a rubber suit stomping on models!

 

I have to agree. Sometimes too much detail can be brought out in older FX films, and the illusion is ruined. The initial DVD release of the 50s WAR OF THE
WORLDS is a prime example, where suddenly the thin black wires used to make the Martian spaceships fly were exposed, ruining the effect and taking you
out of the moment.

 

I watched the original a couple months ago- it was better than I remembered.

 

uahuahuah that's exactly what I thought when I read the thread title

 

Not to mention the hand puppet used for all the close-up head shots...and the puppet head and the suit head aren't even close to looking the same.

 

Maybe Godzilla has a bit of chameleon in him. Maybe Godzilla wanted to be a bad Roland Emmerich movie. Maybe Godzilla wants you to think he's just a cheap special effect. And while you're incredulously laughing.... BAM!

 

I've watched the original War of the Worlds, my favorite sci-fi film, in just about every format imaginable including VHS. The wires suspending the Martian ships is visible in every one. There is a reference to the wires in a short documentary on the making of the War of the Worlds about 5:40 into the video: . If your real quick on the pause control at 2:02 or so. there is a great shot of the wires. If your a fan this is a great behind the scenes look into the film. BTW, wires aside, the film won an Academy Award for best special effects 1n 1953.

-Steve D.

 

Seeing the wires in War of The Worlds never "took me out of the film", I know I'm watching a film and martian space ships aren't real, it's just a technological fact from that era and you accept it and move on.

 

There wasn't even 1000 lines of resolution in B&W film in 1954. 4K is total overkill and silly.

But... I'm glad the film is getting remastered, because it's important, it's a classic, and it deserves to be preserved.

Exactly. We saw the film in junior high in 1967, and I said, "hey! The wires suck!" But it's part of the charm of the era. This is how films were made in 1953.

I worked on the remastering of a famous late-1970s sci-fi film that was plagued by horrendous wire work in certain scenes, but the studio said, "eh... let it go. We don't want to spend the money, and the crazy fans will complain about historical revisionism if we do any wire removal." So there is a point where you gotta stop fixing the film. (No Lucas comments, please.)

Real problems with dirt, excessive grain, noise, rips, tears, missing frames... that's legit stuff that has to be fixed.

 

The Criterion blu-ray looks quite nice. The notes for that only mention an HD scan being done, it doesn't mention 2K or 4K. I don't know a lot about intricacies of resolution that can be wrung out of fun elements, but I can't imagine it could look a ton better than the BD.

The article mentions the other films being done in 4K as well. Can we get them all on BD in the US first before we jump to 4K?

 

I'm happy with my Criterion blu-ray and won't be getting this new release even though I'm a fan.

 

With regards to wires and model spaceships, I remember reading an article about Red Dwarf and how they did their effects shots. They would shoot a lot of spaceship scenes upside down so the wires would be hanging off the 'bottom' of the model so when flipped folks would be looking above the model for the wires and not underneath.

 

I guess I'm just not a purist.

 

As someone already mentioned, the wires are visible no matter what format you're watching the film on... although I didn't think the first DVD release (from 1999) looked too bad. The wires were much more noticeable (to me, at least) on the "collector's edition" DVD that came out in 2005. (And it had worse cover art, to boot).

 

I guess I just never noticed them in earlier TV broadcasts, or when I saw the film in the theater at a revival screening just before the new DVD release. Seeing that Collector's Edition DVD really
made them jump out at me, and suddenly I was focussing on the wires more than the ships themselves.

 

Godzilla is a better-made film than the OP supposes.

Maybe he's remembering the American version with Raymond Burr. That was crappy.

 

Yeah, the original GODZILLA is pretty serious and well-made, limitations of the effects of the era aside.

 

Wouldn't they be able to clean that up quite easily these days?

 

Artistically speaking, this 1954 flick is really notable to be shoot by Masao Tamai who is thought to be one of the greatest DPs of Japan.
His filmography includes many such great films by Mikio Naruse. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0848417/

This is a fun stuff. The trailer of the Legendary Godzilla is combined with the (even grater) 1954 music score.

 

I think they should do a doublebill of Godzilla 1954 and King Kong 1933 in the theater.

 

Only if they run one on top of the other so it looks like Kong and Godzilla are fighting...

 

The original is dead serious about the new world we entered after Hiroshima/Nagasaki. The music and the tone of the film are filled with dread. Yeah, on the surface it's just a cool monster movie, but it's a metaphor for nuclear horror.
TCM showed it last year along with Rodan and Mothra. The prints were excellent, and the miniature special effects were amazing considering the limitations, especially Godzilla.

 

Removing the faults with the film print seems fine, but isn't 4k kind of silly?

Fun Fact: Being the person in the suit was excruciating and the person in it would frequently pass out from the heat. Goes to show how dedicated to the film they were. They slimmed down the suit for the sequel so he could fight another monster.