Terminator 2 Skynet Edition Blu-ray Underwhelmed

Is it just me or does this Blu-ray look really poorly done? Compared to some of my other Blu-rays, this one has almost no film grain and just looks really dull. I thought I read somewhere it is a result of heavy-handed DNR by James Cameron. Is the 4K UHD disc any better of a master? Maybe eventually this is one Criterion will end up doing right. Thanks.

 

The 4k also has DNR.

 

DNR ruins everything.

 

Thanks guys, so the 4K version probably also looks terrible too.

 

If you are so inclined, there is some discussion about the 4K here.

UHD Review - A few words about...™ Terminator 2 -- in 4k UHD Blu-ray

There are also many other T2 threads at HTF that you may find of interest.

 

I believe this uses the same mastering as the 3D cinema re-release last summer. I saw that presentation and it looked awful -- very smooth and plastic, and very teal in color.

Pity.

 

I wouldn't count on Criterion doing it. They license the occasional "blockbuster" but "T2" is a cash cow for Lionsgate so they have little incentive to license it to someone else.

The 2015 "T2" BD remains the most satisfying, IMO:

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (2015 Remaster) [Blu-Ray] (1991)

 

Does that one at least show some film grain?

 

Yes. As my review states:

"Edge haloes and print flaws appeared to be absent, and – in a break from the prior Blu-ray – this one lacked obvious use of digital noise reduction (DNR). The latter technique created most of the earlier BD’s issues, but with a much more obvious layer of grain here, this release felt much more natural and film-like."

 

Mr. Cameron is not a fan of film grain.

There's about 20 different kinds of grain reduction out there. Which one specifically do you hate the most? I've used a dozen of them (including several non-real-time processes that are extremely complex), and they're not all bad. To me, the decision to use or not use NR hinges on having good judgement: the knob goes to "11," but sometimes only going up to 2 or 3 is just fine. The trick is, sometimes, non-technical people make the decision to eliminate all grain from a film reissue, and things can go south very quickly when that's done.

Note that a lot of times, we elect to only take the grain out of the sky or only remove grain from the darkest parts of the picture, so there's a chance that different parts of the picture are getting different amounts of NR at the same time. And often there's a process called grain management, where technicians add grain to shots that are "too clean" and then remove grain from shots that have way, way too much grain, just so that everything has a constant grain level throughout. To me, this is a necessary part of filmmaking, and it's done on every blockbuster release I know of these days. Even all-digital films can get very noisy in terms of picture content.

 

as usual the last word...: ) thanks.

 

Mr. Cameron has the right to do with his films what he wants,what amazes me is that such a clever guys as he must be doesn't understand that films (or music) are products of their time, technical issues included. Fixing some minor mistakes is acceptable, scrubbing T2 as he or Studio Canal did with the UHD BD release of the movie is not acceptable.

 

and it's unacceptable that he refuses to give us True Lies on BD!

 

Mr. Cameron is not a fan of film grain.

is that an oxymoron?

 

Or The Abyss!

 

yes that too!

 

Mr. Cameron supervised and approved that work. As far as I know, Studio Canal doesn't own any color-correction rooms -- I believe that work on T2 was done at Lowry and Modern Videofilm in Burbank. My take is that Cameron likes the digital "aesthetic" of a very clean image without any grain, and he looks on film grain as an aberration. I get what he says, though you can always make the arguments that a film production is a product of its time -- a 1992 film won't ever look like it was shot on digital in 2018. And you can't take a digital show shot in 2018 and make it look like a 20- or 30-year old movie shot on film. There has to be good judgement used. But it's very hard to argue with the author films as successful as this.

I don't know what the hold up on True Lies is. Cameron has said it's Fox's decision, but the finished HD-mastered version has been sitting on the shelf for five years that I know of. My guess is that there are issues that the director doesn't have time to deal with at the moment.

 

It’s a crime that there’s no definitive releases of T1 and T2.

 

If he's that out of touch, I'd suggest taking his 5 favorite films (I just looked them up) and applying a ton of DNR to it just so he can finally realize how the following films would look much worse.

• The Wizard of Oz
• Doctor Strangelove
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• The Godfather
• Taxi Driver

Perhaps after seeing scrubbed ultra-clean versions of these movies, he'd finally realize the allure of leaving things as they were.

 

I was a fan of Cameron in the past,the original Terminator, Aliens, Abyss, True Lies and Terminator 2, it was after Titanic I started to dislike his movies,Titanic wasn't his style of movie in my opinion, and Avatar bored me to death, I really dislike Avatar.

 

I'd have to disagree. Titanic was 100% up Cameron's alley, given the nautical subject, including the exploration of the real wreck. Not to mention that the movie was the highest grossing film of all time for a long while, that is, until he bettered himself with Avatar - still the highest grossing film. Dude's a genius!

 

Making money is not what makes a genius. Otherwise Michael Bay would be way up there too and I refuse to live in that world.

 

Except we're talking about a completely different level of making money. But yes, that should not be the only criterion. Cameron's career spans many decades and his body of work is almost universally praised. He's been instrumental in defining many aspects of pop culture over the years. Michael Bay cannot hope to measure up to any of that.

 

Perhaps not but I was mightily disappointed in Titanic and anything he's done since.

 

Bettered himself? Cameron has been making movies since 1998 that make me sleep, to say the least.