Terminator 2 Skynet Edition Blu-ray Underwhelmed

If I could turn myself into a Terminator, I would!

 

I really can't decide which version is better, to be honest. Some shots look better on the old BDs, some really improved in that remastered edition. However, all of them are disappointing.

 

No way dude, I want to be Furlong so I can go around crying

 

I already do that!

 

I'll wait for the Criterion remaster.

 

What extras didn’t Spider-Man carry over?

I think that as long as Cameron keeps supervising these things, this is the best we’re going to get.

 

I had an exhaustive DVD/bluray list posted. Some parts have been stolen from my posts in places that I was banned from. If you see this list anywhere, the pieces of crap took my work. They could have at least had the decency to retype it. It has been a while since I compared it, so just do a search in google the bolded term and you will find my list.

Spider-man Trilogy comprehensive Bluray/DVD extras list Spotlight #1

As for what didn't carry over, there was quite a few things from exclusive bonus discs. I got a headache comparing them, so I just didn't want the let old DVD's go until I knew for sure. If you want to do it and update me that would be a great help. lol I don't own the 4K set and sold my other set in anticipation so I am no help now.

To keep it Terminator, at one point I did that one too. It is not on my current computer, but maybe I can post that as well. I hate when I run out of space and switch over because then I forget where I put them! I also did Friday the 13th etc...

 

Ya its sad...... I love VHS and many movies have been ruined by this garbage!

 

Which will never happen, but yeah, I guess only Criterion could remaster this right. Cameron clearly lost all taste and know-how. Too much underwater time, I guess.

 

Could be a studio rights thing since Cameron is going back to the well. Often directors may be to blame when it might not have been their fault. Is it a fact that he was involved with the process?

 

Not in this case. Cameron was there all the time for the remastering. He handled this personally, which is why I was hoping to finally get a great T2 on BD. Sadly, I didn't realize he lost his edge.

Then again, it's not all bad. The color grading per se wasn't bad, for example. In some scenes, the remaster just kills the old BD and DVD releases. I mean, take a look at this.

 

That is why I like the 3D, because not only do you get the same so so remastering, but at least you get the added bonus of it looking cool. I consider this version an improvement and well worth the buy. The 4K...no.

 

I mean, it would have been great if only they didn't use Digital Noise Reduction (which Cameron loves)...

 

Yes I feel your pain. Still reeling from Shout Factory Downfall debacle. To wait for the release with that poor result just makes a house of ill-refute (Archie Bunker).

 

I’m not really a fan of Cameron’s pictures because they either go the route of being super accessible and subsequently silly or start the opposite and get that way eventually. Then he has the habit of being accused of merely borrowing concepts from others and his theatrical cuts frequently cut important emotional and character moments simply for time and this make the theatrical release less appealing.

For me his only great film is The Terminator and T2, Abyss and True Lies have good moments. And of course all have problematic video histories.

I hated Titanic as a kid and still do. To me it merely glued together the Fox 50’s Costume drama with the British A Night To Remember with a stupid framing device. I can appreciate the technical aspects and sound design and only have a copy because Peter Lamont finally won his Oscar for the film.

I think another large issue with Cameron films on video is that they received lavish top of the line releases on Laserdisc and never got the same treatment afterwards. I have all the main LDs which cost nothing and are demos for the format with beautiful packaging. So I’ve never felt the need for any of the later disc reissues with flawed or lacking transfers. The only other one I have is the first dvd of T2 which has the original CDS 5.1 mix that has never been released since and is far better than the remixes.

And that’s the other thing: the level of changes in the transfers from color and sound to degraining. I have no desire to own any of these as they have looked pretty terrible on friend’s setups and online reviews. The only other reason I got the Titanic LD is because the color was changed entirely on the last issue to being incessantly teal all over the place.

 

This is a great example of how improved the color grading and contrast really are in the remastered version.




It took them so many years to make those flames look like flames. The cropping is weird, however. We get more picture at the top at the cost of the picture at the bottom. I wouldn't call it an issue. It's just weird.

The only problem with the remaster is the absurd DNR. It would have been beautiful it they didn't smear it to hell (fortunately, it's not that bad in all scenes).

 

I recently got the 4K HDR Blu-ray but haven't had a chance to see it. The bottom frame looks excellent to me (particularly with subtle details like the blown-out windshields). Bear in mind, for almost any new Blu-ray release, they do use the previous transfer as a guide, and they're extremely aware what was changed. And when it's changed, there's usually a very good reason as to why -- and one assumes the people in charge asked for that change.

Lowry Digital did the NR, sharpening, and dust-busting on Terminator 2, True Lies, the Abyss, Titanic, and Avatar, but I'm not sure about Cameron's other projects. Mr. Cameron is not a fan of film grain and feels it's an aberration. He is very, very technically aware, very specific, and generally gets exactly what he wants.

Be aware that there are at least 20 different kinds of digital noise reduction out there. Which one specifically do you hate the most? One thing about NR: we have knobs that go up and down, and it's rarely necessary to go to "11." When I use NR, I tend to have it attack specific types of noise -- like highlights rather than lowlights, or vice-versa -- so the entire screen is not being affected. They can also do multiple passes or NR at very low levels to minimize any artifacts. I know of some projects that were completely saved because of excessive noise that would create a lot of issues with distributors (like some saying "it's too grungy to release"), so often, it's a very useful tool. Same thing with image enhancement, which we sometimes use to both sharpen and soften an image depending on what's going on. It's no different than EQ: use it well, it's fantastic... use it badly, and it sounds like a car stereo on the verge of a meltdown.

 

Film grain noise reduction and 3D-DNR are evil.

Not sure what exactly was done for the T2 remster. Possibly every DNR option they could turn on?! Just look at this crap.

 

Take T2 and Aliens, owing to his genius, these "sequals" are better than the original movies were.

You don't see that a lot in Hollywoodland.

 

I think Cameron has extraordinary control over anything released that he directed or produced, so Criterion would still have to have him involved. And he could well say, "just use the master I supervised a few years ago." I would not want to be a person who tried to argue with Jim Cameron and tell him that he's wrong... on anything. Lucas is a pussycat compared to Cameron, who can be an absolute monster when he's challenged on technical matters.

We don't see the Studio Canal discs in America. I'm surprised they would do further processing, because "in theory" they aren't supposed to.

3D presents particular problems, particularly when there are differences between the different "eyes" on projection or playback. I know Lowry has done a lot of grain management in order to make sure you don't get one kind of grain in one eye and a different kind of grain in the other eye. There was also tons and tons of technical 3D alignment fixes and noise problems in Avatar, but that might be a secret. I've said too much...

 

He is also an excellent cinematographer.

I would guess that dealing with a 192-minute release film has something to do with needing additional editors.

 

I worked a little bit on the original Titanic laserdisc (not the re-colortimed version), and I had big arguments with Fox over dialing down the NR on that one. So you can thank me for that. There's a difference between NR at "2" and NR at "11."

Nowadays, grain reduction is very, very sophisticated and can be done in very complex ways. It's not even one process anymore, and it takes a ton of time to do. We did a project about 6 weeks ago where the NR pass on the final feature release (a small 90-minute home-invasion drama) took 48 hours. So this is a very exacting, subtle, tweaky thing where the NR level was different sequence-to-sequence and sometimes shot-by-shot. And people's heads would have exploded if they saw all the noise taken out... and we only removed about half of it, not all of it.

 

Cameron has never worked as a cinematographer, but he's fired some pretty big ones. Russell Carpenter has worked with him several times and told stories about how insane he can be. And yet... Carpenter is back again as DP on Avatar 2, so there you go.

There are directors out there who are so technically inclined, they'll turn to the cinematographer and call for a certain lens and a very specific camera position. Cameron will tell the guy what F-stop he wants as well.

 

It is my understanding that he picked up the camera more than a few times when shooting Titanic.

"In a 2015 joint interview, Cameron collaborators Sigourney Weaver and Jamie Lee Curtis commented very positively on him. Curtis stated, "the truth is he can do every other job [than acting]. I'm talking about every single department, from art direction to props to wardrobe to cameras, he knows more than everyone doing the job." Weaver answered "There are very few geniuses in the world, let alone in our business, and he's certainly one of them." She also said, "he's misunderstood in the industry, somewhat. He is so generous to actors.""

Insane! Only 3-people on the planet have been to the Challenger Deep, which at -35,994' is the deepest part of the Marianas Trench. Two of them were together in a bathysphere together back in 1960.

He was only the third person to do this more than fifty years after the first two and the only human on earth to do this solo.

In comparison, The Titanic lies in about 12,500 feet of water.

Walking on the Moon is right up there of rare things to do, but twelve have done so.

That's four times the number of people who have visited Challenger Deep.

 

Yes, and because of the number of times Cameron has actually run the camera himself, he had to join IA Local 600. The camera operator is not the cinematographer -- the camera operator is just the guy running the camera. The cinematographer is the guy who decides how to light the sets, how to place the camera in relation to the actors (blocking), how to expose and focus the image, and so on, all in cooperation with the director.

There are a few other directors who have grabbed the camera and actually operated it himself. Spielberg did it a few times in the old days, and no less than Stanley Kubrick did it quite often.



Michael Mann has done it as well, and actually told me that he was bothered that he could always tell his own operating in his films because he was often not as steady as the other operator.

I think running camera well is an art form, and they're better off hiring somebody else to do it so the director can be more concerned with the bigger issues of performance, story, character, schedule, and so on.