The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly Blu-Ray from 4k Master in 2017

I have the Blu Ray and no complaints from me. I'm 39 though so I probably have no idea how this film is supposed to look. It's been one of my fav all time films my whole life though. I'll probably buy this too !

 

(source) (Blu-ray.com's official news item for Kino's press release)

There's lots of chatter about the "color grading" issue which has current U.S. Blu-rays looking arguably "yellow." I can't find the post before editing time for this post expires but "MisterLime", who works for Kino, has looked into it and they are digitally dialing back the yellow. They don't have access to original materials, so that's the most they can do; hopefully, the benefits of such knob twiddling outweighs any potential artefacts or other side effects. Maybe @Vidiot can share some general technical thoughts on the "color controversy" that has left many an internet cinephile underpant twisted.

Regarding the several edits from various cuts, here's a post from MisterLime, who responded on Blu-ray.com and Home Theater Forum:

(source)

 

I'm not sure how long it's been up, but it is now up for pre-order on Amazon with a release date of August 15th.
Amazon.com: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (50th Anniversary Special Edition) [Blu-ray]: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Eli Wallach, Mario Brega, Aldo Giuffre, Luigi Pistilli, Aldo Sambrell, Sergio Leone: Movies & TV

 

I was just thinking how interesting it might be for Clint to revisit that character, as an 85 year old Blondie. I'd guess the year would be around 1915. He might be hanging around San Francisco, the 1915 World's Fair, after crossing paths with the last of the Wild Bunch. What does a mythic figure do when he outlives the Wild West?

 

It took me about 2 seconds for me to order that

 

He ends up like John Wayne did in "The Shootist"?

 

I dunno. This stuff is so subjective, we're constantly struggling with intent and context when it comes to color. There are cases where we can make it accurate -- that is, white whites, black blacks, reasonable skin-tones, blue skies, and a well-balanced image -- but then you find out they never intended for it to be that way. About 20 years ago, we did a new THX-supervised version of Sound of Music for Robert Wise (who came in and supervised), and he made everything look very cold and kind of dreary -- not at all the bright, colorful picture that was in theaters in the 1960s. Wise insisted he never wanted the movie to look warm and colorful and wanted it to look a lot colder and bluer. Fox let him make his changes, but after he died in 2005, they went back and did a new version for Blu-ray that went back to the 1960s colorful look. Which is correct: the way it looked in theaters, or the way the director always intended for it to look?

I like to think there's a happy medium where you can essentially split the difference, but it takes a lot of experience and good judgement to pull that off. There's always going to be people who disagree, but the reality is, if you have a 1966 print of this movie, chances are it's gonna look pretty beat-up and faded at this point, and the color is not going to be stable. And I would bet for sure that a U.S. print won't look like an Italian print, and prints from England and Australia and Russia and god knows where else will look different as well. Lab prints were all over the place in that era, and that includes Technicolor.

I once debated a guy who quarrelled with the color in a Disney DVD (not one I had anything to do with). He kept insisting it was wrong, and after some debate, he finally admitted he was going by his memory of how it looked in the theater more than 50 years ago. I laughed and told him I had a hard time remembering what I had for lunch last Tuesday, let alone the specific color decisions made in a project from six months ago or a year ago or 10 years ago. Fifty years ago? No F'in' way. Crazy fans start to believe their subjective opinions are golden and without flaw, and they can't grasp that none of us see exactly the same way, and there's always the risk you're seeing through a decades-long filter in your brain.

Last comment: an old friend of mine did all the color-correction on My Fair Lady some years back. The supervising exec on the project was a tyrant and endlessly drove him crazy about every last little detail. At one point, they argued about the specific color of one of Audrey Hepburn's dresses. In desperation, the exec went to the trouble of having Warner Bros. bring by the actual dress used in the film so they could examine it. My friend checked it out and then said, "so, you want me to match the monitor image to this faded dyed cloth that's been sitting in a hot studio closet for 40 years?" There was a long silence after that.

 

As far as The Sound of Music, the recent Blu Ray looks nothing to me like what I saw in the theater as a kid. I have to drain a lot of the color out of my Kuro to get it to look closer to the original look. I think the Fox laserdisc was probably a lot closer.

 

It's all very subjective. It depends heavily on somebody having good taste and common sense during the mastering phase. That can go horribly wrong.

My personal taste is to lean a little harder on color and contrast, because I like to see a little more intensity when I can. But there's a fine line to walk.

 

What I know is I have a copy of the 1984 TV showing in France, the first of the film on french TV, which was condoned by Leone. It looks exactly like the MGM with teal skies and yellow shift. Fans don't know anything.
There's a slight green veil over the whole release that could be lifter though.

 

4k, not bad for a movie shot in Techniscope (essentially almost 16mm).

 

Are we talking about George Lucas here?

 

No, we're talking about a 51-year-old film like The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. Trying to determine what's real, what it looked like in theaters five decades ago, what those prints look like today, what the aged original negative looks like, what the director really intended, and then what others interpreted that it should look like today... these can all be different things. There's a lot of subjectivity here and not necessarily absolute rights or wrongs.

 

Just reminded me so much of Lucas and the Theatrical release of Star Wars (IV A New Hope) and what his "Vision" was for what we are stuck with now.

Sorry, couldn't help it.

 

That's a totally different problem. We're only talking about the interpretation of color for The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. And also how the missing shots were added back.

 

I had no idea until I stumbled across this on Amazon....Great news. Surprised that some "exclusive deluxe box set limited edition" was not thought of???

Also what is the "newly found" Blondie/Skeletons scene-any advanced word on this?

 

I'll preface this by saying I always try to research before relating anything and in this case have had much experience with not only video releases, stills, set information, but also firsthand viewing of both original (decent and totally worn out varieties) and restored prints/DCPs over the past ten years. As always, if I find I'm off base somehow I'll be the first to admit it.

The color is indeed wrong on the last MGM 4k sourced issue. Horribly so. It matches nothing, including any IB material. Yes there is much variation in printing across countries and types but nothing I have ever come into contact with-nor other Leone fans I have discussed this with has ever looked that way. It seems to be the result of another Italian co-sponsored restoration. This is another issue with Leone's films, the fact that many restorations are undertaken by multiple parties in different countries sometimes even simultaneously. And each one usually produces a different result.

There hasn't been an issue of a single Leone title that hasn't been messed up in someway or another particularly since studios rarely if ever take time to get their research correct.
Duck You Sucker was messed up in its reconstruction in both music cues being completely wrong and using a censored audio track remixed to 5.1 badly. Then both US and Italian current releases are different in appearance and neither are really right.
OUATITW has a myriad of different edits that have never been addressed and the current BD, while very good is not perfect.
OUATIA is now presented in a differently timed extended cut that has been hotly debated by both fans and scholars and lacks the original mono sound mix. Check out the Robert Harris review thread on HTF.

Fistful of Dollars has both an Italian and US restoration. The Italian one is stunning and is from the negative released on BD in Italy and Germany. The US one is slightly lesser and done from an IP or other non-negative source since apparently MGM only has distribution rights. FAFDM was done fully by MGM from the negative but has some unfortunate edge enhancement. The Italian release was done overseas and looks different-presumably from another source.

GBU is a mess across various releases over the years. Some have shots missing etc and funniest of all is the original USA letterboxed release which has Italian captions for the character freeze frames.

In short, it has been and always will be a difficult and frustrating time to be a Leone fan.

Currently it is best to have the region free German Blu-ray double feature of Fistful and For a Few, as they use the best available masters for both (Italian fistful, MGM FAFDM with less Edge enhancement) and even add back in the missing footage for FAFDM. (The little trims missing for years such as the slightly extended beating by the gang.) English mono is present but the only downside is German opening titles.

The best rendition of many of the mono English dubs is still on laserdisc due to many either being foldowns of remixes or severely noise reduced on later issues.

I hope this helps somebody. I've been researching versions of Leone titles since I saw the first run of the "extended" GBU in 2003 when I was in high school and about died when I first experienced that godawful 5.1 remix in the theater.

 

The 50th Anniversary release came out today and I was wondering if anyone had seen it yet and could describe the color of it. Is there anywhere I might find screen caps online?

 

Apparently captain solo in the post above yours was privy to a pre-release viewing and has given it the thumbs down. Glad I read it, since I was ready to order.

 

I read that post, but unless I'm missing something, he was referring to previous releases not the 2017 one.

 

Maybe I misread it; as long as it is, I don't plan to re-read it. I'll wait for comments from others.

 

Oh, what the heck, I had $10 in cash-back as an Amazon Prime member so I applied that credit and bought the new version for $9.99.

 

My sons ordered it for my birthday. Shows as 'shipped'. Will post once it arrives and I watch it.

 

There's a review at bluray.com.

 

Better one at Hi Def Digest. Convinced me to upgrade !

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: 50th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray Review | High Def Digest
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