The Purple Rain BLU RAY is absolutely atrocious!!!

Jeez, I was simply responding to another poster's wording.


Rock Stamberg

 

The 1982 theatrical re-release of A HARD DAY'S NIGHT (later released on VHS/DVD by MPI) had a stereo mix made with EMI tapes. Why Mirimax neglected to use that soundtrack and add back a couple of missing sound effects is a mystery to me. That certainly would have worked better than spreading mono to 5.1!

Derek

 

Yep. It may be big but it is also bad.

 

Hey Purple Rain was the best rock film of the 80's it was 1000X better then Crush Groove!

 

you're so unhip....that is Krush Groove!

 

the praise was justified for the music....and for Apollonia removing her top to take a dip in Lake Minnetonka...that is NOT stupid

 

True I think those are the only two things that make the film worthwhile. I also like seeing ate Time in action and Morris Day is a delight on screen.

 

Clarence Williams III is also very good, but he's not in the movie enough to redeem it...

 

I'm we're going to complain about this film, which I enjoyed, then I want to hijack the thread to start ranting about The Apple (US release in 1980) and the dreadful Pirate Movie.

 

What do those have to do with "Purple Rain"?

 

They're both 1980s musical films, and far worse than Purple Rain. In my defense, I'm not the first person to bring up other musicals as a comparison in this thread.

 

Same here , great movie ...

 

Yes, the Beatles or their representatives (Jeff Jones of Apple Corps) have to approve everything, or it doesn't get out. There are quasi-uncopyrighted films like Magical Mystery Tour, but since the Beatles still control the rights to their music (and their name as a trademark), there's no way to release the film without those core elements.

My guess with Purple Rain is that there was no surround mix originally created for the film, and they did use an "upmix" processor to convert the original stereo or Dolby LtRt into 5.1, which is pretty common for films of that era. When this is done right, it actually sounds pretty good -- but I know of cases where studios or distributors tried to rush the process and did it in a day or so, and things fell through the cracks. I'm amazed that Prince didn't demand full control of a home video release like this.

The studio did not think much of the film before it was released. I worked on a half-dozen of the trailers in May of 1984, and the editor was convinced it was one of the worst films he'd ever seen, and that their lead actor was "obnoxious, too short, and couldn't act."

 

I've come here to say a year later that the Purple Rain blu-ray looks incredible and comparing the film's audio mix to the CD/LP is a mistake. Especially considering the performances in the film were treated as it was to sound like they were in a club. It isn't a SACD release of the album.

 

joined this forum just to agree with all the bad aspects of "purple rain".
how can the picture be so bad. i threw a hession bag over the screen to improve it. it's grainy and snowy.
it's worse than the terrible dvd. my vhs is better.

 

Never saw it. Any good? I like the album PARADE.

 

I liked Morris Day and the Time in PR.

 

So a year later, Purple Rain is still great and it still sucks.

 

"Cherry Moon" is an awful movie. Awful awful awful awful!

 

What do you expect for a film from 31 years ago? DTS was not even invented and Dolby pro logic STEREO was the buzz word in 1984. That was artificially recreating surround from a stereo mix.
Also, there is a huge difference between the musical content of a movie the corresponding music release.
99% of the time the movie music is cut and edited to suit a particular scene. So superimposing the 5.1 album masters onto a movie is rarely an option due to sync issues. Especially if the movie is 31 years old.
I have the Blu-Ray of Purple Rain. The sound is fine and the picture quality is really good.
As for the movie itself, the story is daft, and Prince cannot act for toffee.

 

Not artificial. Four channels of information (Left, Center, Right, Surround) were encoded into a stereo optical track then decoded by a sound matrix.

 

I worked at WB and we used the original 1984 4-Track Stereo Mix to make the 5.1 mix for the DVD release. It is not a 2-Track bumped up to 5.1. We used the original stereo elements made for the film. I also had a hand in putting all of the Purple Rain related music videos onto the disc.

 

Well done. You did a fine job.

 

Ewwwww. Thank gawd for Criterion.

 

Actually, 6-track mag surround mixes go back more than 50 years. I don't know if Purple Rain had a 6-track release or not, but certainly the masters still exist if they wanted to go with it.

I worked on all the 1984 TV trailers to Purple Rain, and my memory is all the shots looked very good and I can't recall anything looking very grainy or crappy. To me, it was just another movie. The editor I worked with was very critical and thought the movie would flop, but I told him, "hey, I'm not a fan of the performer, but this song 'Let's Go Crazy' is absolutely going to be a huge hit if I ever heard one." And that went to #1 about 6 weeks after we finished the trailer.