Star Wars: Solo First Details of 4K Blu Ray

I have an uncalibrated 49" Samsung 4K HDR set and I think Arrival looks great. Its picture looks dark because it's a dark picture, a glossy and colorful picture wouldn't have suit the movie, but it'son a different league than Solo, Arrival has more definition, it looks far sharper than Solo. If I was told that Solo was shot on "old" first generation CineAlta cameras from the early 2000's like Attack Of The Clones I had believed it without a doubt, if that what director and DP was what they were going for.
I still think using the Alexa65 for a finished picture like the one on Solo is a waste.

 

Maybe I’m weird, but I like to be able to see things when I watch a movie.

My review of Arrival (2016)

A linguist expert (Amy Adams) is called by the US government to help communicate with aliens who have landed a spaceship on American soil.

I hated the cinematography so much that I gave up at the 16 minute point in the helicopter. The picture was absurdly dark with endless backlighting and shadows. I could barely see anything, including the scenes set in day time. It was deeply annoying and unhelpful. I wanted to shout at the characters to switch a ****ing light on. At least in an under-lit David Fincher movie there's thematically dark subject matter to justify it, but there was no reason I could think of for this alien contact film to have such murky visuals. It was almost unwatchable on Blu-Ray.

I got over my disgust at the cinematography and started the movie again a few hours later. This time I put the brightness and the contrast way up on my TV to destroy the careful darkness of the cinematographer. I really shouldn't have bothered. I've no idea why this has been widely acclaimed. There's very little to it. It's not entertaining or particularly interesting. It was a big shrug of nothing much. It was slow and ponderous. There's just very little to it and what few things do happen aren't particularly interesting. I thought to myself that they could have covered this uneventful story in a prose short story. Lo and behold it turns out it was adapted from a short story. I was not surprised. Why did something that took a handful of pages to be told need to be made into a near two hour movie? I don't think it was a good story or a particularly worthwhile one.

After it was finished I noticed that it was by the director of Enemy (2013) which was another darkly lit unsatisfying film with a notably underdeveloped script. I think director Denis Villeneuve's just not much of a storyteller.

NOTE: I also think Blade Runner 2049 was a bit crap.

 

Did I mention that the film got an Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography and an ASC nomination for Outstanding Cinematography for a Theatrical Release?

Is it possible that people who photograph movies for a living don't see things the way you do? Bear in mind a lot of this boils down to taste. These are not absolutes. I digitally master pictures for a living, and I have a wide range of stuff I look for before I say, "man, this is too hard for me to watch." I agree that there are shows and films that try a little bit too hard to come up with an affected "look," often in place of a story that makes no sense or direction that's kind of all over the place, but neither Arrival nor Solo fell into that category for me. There are softer, muddier films & TV shows out there than this.

I'm still baffled that Quentin Tarantino insisted on shooting Hateful 8 on 65mm film, because it's basically a half-dozen people snowed in a one-room building in the old west, and each of them want to kill each other. Why not use a big format to instead shoot a movie that's mostly outside?

The trend for contemporary movies seems to be, "we don't want to shoot on film, but we do want maximum resolution and dynamic range, so let's shoot on a big-format digital camera and get the best of both," which is how big superhero and action films are often done now. But whether they actually use that sharpness and dynamic range... that's that taste thing I mentioned before.

 

To paraphrase Howard Hawkes: ‘The definition of a good director is someone who doesn’t annoy you.’ If a film is annoying me due to deliberate artistic choices then don’t expect me to applaud them for making those choices. Other people might think Arrival looks great, but I very strongly disagree. Dark is fine, but so dark I struggle to see anything is something else altogether.

 

The issue of how to characterize the 4K/BD presentation of "Solo" in terms of video quality highlights the confusing nature of how such reviews are supposed to work. Namely, is the "Video Quality" rating of a 4K or BD (or DVD for that matter) disc solely about the quality/resolution/presentation on the home video release end, or does it factor in the source as well?

In other words, if a "Metropolis" BD is the absolute peak of what can be presented in terms of video quality, but contains 20 minutes of footage that looks like someone took a box cutter to it, can it still get five stars out of five?

What about a BD using an SD videotape source because that's all that exists? Can an Eagle Vision "SD on Blu-ray" concert video get five stars out of five on video quality because it properly replicates the source? I usually don't see such releases get perfect scores on video quality. Reviewers do tend to factor in simply what the end product *looks like* into their ratings.

So when reviewing "Solo", as long as it's a perfect replication/presentation of the theatrical experience, can it get five stars out of five? Or can a reviewer knock it down a few notches because it's so ugly visually and might be one of the worst "reference" examples of the 4K or BD formats?

 

Yeah, I have no idea why they went with such a dim, muddy look for the film. I guess they wanted Han's "origin story" to be gritty, but it's not.

While not as lighthearted as "Star Wars", the movie's also not grim and serious, so the visual choices don't make a ton of sense to me.

In any case, the 4K looks very good for the film as shot. Complaints about the 4K are really just complaints about the cinematography - I can't imagine the movie could look better than it does on 4K given the nature of the source...

 

As someone who's reviewed DVDs/BDs/4Ks for almost 20 years, I often struggle with that question. If a movie looks as good as it possibly can but it's still ugly, does it deserve an "A" for picture?

Or does a tinny mono soundtrack from 1931 deserve an "A" because it sounds as good as possible?

I'd answer no. To me, the grade has to represent the picture/sound in a fairly objective manner. If I say those ugly-looking Stones SD-on-BD concerts deserve an "A", that leads readers to think the shows will objectively look good.

I do use a sliding scale of sorts, so I'm more forgiving of flaws dependent on the movie's age/source, but I still don't feel comfortable giving a high grade to a movie that looks/sounds iffy at best.

That said, I gave the 4K "Solo" an "A" because I objectively thought it looked great. I had no issues with the dim nature of the picture and felt it excelled in all ways...

 

Well I'm fairly bright and I HONESTLY thought there was a mistake in the projection that made everything too hazy/indistinct/muddy/under lit when I paid to see it on opening day in Dolby Cinema.

Now that the 4k bluray has been released we KNOW that's how they wanted it to look. But the choice they made was the wrong choice for me - and my $23 entrance fee to see a hazy/murky film. Well I bought 4 tickets, so it was nearly $100 dollars I shelled out to wonder for 30 minutes "Are they projecting this wrong?"

I wish RedBox rented 4k blurays - this will have to be a "try before you buy" purchase for me.

 

The Star Wars completist in me bought Solo on UHD BD, not Kiko the movie and audio/video fan. I see my steelbook of Solo getting tons of dust on the selve.

 

I didn't see it DC but I also thought it was too dark theatrically.

I didn't feel that way about the 4K. It's dark but not "too dark", IMO. Unlike the theatrical screening, I could tell what was happening!

 

And in the latest news, contrary to reports that Disney was unhappy about the relative failure of Solo and the fan complaints on Star Wars VIII, they have renewed Lucasfilm president Kathy Kennedy's contract through 2021:

Kathleen Kennedy Extends Lucasfilm Deal Through 2021

We saw Solo in Dolby Vision theatrically and I thought it was fine. But I was aware of the critics calling it too dark. The 4K HDR is going to be (relatively) 50% brighter in highlights, and I thought think that would help it quite a bit... but it can also bring out noise in some cases.

I think there's a fine art to lighting a scene that's supposed to be "dark," but still visible to the extent that the actors have an eye light and a backlight so we can make out what's happening. The X-Files and Walking Dead have perfected this very well, even in exterior scenes where it's night and there's nothing but moonlight. Somewhat, we can see everything important and understand what's going on without it getting muddy. Darkness in movies & TV shows doesn't mean "kill all the lights." It's more about deliberately placing shadows, which is a big distinction.

 

I finally rented this and enjoyed it. Ron Howard did a good job of capturing the retro vibe Disney or Kennedy was looking for with the film. It's not great cinema but it's entertaining. The Larry Kasdan and his son did a better job here than Kasdan did working with Abrams IMHO.

 

Happened with Rogue One, I'm pretty sure.

 

I'm pretty sure R1 Had the 1977 look as it ran straight into E4 .........and that was the
correct thing to do.

 

Quite. That's never stopped the internet from taking hot steaming dumps on things before.

 

Maybe I'm wrong, but the fact it's only been renewed for three more years doesn't exactly sound like a ringing endorsement from the Disney top brass and/or a victory over her more vociferous critics... bear in mind, she's the producer on the (now-sole) upcoming new SW movie that's currently deep into principal photography as we speak, so they surely wouldn't oust her from her position at this moment in time unless she did something really grievous or offensive... she didn't so they haven't, but it still doesn't mean that the Disney top brass are entirely happy campers with her stewardship of the franchise to date... all of the released SW films she's overseen to date (save one) have been troubled productions with director and/or script problems, not to mention some very costly reshoots... and the one that didn't has become so utterly politicized and divisive, it'll take years to bleed that poison from the collective fandom body.

My guess is they extended her contract to let her finish the current trilogy, groom a successor, plot the next course for the franchise, then move on in face-saving manner...

 

She'll also be 69 years old, so maybe that's a factor.

 

Style over substance.

 

Certainly not when they continue to move the goalposts by suggesting that her contract extension (when all the rumors were flying that she was out the door) was somehow not a statement of confidence.

 

Bob Iger is 67 now, so he's two years older that Kennedy. Just sayin'.

 

By underdeveloped are you referring to the characters or the plot? The plot reminded of the type of film that William Nolan might make.

 

...as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced

 

Power knows no age limit. Only scandal does. If Kennedy wants to stick around and does a good job with the material shepherding the characters forward, Disney will let her stay as long as she wants at least until several stumbles.

I honestly don't think Kennedy has done a bad job of shepherding these films. The superfans are supercritical and that's OK because they provide lots of money to Disney as a result BUT Kennedy is doing a pretty good job at least better than Lucas did with the prequels. I understand WHY Lucas wanted to make the prequels but they really didn't need to be made as everyone wanted hear about Han, Luke and Leia.

 

It’s difficult to argue with the numbers. She produced E.T., Jurassic Park, and her tenure as Lucasfilm president has resulted in three blockbusters, one of which is the highest-grossing film of all-time. Getting rid of Kennedy would be like firing the manager of a baseball team that just won the World Series.