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It's one of Scorsese's lesser works but good to know, that Buena Vista noticed how bad the old disc was.

Another disc with a not so good movie but the need for a remaster is the one with Ridley Scott's "Gladiator": There are rumors, that Paramount will release a new Blu-ray in 2010. Universal was responsible for the old master (and is the distributor in Europe, e.g.), but Paramount is the one to blame for releasing it.

(Posted on Friday, February 12, 2010 at 2:38 PM)

Regarding Gladiator.

Much blame was put on Paramount and Universals door but surely Dreamworks is responsible for the film print provided ?

Yes i know Viacom bought Dreamworks but they still oversee their own films and have their own offices and just late last year struck a $1.5 billion deal to make new movies.

(Posted on Friday, February 12, 2010 at 7:38 PM)

The old release had the texture of a flannel jacket.

(Posted on Friday, February 12, 2010 at 9:31 PM)

Where did you order it from, Michael.

(Posted on Saturday, February 13, 2010 at 1:04 AM)

Very nice, if only the film hadn't been ruined in more ways than this comment box has room to mention...

(Posted on Saturday, February 13, 2010 at 1:25 AM)

I'm a tad curious about what's going on with the different aspect ratios. I assume the new Blu-ray has it right, but I'm unsure. It would be a shame if it got the look of the film right but then cropped off any of the photography.

(Posted on Saturday, February 13, 2010 at 10:39 AM)

It was shot Super 35 so that probably helps explain why the frame shown is slightly different than the original edge enhanced mess.

I have also read that if they have a 2K master it's better to slightly cut off a very small amount at the edges of the frame than scale to 1920x1080 as that way any scaling artifacts are avoided.

At least thats what i remember reading as 2K is 2048x1020.

(Posted on Saturday, February 13, 2010 at 3:29 PM)

Oh and that last line should read 2048x1080. Typo error.

(Posted on Saturday, February 13, 2010 at 3:34 PM)

There are variances built in for cropping on any film format. I actually have some Super-35 framing charts for DOGMA, and they don't just allow for cropping top/bottom, but a bit on each side, too (the full width of a Super-35 frame is something like 24.89mm, but the "safe area" width is kept at 24mm). As Michael points out, the old master for GONY seems to have been "opened up" to the extreme edges of the frame, showing some of the junk at the extreme edges, etc. I'm guessing this new transfer likely sticks to the strict framing guidelines...

With one interesting exception. The final famous shot of the New York skyline transforming over time has a very slow and deliberate "digital tilt" added for this new version, so that at the end of the shot you can see the tops of the Twin Towers. The previous transfer- as well as the 35mm print I saw projected at the Academy Theater in Los Angeles for the LA premiere in 2002- cropped the tops of the towers off at the top of the frame. I also think they "toned down" the musical sting at the head of that famous shot. I remember it really BLASTING on the original DVD and even reading some complaints on-line about it, but on this new Blu-ray the first music sting after DiCaprio's final line of voice-over doesn't seem to be nearly as extreme a change in volume.

Vincent

(Posted on Sunday, February 14, 2010 at 12:56 AM)

Regarding Dogma.

I used to have the old DVD edition which had a full frame on one side of the disc and a widescreen on the other. This was the first DVD release and the North American edition.

I'm pretty sure Salma Hayek and her introduction sexy dance showed more of her body in the full frame version ( and thus i loved it ) than the widescreen edition showed thus there had to be cropping top/bottom allowed for Dogma as the extra information which allowed us to see more of Salma was at the bottom of the frame and not the sides.

I remember looking at this closely as you would when Salma and sexy dancing is involved.

I'm not arguing about your charts but i am saying that scene had more information at the bottom of the frame in the fullscreen edition.

(Posted on Sunday, February 14, 2010 at 7:16 AM)

Apologies to Vincent.

Just re-read the remarks and i thought you were saying you couldn't have any top and bottom info in the frame for Dogma. Missed the just part of the don't just allow so read your post wrong.

Duhhh of me. I get you now. I'm booking the opticians appointment as i type this.

(Posted on Sunday, February 14, 2010 at 7:19 AM)

It's okay Foxy :)

I actually cut together the workprint for DOGMA so I got to see the full frame all the time, and kept a few strips of Super-35 workprint from it.

Vincent

(Posted on Sunday, February 14, 2010 at 6:10 PM)

Very interesting point made by Vincent, which prompted a few reminiscences.
I projected GoNY on a big screen in Geneva for a few weeks back in Jan. 2003 and I remember trying to reframe the twin towers just before the final fade and it was impossible because there was simply nothing there: the top of the towers was cropped by the frame edge and that was it. Finally checked the new transfer, which I hadn't done, and I'm amazed. It was just not this way in the theatrical presentation, the look of which, if I'm not mistaken, was actually very similar to the old master: it was muddy, soft, hard to focus and had no grain to speak of. The highlights were blown out and the blacks grey-greenish and unreadable.
Given that the French BluRay was most likely made from a different master and that it looked extremely similar to the US one, I'm tempted to believe that something went very wrong at a much earlier stage (they may have totally messed up the digital intermediate and decided to use it anyway). For this new master, they finally went back to the source material and started all over.
In any case, I don't know if anyone will agree with me that this remaster looks infinitely better than the film did during its theatrical release.

(Posted on Sunday, February 14, 2010 at 11:54 PM)

When I saw it projected theatrically (at the LA premiere, so obviously it would have been a show-print) it didn't like a thing like the old master. It looked beautiful. I'm guessing you got a bum print, which not out of the question as I know one area where Mirimax liked to save money was on release prints. For example, when I saw JERSEY GIRL in a "regular" movie theater, the color timing literally chaged from reel-to-reel, so if it cut to a new reel in the middle of a scene the timing would be completely different. Very jarring! BTW, I'm pretty sure that GONY didn't have a Digital Intermediate. It may have been one of the last Super-35 films that underwent an entirely photochemical finish.

Vincent

(Posted on Monday, February 15, 2010 at 12:19 AM)

Michael:

I honestly can't recall whether that type was present on the theatrical print I saw, but it is common for "text on screen" opticals to be sent to other-language-speaking countries free of text so they can add their own language text*. As such, on the negative, scenes with text overlaid would be free of text (and as such, original negative) while the IP and IN would have the opticals with the appropriate text-shots cut in. As such, in these cases they may well have transferred from the textless OCN for both the new and old transfers, than added the text digitally rather than transferring from an optically-printed source with the text already overlaid.

Vincent

* As an examples, the Blu-ray versions of THE GODFATHER films have the text subtitles redone- in the same font as the theatrical versions, but larger for home viewing.

(Posted on Monday, February 15, 2010 at 4:27 AM)

The location text was definitely present on the print I projected. I can't recall the specific quality of it but there was certainly nothing particularly outstanding about it apart from the fact that it was "translated" on the print dubbed in French ("New York, 1846" and "Musée Barnum" instead of "New York City, 1846" and "Barnum Museum" among others). Seemed to be a little more specific as well, as if intended for non-American viewers, which would make sense if one is to take Michael's point about clarification. It remains this way on the French BR.
I wouldn't necessarily rule out a DI. I have no idea whether it would make any sense at all to do it this way but, considering Scorsese's fondness for old-school opticals, couldn't it have taken place later on in the process after the opticals and titles were completed? I remember the first part of the end titles, the sort-of-animated section of it, as being the muddiest and softest-looking part of the whole show.
Just made a quick check on the French BR and it does actually look marginally better than the first US master. Color timing is very similar but the edge enhancement is nowhere near as bad. Feeling of overall soft murkiness is pretty much the same though compared to the new master. When I find the time, I'll try to post some screen grabs somewhere.
Finally Vincent is very right about export prints usually looking a tad worse than domestic ones. Always thought that it had to do with the fact that they may be a couple of generations removed, if that's the term. Color timing is usually the same though apart from the freak accidents, of which there are more than a few... I don't think it was the case with GoNY. Like I said, I projected both the English-language and the dubbed print and they both displayed the same types of problems.

(Posted on Monday, February 15, 2010 at 9:10 AM)

The American Cinematographer issue which covers GONY does not specify a DI in the information box at the end of the article.

It's great to read such an informed debate, thank you very much.

(Posted on Monday, February 15, 2010 at 3:56 PM)

Finally managed to upload some screen grabs from the French M6 Blu-Ray. This pdf has the clickable thumbs, the first of which approximates Michael's example above.
Well, I'm longer so sure that it looks any better than the first US BD. Frame is somewhat tighter on all sides but it is overall extremely similar apart from the French text of course, which, and I stand corrected again, is much more of a direct translation from the English than I remembered.
If you guys can discern whether this looks like a different master or not...
I have to agree as well... Ever since the Dvd came out, this has got to be one of the most obsessively talked about mastering job of all times and it makes for fascinating conversations.
Question remains though: how did they get such a degraded image in the first place since we now have confirmation, thanks to the remaster, that the original elements were fine?

(Posted on Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 11:22 PM)

Here is the final image from the Z1 Dvd edition. (Anyone remembers the film was spread on two discs? I sure didn't.)
The towers are cropped and the slow tilt up is present.

(Posted on Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 11:43 PM)

Michael, the pan up is on the DVD and due to the framing we do not see the tops of the Twin Towers.

(Posted on Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 9:27 PM)