A Few Words About While we wait for A few words about...™ Raiders of the Lost Ark -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Doctorossi]

the DVD (and every previous home video incarnation) has much more accurate flesh tones than many shots on the blu ray

"More accurate" to what? It's a piece of art, not a reference textbook.

 

I think it looks great! But they are just screenshots..I'll wait until I own it to judge...but it looks as I remember it looking.

 

[Paul_Scott]

A whole bunch of comparison caps have been posted over on an AVS thread- in not one of them do I feel the Bd (if these caps truly reflect what is on the disc) represents the film as I remember it.
Way too much orange that infects everything (that verdant South American field Indy transverses escaping the Hovitos now looks parched) and a more unnatural looking teal can definitely be seen infecting some of the shots (like the opening Paramount tag, the background of the Nazi sub port, and even in the caps up above with the soldiers being menaced by the Ark's mist).
Shadow detail is crushed and highlights blown out (in the opening titles the clouds are blown out, the shot with Marion in the bar where facial details like freckles are apparent on the non bd HD caps but masked on the Bd). This is why people are saying the Bd looks flatter, which I absolutely agree with.
Oh, And the sunset shot of them digging at the Well Of The Souls people looks horrible in these Bd caps.
As someone said elsewhere- this looks like the Kaminski version of Raiders now.
As usual, it looks like the Bd is two steps forward and one huge step back. Still amazed Jaws made it out so well and from Universal , no less.

 

[Doctorossi]

Oh, And the sunset shot of them digging at the Well Of The Souls people looks horrible in these Bd caps.

It certainly looks quite different, but beyond that, I'm not sure what's "horrible" about it.

 

[kenkraly20212]

I will not judge the screenshots until the actual blu-ray discs come out. Besides you can't judge the quality of a blu-ray based on screen captures they are just that screen captures. And reports are Raiders in IMAX looks and sounds great a few blurry shots in the print but that's about it. Just wait for the reviews and own the set before making a judgement on it.

 

[Paul_Scott]

The caps that are floating around now are coming from multiple and varied sources and, while it's entirely possible they may not fully represent the Bd, at the same time they all seem to share similar traits (the excess orange push).
The sunset shot (if these are accurate to the Bd) is now yellow orange instead of orange red and this change in color seems to have robbed the silhouettes of the figures of their density. They look dark and vibrant against the sky in the BBC and HDTV caps, and they look more washed out in the Bd caps. Horrible may seem hyperbolic so instead I'll just say lousy.
Yes, by all means wait for the actual disc and how it plays on your system to make your final evaluations. I don;t usually get hung up on screen caps that show up before a disc hits, but I won't be at all surprised if this is in fact how this release pans out.

 

[kenkraly20212]

Horrible may seem hyperbolic so instead I'll just say lousy.
Yes, by all means wait for the actual disc and how it plays on your system to make your final evaluations. I don;t usually get hung up on screen caps that show up before a disc hits, but I won't be at all surprised if this is in fact how this release pans out.

Some said the said thing about the ot star wars blu-rays when they came out last year. I'm sure the blu-rays for the Indiana Jones the complete adventures will look awesome when they come out on the 18th of this month. Why some complain about directors changing the color timing of their movies is puzzling it happens all the time when they update their catalog films for home video and blu-ray releases it's nothing new.

 

[Paul_Scott]

Some said the said thing about the ot star wars blu-rays when they came out last year so it's nothing new. I'm sure the blu-rays for the Indiana Jones the complete adventures will look awesome when they come out on the 18th of this month. Why some complain about directors changing the color timing of their movies is puzzling it happens all the time when they update their films for home video and blu-ray releases it's nothing new.

Changing the color timing of a film to a noticeable degree(like has happened with the Ridley Scott Bds of Alien, BR and T&L) where you go from something that was natural (and intrinsic to the theatrical experience) to something that looks much more artificial and stylized is just as offensive to me as scrubbing the grain out of an image and making everything look waxy and shiny. In neither case is the look of the film fundamentally consistent with it's theatrical release. Both are massive, wholesale changes to the look of a film (as opposed to something like adjusting the gamma curve in certain scenes to minimize the appearance of garbage mattes which is what I would personally consider more of a tweak, and something I usually have no problem with).

 

[kenkraly20212]

Fair enough Paul_Scott but I don't have a huge issue with it as you and others do.
.

 

[Dave MJ]

"More accurate" to what? It's a piece of art, not a reference textbook.

Perhaps to the color of actual flesh as opposed to an orange? And accurate to how the film has always looked up to this point.

 

[Doctorossi]

Perhaps to the color of actual flesh as opposed to an orange?

"To the color of actual flesh" under what lighting conditions?
The previous video releases don't necessarily look any more "accurate" to some abstract notion of "the color of actual flesh", either- just differently inaccurate.

And accurate to how the film has always looked up to this point.

"How the film has always looked" by what definition? The previous (SD) video transfers which used a color-space with less potential for fidelity to the original film? Someone's vague (and possibly incorrect) memory of how a theatrical print (that may or may not have been correctly printed) once looked when projected in a theatre (that may or may not have used an adequate lamp)?
Do you know for certain that Spielberg hasn't always been dissatisfied with the relatively poor fidelity to the source of the previous video releases and isn't happy to finally do the look of the original justice on video? Have you looked at the OCN or the answer print?
Who can say how the film has "always looked" and who can say how accurately the previous video releases have represented that look or the look intended by the filmmakers? Someone can, but please forgive my skepticism that it's you.

 

[Dave MJ]

Here's another example of color difference and blown out details. DVD on top, blu on bottom. It looks much more "off" in motion because it is not consistent from shot to shot. This is how it looked (to a lesser extent) in IMAX. I'm not intimately familiar with color timing, but it certainly looks like they did not follow the same timing as used in previous releases after the new 4k negative scan. I find it very distracting having seen this film well over 100 times since 1981.

 

[Doctorossi]

I'm not intimately familiar with color timing, but it certainly looks like they did not follow the same timing as used in previous releases after the new 4k negative scan.

Clearly, it's different timing, but it's only "worse" if it has less fidelity to the filmmakers' intent.

 

[Dave MJ]

"To the color of actual flesh" under what lighting conditions?
The previous video releases don't necessarily look any more "accurate" to some abstract notion of "the color of actual flesh", either- just differently inaccurate.
"How the film has always looked" by what definition? The previous (SD) video transfers which used a color-space with less potential for fidelity to the original film? Someone's vague (and possibly incorrect) memory of how a theatrical print (that may or may not have been correctly printed) once looked when projected in a theatre (that may or may not have used an adequate lamp)?
Do you know for certain that Spielberg hasn't always been dissatisfied with the relatively poor fidelity to the source of the previous video releases and isn't happy to finally do the look of the original justice on video? Have you looked at the OCN or the answer print?
Who can say how the film has "always looked" and who can say how accurately the previous video releases have represented that look or the look intended by the filmmakers? Someone can, but please forgive my skepticism that it's you.

Wow, I always forget how condescending people are on internet boards sometimes. Sure, I forgive your skepticism. I am a filmmaker, I know what flesh tones look like and I have seen Raiders projected many times over the years, in 70mm, 35mm 16mm and even super 8mm and it NEVER looked like this. If anything, flesh tones tended towards red, not orange. I have seen every home video release from VHS to laserdisc to DVD many, many times. I used to teach the ark opening scene in a class as a sound design lesson and I am very, very familiar with it. The orange/brown shift is extreme in some shots, as is the difference in contrast, its not a matter SD vs HD colorspace.
So maybe Spielberg was never happy with the color timing, but this seems like an odd time to make radical changes that don't match from shot to shot. At any rate, it's not just the color that is off. Perhaps some people will like it, time will tell, its not the end of the world. But it is certainly disappointing to me. I have yet to see the full resolution blu ray, so it could possibly be slightly different. However, the color issues were most definitely present in the IMAX showing I saw, though admittedly to a lesser extent.

 

[Doctorossi]

Wow, I always forget how condescending people are on internet boards sometimes.

I'm not sure what was condescending about my reply- I didn't intend it to be.

If anything, flesh tones tended towards red, not orange.

Exactly. This release is differently inaccurate. Film doesn't "see" with the same dynamic as the human eye, so all represented flesh tones are going to be a compromise when compared with natural vision and real faces. You have to "fake it" in one direction or another, so it's a losing game to compare the look of a movie to the act of seeing actual faces, if you're looking for color fidelity... to say nothing of the fact that film is art and the goal is not necessarily fidelity to that act in the first place, but rather the enhancement, through photographic choices, of storytelling.

So maybe Spielberg was never happy with the color timing, but this seems like an odd time to make radical changes that don't match from shot to shot.

Is it? This is the first video release that can take advantage of the rec709 color-space and it's been made from a new scan of the negative. I'm skeptical that this is a correction rather than revisionism, but if it is a correction, it seems to me a better/more likely opportunity to make it than most.

 

[Doctorossi]

For whatever it's worth, when I look at the first shot above, it looks to me like Toht is standing next to a fire while being lit by a light. Whereas, in the blown-out second shot, the timing makes it appear, to me, more as if he's actually being lit by the fire itself.

 

[Vincent_P]

Perhaps to the color of actual flesh as opposed to an orange? And accurate to how the film has always looked up to this point.

But the DVD screengrabs you posted as comparisons show unnatural MAGENTA-biased flesh-tones. Compared to the Blu-ray shots, the DVD screen-caps are the ones that look incorrect IMO.
Regardless, the answer to this "quandary" is quite easy- if you don't like the color on the new Blu-ray, then stick to your DVD and don't buy it. Problem solved!
Vincent

 

[Doctorossi]

But the DVD screengrabs you posted as comparisons show unnatural MAGENTA-biased flesh-tones. Compared to the Blu-ray shots, the DVD screen-caps are the ones that look incorrect IMO.

I really hope we can get away from this language of "correct" and "incorrect". We can prefer one look over another, but unless we're the filmmakers, how can we declare any of them correct or incorrect?

Regardless, the answer to this "quandary" is quite easy- if you don't like the color on the new Blu-ray, then stick to your DVD and don't buy it. Problem solved!

Like it or lump it? Is that your answer for everyone who finds an aspect lacking on any release?

 

[FoxyMulder]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi /t/323399/while-we-wait-for-a-few-words-about-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-in-blu-ray/150#post_3972696
For whatever it's worth, when I look at the first shot above, it looks to me like Toht is standing next to a fire while being lit by a light. Whereas, in the blown-out second shot, the timing makes it appear, to me, more as if he's actually being lit by the fire itself.

It just looks awful to me, contrast boosted and blown out detail in that shot, i really hope they haven't screwed this up, no way this is how it appeared at the cinema, this isn't just about the colour timing, this is about contrast boosting and it does affect the image, if the clouds can no longer be seen during the opening sequence then that's another indicator of a contrast boost and it can impact on image quality, just like the poster who put up these caps i have seen the film over 100+ times, it's actually my favourite film of all time, if Spielberg has changed the colour timing and contrast boosted the movie then it will be apparent upon viewing it,

Maybe George Lucas did it, after all Lucasfilm owns the movie and he is a fan of of this sort of thing, but contrast boosting is just a cheap way to do things, i hope it's isolated to a few shots here and there.

You say how can we know what the look is, i know for a fact the clouds were not blown out during the opening scenes and yet reports say this version now has blown out clouds but it shouldn't happen not if you are scanning in the OCN at 4K, just give us the original filmed look, that look is not contrast boosted and, before you ask, i do know this, the current obsession with tinkering with films and contrast boosting them did not happen in 1981 and certainly did not happen to this film.

 

[Douglas Monce]

Really? Do we HAVE to go through this garbage about screen caps AGAIN???
Why not wait and see what the actual disc looks like before bitching about it.
And for the record, the DVD was never very accurate to the release prints for Raiders. It was always much cooler than the prints.
Doug