Air Force One blu ray (1 Viewer)

[Hamilton72]

Whether they are the director's "intent" or not is irrelevant - it's how the movie was presented in cinemas. And the purpose of blu-ray, like DVD before it, is to reproduce that cinematic experience, as close as possible, in the home. End of.

You wouldn't take away the stylised captions from Quantum Of Solace would you? Or The X-Files? Or Fringe? Certainly those are created with far more imagination than Air Force One - but the original presentation is the original presentation. Look at the controversy that occured when they changed the captions on Night Watch! There was a recall on that purely because the captions were ruined. You can't have one rule for one film and one rule for another. You can't arbitrarily decide that Air Force One is less important so to hell with doing it right.

I do understand that the studios are trying to save money, and that their attempt to save money will often clash with artistic integrity, but at least they could make some attempt to simulate the theatrical presentation.

To put captions under the image is distracting. At least it distracts me. As much as excessive DNR or EE distracts other people. And why should my concerns about maintaining a quality presentation be less valuable than anybody else's?

 

[Dan M]

My UK release of Brotherhood of the Wolf on HD DVD from Studio Canal allows me to move the subs up into the viewing area or below it via the A B C D buttons on the remote. I can also change the size to small or large. Very useful for constant heighth setups and for people who have different preferences on subs placement.

Although this won't preserve font styles as would burnt in subs (Bram Stokers Dracula)

I wish Sony Blu Ray would adopt this feature instead of forced subs below the image area.

And another thing on player gen. subs below the image area: Depending on how long sentences are on a given scene they STILL spill into the image area above sometimes. So then you have some words in the frame and some below it which looks stupid and VERY distracting IMHO

 

[Hamilton72]

Indeed. At the end of the day, every time a studio goes out of its way to "improve" the presentation of a movie - whether it be DNR or EE or changing the captions - they make it worse. I wish they'd just transfer the movie over as-is. It really can't be all that difficult, and everybody would be happy then!

 

[ATimson]

Difficulty will depend on the condition of the best available prints with subtitles and how many languages are on the disk. And even then, not everybody will be happy.

 

[Rodneyk]

I am in the CiH boat. I got really excited when this disc was announced. Then I remembered all of the foreign language and I remembered which studio would be releasing it. I decided to wait until the reviews poured in.

One thing I can not understand is why not put two versions of the subtitle track on the disc?

You could have one in the picture and one outside of the picture (default). It could be about 3-5 kB at most, right? Surely, Blurays have enough room.

This would satisfy everyone with hardly any effort.

Rodney

 

[Hamilton72]

The thing is, this exact same argument was used when the captions were changed on the original Bond DVDs. When the first Tomorrow Never Dies DVD (the first Bond title to lose its original captions) came out everybody went on and on about how you were actually getting a better picture because the DVD was closer to the source material and thus removing the captions was a good thing.

But then the UE edition appeared, the captions were restored to their theatrical versions and - guess what - the PQ was even better than the first DVD! I presume the BD will also have the theatrical captions since the other BDs have gotten it right so far.

So I really don't think "best available prints" and "number of languages" has anything to do with it. This is Sony piddling around for no good reason (certainly no good artistic reason), plain and simple. And I don't like it.

 

[ATimson]

Enough disc space, yes. But there's the UI issue; the menus of a disc are not the place to introduce the masses to the concept of constant image height, especially when the disc is designed for constant image width setups. Unless they didn't make them menu accessible and just buried them in the selection list (that pops up when you hit Subtitle on your remote), I suppose...

 

[Jesse Blacklow]

DNR and EE is modification of the image after it was committed to a master, something that in most cases, subtitling is not. Nor is DNR or EE addressable at the user level with compensating controls, as subtitling is. And while your concerns are valid, taking a hard-line stance and vilifying even perfect recreations via technology is IMO not so, particularly when you're asking for the representational equivalent of say, a local sheriff and his staff dictating policy for the Department of Justice.

 

[Hamilton72]

Jesse, we're going to have to seriously agree to disagree on everything you just wrote!

 

[Jesse Blacklow]

Sorry, but that doesn't address any of the valid points I made. For someone with such willingness to decry the majority viewpoint amongst even those in the HT enthusiast arena and call for the utmost strictest adherence to theatrical presentations, you seem awfully unwilling to admit or even allow for the shortcomings of said presentation when moved to the home. At least I made a detailed post where I made my argument and conceded that some of your concerns still existed, you could at least address the issues with facts, if they're applicable. Otherwise, you're just arguing for argument's sake.

 

[Hamilton72]

I'm not arguing for argument's sake at all. You want facts? The fact is that Air Force One doesn't look like it did when I saw it at the cinema or watched it on DVD, or on television for that matter! The fact is that part of the movie now exists outside of the 2.35:1 frame (if I wanted to be pedantic I could argue that this is now, strictly speaking, a 1.85:1 presentation of a 2.35:1 movie!). The fact is that this kind of placement distracts me from the movie instead of being an integral part of it. The fact is that this didn't happen on any other format on which the movie was released (certainly in the USA).

I'm absolutely delighted to decry the majority viewpoint amongt even those in the HT enthusiast arena because a) I can't accept the few posts I've read defending Sony's decision as a "majority", b) even if it is the majority view it doesn't make it right and c) would anybody here actually be complaining if the captions had been left INSIDE the picture (i.e. where captions have been since the dawn of cinema/video)?

Thought not. Y'know I didn't read one single comment when Air Force One was intially "moved to the home" on DVD to the effect that "Oh my god, the b******, they left the subtitles in the right place, what were they thinking?"

This happens to be amongst my favourite "guilty pleasure" movies of the 90s and the fact that I am refusing to buy this US edition of the disc should tell you how passionately I feel about the issue.

EDIT: I'm off to bed now, and then I'm in London until Monday afternoon. Thought I'd better say in case my silence over the next few days is read as arguing for arguments sake!

 

[Jesse Blacklow]

Well, you've managed to repeat the one point that even I said was a concern, without addressing the larger issues. I guess I'm going to have to assume that everything outside CIH issues (pun not intended) really is arguing for arguing's sake.