Blu-ray Review HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: The Last of the Mohicans: Director's Definitive Cut (1 Viewer)

[Walter Kittel]

David - Well that explains it.


I forgot to copy Robert's post in my last posting...


Robert said:


[COLOR= rgb(24, 24, 24)]I think it's great that the filmmaker and the studio listened to the complaints from fans of this great film. They compromised to give us not exactly the original film, but at least close enough to the original cut that many of us can enjoy and purchased it while the filmmaker was still able to exercise his right for artistic control over his work. Sure, the perfect solution would've been releasing both versions like "The Exorcist", but that didn't happen for whatever reason. Anyhow, receiving something is better than getting nothing at all.[/COLOR]



Absolutely in agreement. I am extremely pleased with this Blu-ray. When a favorite film gets a nice High Definition release it is like a gift. I will be spinning this Blu-ray many times in the coming years. Thanks to everyone at Fox who worked on this disc. Perhaps my release of the year - in terms of the film itself.


- Walter.

 

[David Wilkins]

Originally Posted by Walter Kittel


I forgot to copy Robert's post in my last posting...

Walter,


You needn't fortify your opinion with Robert's. Your's alone will do.

I too, am a fan of Mann's work in general, and Mohican's in particular. My cheeky remark was in reference to your comment about the night scenes, but I feel that most if not all of the daylight scenes suffer from the same problem. I encourage everybody to reach their own conclusion, but there's no way I could refer to this as an exemplary transfer. If I had rented the disc first, I would not have paid even the Amazon sale price of $14.99 to add the disc to my library.

 

[Walter Kittel]

David - Okay. My quoting Robert was more about the cut of the film, vs. the transfer. We'll just have to disagree about the quality of the transfer which is perfectly normal, but I would agree that each individual should reach their own conclusion.


Cheers,

Walter...

 

[Robert Crawford]

Originally Posted by David Wilkins




Walter,


You needn't fortify your opinion with Robert's. Your's alone will do.

Walter quoted me about the cut of the film and not the quality of the video presentation.






Crawdaddy

 

[David Wilkins]

Guess I misunderstood, reading too much into possible responses to my own vague remarks. Sorry, folks.

 

[benbess]

I like the film a lot. I think it's a good enough transfer. The night scenes are dark, but I think that's not all bad.

 

[Walter Kittel]

No problems, David. No offense taken, and none intended I assure you.


- Walter.

 

[bosque]

Originally Posted by cafink





I'm not sure what "style" you mean. I haven't heard the Mohicans commentary track, but "the commentary frequently just describes what's happening on-screen" and "the commentary repeats of lot of information from the documentary" seem like perfectly legitimate complaints to me. The only other issue is see is the charge that Mann misuses a lot of big words--well, does he?

I didn't hear any mis-use of big words. To claim that a major director frequently uses words he doesn't understand, seems to me to be pretty insulting. It's difficult to tell which words that reviewer was talking about because he doesn't mention any of them.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Last night, I sampled the BRD again, but this time without any lighting in the room except what came from my display. I have to say the darkness of the film is more pleasing to my eyes in that type of lighting environment. Also, it occur to me that this darken look might have been how the filmmaker intended the film to be because I would imagine the frontier of the Northeast United States in 1757 was probably a dark place even during daylight with it being mostly untouched or spoiled by mankind at that time. IMO, the video of this BRD looks much better viewing it at night in a darken room. I viewed this film twice during it's theatrical run and I do remember it being dark, but I can't recall whether the darkness of this BRD is the same as it was during my theatrical experiences. Anyway just some random thoughts from me.






Crawdaddy

 

[David Wilkins]

Okay...after giving the matter more consideration, and thinking about everything that's been said here, I went about the business of watching the BD again, and allowing a couple of adjustments.


Perhaps I assumed the three-point stance, ready for combat too soon. Unfortunately BD enthusiasts have been given more than a little reason for doing so, over the past couple of years. For the second, more closely scrutinized viewing, the room was made darker than is usually the case. This adjustment improved the experience considerably, with the darkness issue being the only real objection initially. Ordinarily I don't make adjustments on a per disc basis, but I thought the visual experience was also improved by reducing color saturation by a couple of clicks.

Maybe it's just a movie that requires a bit of adjustment, because after doing so, I was quite pleased with the experience, and reverse my initial harsh words about disc ownership. I still feel that the BD is at least a little bit darker overall, than the DVD. I'm not set-up for side by side comparison, but did replay segments of both recently. Perhaps the BD transfer is more accurate. It would be nice to ask Mr. Mann, but it's been ages since I've had a chance to talk to the old boy.

Perhaps at some point, RAH will have a chance to watch and render his opinion.


David


a.k.a.: Frustrated Twins Fan, braced for the final butt whip'n.

 

[Michael Reuben]

I've only had a chance to sample the Mohicans Blu-ray. It's definitely darker than prior versions, but I'm not at all unhappy with the results. It probably helps that my viewing room is always dark.


FWIW, I saw a similar "dark" phenomenon when I was flipping back and forth between the Blu-ray and DVD versions of Heat for review purposes. I described it this way:

Every previous version relied on excessive contrast to boost detail, but this transfer establishes an appropriate white level that prevents indoor scenes from being overly brightened.

In Heat it's usually the indoor scenes that are darker, but in Mohicans it's both nighttime scenes and daytime scenes in deep shadow. In general I've been finding that well-mastered Blu-rays don't rely on contrast boosts to bring out detail, because they don't have to. After many years of experiencing beloved films on LD and DVD, it can be a shock to experience them without that extra layer of contrast and with detail brought out the authentic way: by additional resolution.


I never saw Mohicans theatrically; so I can't comment on the original look. But I like what I've seen in this version. And the audio mix is a huge improvement over the DVD.

 

[Walter Kittel]

FWIW, my viewings are all on a front projector - so by necessity the room is dark when I view films. I hadn't really considered differing viewing environments and their effect upon assessing the transfer.

- Walter.

 

[JonZ]

I thought dark scenes were very inconsistant. Some looked good with deep blacks and others, the blacks looked grayish.


Bright scenes look very good.

 

[David Wilkins]

I encountered a very welcome feature with this disc, that's new to my lengthy experience with BD...or maybe it's just the first time the scenario presented itself to me.

After being interrupted and removing the disc from the player, I returned to it a while later and was prompted as to whether I wanted to "resume" play or start at the beginning. While it's a screaming shame that this feature isn't part of BD specs, it's a damn welcome feature that should be encoded into every title.

 

[Steve Tannehill]

I've seen te resume feature on a couple of Fox titles, Avatar among them.

 

[Matt Hough]

Originally Posted by Steve Tannehill

I've seen te resume feature on a couple of Fox titles, Avatar among them.

Not just Fox. Beauty and the Beast has it, too, as do many of the Blu-rays I've reviewed in the past six months or so.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

I believe Disney was the first to implement this BD resume feature (at least for a feature film title anyway). IIRC, first time I noticed it (and commented as much in some forum thread) was w/ High School Musical 3 (and maybe one other title that eludes me now).


Given the use of BD-J and BD-Live (that's the cause for losing the normal stop/resume player function), I wonder if the studios couldn't simply find a way to make this BD-J implementation of the resume feature be a sort of downloadable "update" for older titles that didn't come w/ it. OR maybe the studios and player makers could possibly work together to give us a solution in the form of a modest BD spec enhancement w/ corresponding viable firmware/software updates to many existing players.


I know... wishful thinking...


_Man_

 

[MLamarre]

There is a comparison between the Theatrical Cut and this new Definitive Cut:


http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=116790

 

[cafink]

Thanks for posting the link to that comparison. I love detailed analyses like that.


But what's especially interesting about that link is that it claims that the original theatrical version of Last of the Mohicans is available on DVD! I didn't think it had ever been released at all, but apparently the German DVD has it.

 

[Robert George]

Warner has distribution in Europe and Fox has North America. The "Director's Cuts" were commissioned by Fox for their video release (s). Warner's video releases in Europe have been the theatrical version.


Unless something has changed, the European Blu-ray release is supposed to be this month (November), also from Warner. Will be curious to see if that is the theatrical version, and what the transfer will look like.