Karate Kid Collection - 2/1/2005 (1 Viewer)

[Ron Reda]

Same here. I almost bought this at Best Buy today and didn't because I could give a crap about 3 and 4.

 

[Brandon Conway]

But wouldn't 1 & 2 individually probably be about $25 anyway?

 

[Aryn Leroux]

Yeah you could pretty much just look at as buying the first two movies and parts 3,4 are just lengthy bonus materials. If your that upset about them being there toss them aside in the main box somewhere. As each movie is in it's own slim case with it's own cover-art and is labeled on the spine aswell, So pop just those on your shelf and pretend you never owned part 3,4. I am happy with this purchase.

 

[ArthurMy]

Just finished watching the DVD of the first film. All these complaints... It's a great transfer, and I'm not sure how much better it would look if it had a higher bit rate. All I know what is on view in front of my eyes - the transfer replicates perfectly the way the film looked in theaters (it probably looks better here than in some of the multiplexes). Mr. Avildsen favors this look - all his films have it. To know how perfect the transfer is, just look at the scene on the beach with the blazingly blue sky and no grain. The dark scenes have always been grainy because of the nature of the lighting and the film stock. It really does help to understand the intention of the cameraman and director and unless one is certain of those intentions, it's best not to criticize too loudly when one has only seen the film on home video.

Nothing wrong with the sound mix or the sound - just like it was in the theater. Wonderful film, one of the few eighties films I can still stomach.

 

[Greg_S_H]

Hey, I saw it at the theater! Since I'm one who voiced a mild complaint, I'll say my post was solely based on the reviews thus far. If your experience shows it to be a better transfer than has been reported, that's great. I'm going to get it soon anyway, and I'm pleased to hear it will look better than initially stated.

 

[ArthurMy]

How can you base anything on reviews which are usually written by people who haven't seen these things in theaters and who sometimes have no idea whether the transfer replicates the look of the film or not. The folks at this site are better at it for the most part, but "reviewers" at other sites are usually barely out of their teens and have no knowledge of film stock, opticals or styles of the period.

I think you'll be very pleased with the transfer - that is, if you liked and remember what the film looked like on its initial release.

 

[Robert Crawford]

How many of us were kicking around in theaters when "The Public Enemy" and "Little Caesar" played during their original theatrical release? Everybody must make up their own mind as to what parameters they use in their purchasing decisions. If people want to based that decision on a reviewer's opinion then so be it. Personally, such decisions for me are based on a larger realm. I'm just going to rent the first movie, since I'm not a big fan of the followup movies.




Crawdaddy

 

[JosephJohnson]

Quick question. I'm on the fence on this set. I wish they at least had their own amaray cases with original art but...

Does the first film have the original Columbia Pictures logo on it? I hate it when new logos are attached to the opening of classic films. Like the new UA logos on the Bond film.

 

[MikeEckman]

...steps onto soapbox...

I understand that everyone has their own opinions, but all this nitpicking about everything is causing people to lose perspective that the original film is a great movie.

I just watched it last night for the first time in probably 10 years. I've noticed that as an adult (I am 26) many of the films I loved as a kid haven't held up well when I revisit them years later. Theyre either very juvenile, or extremely corny.

Karate Kid held up very well and I felt it had a very good positive message about believing in yourself, self confidence, and working for something you want. Mr Miyagi's lessons are things that I think could apply to anyone of us here. The acting, the pacing, everything about this movie is still just as good (if not better) than I remembered it as a kid.

In reference to the transfer, I agree with Arthur, it is a GREAT transfer for a film from 1984. The print was clean of blemishes, skin tones looked great, colors looked great, and there was a lot of detail, even despite the grain, which I didnt think took away from anything at all. In my book I don't care about the bitrate as long as I can't see a difference, and I honestly don't think this film would have looked any better with an average bit rate of 8Mbit.

As for the sound track, so what if its not 5.1, the Pro-Logic mix is as good as most others out there. There was some rear activity, but there really wasn't much need for there to be other than for music. Dialogue was clear, the music was clear, and there didn't appear to be any type of sonic compression. There have been many 5.1 tracks released on older movies that had nothing to offer over the original 2.0 (or sometimes even mono) soundtracks. One that comes to mind is Airplane. That is a completely wasted 5.1 track.

Furthermore, although they're not completely abundant, the extras on the first movie are great as well. The commentary is a nice reflective piece that contains Pat Morita and Ralph Macchio. They look fondly on the movie and talk about a lot of the stories and memories when making the film. It is a great commentary, and so is the featurette.

Yeah, the other movies weren't that great, but I enjoyed this movie so much, that with the very respectable A/V transfer and nice extras, I would have easily payed $20 for this first ever anamorphic widescreen SE of Karate Kid 1. For $5 more, I got the other 3 films...thats a bonus in my book.

So, before I get off my soapbox, I think that some of you are putting things out of perspective..complaining about the packaging of the discs or the transfer (I have a hard time believing that anyone has such good memory that they can remember specific details about a movie transfer from 21 years ago). This is the first time ever there has been an anamorphic SE of the first movie. The transfer is very good, the audio track serves it purpose, and there are some very nice extras. As Mr. Miyagi tells Daniel right before the tournament, "Trust quality of training, not quantity".

Its a great movie, and if you've made it this far into my post, you obviously care at least a little about the movie, so just get off your buttocks, stop your moaning, and go buy it.

...steps off soapbox...

 

[DaveRU]

Just got this set, the transfers are fine

Only one annoyance is the labels for KKIII and Next KK are reversed

 

[Aaron Silverman]

I am formatting my official review for posting right now -- it will be up within 30 minutes. See you in that thread!

 

[CraigL]

Be interesting to see how people compare it to the HD transfer that's been broadcast.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Definitely. Wish I'd seen that.

 

[ArthurMy]

I wasn't around for the release of Public Enemy or Little Caesar, but I have seen them in revival houses. That doesn't mean that those prints are representative of how they looked in the early thirties, but at least I've seen them on film. IMO, there is a lot of misunderstanding at a lot of these DVD sites - because the reviewers frequently blame transfers for replicating the way the film actually looked in theaters. Some directors and cameraman were purposely going for grainy photography, some low budget films shot in low light and pushed the film, some film stocks created problems, and none of it has to do one jot with the transfer.

So when a transfer that perfectly replicates the look of a film gets three stars instead of four or five stars, then I think that needs to be addressed. Maybe there should be two ratings - one for the transfer itself and one for the way the film was photographed and designed by its director and cameraman.

It's not as prevalent here, but it sure is prevalent at every other DVD site where I check out reviews. I don't always agree with the folks who review here, but they're miles above the other sites, especially Herb Kane, who, for a young person, seems to do his homework and seems to have a real love for classic films.

 

[Citizen87645]

Herb's profile shows he's around 40, which is different than the "barely out of their teens" reviewers you mentioned before. Though I'm sure Herb would not turn down your label

 

[DaViD Boulet]

I actually brought that very thought up in a discussion a few years back...

I toyed with doing that in my own reviews...and haven't actually done it yet...but what I *do* at the very least is try to discuss the nature of the film medium, the intended "look" of the film as per the artistry of the film's creators, and how accurately that intended look is conveyed on the digital DVD medium. And in my thought process I tend to score highly if the DVD is faithful to the source, with less worry about film-grain or film-stock/filming choices like oversaturating lighting etc. In any event, I try to clarify greatly exactly what I'm seeing and how/why I'm juding the image in context with the original film medium.

My criticisms of a DVD image rarely rail against a DVD transfer for "grain" or other natural film-related artifacts that are faithful to the source (I many mention them but I do so in context of the film medium to help educate "grain is bad" readers, and if the film-print I saw theatrically was grain-free but the DVD is a garbled mess, I might be critical given my differing history with the original theatrical image), but rather my problems with DVD production are usually categorized by electronic artifacts imposed by the mastering process...such as EE, compression, filtering, DNR, and poor digital color-adjustments.

Herb does a great job judging film as "film" as do many other HTF reviewers (though naturally there are times we may disagree...as I'm sure folks at times disagree with my assessments). Another excellent non-HTF reviewer is Dan at DVD-file. He's got a good eye, a wide-angle front projection system, and a good sense for the artistry of film and the nature of the film medium.

-dave

 

[Aaron Silverman]

That'd be nice, if we had a way of seeing every film in its original theatrical release. I saw Karate Kid three times when it first came out, but I really don't remember the picture well enough to know for sure how close the DVD is 20 years later.

The star ratings are always subjective -- one needs to read the comments to know where they came from. For me, I can only rate images as they look to me. I'm not taking points off for things like grain, though. (Even though I'm younger than Herb. ) In terms of this release, there were artifacts and edge enhancement, as well as slightly unnatural colors (that also may have been part of the original intent -- but we have no way of knowing) that detracted from the image for me.

Then there was Resident Evil 2, which I reviewed only a few months after seeing it in the theater -- in terms of color and grain, the picture matched the film, but other things like compression artifacts were an issue.

 

[Anthony Wolfe]

I just got this collection and actually watched 1, 2 and 3 Last Night and This morning. I agree with Mike [Eckman] in that most films from that period don't hold up, yet this film does and it's general theme can be applied still today.

I'm not qualified by any means to speak on the 'transfer' or 'audio tracks', so I'll have to say that my only complaint thus far is that it's a three disc (instead of a 2/4 disc) set, therefore when I store it in my DVD case it's leaves a space because it's an odd number (the pages store 4 DVD's on each side, so three leaves it odd). Other than that, I'm happy, $27 for 4 movies of which at least 2 are quite entertaining and 2 others moderately entertaining if not laughable.

Good Day...

 

[TedD]

No they are not.

KK I 6.88 GB
KK II 4.11 GB
KK III 4.02 GB
NKK 4.15 GB

So KKI is in fact a dual layer disc. The rest are single layer.

Ted

 

[CraigL]

Finally! someone answered the layering question