"South Pacific" Disc of the year? (1 Viewer)

DVD Beaver has screen captures from the new FOX "South Pacific" Blu-ray - they look fantastick! DVDBeaver states this is the best looking Disc so far this year (The film is 50 years old - But the image is from a 70MM source which was screened in LA recently and looked fantastick)

South Pacific Blu-ray - Rossano Brazzi Mitzi Gaynor

The disc may win accolades but I cannot see any prizes for the cover art.

Jeez, those captures really do look absolutely gorgeous!

This isn't one I was planning to upgrade from my DVD copy. I suppose I should just go ahead and sell my R&H boxset now.

I promised myself I wasn't gonna do this...

Agreed. The great irony how such a beautiful disc (even the one color-filtered shot looks pretty good) can have such a mind-numbingly ugly cover that must have been designed as a Photoshop Tutorial project.

One thing they don't show is how the previously deleted "roadshow" scenes look. I'm wondering if there's any improvement in color, seeing how problematic the source for these scenes (a faded, original 1958 70mm print) was.

Bring on its R&H siblings! Imagine how great the Todd-AO Oklahoma! and (especially) The Sound of Music could look.

Other FOX films from 70 MM prints which looked incredible in 70MM screenings over the last few years:

Cleopatra
Those Magificent Men in Their Flyng Machines
The Agony and the Ecstacy
Doctor Dolittle
Star!
Hello, Dolly

If "South Pacific" is any indication, these 7 films should all look this good.

Snagged a copy today - and I don't recall having ever watched the film in it's entirety so I will definitely view the longer version first. I only hope that Fox will reduce their bd prices, but then again if they continue to release stellar hd transfers than I would pay a bit more. Still, 10.00 over what I paid for either An American In Paris and Gigi it is difficult to understand the disparity. Sure am glad I bought a 1080 projector. I could not imagine taking in productions as lavish as this on anything under 120". See what happens when you get spoiled?

roughly, what percentage of the film has colour filtered shots...

I know next to nothing about the film - but the filtered shots are during the musical numbers apparently. I will keep you posted. I started to look at the extended version and decided to check the feature version on the first disc - quite a difference! I thought I was looking at a very decent SD dvd on the extended, I was wondering what all the praise was about. The missing footage I saw was also quite faded of color - expected of course. The theatrical version on disc one is without a doubt superior in every respect, the DTS HD 5.1 soundtrack a definite improvement in comparison to the 5.1 Dolby Digital on the "extended' version, of which I only watched 15 minutes. I will close by saying it looks simply fantastic - gorgeous in fact! This is at 128" so if you like this film your going to love it on blu ray! I sure hope more great musicals are on the way in the next year or so. Fox has set a very high level on this release. I think we are finally getting somewhat spoiled. I'm impressed Fox.

Woohoo! That all sounds very exciting.

While I hate crappy cover art, it's never going to stop me from a presentation that sounds as exciting as this does!

Those DVD Beaver captures look incredible!

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EDIT** Too funny. I just realized the cover art is the same that I was complaining about a long time ago. Brazzi looks like he was fixed up by an undertaker in that "stylized photo." He doesn't even look real. It is just awful...but those screen caps are too much! And I'm really excited to hear what the DTS-HD MA track sounds like...

With Patton it was the other way around with the cover art and the disc quality, guess what I prefer ?

cheers Brent

I really doubt this is going to be the "dvd of the year." Yikes. First of all--it sounds like a total port-over from the current SD release. Big deal. So we get to hear the spazzy, fanboy commentary from Richard Barrios over again. Yay. There's few new extras--and they didn't try to clean up the washed-out Roadshow footage. So again--big deal. It's just the same thing as before, but in HD. While the screencaps look great and I would like to have this in BluRay, it's uncrucial and unexciting.

Most users are very happy with a Blu-Ray version that offers at least the same extras as the SD version and reference picture quality.
I am so easy to please that I would even buy Ben Hur and Lawrence of Arabia if they were released that way

You are easy to please, Oliver!

Then again, I guess I would be, too.

I know because I read Brent Avery's post above. And I know they didn't try because how hard is it, really, to colorize an old movie? Hollywood's been doing it for 20 years. All they had to do was separate it into B&W, and colorize. The colors would match the palette from the unaltered footage. Now this is very painstaking and expensive to do. I conclude that they didn't try because they didn't want to spend that kind of money. No, I do not know for sure. But the bottom line is--they didn't do it, and the old dvd looks crummy because of it. The difference in the footage is jarring to say the least. The extended Roadshow print is historically significant, and a great curiosity piece, but it's not that much fun to sit and watch in terms of relaxing entertainment.

I believe the DVD beaver was refferring to the picture /sound Quality when they made the statement (afterall the film is over 50 years old and looks better than most)

It's great the extras are included!!!!

Ethan, the cost to correct the longer version was probably too high (and the elements lost) FOX knows any R&H title will sell well into the future - so they would make the investment if costs were reasonable.

It is not as easy as you said. If that is the case, old Eastman Kodak color movies like "The Alamo" would be very easy to restore and reconstruct. You should read some interesting articles written by Robert A. Harris to understand more about this. You can't just separate the fade film elements into B&W and "colorize" it.

I'm not complaining about the lack of re-colorization. I just passively stated that they didn't do it. I didn't particularly expect them to colorize. My point being--if this disc is so great then why is it little better than the old one? They didn't upgrade the picture image--they just ported the previous restoration over to BD and added a few extras. That's all. That's why I have a problem with people labeling it the "BluRay of the Year" or whatever. They didn't do enough work on it to earn that title. The restoration work was done several years ago. It's basically a reissue. The fact that the sound and image is so wonderful is a testament to the original filmmakers--not the BluRay engineers who packaged this movie.

Are you kidding??? Many a film has been messed up in it's transfer to DVD and Blu-Ray -- Look at "Patton" also beautifully filmed in 70MM. The fact that a 50 year old film looks this good - better than many new films - is incredible.

Check out the screenshots from "Gigi" also from 1958 to see how un-incredible a film can look

That isn't all. You are making even more assumptions now. From what is posted on DVDBeaver South Pacific has been completely redone with an 8k scan that wasn't even possible when the DVD was released and therefore is coming from a completely different source.

I guess the bottom line is this: The picture and sound quality that is seen in the shorter version of the movie on disc one is a stellar achievement and if that is not enough for you fine, but please do not try to downplay the achievement of bringing South Pacific to Blu-Ray looking like this. There have been about half a dozen other large format films released to Blu-Ray and judging by the screencaps none of them looks as good as South Pacific, not Baraka, not 2001 and certainly not Patton