This ones is easy. Just buy a copy and add it to your library. Once you see it in 4k, there's no going back.
It’s difficult to imagine that we’ve had John McTiernan’s Die Hard, with us for thirty years.
After all that time, it has not lost one iota of it’s thrills or pleasure.
Is it a perfect film?
Pretty much.
Brought to 4k UHD Blu-ray courtesy of Fox, along with HDR, and a huge DTS-HD MA track, it joins that ranks for that tiny number of bona fide true 4k Blu-rays.
And it’s perfect in every regard.
Full film resolution, with requisite grain, perfect color, deep rich blacks, and stable as a rock.
Bruce Willis still shines through. Alan Rickman is as nasty as ever. And Reginald VelJohnson still delights.
This ones is easy. Just buy a copy and add it to your library. Once you see it in 4k, there’s no going back.
A magnificent release from Fox!
Image – 5
Audio – 5 (DTS-HD MA 5.1)
Upgrade from Blu-ray – You better believe it!
Pass / Fail – Pass
Very Highly Recommended
RAH
Published by
Scott Merryfield
Executive Producer
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One of the greatest Christmas films of all time.
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It’s a shame that they didn’t make this new master available on standard BD in addition to UHD.
Adam Lenhardt
Director
It's kind of interesting that someday people will look back, and there's going to be this weird period from ~2000 to ~2020 where a ton of movies are limited to 2K resolution because they were made during the early days of digital intermediates. Most things before then can be true 4K and most things after then will be true 4k, but from O Brother Where Are Thou? to now, the majority of movies are 2048×1080 or less.
- Joined
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I think it’ll be akin to the way much of the television we have from a certain era (or eras) is locked in at 480i, either due to being shot on tape, or worse, shot on expensive and good looking film but edited on lower quality tape.
Adam Lenhardt
Director
Absolutely. The shows that had the foresight to shoot on film, going back to I Love Lucy, survive in reruns forever. The shows that were broadcast live (where only a kinescope survives, if anything survives at all) have mostly disappeared from our consciousness.
At least with the 1980s to early 2000s shows that were shot on film and edited on tape can be resurrected at full resolution, albeit through a very expensive and time-consuming process of reconstruction. I doubt we'll ever see one as ambitious as "Star Trek: The Next Generation", but hopefully we'll see more "Twin Peaks" and "Freaks & Geeks".
sleroi
Second Unit
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I watch Brooklyn 99 with my 14 yo son, and of course There are a ton of die hard references as it is Perralta's favorite movie.
I received this uhd disc yesterday and the first thing my son said was "whoa, that's a real movie?"
Can't wait to introduce him to it this weekend.
I received this uhd disc yesterday and the first thing my son said was "whoa, that's a real movie?"
Can't wait to introduce him to it this weekend.
- Joined
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- 9,110
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- Real Name
- Josh Steinberg
I think a lot of shows from the shot-on-film-but-edited-on-tape era will quietly disappear. They won’t really be lost, but they’ll fall out of favor by younger generations who will use the metric of whether or not a show is in HD as an arbitrary metric just to limit choices to something manageable.
To my eyes, the difference between standard definition and HD is the biggest leap. I think 2K mastered films like Star Wars: The Force Awakens will do fine even if they don’t look as good as some other native 4K productions. But I think stuff that’s shot on film but edited on tape can look pretty lousy especially on modern sets, and even worse when compressed for streaming, so I worry about the long term viability of those programs.
But it’s great to finally have a better-than-decent Die Hard release at long last!
To my eyes, the difference between standard definition and HD is the biggest leap. I think 2K mastered films like Star Wars: The Force Awakens will do fine even if they don’t look as good as some other native 4K productions. But I think stuff that’s shot on film but edited on tape can look pretty lousy especially on modern sets, and even worse when compressed for streaming, so I worry about the long term viability of those programs.
But it’s great to finally have a better-than-decent Die Hard release at long last!
revgen
Screenwriter
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Matlock is the one that's most in danger of having this happen.
Both Murder She Wrote and Matlock premiered about the same time, but MSW stuck to film editing, while Matlock used video. MSW is now being released on Blu-Ray while Matlock doesn't have an HD master at all.
atfree
Producer
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OMG..... SO hard as this is one of my all-time favorites ( My family watches this every Christmas Eve (whether they want to or not) butI'm gonna wait wait for the inenvitable "collection" release in 4k
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I got my 4K/UHD from Amazon yesterday as I plan on watching the disc either today or tomorrow.
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So was I, but with the current pricing down to $19.99, I used some bonus points to get it down to $16.19 after sales tax.
YanMan
Stunt Coordinator
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Spot-on, Mr. Harris.
Every time I watch this movie, I come away completely amazed at how flawlessly it all comes together. And yes, it totally is one of the great Christmas movies!
...And for everyone's enjoyment, there's THIS guy's take (saw this link from discussion at the blu-ray forums):
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/i-watched-die-hard-for-the-first-time
Dave H
Producer
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Lord Dalek
Producer
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