UHD Review A Few Words About A few words about...™ - The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance -- in 4k UHD (1 Viewer)

[TravisR]

Fans of those movies don't care if it doesn't look like film.

I resemble that remark. The crazy thing is that while the F13s have never been demo material, Paramount has always done fairly decent releases in terms of A/V for them.

 

[PMF]

By the way, I still haven't preordered this 4K title because it hasn't reach my ideal price point.

IMHO, not even FREE would be an ideal price point.

P.S. Don’t go doing a Sally Field on us. We like you, Crawdaddy, we really, really do like you.

 

[Robert Crawford]

IMHO, not even FREE would be an ideal price point.

When I read remarks like that, I do wonder if RAH never wrote anything against this 4K disc, how many people speaking out against it in this thread would have been doing the same after buying and watching it?

 

[sbjork]

When I read remarks like that, I do wonder if RAH never wrote anything against this 4K disc, how many people speaking out against it in this thread would have been doing the same after buying and watching it?

To be perfectly clear, I'm not speaking out against it; just saying that I'm happy not to feel obligated to buy it anymore. I'm sure that it looks great for what it is. Just doesn't make it worth the money for me, as I have so damned many other things on which to spend the money that I don't have. All things being equal, I would probably buy it anyway. But I've got the stack from hell building up in my "inbox," with a ton more on the way!

 

[Robert Harris]

When I read remarks like that, I do wonder if RAH never wrote anything against this 4K disc, how many people speaking out against it in this thread would have been doing the same after buying and watching it?

If they hadn’t they’re still in training.

 

[Robert Crawford]

If they hadn’t they’re still in training.

Ignorance is bliss!

 

[PMF]

When I read remarks like that, I do wonder if RAH never wrote anything against this 4K disc, how many people speaking out against it in this thread would have been doing the same after buying and watching it?

A very fair, straight-forward and astute question. It’s actually a damned good challenge exercise, as well.

I, for one, was never fully able to articulate what I was seeing through the technical nomenclature assigned, but visually - if not viscerally - I did know when certain transfers either fell short or hit it target.

A few years ago, I used to wonder much along these same lines. I deliberately avoided any readings of RAH and a couple of the other critics until after watching whatever BD I had purchased. With some titles, I couldn’t quite place my finger on some the aspects that bothered me. And then, sure enough, RAH and/or a few of the other critics here and elsewhere addressed it. There was an articulation, a specific and a clarification. And my eye was becoming further trained. Indeed, my developing understandings now had a word or a term to go with it.

I can not address the others to whom your question is posed. I do not think that your instincts are off at all on this thought. But, at the same time, many here have learned through these reviews what aspects of a disc will be of a concern or not a concern; based upon their own set(s) of criteria.

I will also close by saying that a couple of the RAH reviews that received a low grade did not detour me from a purchase. I recognized the issues pointed out, understood his meaning, but was able to give certain titles a pass as, begrudgingly, they were the only available thing out there.

I, myself, want the grain intact. Grain is very important to my eye. And yet, when reading that these things do not bother you, I think to myself that you may be luckier than myself. And for that, Robert, it somehow always makes me smile.

 

[Robert Harris]

Let’s take this a step further.

I’ll take one single negative attribute - swarming fake noise, and list, by time code, and frame location, for the first half hour of the film.

If this were not something the studio approved, and desired, it would normally be picked up in outside QC.

Stay tuned.

 

[Richard Kaufman]

Sometimes it sucks to have a trained eye.

 

[PMF]

Sometimes it sucks to have a trained eye.

Grains can be a hot topic. For others it can be the topic of Aspect Ratios.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Slightly different story there.

When Paramount started mastering for DVD, they did scanning in HD and final cleanup and mastering in SD (easier/faster/cheaper to do in SD especially when product is DVD only). They reused a lot of those HD scans for their early Blu-rays and overused DNR to cover up imperfections in their existing scans. It was a way to derive a “clean” look by repurposing existing assets in ways they were never intended to be used.

Here, they’re making brand new scans of camera negatives (or best surviving elements) and not just stopping at cleanup - they’re removing the film-like attributes that the image is comprised of and substituting that with a homogenized look that seeks to divorce the image content from the capture medium used in the first place. But this isn’t about repurposing older work to save money - this seems to be a conscious choice to create a new, modern looking final product.

Much of that may be true, but overall, the powers-that-be at Paramount just seem to have a track record of making very spotty and often poor judgment on releases anyway.

I mentioned the example of the Gladiator BD, and that most likely can't be explained by your generous, benefit-of-the-doubt narrative for them. Granted, they fixed that case quickly and issued replacements IIRC, but it still reeked of the general issue and involved their experimentation w/ DNR (and/or bad compression/encoding choices)...

There had been plenty other instances of recycling mediocre old transfers even deep into the BD era, not just early on... even after they should've learnt their lesson already (and released some good-to-excellent catalog title BDs)... but nope, they remained very spotty while all the other major studios became much more consistent...

_Man_

 

[AnthonyClarke]

I love this forum. We can disagree violently over something like film grain, and still get along splendidly .. most of the time. Anyway, let's strip grain and colourise everything and then we'll have nothing to debate.

 

[Ryan Barrett]

Why would anyone remove grain, then add fake grain on top? The grain haters are still going to hate it, and the film enthusiasts - at least those knowledgeable enough to know that something is off - will also hate it.

Your point is well taken. If I'm not mistaken, I believe James Cameron did the same with Aliens prior to the bluray release. Not ok.

 

[JoeDoakes]

WOW. This is the biggest RAH trashing in some time.

 

[Robert Harris]

WOW. This is the biggest RAH trashing in some time.

And it gives him no pleasure.

I always hope something that I love will look like a 35mm print.

The technology has that capability.

 

[titch]

So as dumb as this may sound, it's almost a relief to be able to give this one a pass. I'm so overwhelmed right now with the death of physical media, that I just can't keep up with releases that I want anymore. There's too much. I'll keep my order(s) up for the Leones, and call it a day.

Yes - I don't think I have ever purchased so many discs. Since January, I have purchased 51 new releases from the USA alone, plus a dozen or so from the UK. A huge amount of new releases and upgraded transfers. But I would dearly have loved to change out my old Liberty Valance blu-ray with a cinema-grade looking transfer.

Oh well, next week we've got another 4K UHD Hitchcock box set from Universal coming out, so the piles of "must watch soon" discs will keep growing ever larger!

 

[FordPeckinpahLeone]

Unfortunate. I hope Ford’s other 4K films (including The Searchers) will get more respectful treatment. I trust Warner Bros will overall do better with that title (though I do wish they will be more respectful, going forward, of original audio tracks).

 

[Robert Harris]

Mea Culpa!

Mr. Kimmel is absolutely correct regarding my original 2015 review of the Liberty Valance Blu-ray.

I recall at the time, viewing on my old projector, the glass of which left a great deal to be desired as far as resolution, and also on a Samsung LED, which had other problems.

I thought I saw something off, but neither device allowed me to identify it, and I dropped it to get on with real life.

Viewing that disc on my newer equipment confirms that the data is the same, with the same digital patterns in skies, et al - which were too unresolved at the time to pick up.

The old review seems to have come over in a port with parts blacked out, and rather than attempt to fix, I've locked the old thread. As to the UK release, I no longer have a copy to check.

What this seems to tell us is that as far back as 2015, Paramount was playing the grain game.

 

[Robert Harris]

All I can tell you is that the Blu-ray release was unwatchable for the very reasons stated here.

Quite correct.

I stand corrected.

Please see post 58 below.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

FWIW, the 4K comes with a new BD, presumably from the same transfer used for the 4K. I thought it might be a recycled old disc but since it includes the new "Filmmaker Focus" featurette, it's obviously not the prior release, and it'd seem odd for Paramount to use the old transfer on a newly-authored disc.

Any signs they plan to release the "Presents" BD separately and not just as part of the 4K package?