International Press Release Arrow Video Press Release: Cruising (1980) (2-Disc 4k UHD Combo) (1 Viewer)

[Konstantinos]

(Downconverted) comparative caps are now available and wow do they show how digitally filtered the previous restoration was.

Which shows how some directors "ruin" their films (wasn't the previous release approved by the director?) but some people don't want to see that, and will take whatever is offered to them.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Which shows how some directors "ruin" their films (wasn't the previous release approved by the director?) but some people don't want to see that, and will take whatever is offered to them.

That’s an unfair comment about people you don’t even know anything about.

 

[JoshZ]

Which shows how some directors "ruin" their films (wasn't the previous release approved by the director?)

Yes, the previous Arrow Blu-ray was a "director supervised" transfer. Even after the debacle of the first French Connection Blu-ray blew up in his face, Friedkin was still actively pushing the limits of how much revisionism he could impose on his old work before people called him out on it.

The French Connection and The Exorcist were such popular and well-known movies that any changes would be spotted right away. But Cruising has always been a much lesser-seen title that not many viewers were familiar with. Friedkin felt he could get away mucking around with that one.

Likewise, while The French Connection was eventually reissued with a "corrected" video transfer, The Boys in the Band is still stuck in video purgatory with the exact same idiotic "pastel" coloring on both DVD and Blu-ray, because hardly anyone noticed or cared enough about that film to raise a stink about it.

 

[compson]

It's a shame that there is no separate Blu-ray release of this new restoration. Not everyone owns a 4K UHD player or can afford the equipment to display a 4K restored film properly.

4K-only releases seem to be a trend. You can buy a Panasonic 4K player for under $200 and downscale movies to 1080p. Not ideal but maybe better than nothing.

 

[tenia]

Quite a chunk of people, including writers of tech reviews, kinda praised the 2019 BD and failed to notice several of its shortcomings. It was what it was. Part of it had to do with the only other release being an obsolete DVD, part of it had with failing to notice the tech issues, being grain management, artificial sharpening (and these caps are showing how much it had of both), and even aliasing (which I wonder how it happened), and that's without considering the more delicate debate of the color grading and the other alterations. It's hard to say how many people didn't want to accept these issues as being issues, and how many simply failed to notice them (and then only, there was those actively defending there was no issue). In any case, it was an obviously debatable release, and this new release is making it more obviously so.

4K-only releases seem to be a trend. You can buy a Panasonic 4K player for under $200 and downscale movies to 1080p. Not ideal but maybe better than nothing.

That's what I currently resorted to, until my GF lets me upgrade my 15yo 50G20 (which will hopefully happen next Christmas).