Jaws & ET in HD! (1 Viewer)

[Johnny Angell]

Jaws: The Inside Story shows on BIOHD at noon (less than a half hour away) today. Jaws is on ENCeHD on July 12. ET is on HBOeHD also July 12.


You can bet I've got my DVR programmed.

 

[TravisR]

Just a heads up, I've seen Jaws on Encore's HD channel before and it's cropped to 1.78.

 

[WillG]

I have a recording on my DVR of Jaws from UniversalHD, It was the correct 2.35:1

 

[TravisR]

Originally Posted by WillG

I have a recording on my DVR of Jaws from UniversalHD, It was the correct 2.35:1

I saw it on Universal HD too a few years ago. Since it was 2.35 there, I just assumed that there wasn't a cropped HD version of Jaws but in the past few months, I've seen it cropped on HBO and Encore's HD channels.

 

[ahollis]

Ain't It Cool News has a interview with Spielberg and he says that JAWS is being worked on for Blu-ray release.

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/49897


Spielberg also gives his thoughts on digital tinkering such as removing of wires (he is against) and even suggests that the 1982 version of ET is the best one.

An interesting short interview.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Yes, that was an interesting interview. I found this Spielberg quote to be the most interesting:

If somebody put out George Pal’s War of the Worlds and took the strings off the machines I’d be very upset. When that machine crashes in downtown Hollywood, and you see the strings going from taut to slack, that’s the thing that allows me to both understand this movie is scaring the hell out of me and at the same time this movie is a creation of the human race.

That little taut-to-slack moment of those wires on that wingtip makes the original George Pal War of the Worlds work for me. It embraces my fears and it also alleviates them in the same breath.

I interpret this to mean that as a film maker, he enjoys the movie more because he can be both a member of the audience enjoying what Pal intended and at the same time appreciate the artifice of the film itself. He's reacting as a fellow film maker, thinking "I see how you did that. Good work." I can understand that he can enjoy that, but I can't. Back when the original WOTW was in theaters, the technology of the day hid the wires. Now with better technology we can see the wires (which the film maker did not intend) and it takes me out of the movie. Pal's WOTW is a movie crying out for wire removal, IMHO. Removing the wires would be closer to the film maker's intent.


I also see a conflict between the idea that he wants to see the artifice of the film but doesn't believe in commentaries. Commentaries are all about the artifice of film making.


As far as Jaws goes, it had never occurred to me that Spielberg would want to digitally alter it (beyond a restoration). There's no wires to remove, I can't think of a frame that I would digitally alter, beyond a restoration. So I'm happy he won't be "altering" Jaws, but not surprised.


Kinda OT, but I was watching CE3K just the other day. Spielberg has commented he has since realized he was wrong in having a husband and father just go off and leave his family. I noticed another, smaller moment where I think he was tone deaf to the way people would react. There's that scene where the police cars are chasing the alien craft along a winding road and one is so concentrated on the pursuit he drives off the road and violently crashes. The cops behind him arrive and all they care about is watching the alien craft. The first thing those cops should have done (and in real life would do) is run down to the crash site of the first cop. I think that's what they'd do and I certainly hope that's what they'd do.

 

[TravisR]

As far as Jaws goes, it had never occurred to me that Spielberg would want to digitally alter it (beyond a restoration).  There's no wires to remove...

On the 30th anniversary DVD, there's a wire removed that pulls a buoy in the opening scene with Chrissy. I can't believe that anyone but Spielberg made that call. Granted, that was a few years back and maybe his viewpoint changed since then.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Originally Posted by Johnny Angell


The ending might be a little unbelievable about the husband/father character leaving his family, but I don't know, I never had a problem believing it - neither his wife nor his kids really seemed to think too highly of him before all of the stuff started going down, and then when he needed the people closest to him to believe him and be on his side, they just weren't. Put it this way: if the character leaving was a child who's parents treated him like Dreyfuss gets treated in that movie, none of us would blink an eye at the kid leaving with the aliens. So it doesn't bother me.


Close Encounters is one of the few films, in my opinion, where recent tinkering of an older film actually made it better. I'm really happy about the Blu-ray having all of the versions of the film, but I think the most recent cut that combines elements of both the original theatrical and special editions is the superior one (unlike a newer version of a mostly forgotten sci-fi film released the same year as Close Encounters). But it's really, really rare to find a newer edit of an older film that actually improves on the original. The differences between the versions are so slight in grand scheme of things that I still think no matter which version you watch, you're getting an outstanding film. I wouldn't want to see Spielberg revise Jaws, but I'm glad the newer edit of Close Encounters was done.

 

[TheBat]

I saw the universalHD showing of jaws years ago. it was great. I currently have a recording of E.T. from HBO. it looked fine. I beleive that its the original version.


Jacob

 

[Mark-P]

This from the guy who replaced E.T.'s mechanical face with a CGI one 20 years later.

Originally Posted by Johnny Angell
Yes, that was an interesting interview. I found this Spielberg quote to be the most interesting:


Quote:

If somebody put out George Pal’s War of the Worlds and took the strings off the machines I’d be very upset. When that machine crashes in downtown Hollywood, and you see the strings going from taut to slack, that’s the thing that allows me to both understand this movie is scaring the hell out of me and at the same time this movie is a creation of the human race.

That little taut-to-slack moment of those wires on that wingtip makes the original George Pal War of the Worlds work for me. It embraces my fears and it also alleviates them in the same breath.

 

[Greg_S_H]

Originally Posted by Mark-P


This from the guy who replaced E.T.'s mechanical face with a CGI one 20 years later.

Read the interview:

Steven Spielberg: When people ask me which E.T. they should look at, I always tell them to look at the original 1982 E.T. If you notice, when we did put out E.T. we put out two E.T.s. We put out the digitally enhanced version with the additional scenes and for no extra money, in the same package, we put out the original ‘82 version. I always tell people to go back to the ’82 version.

and

Steven Spielberg: Oh, I know. I totally understand that. (In the future) there’s going to be no more digital enhancements or digital additions to anything based on any film I direct. I’m not going to do any corrections digitally to even wires that show. snip At this point right now I think letting movies exist in the era, with all the flaws and all of the flourishes, is a wonderful way to mark time and mark history. snip George goes his own way and I respect him for it, but my new philosophy on this is to let sleeping dogs lie.

 

[WillG]

As far as Jaws goes, it had never occurred to me that Spielberg would want to digitally alter it (beyond a restoration). There's no wires to remove.

There's several instances in Jaws, especially in the Orca section of the film where tow cables, crew/camera boat reflections in windows etc. are visible. If you look up Jaws on moviemistakes.com there are many entries with this kind of thing.

The ending might be a little unbelievable about the husband/father character leaving his family, but I don't know

Yeah, it can easily be argued that Roy's family abandoned him first. The other end of the phone call Roy was on with his wife while he was building his living room sculpture clearly indicated she wanted a separation, or at least wasn't coming back home for awhile.


Actually this is one issue that takes me a little bit out of CE3K sometimes. Roy's wife was way too dismissive of his situation even where there was evidence that he was not the only one who was claiming to have seen the UFOs (she even clips out a newspaper article about it)

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Originally Posted by WillG

Actually this is one issue that takes me a little bit out of CE3K sometimes. Roy's wife was way too dismissive of his situation even where there was evidence that he was not the only one who was claiming to have seen the UFOs (she even clips out a newspaper article about it)

I agree that that stuck out to me too - but then again, there are people out there who will not believe something, even if you put all of the evidence in the world in their face. And I guess she was just one of those. It didn't seem like they had the healthiest/happiest marriage before all the trouble started either. When I watch the movie and I see how she responds, it makes me feel a sense of anger towards her (as opposed to being taken out of the movie). But, and I guess this is a legitimate point too, it does make me wonder how other people would respond if I ever thought I saw a UFO and tried to tell people - would my best friends believe me, would a future girlfriend/wife think I was nuts, etc.

 

[TravisR]

...it does make me wonder how other people would respond if I ever thought I saw a UFO and tried to tell people - would my best friends believe me, would a future girlfriend/wife think I was nuts, etc.

I believe that it's possible that life exists somewhere out there in space (granted, it's more likely to be an amoeba rather than bug eyed monsters flying around the universe in silver discs) but if my freind told me that he saw an alien, I'd think he was crazy. I'd want to get him help but I'd definitely think he had a serious problem that should get worked out before it got worse.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Originally Posted by Josh Steinberg




I agree that that stuck out to me too - but then again, there are people out there who will not believe something, even if you put all of the evidence in the world in their face. And I guess she was just one of those.

Don't forget you, the audience, are not in her situation: 1) You are an audience member watching a movie in which it is a given that UFO's really do exist; and 2) You have already seen pretty damn convincing UFO's (via the movie) with your own eyes. The wife has seen nothing and only knows what hubby has told her. Sure there's been a lot of sightings, but that is nothing new. Her cutting out the articles may represent her struggle to support her husband while she has an innate skepticism of the whole thing.


And then he starts acting odd. Crying in front of the kids, sculpting mountains out of mash potatoes and wigging out the kids. She was to quick to dump him, but I do sympathize with her skepticism.


Full disclosure, I love UFO and alien movies. I love the idea that we are being visited by aliens. But I don't believe any of it.

 

[WillG]

The wife has seen nothing and only knows what hubby has told her. Sure there's been a lot of sightings, but that is nothing new. Her cutting out the articles may represent her struggle to support her husband while she has an innate skepticism of the whole thing.

But again, according to the movie, there was some corroborating "evidence" that something had been going on and that the UFOs had been sighted by more people than just him, including at least 3 police officers (although there is a deleted scene that shows the officers being ordered by their cheif to discard their written reports of the sightings). But anyway, the phenomenon did make at least one newspaper the day after the first sighting. Jillian's account of Barry being abducted by the UFOs made newspaper headlines. The press conference attactracted an number of newspeople. Not to mention Roy managed to get a sunburn on half his face in the middle of the night. So, it's not like Roy was just one of those people walking in the woods and then claim to have seen a UFO. Also, Roy never refers to the UFOs as UFOs, he just says he saw something "he can't explain"


Now regarding Roy's wife, the problem is not so much that she doesn't believe what Roy is telling her, it's that she's pretty much wholly unsympathetic to Roy's distress even though it's clear that it wasn't just him who saw the occurrence.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Originally Posted by Johnny Angell

Don't forget you, the audience, are not in her situation: 1) You are an audience member watching a movie in which it is a given that UFO's really do exist; and 2) You have already seen pretty damn convincing UFO's (via the movie) with your own eyes. The wife has seen nothing and only knows what hubby has told her.

I absolutely agree with that - but I have to say, if my best friend in the whole world and came to me and told me that they saw something that couldn't be explained by the natural laws of the planet as we know them - I'm not saying I'd believe it instantly, but I'd have a very, very difficult time dismissing it. Of course, that's because I know my best friend and the way she acts and all that, so it wouldn't be the same as someone who has a best friend who's into practical jokes... but to me, in a similar situation, assuming I haven't seen the thing myself... not out of any belief for any particular thing but just more out of trust that's been earned, I'd find it hard to ignore. But obviously I'm not Dreyfuss' wife

 

[Johnny Angell]

If my wife came to me and said she saw a UFO, I'd immediately agree she saw something that is unidentified. I would reserve judgment on whether it was flying. There have been too many sightings that have later turned out to be natural phenomena. I would wholeheartedly agree that she saw something.