), j'ouvre un fil dédié.
I wanted to say a few words about 20th Century Fox's new Predator: Ultimate Hunter Edition Blu-ray. Remember how last week I was ranting about how the studios are putting HD mastering and transfer quality too low on their priority lists? Well... here's a timely example of EXACTLY what I was talking about. Predator is a bit of an interesting case. Let me be perfectly clear: The new Blu-ray is an unmitigated disaster. You remember how awful Patton looked? Well, the new Predator disc is every bit as bad. So much Digital Noise Reduction (the infamous and dreaded 'DNR') has been applied to this disc, that even the sky looks like it was molded from shinny plastic. Fox has actually managed to take a dark, gritty film and make it look like video. Not even high-def video, but old analog video. There is not a speck of grain to be seen anywhere, and hardly a speck of fine image detail either. The subtle textures of clothing, walls, hair, skin - they're nearly all gone. And Fox did this deliberately.
Why, you might be asking? I'll tell you why, and in my mind this is the even bigger travesty: Because when the first Blu-ray edition came out, a bunch of fans and reviewers in all the online A/V forums complained about the video quality. "There's too much grain! The transfer looks like crap!" Well, let me tell you... I'll take that original Blu-ray over the new one any day. It's just deeply disheartening to see a Blu-ray released with shockingly mishandled video like this. But it's even more disheartening that there are apparently so many fans online who don't seem to understand the most basic, most important thing about film restoration and mastering: A FILM SHOULD LOOK LIKE A FILM! Yes, I know that original Predator Blu-ray was full of sometimes coarse grain. But how many of those who complained about it have actually seen Predator projected in a theater? That's how the film looks, guys. That's how it looked on Day One when it hit theaters. It's ALWAYS looked like that - dark, gritty, grainy - the result of choices in film stock and camera process made by director John McTiernan and his cinematographer. Predator does not look crisp and clean like Watchmen, and it's not meant to look like that. It was NEVER meant to look like that! In this particular case, the studio (and I'm giving them a bit of credit by recognizing this, and the fact that they have generally improved their catalog BD quality in recent months) was stuck between a rock and a hard place: They released the film on Blu-ray once, and some fanboys online freaked out that there was too much grain. So now they've responded and re-released the film on Blu-ray in a version so scrubbed to death with DNR that the film now looks like Pixar produced it. Don't believe me?
Here's a screenshot from the new Blu-ray to illustrate what I'm talking about (the screenshot was originally posted here, and all credit due to our friend Justin Sluss of HighDefDiscNews for taking it). The last time I saw the Governator's cigar-chomping mug polished up this shiny was at the Hollywood Wax Museum. His shirt is so smooth it looks like Mattel molded it for Mr. Potato Head. If you're not fully sickened by this, what kind of film fan are you? Now, if the film in question were Plastic Man, that'd be one thing. But trust me, this is NOT how Predator was EVER intended to look...
This is fucking appalling...
The problem here two-fold: First, too many people in both the fan community and film industry have taken Blu-ray's "look and sound of perfect" marketing far too literally. Once again, the word "perfect" with regard to Blu-ray does not and should not mean 100% sharp, crisp and completely blemish free - that everything should look like it was shot with an HD video camera yesterday. It means that the film on the disc should look as good as it did in the very best theatrical screening on Day One. If you were sitting in the director's private screening room on opening day, that's how good the film should look - THAT'S the experience that Blu-ray should work to recreate in the home.
Second, there are WAY too many fans today who came of age in a world in which DVD always existed and so they've rightly grown to love lots of great films... but without EVER having seen these films projected in an actual theater. Too many guys first experienced Predator and similar films on late-night HBO and on DVD in the old analog TV days, and so they never actually saw all the detail - and yes, the inherent defects - that were present in the negative. Standard-definition, analog TV simply didn't have the resolution to show all the detail. So now, those fans are seeing their favorite films for the first time as they actually are, and they're freaking out. "Oh my god, look at all that noise?!" It's not just noise - it's film grain. Some of it is actually supposed to be there. And NO, it's NOT simply a matter of preference any more than colorizing a black and white film is a matter of preference. Image grain is an inherent part of what makes film look like film.
But lest you think me harsh, you should know that I'm not a hardliner for grain either. A few years ago, Home Theatre Magazine interviewed Mike Inchalik about the film restoration process at DTS Digital Images - formerly Lowry Digital. Here's what he had to say about film grain in the age of high-def discs...
Question: How much film grain is appropriate in a modern video master?
Answer: Film purists have often taken the position that film grain should never be changed. Having worked for Eastman Kodak for 25 years, I am extremely sensitive to this way of thinking and completely agree that many cinematographers use film grain as a part of their craft and make it an integral part of their storytelling. Nevertheless, I believe that the opinion that the film grain should never be altered is too sweeping a generalization.
I agree with this position - it's a balance that's required here. You know who's getting it right (aside from Criterion, of course)? Grover Crisp and his team over at Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Here's
an interview with Crisp done by our friends over at HDNation (Love you guys!) from the Blu-Con 2.0 conference last year, where he talks about some of these very issues. And now
here's what director Martin Scorsese had to say about the proper presentation of films on Blu-ray from the same conference (and the same HD Nation episode). Note his comments about the importance of grain, and how Blu-ray should work to replicate the original theatrical experience of a film. The amazing thing to me is that Scorsese and Crisp were speaking before a conference of MOSTLY studio executives, and what they were saying about Blu-ray was CRITCIALLY important! I even said so at the time, in my column here on The Bits. But it's obvious that painfully few of them seem to have been paying attention.
Look... modern audiences aren't used to seeing film grain, and modern HD display technology is capable of showing every flaw in an image. Coarse film grain can be distracting for some, and I understand that. So if grain can be reduced without compromising fine image detail and without removing so much of it that the film look is actually lost, that's one thing. But it's very subtle work and should be done by trained digital film restoration technicians with a light, careful touch. Dialing up the DNR knob to '11' and heavy-handedly stripping every bit of grain away in a process that is actually destructive not only to the film look but also to the integrity of the image is absolutely wrong and downright APPALLING. And to the extent that ANYONE - fan, digital technician or studio employee alike - thinks that's okay or a good thing, all I can say is shame on you! Sadly and predictably, there are far too many "expert" online reviewers (based on a sampling of comments about the disc on the Net today) who clearly don't understand any of this and are all but raving about how clean and wonderful Predator now looks, and what an improvement this disc is over the original Blu-ray. Guys, you are actively undermining EVERYTHING that a lot of good film preservation people in this industry have worked so hard for over so many years. You are doing yourselves, the film, the legacy of classic, pre-digital cinema, your fellow movie fans, and the Blu-ray format as a whole a terrible, TERRIBLE disservice.
In any case, as someone who personally put their reputation on the line to see high-def discs get a chance to thrive, and to ensure that movie fans would get to enjoy the very best quality versions of their favorite films in high-definition... well, for me, seeing a disc like this is just truly depressing. After all that - after fighting for anamorphic-enhancement of DVDs and slogging through two format wars - is this REALLY "The Look and Sound of Perfect" we were fighting for? God, I hope not...
Make no mistake, the new Predator Blu-ray is a disaster. It's simply unwatchable. Compare it to the original and you will be shocked at just how much image detail has been scrubbed away. You want to see DNR, you want to see a perfect example of everything that Blu-ray SHOULDN'T be? Exhibit A: The new Predator: Ultimate Hunter Edition Blu-ray. The other sad thing is that all the previous DVD extras that SHOULD have been included on the first Predator Blu-ray? They're all here... on a double-dip disc that TRUE fans of the film should want to run over with their cars. I don't mind a double-dip that really gets things right. But this isn't one of 'em.
To all of you readers of The Digital Bits who care about presentation quality and about the Blu-ray format, it's time to make some noise. Do it politely, but do it loudly and don't stop until the industry responds. Don't let those who are misinformed or apathetic decide the future of film presentation quality in this new digital age. Let the studios know that this is a HUGE problem and that your Blu-ray spending will reflect your desire for the proper A/V treatment of films on disc. And for goodness sake, PLEASE DO EVERYTHING YOU CAN to educate yourself and others as to what exactly a "perfect" quality film presentation on Blu-ray should be, and what it should really look like! This is even more important than the debate about Pan and Scan vs original aspect ratio presentation of films on DVD, or of colorization vs. original B&W presentation of vintage films on DVD, or of anamorphic enhancement of widescreen films on DVD. Demand a higher standard... or the likes of Spartacus, Patton and Predator will become the new, all-too-easy normal on Blu-ray.
Et Marty, je t'aime.
Connexion
FAQ
Rechercher
