Film preservationist Robert Harris defends controversial James Cameron 4K restorations of Aliens, The Abyss and True Lies
Film preservationist Robert Harris defends controversial James Cameron 4K restorations of Aliens, The Abyss and True Lies
While James Cameron's recent 4K restorations of his classics are controversial, a famous film preservationist is defending them.
However, only some people think the restorations are bad, and now they have a surprising advocate – noted film preservationist Robert Harris. Harris is the man behind the famous restorations of Lawrence of Arabia, Spartacus, The Godfather trilogy and many more. In a post to Home Theatre Forum, he acknowledged how different they look, but also explained that’s not necessarily a bad thing. On True Lies, “Shot 35 and blown up to 70, the visuals of the new 4k UHD are absolutely not what the film was upon release, but the secret sauce works, and allows a presentation that appears far better than it might without it.”
In a post about Aliens, he elaborated a bit more on why these restorations have his approval. “Original prints were on the grainy side, as a higher speed stock was used. I always thought it looked fine, as that was the look. No problem. But there were those who felt that it was too grainy. Enter the new 4k UHD from Disney via Fox, and it has an entirely new look. And it’s a look that I like. Very much! The image has been de-grained, with zero loss of resolution, which if anything as been slightly heightened. Color are meticulously reproduced. And there’s an overall clarity that is new to the film.”
As far as Harris is concerned, these restorations have been done the right way, and there is a lot of logic behind what he says. Cameron always favoured shooting his film in a process called Super 35, as it allowed him to print a larger film frame on the stock that would make the home video releases look better. In True Lies or Titanic, he was able to show the films in 2:35:1 scope theatrically. Then, when reformatted to 1:33:1 (the standard TV ratio in the era before widescreen TVs), he could reveal more of the frame at the top and bottom, avoided the pan-and-scan look common at the time, making the films play better at VHS. The downside was Super 35 was grainy. This wasn’t super noticeable on DVD and even 1080p Blu-rays, but it proved problematic on 4K, hence the restoration.
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If people actually are upset by the restorations, is it because it's getting rid of the nostalgic feel? Or is it genuinely making the movie "feel" different?
It's not like they're adding a new cantina song
Check out the examples in the 4K section of the Blu-ray forums. True Lies is the worst, followed by Aliens and The Abyss comes off the best.
The image has been upscaled and with the use of AI, the image has been scrubbed of all the grain.
Unfortunately, the image now looks pretty bad in places with smooth waxy faces and strange anomalies as AI tries to improve the picture.
I would've thought they would scan the original camera negatives, or next best thing, and then apply a little DNR to remove a little of the grain but apparently, this is what Cameron wanted.
I'd be ok with the 4k if they left the grain in. This is sort of like hos CBS replaced all the special effects on the original Star Trek series. It's just not good.
I liked the new effects on TOS. A lot of the original ones looked terrible and they did generally keep the style so phasers beams and such don't look out of place.
Alien's film grain is part of the movie's look, though. It contributes to the atmosphere.
Wait... they used existing FHD/2K scans and upscaled those? And it still took this long for these to be released?
Thank fucking god fan preservation efforts happen with 16 and 35mm film reel scans.
I dunno. I haven't seen the 4k Alien yet but the grainy film I think deff added to the overall feel to it. It made it feel dirtier and more lived in. But I'll watch the 4k version. As far as people getting upset, I think it's a mix of "how dare you change the thing I like" and "leave well enough alone, just give us more new content".
It's stupid though, they haven't changed the thing people like, it's still there...
Yeah, but you've met people though, right?
The problem is that physical media is taking a back seat to streaming, and companies like Disney may only offer the newer version.
So the thing you like may be replaced with something you don't like the look of, and if you hadn't procured a copy before, tough shit.
That's really more of an admonition of streaming than AI upscaling, though
I hope physical media becomes popular again as people realize they don't want to be fed what they want...
Also the whole Star Wars Special Edition debacle (which has never been resolved) has everyone really nervous about these kinds of things.
Like it or not, it does change the original image, but not necessarily the intended image. I don’t think it’s in the same league as film colorization or adding a musical number to Jabba’s palace, but it may be necessary to smooth what was intended. If you’ve ever seen the videos of painting restorations, I’m inclined to think it’s something like that. Removing that aged, discolored layer to get to what’s beneath, or, as intended. I haven’t seen the new Aliens or The Abyss yet, so I can’t give an opinion on those. I watched The Last Action Hero and it seemed there were some “ironed out” scenes, but not jarring the way bad blue screening could be, like in The Last Crusade. That’s the kind of stuff I’d like to see get fixed. In fact, it’s unfortunate that oldies like Toy Story can’t be given an updated treatment. New textures, shading, etc. Rewatching old Pixar is not enjoyable. I’d like to see Pixar remasters. You’d think that would be easy to do since its mostly ones and zeroes.
It's like vinyl where the flaws are part of the experience. The original format is objectively worse but nostalgically better.
You can't really compare film and 4k digital video, they are very different things.