Bond on 4K/UHD

Here's LTK. I already thought the Lowry remaster was pretty strong. Older videos were either too soft (LD) or had so much edge enhancement applied (SE DVD), but the bonus of the 2006 UE DVD was that it was the uncut version of the film that had all those little brief shots reinserted (which were originally removed to avoid an R rating). It was easy to tell they were cut out just by hearing how the soundtrack suddenly skipped a beat because the edits were done late in the process.

So, about the 4K... HOLY CRAP, this is a seriously grainy looking film to the point I kind of found it distracting at times, and this is mainly during the ten minutes after the titles like in the interrogation room with Sanchez, Killifer and the other Agent Johnson (no relation), Felix's office, Sanchez hiding in Krest's lab. I haven't watched the whole film yet, but I imagine it's in later scenes set at night, the cocaine lab, etc. There's a considerable amount of flickering going on that can't be conveyed in a still image. I suspect Lowry did what they could to smooth the rough edges with a considerable amount of DNR work for the blu-ray, but MGM's 4K remaster seems to have left the grain alone or at least gave it the minimum amount of attention because it's kind of all over the place. Sometimes the same shot will have flickering, then stop and look more stabilized, then flicker again. Because this film was shot primarily in Mexico, they used their local film stocks (credited Kodak Mexicana)  which accounts for why LTK never looked as rich as TLD even though they both have the same DP Alec Mills. I suppose the grittier look fits the darker tone of this film. Wish I had the proper equipment to upload a sample of the footage in true 4K to really show you how it looks. Meanwhile, here's the caps.


https://007homemedia.blogspot.com/2020/08/licence-to-kill-1989.html?m=1

The 4K looks better all round with better definition and better balanced color. All versions are rather close but the 4K appears to have been properly monitored start to finish and should be best overall.

I wouldn't be surprised on the grain. To me all the LTK versions so far have had a video-y look and feel to them and never are as good as they seemingly could be. The BD so far was the best but I thought it could be better. It was almost like they always tried to keep from using an untouched source.
I don't recall the LD being that colorless looking but am used to seeing it on a proper hdcrt screen. It feels far better than the oversharpened SE DVD with boosted color and the over-revealing frame edges. The UE/BD were godsends for finally presenting the unrated cut without the random obvious trims-but that said I went back to the LD realm years ago for my rewatches and with LTK it doesn't get better sonically than the 1994 LD. There are elements in the 5.1 mix that are dialed down way too far and the original 2.0 is a nice powerful track that pulls no punches. It was the only film in the series to be released during Dolby SR being industry standard and is an even better mix than TLD because of that. It's arguably the best sounding mix overall of that year probably tied with the original Batman mix and technically behind only the sonic wizardry in Last Crusade and Glory.

The Mexico shoot hampered the look in the photography because of both the stocks and processing which was mainly done in Florida and London-but some of the interiors suffer especially under close scrutiny because they had to build studio facilities on a low budget. I think worst of all was the color timing and drab 80's feel to the visuals that lead to some labeling it Miami Vice esque-but of course thematically this only serves to underline the gone rogue storyline and rougher nature of the story-so visually the film is spot on as it should be and hold up even against 1989 films like Lethal Weapon 2 and there is a classier composition to every shot because it is a Bond film.
But most people don't take the series seriously...

I would LOVE to see a print of this someday. I'll bet it feels super grainy and gritty and would rock a theater environment like nothing else.

Someone pointed me to a Siskel & Ebert review of LTK and in it Siskel said he was struck by how dirty the film looked, as if it was unfinished or something. So it definitely sounds like this is how the film inherently looked all along.

As far as the look of the film outside the grain, it makes me wish someone other than Alec Mills had handled this. I liked his work in TLD, but I feel for the tone of LTK it needed a different DP rather than a Bond vet. Given that they went for Michael Kamen for the score, it makes me wish John de Bont would have shot this one.

Also, for GE and TND I may skip out on doing LD screencaps. Given they were both based off the same exact transfers, I don't think we may see much difference other than what's inherent in both formats. GE looks pretty amazing for LD, reference quality as you put it, which can't truly be conveyed through a DVD-R dubbing as that has its own limitations. I only did it for previous films as there were very notable differences that needed to be addressed, and the DVD-R screencaps were enough to give a glimpse into how different they were from their format successors.

That said, I also just bought the GOLDENEYE UE DVD off eBay. I have the caps for SE DVD, Blu-ray, and iTunes 4K already set, but realized it wouldn't feel complete without seeing how Lowry botched up their remaster, just like how they botched up their TSWLM remaster.

Screencaps done on GE, here we go:

https://007homemedia.blogspot.com/2020/09/goldeneye-1995.html?m=1

Ah! Much better overall! This looks closer to what it should and you can see the overall color and skintones are much improved over the old master and Lowry botch up and without the issues inherent to the really old LD master reused on the SE DVD with its edge enhancement and the like.
I've also seen the Lowry in HD and it has a thick layer of grain and noise over it and is far more objectionable than seeing it in 480p.

On TND the LD would be advisable to check as it doesn't have the same magenta push to it as the DVD does and I think is thew stronger transfer despite being on an analog format. With GE they're nearly identical between formats but with TND I think the LD wins out by virtue of not being a super brand new DVD early release title-plus it has the burned in captions where the DVD doesn't.

Also don't forget the LD and SE of GE have the Dolby mix with all the bass in the LFE channel aka the Club Mix version of the film!

I'll have to check it then. I know about the subtitle issue, which I LOATHED on both TND and DAD. I remember when first getting them on DVD I simply switched off the subtitles because the pixel looking text just put me off. I remember playing my first ever blu-ray title (I think it was THERE WILL BE BLOOD) and was astounded to see that the player generated subtitles looking more authentic.

As I mentioned on the LaserDisc thread, here's a blog I started that will give a full comprehensive look of each film. When I get to making entry for GE, it'll include LD screencaps for completions sake. Right now it's just DR. NO.

https://007homemedia.blogspot.com/

Blog design is just temporary, as I'm strictly focusing on cap comparisons. It'll be nice to no longer rely on photobucket, which is getting less and less space the more caps I upload. I'm even thinking of adding more screencaps to existing comparisons down the line, because there's so many more beautiful shots I can't just limit to more or less a dozen! A lot of work to do, but it's a lot of fun too. GE had the most difficult cap I ever had to take: The shot of Broz in the pool. I wanted to get the exact same frame right down to the pattern of the water, which was not easy to do on iTunes because they got rid of their frame by frame feature long ago! I had to pause and hope to hell it was right on the exact frame.

Oh cool! Looks great so far.

Yes I HATED player generated subs and captions-still do and it still occasionally happened even on Blu-rays but at least they do a better job in the HD realm than the awful DVD ones. I HATE Yellow subs so badly as well.

I've used the pool scene to test comb filters on LD. It's great since it will show any smearing when the camera pans on the shot showing all of the smoke and steam coming out of the sauna. That scene will test even the best of equipment.

Heads up: There are few 007 titles available for viewing in 4K on Amazon Prime.




With that said, here's the SE DVD/Blu-ray/4K comparison for TND. Improvement on 4K seems more incremental than a revelation, but given it's coming from a film source rather than Lowry remastering from an old video master, that's always an improvement.




1998 MGM SE DVD




2012 FOX BD




2017 iTunes 4K






1998 MGM SE DVD




2012 FOX BD




2017 iTunes 4K







1998 MGM SE DVD




2012 FOX BD




2017 iTunes 4K







1998 MGM SE DVD




2012 FOX BD




2017 iTunes 4K







1998 MGM SE DVD




2012 FOX BD



2017 iTunes 4K







1998 MGM SE DVD




2012 FOX BD




2017 iTunes 4K






1998 MGM SE DVD




2012 FOX BD




2017 iTunes 4K







1998 MGM SE DVD




2012 FOX BD




2017 iTunes 4K







1998 MGM SE DVD




2012 FOX BD




2017 iTunes 4K







1998 MGM SE DVD




2012 FOX BD




2017 iTunes 4K







1998 MGM SE DVD




2012 FOX BD




2017 iTunes 4K

Delicious!
You can see a finer level of detail and general quality level far above what the Lowry master offers.

TWINE should be very interesting as its a far more intimate looking film.

The improvement for TWINE looks about the same as TND's. Already made caps from 1080p and 4K, I just need time to get the DVD screencaps done. Soon!

Here we go with TWINE. Like TND the improvements seem to be incremental, aside from the Lowry remaster boxing the title sequence. One image that concerned me was the color banding in the Turkish background behind Bond and Christmas. I dunno if this is just a persistent video error or a flaw inherent in the digital compositing of the film's production. It only looks worse on the blu-ray.




2000 MGM Special Edition DVD




2009 Fox Blu-ray




2017 iTunes 4K






2000 MGM Special Edition DVD




2009 Fox Blu-ray




2017 iTunes 4K







2000 MGM Special Edition DVD




2009 Fox Blu-ray




2017 iTunes 4K






2000 MGM Special Edition DVD




2009 Fox Blu-ray




2017 iTunes 4K






2000 MGM Special Edition DVD




2009 Fox Blu-ray




2017 iTunes 4K






2000 MGM Special Edition DVD




2009 Fox Blu-ray




2017 iTunes 4K






2000 MGM Special Edition DVD




2009 Fox Blu-ray




2017 iTunes 4K






2000 MGM Special Edition DVD




2009 Fox Blu-ray




2017 iTunes 4K






2000 MGM Special Edition DVD




2009 Fox Blu-ray




2017 iTunes 4K






2000 MGM Special Edition DVD




2009 Fox Blu-ray




2017 iTunes 4K






2000 MGM Special Edition DVD




2009 Fox Blu-ray




2017 iTunes 4K

Finally, DAD. This will be the last of my comparisons. I did some test comparisons for CR and there really wasn't much difference given the DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K came directly from the same digital master. With digital masters having become the standard, there's little chance of seeing the kind of different variations like we saw of past films, particularly the Cubby era. DAD was the last to be mastered on celluloid, even though plenty of sequences were digitally graded.




2003 MGM Special Edition DVD



2008 Fox Blu-ray



2017 iTunes 4K






2003 MGM Special Edition DVD



2008 Fox Blu-ray



2017 iTunes 4K






2003 MGM Special Edition DVD



2008 Fox Blu-ray



2017 iTunes 4K






2003 MGM Special Edition DVD



2008 Fox Blu-ray



2017 iTunes 4K






2003 MGM Special Edition DVD



2008 Fox Blu-ray



2017 iTunes 4K






2003 MGM Special Edition DVD



2008 Fox Blu-ray



2017 iTunes 4K






2003 MGM Special Edition DVD



2008 Fox Blu-ray



2017 iTunes 4K






2003 MGM Special Edition DVD



2008 Fox Blu-ray



2017 iTunes 4K






2003 MGM Special Edition DVD



2008 Fox Blu-ray



2017 iTunes 4K






2003 MGM Special Edition DVD



2008 Fox Blu-ray



2017 iTunes 4K






2003 MGM Special Edition DVD



2008 Fox Blu-ray



2017 iTunes 4K

That matte painting of the Icelandic landscape through the window behind Brozzer is equally unconvincing in all versions .

Skintones seems a bit better and overall it seems from a higher res source and more relaxed in appearance whereas the old DVD has many issues and the BD had a tiny bit of color boosting.

I think this can look good in all non-CG sequences like the theatrical prints did. But the decolored digital looking opening has not aged well. I wish we could see that untouched one day for curiosity's sake.

The worst digital stuff is really the green screen compositing, particularly in that shot where the surfers emerge from the water before Brosnan takes off his goggles. It makes sense that if Tamahori wanted to make a Bond film for the digital age he would go for David Tattersall. Thankfully he didn't shoot it in 1080p digital like he was with the STAR WARS prequels. DAD looks plastic-y at times, just imagine it looking like ATTACK OF THE CLONES which came out the same year!

Yes indeed. That was visible even to the naked eye on the screening I saw opening night in 2002 and got more apparent the times I went back to theaters. It felt really weird but would then be mostly fine in the interiors. I get the feeling Tattersall can do good work when not being pushed into CG plasticky looking land. I agree that the photography is way off base for a Bond film and lacks the polish/eurothriller feel of GE, the compositional strength of TND r even the more intimate and somber look of TWINE.

Finally got that TMWTGG letterbox LD for comparison! Certainly miles better than the SE DVD. The only downside to both that and the later LTK release is that cover art doesn't match the rest of the LD set, but hey.

https://007homemedia.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-man-with-golden-gun-1974.html

Nice site MP! New endeavour?

Also, what's with the slight yellow tinge in the 4K version for DAD?

EDIT: Great avatar btw. What a 'stache.

Despite it having a different jacket, it does have the McGinnis one sheet art looking fantastic and an awesome LD pressing with better PQ than most of the earlier discs. My biggest surprise was that the mono is so improved on this disc compared to the earlier final 1.33 open matte LD release. The 1.33 disc sounds print sourced where the letterbox disc is seemingly from the master and is so full bodied it almost feels stereo at times. Easily the best sounding release of the original mix and indicates that the rumors of magnetic stereo theatrical engagements were likely.

On the 4K did they leave in the strobing effect when Bond is on the ferry following Andrea? Also is the mirror in the cabaret fight left alone?

I just updated my YOLT blog entry to include screencaps of the Ultimate Edition DVD. I forgot how much duller it was! Interesting to see the sunrise shot with the boats having the warmer look, much like the SE, rather than the more natural bluish look in the LaserDisc and Blu-ray/4K shots.


https://007homemedia.blogspot.com/2019/12/you-only-live-twice.html

YOLT was always the one where the color differences seemed to hit hardest and the one that first got me very interested in how they had changed over time. Indeed the UE is almost bleached of color, some transfers have reddish tints but the 4K restores much of the original luster thankfully.

Ironically it's weird for me seeing LD raw caps as my Sony has the magic ability to defeat the red push of NTSC video. So when I watch LDs they appear much mroe natural due to the TV being able to defeat the red push.

I just updated my entry for DR. NO just include one new screencap that I shouldn't have overlooked the last time. It's the scene with Bond, Leiter, and Quarrel heading for Crab Key on boat. It was shot day for night, so there was always some kind of filter applied from the beginning but we see it vary with each release. Curiously, Lowry didn't really do anything all that different from what MGM's SE DVD did anyway. It's practically the same, aside from MGM's cropping. Unfortunately something went wrong with the 4K transfer because now there's just a ton of black crush. You can't even read the lettering on the boat anymore. I would HOPE that when MGM puts these on 4K discs that they could fix mistakes like this. Having examined all these video releases, they do from time to time actually address these kind of errors. Whether it happens on 4K disc we'll not know until they put something out there.

https://007homemedia.blogspot.com/2019/10/home-media-comparisons-of-dr-no-1962.html

I was originally going to start adding UE DVD caps for this, but the caps I've taken are exactly like the blu-ray. There's virtually no difference between the two other than an improvement in resolution, whereas YOLT which looked very different between UE DVD and the Blu-ray in coloring. For something like that, I'm gonna start doing caps on DAF pretty soon because the UE DVD for that film was just as different from the blu-ray as YOLT's was.

They always handle DFN differently. It rarely gets done just right unless painstakingly matched against several original sources to try and get it as close as possible. The DN nighttime approach has always been a bit dodgy at first in some of the longer shots but is okay when they're putting down the sail and the dodgy again when landing because the beach is clearly visible. On the other hand the DFN in the dragon tank scene works perfectly.

IIRC the vintage prints I've seen went ultra dark there so the 4K might be more accurate in that regard. The LDs handle it pretty well as they didn't change anything in the presentations. The MGMs were a bit brighter and were framed more openly vs the Criterions but in DN's case the same print was used on both discs.

The UE and BDs are the same on all the Lowry titles that were not redone or had errors fixed. So the BDs that came out in the first waves are essentially 1080p bumps of the 2006 dvds. This would include DN/FRWL/GF/TMWTGG/MR/FYEO/OP/AVTAK/TLD/LTK/TND
TB for some reason on BD seems to have rolled back to an older version or was a newer scan minus Lowry "enhancements" but has some occasional color fluctuation and damage marks.
LALD had some problems addressed like the contrast in the opening titles.
YOLT-OHMSS-DAF came in the last wave and were newer masters that were unfortunately too bright but otherwise fixed MANY issues. Myself and others wondered if these were the first of the new rumored 4K masters.
TSWLM was a new master and finally looked great save for perhaps some teal color infusion here and there. The UE merely took the SEDVD master and Lowry-ized it which made it worse. I'm pretty positive the Spy BD was the first one to really be a new 4K master.
TND does look better in 1080p but is mostly an HD bump of the 2006 dvd. TWINE makes further improvements so I think it works even better as does DAD but both are still based on Lowry 2006 work.


You're quite right that these digital versions could have errors. It wouldn't be the first time. The Region 2 DVD UE releases came first and had many color problems that had to be fixed for the upcoming Region 1 USA DVD UE releases which then had their own issues.

Makeshift Python wrote:

Screencaps done on GE, here we go:

https://007homemedia.blogspot.com/2020/09/goldeneye-1995.html?m=1

Just letting you all know I just uploaded the GE caps for the blog and have included LD caps this time.

Is it just me or does the Special Edition version look best?