EvaUnit02 on 21/7/2010 at 07:05

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Egads, the "remastered" transfer on the recent Predator 'Ultimate Hunter Edition' Blu-ray is absolutely disastrous transfer it seems. Fox has applied aggressive DNR filtering to the transfer that they erased all of the natural celluloid grain and along with most of the detail.

Reviews describe that Arnold looks like a Madame Tussaud's wax figure now and they aren't exaggerating either. (http://www.dvdactive.com/editorial/articles/old-films-on-blu-ray-are-they-worth-it.html) Take a look for yourselves.

This makes me very fearful for the recently announced (http://www.dvdactive.com/news/releases/alien-anthology2.html) Aliens Blu-ray. Like Predator, Aliens has always been a very grainy film, due to the film stock that it was shot on (at least in the case of Aliens).

In conclusion, get the old barebones BD if you want to own Predator in High-Def.

Muzman on 21/7/2010 at 07:35

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It's just trying to keep up with the latest fashions in poor taste. I'm sure there are people berrating the teenage staff in electronics stores about things looking 'grainy' and they can't get rid of it on the $10,000 TV they bought. Or not hideously contrasty (if only there was some way to easily illustrate to people the horrible grain generated by their own eyeballs).
Although I think he's wrong about The Godfather bluray. Coppolla screwed up. Those highlights are blowing out and detail is being lost, probably to look a bit better on crappy LCDs. He wasn't quite as much a visualist as his contemporaries though I guess.
Bladerunner is definitely the benchmark.

Aliens might be ok. The Quadrilogy releases were so good I can't see them mucking around with it too much. Predator doesn't have quite the same respect as sci-fi. If they buggered around with Aliens too much I think there's be some pretty major bitching, or demands for untampered with originals like with Star Wars (not on quite the same scale of course, but still).

Vivian on 21/7/2010 at 10:24

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It took me ages to be able to watch Aliens on DVD without getting annoyed about it. The problem with cleaner, higher definition images and older sci-fi in particular is that what looks convincing when it's a little blurry is clearly a man firing a calculator taped to a water pistol at a another man wearing tights on his head when seen in high definition. Aliens works best with a bit of blur, I think. Alien, however, I would like to see on blu ray.

Thirith on 21/7/2010 at 11:57

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Fuck. Arnold looks like a cross between a character from Far Cry and one of those airbrushed Jesus pics. It's as if Square at the time of The Spirits Within had decided to do a shot-by-shot remake of Predator... How could anyone ever have thought that this sort of digital processing was good?

And anyway, what's wrong with grain? It's a stylistic means and one that can be used to beautiful effect. Silly sausages, the lot of them.

Queue on 21/7/2010 at 12:35

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When I was a teenager working at the local video store, people constantly complained (and demanded their money back) about those two black bars they were seeing on some of the movies--because they were "missing most of the picture."

When it comes to film as an art form, the problem is, and always has been, that the general public are idiots.

The second problem is, and is becoming increasingly more so, that companies today are willing to deface the "art-value" of films (like remastering all the warmth out of films originally shot on film to Blu-Ray, because Blu-Ray is such a superior technology, right?) to keep the idiots spending.