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What in the hell happened to (remastered) An American Werewolf in London?! (1 Viewer)

Dave H

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It came from a 6K scan of the original negative according to Landis, but I watched the new Blu and it's a DNR mess - not just badly grain reduced, but weird looking digital manipulation and artifacts.

RAH - what happened to the 'new' Universal?
 

Konstantinos

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Well, it's disappointing that in 2016 we still have such transfers being approved for release..
 

dpippel

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Well THIS is certainly distressing news! Good thing I haven't opened my copy yet. There are no reviews of the disc out yet, not that I could find anyway. I'll hang onto it for now, but if it truly is a DNR mess back to Target it goes for a refund. Crap.
 

TravisR

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There are no reviews of the disc out yet, not that I could find anyway.
Reviews won't matter because it's already been branded as having... DNR. *cue sinister music*

I haven't seen the disc but from the talk I've seen, the disc is still a major step up over the first one- even if there is DNR- and there's even debate over whether there is or isn't DNR applied.
 

Dave H

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This disc is an improvement over the original, but that is saying little as that was a rather poor DVD-era master with "fake" grain added.

In this day and age with a new scan from the ON (done at 6K yet), one would hope we wouldn't have to deal with DNR issues especially since Universal had appeared to turn that corner, but someone there evidently just couldn't resist and went back to an old, very bad habit.
 
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Dave H

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When he said this?

Pity to hear about the botched new BD, btw.

http://www.goldenglobes.com/articles/john-landis-american-werewolf-venice

When was the restoration done?

Just now, in the last eight months. Universal, who owns the movie, contacted me. And this was the first one of my titles they wanted to restore for some marketing reason. And I said, what does that mean restore it? It’s fine! But let me tell you about restoring a movie: what happens now is technology keeps advancing so quickly that one of the reasons all these special effects companies keep going out of business is because you can’t keep up with it and it’s too expensive. It’s kind of scary if you think about it: when you develop a film chemically, and make a print from the negative, you lose about 60 percent of (the) information and you only get about 40 percent, and this happens every time you make a movie. Do you remember when everybody went from albums to CDs and they had to re-master everything? Well, when they re-mastered the Beatles tracks, they were hearing conversations in the hallway at Abbey Road, stuff which was there and they never heard it. And it’s the same analogy with these advances. I think the Blu-Ray of Werewolf looks very good, I was happy with it and I supervised that. But now they did a 6K scan of the original negative and it was a remarkable thing, it was so weird because it was not like looking at a movie, it was like looking through a window. I didn’t like it actually because the clarity and depth of field is such that you can count the blades of grass. It’s unbelievably crisp and what the most remarkable thing is that black is black. On film black is never black. Here, black is black and that is cool, and it was so clear it was weird. I thought for instance that that kind of clarity would hurt some of Rick Baker’s makeup stuff and in fact it makes it look better, which is a testament to Rick. The scene with Jack in the hospital is unbelievable to look at the sculptural detail of his wound in the face!
 

brap

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Luckily, Amazon was dragging their heels sending this out to me. Gave me enough time to cancel the order.
 

Mark Cappelletty

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I got it the other day. I think it looks FANTASTIC. I didn't notice the DNR, just the incredible detail. Now the HIGHLANDER 30th Edition — with its artificially boosted colors — is the real mess.
 

dpippel

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Reviews won't matter because it's already been branded as having... DNR. *cue sinister music*

I haven't seen the disc but from the talk I've seen, the disc is still a major step up over the first one- even if there is DNR- and there's even debate over whether there is or isn't DNR applied.

I'm still gonna wait until I have more information before opening the disc. This IS Universal, after all. ;)
 

Konstantinos

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I know most people don't trust screenshots, but...
http://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0&d1=8867&d2=8866&s1=85259&s2=85245&i=0&l=0

Certainly we don't have here the look anyone would expect from a 6K scan, or even 4K or even 2 that you find in other properly done bluray transfers!
But I understand most people want to see their movies devoid of any grain like it's a Pixar computer animation.

Personally I prefer the older look, even if the new is more detailed at places (eg. letters are shown more clearly)
 

Dave H

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The thing is, the movie just lacks a film-like look. There is some good detail at times for sure, but the way the grain was "managed" is rather poor and there are artifacts left over.

This release just really threw me for a loop given how good Universal had been as of late. I'm surprised Landis allowed this to be honest.
 

Camper

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Wow, those caps (if accurate) are damning. It seems to lack both grain and detail !!
 

dpippel

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The "grain" in the caps from the original release doesn't look right either. It's a clumpy, digital mess. There also appear to be sharpening artifacts evident.
 

Camper

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No doubt there is more detail in some places. But as in the shot of the police office -- details like brick outside the window has far less definition than before. And the crystal items on the desk have become blurry and less crystal looking.
 

Camper

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That would be great, but do we need an expert to say that there is something not quite right about what is a brand new 6K restoration?
Of course I am going by those caps.
So I guess a review would be a good thing.LOL
 

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