Would Godzilla movies benefit from BD release?

[Gojirob]

I saw some on Monsters HD before it left us, and they looked pretty good, but I'm such a G-Geek its hard to be honest on that front. I have Gojira itself on BD, and I will say it looks cleaner and certain scenes once difficult to discern (like his footprints on the beach) are now clear. But that one was a different sort of movie than those that followed, so again, its hard to tell. My experience has been that some older movies look magnificent once remastered in HD--others not so much. Any thoughts?

 

[clint g]

Unrelated, but I love the avatar Elfin Lied is win

 

[jefferiestubes8]

movies benefitting from BD release?

My experience has been that some older movies look magnificent once remastered in HD--others not so much. Any thoughts?

If a 4k telecine is done and proper restoration and remastering are done then many films can look a lot better and do benefit greatly.

Some shows like TOS had cheap optical FX and they were hidden by the poor low resolution of early color TV sets and NTSC over-the-air transmission broadcast including syndication up until cable TV in the 1980s.

When DVD came out the 525 line resolution showed a lot of flaws in movies & TV shows.
Blu-ray shows many more.
Even with TOS just a 1080p telecine from the original camera negative required not just cleanup ut the original 35mm optical effects were awful at that resolution.
It all depends on how much dust/dirt you want to see and how much money the Blu-ray distributor wants to spend on the restoration before remastering...

 

[milo bloom]

Not sure if you realize, but it's something a lot of folks just don't get: film still has a crap-tonne more resolution than Bluray. jeffriestubes8 mentioned 4K telecines, that's basically scanning the film at 4000 lines of resolution and Bluray is only 1080. And, there are also 8K scans done, which I'm pretty sure still don't capture all of the resolution available on film.

Also as noted, the more detail you start showing, the more you start to see the strings holding up the models and such, so keep that in mind.

And from what I've heard the Gojira Bluray was not done well, so I don't think you should consider it indicative of what the format can do for older films.

So there's a lot of factors to consider, but a big one is how much time and money the studios put into cleaning the film before they transfer it.

 

[jefferiestubes8]

over 4K telecines

Not sure if you realize, but it's something a lot of folks just don't get: film still has a crap-tonne more resolution than Bluray. jeffriestubes8 mentioned 4K telecines, that's basically scanning the film at 4000 lines of resolution and Bluray is only 1080. And, there are also 8K scans done, which I'm pretty sure still don't capture all of the resolution available on film.

A 1959 movie:
North by Northwest 50th Anniversary Edition on

Warner Bros. Motion Picture Imaging scanning the original VistaVision production elements in 8K resolution.

http://www.dvdtown.com/news/50th-anniversary-edition-of-north-by-northwest-on-dvd-and-blu-ray/6849

Warners has gone back to the film's VistaVision elements for an 8K scan

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/reviewshd/bdreviews110409.html#nor

Wizard of Oz

The Wizard of Oz has been newly restored for this Blu-ray release, and its 8K digital restoration eclipses anything I could ever have hoped to see.

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/39772/wizard-of-oz-the/?___rd=1

 

[bigdaddy]

Have they even ever release all the movies in DVD format for North America?

 

[jefferiestubes8]

Have they even ever release all the movies in DVD format for North America?

The 28 films 1954-2004 according to Wikipedia haven't been released as a 'ultimate collection'.

3 films have never been released on DVD:

13. Godzilla vs. Megalon 1973 GoodTimes - VHS

16. The Return of Godzilla 1984 Lakeshore Entertainment - VHS

17. Godzilla vs. Biollante 1989 Miramax Home Entertainment - VHS

 

[Saga]

Godzilla vs. Biollante needs to be released on DVD. my vhs is beginning to show its age. as my War of the Gargantuas vhs before it was released on DVD.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Godzilla vs. Biollante needs to be released on DVD. my vhs is beginning to show its age. as my War of the Gargantuas vhs before it was released on DVD.

Well while my Godzilla vs. Biollante VHS is still in good condition (for now at least), my Godzilla 1985 VHS is starting to show it's age so I wouldn't mind seeing both of these get a DVD release. Especially if the can get the International Dub of Godzilla 1985 since I've heard that it is closer to the original version of the film.

 

[Gojirob]

Unrelated, but I love the avatar Elfin Lied is win

Thanks--that was taken from when

Spoiler: EL Manga late in series

Kouta is shot by the Kakuzawa forces invading Maple House

http://elfen-lied.wikia.com/wiki/Elfen_Lied_Wiki?cb=208

Anyway, back to BD Godzilla--well, I hope its done right, is all. I mean, I love War Of The Worlds 1953 on DVD, but with upscaling, I can now see whole nests of strings on the War Machines, and I always thought this one was awesome in hiding all that.

 

[23skidoo]

Some of the discussion here shows why they can never retire DVD completely. I just can't see companies spending the money required to upscale every film for BD release, especially if they've already spent money on remastering for a) VHS release and b) DVD release. And as we see there are a few films that barely got released on VHS (and by a company that specialized in selling those $2.99 bin-filler tapes you used to find in Wal-Mart and junior department stores).

I'm surprised no one's come out with a "do it yourself" upscaling program, where you can hook your own VHS or DVD player into your PC and run a bunch of filters over the stuff. Copyright is probably the easy answer. But still, there's going to be a lot of stuff that will never graduate beyond DVD, and I do have the worry that one of these days Sony or some company is gonna announce Blu-Ray 2.0 which does not have backwards compatibility to DVD. (It's happened before when PlayStation ended its ability to play older games.)

Alex

 

[The Evil Dead]

I'd buy Godzilla GMK on Blu-Ray.

 

[Gojirob]

I'd buy Godzilla GMK on Blu-Ray.

IIRC, I saw that on Monsters HD and it looked pretty sweet. Not dramatically enhanced, but certainly a lot cleaner.

They say Toho does use CGI nowadays in order to X out zippers and strings and such. I wonder if a BD-ST-TOS style FX upgrade would help some older films?

 

[Dane_Whitman]

A lot of Godzilla films are out on BD in Japan, unfortunately english subtitles are not included.

Two Gamera films were recently release on BD, even though the bitrate is kinda low this release wipes the floor with the dvds.

I'm of the opinion that any film benefits from a format that replicates the theatrical experience as opposed to the digital, compressed look of dvd.

 

[Timby]

Have they even ever release all the movies in DVD format for North America?

The 28 films 1954-2004 according to Wikipedia haven't been released as a 'ultimate collection'.

3 films have never been released on DVD:

13. Godzilla vs. Megalon 1973 GoodTimes - VHS

16. The Return of Godzilla 1984 Lakeshore Entertainment - VHS

17. Godzilla vs. Biollante 1989 Miramax Home Entertainment - VHS

vs. Biollante has been released on DVD in Regions 2, 3 and 4, but I'm pretty sure there are some rights issues holding up its U.S. release -- my memory's fuzzy, but I think Time Warner either funneled some money towards the film's production or otherwise acquired U.S. home video rights from Toho, while Sony has the actual U.S. rights for the Godzilla franchise -- whatever the case, I'm under the impression that Time Warner has the rights to release the film in Region 1, but Sony has to give permission, and that hasn't happened. I'm almost certain I've got some of this confused ... it's a bit convoluted.

 

[Saga]

I'd buy Godzilla GMK on Blu-Ray.

IIRC, I saw that on Monsters HD and it looked pretty sweet. Not dramatically enhanced, but certainly a lot cleaner.

They say Toho does use CGI nowadays in order to X out zippers and strings and such. I wonder if a BD-ST-TOS style FX upgrade would help some older films?

i dunno. for me, part of the charm of these movies is the cheesy sfx. but then, sometimes when the wires holding up Rodan are so obvious it kinda takes you out of the experience.

 

[milo bloom]

Some of the discussion here shows why they can never retire DVD completely. I just can't see companies spending the money required to upscale every film for BD release, especially if they've already spent money on remastering for a) VHS release and b) DVD release. And as we see there are a few films that barely got released on VHS (and by a company that specialized in selling those $2.99 bin-filler tapes you used to find in Wal-Mart and junior department stores).


Alex

It's not really an "upscaling". Film has waaaay more resolution than even Bluray, so it's not really a massive procedural change, it's just an increase in the amount of detail. And studios have been doing high definition transfers for years, even before Bluray was released, for showing on HD cable/sat channels and such.

I'm surprised no one's come out with a "do it yourself" upscaling program, where you can hook your own VHS or DVD player into your PC and run a bunch of filters over the stuff. Copyright is probably the easy answer. But still, there's going to be a lot of stuff that will never graduate beyond DVD, and I do have the worry that one of these days Sony or some company is gonna announce Blu-Ray 2.0 which does not have backwards compatibility to DVD. (It's happened before when PlayStation ended its ability to play older games.)

Alex

Not sure if this is what you mean, but there are many DVD and Bluray players that will upconvert DVDs to 1080p, most notably the Playstation 3 (long considered one of the best for upconverting, not sure if it's been supplanted by now). But keep in mind, it's still just taking the SD image and extrapolating the higher resolution, it's not really adding the extra lines of image.

And of course any flaws will be increased. For instance, we just watched the DVD of The Quiet Man with John Wayne a week ago, and it's a terrible transfer, and run through our PS3 onto a 46" LCD it looked awful. Still a fun movie, but that's one thing to keep in mind.

 

[Gojirob]

Have they even ever release all the movies in DVD format for North America?

The 28 films 1954-2004 according to Wikipedia haven't been released as a 'ultimate collection'.

3 films have never been released on DVD:

13. Godzilla vs. Megalon 1973 GoodTimes - VHS

16. The Return of Godzilla 1984 Lakeshore Entertainment - VHS

17. Godzilla vs. Biollante 1989 Miramax Home Entertainment - VHS

vs. Biollante has been released on DVD in Regions 2, 3 and 4, but I'm pretty sure there are some rights issues holding up its U.S. release -- my memory's fuzzy, but I think Time Warner either funneled some money towards the film's production or otherwise acquired U.S. home video rights from Toho, while Sony has the actual U.S. rights for the Godzilla franchise -- whatever the case, I'm under the impression that Time Warner has the rights to release the film in Region 1, but Sony has to give permission, and that hasn't happened. I'm almost certain I've got some of this confused ... it's a bit convoluted.

It's something like that, only I think Toho has decided to simply let every last licensing agreement of old run out completely w/o coughing up to renege on them. They really got taken badly by some old-time distribution deals, and want as much control as possible, and are willing to wait.