Disney & Lightstorm The Abyss, Aliens, True Lies 4K

[John Johnson]

https://thedigitalbits.com/columns/my-t ... 11523-0659

[Monterey Jack]

I'll believe these are actually happening when I'm holding copies in my hands.

[AndyDursin]

It's for real this time. (Hey Bill Hunt nailed it, like 10 years after he initially claimed

This is the guy working on them...interesting comments in the thread about Disney (no they don't care really about physical media despite having "lots of 4K assets" in their catalog that are ready-made for release) and such.

These are getting a release because of Cameron's cache. There's no floodgate of Fox titles coming down the road after them though, but at least they're including everything you could hope for in terms of multiple cuts etc.

[Eric W.]

It never should never have taken this long.

Same here: I'll believe it when they are here at my house.

[AndyDursin]

They are coming, they have dates -- and artwork too.

Should be up for preorder next week.

[mkaroly]

I am shocked that True Lies is getting worked on. I figured this film would never see the light of day again without making some kind of change to it based on the subject matter.

[AndyDursin]

Disney sent me the 4K codes for these, which are now available on streaming platforms everywhere for sale -- and while it's great to have them available, sadly they all have a level of digital noise reduction that's unavoidable.

I mean, ALIENS was always gritty looking and detailed -- that's been covered over by what certainly appears like a level of "smoothness" and unnatural looking detail. It's filtered. So are THE ABYSS and TRUE LIES.

You get gains in high dynamic range across all three and since two of them didn't make it to Blu-Ray before you have no choice but to accept them -- but they are not natural looking, filmic presentations. More like trying to fit all 3 of these films into the realm of the smeary-glossy mess TERMINATOR 2's 4K transfer had. It's especially evident with ALIENS, but it's also clear this is what Cameron wants his catalog to look like.

The extras are also available -- it looks like Laurent Bouzereau conducted interviews for THE ABYSS and TRUE LIES literally over a DECADE ago as he's credited with "additional interviews" and there are "new" interviews marked 2012 on them. These have been incorporated into newly formed documentary segments with Cameron, which were clearly shot in the same room at the same time, probably when he was taking a day off from AVATAR 6.

[Edmund Kattak]

Interesting article on physical media.


https://variety.com/2023/film/news/oppe ... TC_JDdIOpI

[John Johnson]

Finally, we’ve learned from industry sources that the 4K Ultra HD release of James Cameron’s The Abyss (1989) in the UK has been cancelled, and for exactly the reason you think—the scene in which the rat is made to breath underwater. UK censors asked for the scene to be cut, Disney apparently wanted to comply, but Lightstorm vetoed it. So if you want this title in 4K and you live in the UK, you’ll have to import it from elsewhere.

https://thedigitalbits.com/columns/my-t ... 22623-1600

[Monterey Jack]

This is the same country that edited The Matrix not for the endless machine gun violence, but to excise a couple of headbutts.

[AndyDursin]

What a shock Disney wants to comply. The most anti filmmaker studio in Hollywood history always with money dominating every decision.

[John Johnson]

This is the same country that edited The Matrix not for the endless machine gun violence, but to excise a couple of headbutts.

The same thing happened on The Mummy Returns.

[AndyDursin]

Spent more time on the UHD's of these, which I picked up on various sales seeing as Disney only sends me digital review codes.

I still prefer the Blu-Ray on ALIENS but the DNR'd 4K transfer is passable and I'm warming to it, especially on disc.

TRUE LIES is the most uneven presentation of the group, some sections looking quite terrible with the DNR/AI usage for no discernable reason and then others coming off pretty well. (The movie is also the most aggressively dated by far of this batch too; parts are still fun and entertaining, but the Bill Paxton character would never make it into a movie today, and Tom Arnold...I mean, c'mon man).

THE ABYSS I finally got in the other day -- the stock on this disc has made it by far the hardest to come across without spending a fortune (finally nabbed it from Deepdiscount for $23 during their 15% off sale over Thanksgiving before it went out-of-stock again) -- and this one is the best of the three transfers. The Super 35 image means it's soft in places, but it still looks like the movie came out in 1989.

The movie is well paced, exciting and Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio are great in it. I do wish, especially seeing it again, that James Horner had scored the movie. It's out of Alan Silvestri's comfort zone and while he did a respectable job, Horner would've nailed the otherworldly element as well as the love story more effectively. I think it's a place where he could have elevated the picture and made its various elements coalesce -- as it is, the shift in the movie's priorities is there no matter what version you watch, and as I've written before, the Special Edition makes "more sense" but introduces a whole "disaster movie" component in a finale that's far more preachy than the theatrical version. For the most part, I prefer the shorter theatrical cut, just as I do ALIENS (vastly so in that instance), but Horner's absence is lamentable.