FAQ  •  Login

Blade Runner: Final Cut Image Comparisons

Moderator: dmohrUSC

<<

Sam

User avatar

Rookie Rep Detect
Rookie Rep Detect

Posts: 22

Joined: Tue Sep 04, 2007 9:56 pm

Post Mon Dec 24, 2007 11:49 pm

Blade Runner: Final Cut Image Comparisons

Blade Runner


Top:
Original 1997 director's cut DVD
Middle: 2006/2007 Archival/Director's cut DVD
Bottom: 2007 Final Cut


***NOT ALL 1997 CAPS HAVE BEEN DONE YET, WILL BE UP SOON***





Image
Image
Image


Image
Image
Image



Image
Image
Image


Image
Image
Image



Image
Image
Image



Image
Image



Image
Image



Image
Image



Image
Image


Image
Image
Image


Image
Image
Image
Last edited by Sam on Fri Mar 28, 2008 4:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
<<

Sam

User avatar

Rookie Rep Detect
Rookie Rep Detect

Posts: 22

Joined: Tue Sep 04, 2007 9:56 pm

Post Mon Dec 24, 2007 11:50 pm

I think I may have found another change in the 3rd last cap of Deckard hanging onto the edge of the roof; there's a new street light to the right of the screen.
<<

marlec

Rookie Rep Detect
Rookie Rep Detect

Posts: 19

Joined: Wed May 25, 2005 4:30 am

Location: Netherlands

Post Tue Mar 18, 2008 7:57 am

After comparing my own copies of the 3 versions on DVD i concur with these screenshots, why is the Final Cut so green & dark, no matter the settings on my tv or BR player i couldnt get it out, the other 2 versions dont have this green tint so wat gives ??
<<

dmohrUSC

User avatar

Moderator
Moderator

Posts: 197

Joined: Thu Jul 26, 2007 10:46 am

Location: Madison, WI, USA

Post Tue Mar 18, 2008 8:41 pm

Hello marlec. The answer to your question is that the Final Cut features the only "color correction" of any of the video transfers of BR that was 100% supervised by Ridley Scott. Like it or not, the colors of the Final Cut represent Ridley Scott's definitive vision of the movie.

I'll admit that the first time I saw the Final Cut, I thought some of the color correction in the sequences was jarring, because it was such a remarkable difference from earlier versions that I was familiar with. But now I've come to love it, and it is definitely my favorite of all the versions of BR. For me, the blue-green tint of the Final Cut only adds to what Ridley Scott refers to as the "romance of decay."
<<

marlec

Rookie Rep Detect
Rookie Rep Detect

Posts: 19

Joined: Wed May 25, 2005 4:30 am

Location: Netherlands

Post Fri Mar 21, 2008 10:58 am

Ok dmohrUSC thx for explaining that to me

Unfortunatly i dont like it, it ruins the lush colors and darkens the fine details, take for instance the sample above of batty, the middle one taken from DC Remastered is colorful and bright but not too bright, i can clearly see his face thus his expression and the details of his injury, in the FC its just all dark and green & turning up the brightness just makes it all grey/misty. :?
<<

dmohrUSC

User avatar

Moderator
Moderator

Posts: 197

Joined: Thu Jul 26, 2007 10:46 am

Location: Madison, WI, USA

Post Fri Mar 21, 2008 2:56 pm

With all due respect, I believe the appropriate way to remedy the situation when viewing the Final Cut at home is to fiddle with the "contrast" settings on your television set :)

And I'm sorry, but I honestly never give too much credence to the ability of simple screenshots to supposedly capture all the visual qualities of a movie. The screenshots posted here of the Final Cut don't do justice to what it looks like on my TV at home, and screenshots are always just captured from one particular person's viewing system; it's not as if they were produced at a movie studio's state-of-the-art digital lab. (Ever notice how when you go into an electronics store and the same movie is playing on 20 different TV/DVD systems, it looks like you're watching 20 different versions of the same movie?)
<<

Kipple

User avatar

Honorary Member

Posts: 1266

Joined: Fri Aug 10, 2001 6:00 pm

Location: Satellite 2

Post Sat Mar 22, 2008 4:44 am

Regarding the photos...I think we get the point. There are too many posted, making loading time a pisser for those not using high speed internet.

Please eliminate some of them.
<<

Gene Ettix

User avatar

Blade Runner
Blade Runner

Posts: 618

Joined: Wed Jul 04, 2001 6:00 pm

Location: Tyrell Corp. U.S.

Post Sat Mar 22, 2008 11:48 am

Thanks for mentioning that, Kipple. My connection is slow, for the time-being, and my PC is a dinosaur.
But as far as my home theater goes...
dmohrUSC wrote: And I'm sorry, but I honestly never give too much credence to the ability of simple screenshots to supposedly capture all the visual qualities of a movie. The screenshots posted here of the Final Cut don't do justice to what it looks like on my TV at home, and screenshots are always just captured from one particular person's viewing system; it's not as if they were produced at a movie studio's state-of-the-art digital lab. (Ever notice how when you go into an electronics store and the same movie is playing on 20 different TV/DVD systems, it looks like you're watching 20 different versions of the same movie?)

...Blade Runner looks absolutely and positively as good as any Blu-ray I've ever seen yet. Looks like it was filmed today.
ImageImageImage
<<

deleted

User avatar

Veteran Blade Runner
Veteran Blade Runner

Posts: 1191

Joined: Sun May 14, 2006 7:11 pm

Location: The banks of chaos in my mind

Post Sun Mar 23, 2008 8:53 pm

[In reference to A Good Year] "So anyway, fuck 'em. It was a good film."
-Ridley Scott
<<

Matthias Wivel

Rookie Rep Detect
Rookie Rep Detect

Posts: 5

Joined: Sun May 04, 2008 5:56 pm

Post Mon May 05, 2008 7:32 pm

article

Thanks for the screencaps!

Although I otherwise think the FC is very sensitively done, I find the adjustment of the colours to be unfortunate anachronistic tampering. I've written a little more on it in my review of the FC.
Last edited by Matthias Wivel on Tue May 06, 2008 3:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
<<

Kipple

User avatar

Honorary Member

Posts: 1266

Joined: Fri Aug 10, 2001 6:00 pm

Location: Satellite 2

Post Mon May 05, 2008 7:48 pm

Re: article

Matthias Wivel wrote:Although I otherwise think the FC is very sensitively done, I find them to be unfortunate anachronistic tampering. I've written a little more on it in my review of the FC.


Very well written. (Although "kibble" should be "kipple") :wink:

I agree. I don't like the desaturated ‘blue steel’ look either.
Image
<<

ElTorro

User avatar

Senior Rep Detector
Senior Rep Detector

Posts: 163

Joined: Sun Mar 23, 2008 2:21 am

Location: Off-world Sweden

Post Mon May 05, 2008 11:06 pm

dmohrUSC wrote:(Ever notice how when you go into an electronics store and the same movie is playing on 20 different TV/DVD systems, it looks like you're watching 20 different versions of the same movie?)


I also like the "warm" colors in the Original 1997 director's cut DVD but dmohrUSC really got a point.

Thanks for the nice screen caps Sam :D
Image

:shock: :idea: :arrow: :D > still kicking!
<<

Matthias Wivel

Rookie Rep Detect
Rookie Rep Detect

Posts: 5

Joined: Sun May 04, 2008 5:56 pm

Post Tue May 06, 2008 3:51 am

thanks

Thanks! p's have now been substituted for b's. :)

Have the colour adjustments been addressed by Mr. Scott or anyone else? I haven't seen them mentioned in anything but the most general sense in the interviews I've seen.
<<

Charles de Lauzirika

User avatar

Honorary Member

Posts: 92

Joined: Sun Oct 23, 2005 5:55 am

Location: Los Angeles, 2019

Post Tue May 06, 2008 9:51 am

Re: thanks

Matthias Wivel wrote:Have the colour adjustments been addressed by Mr. Scott or anyone else?


Many times, here and elsewhere. Although I appreciate the time and effort you put into your review, there are two critical problems with your thesis: 1) You basically assume that previous transfers were personally supervised by Ridley Scott (they were not) and 2) that the colorspace you're seeing in various frame grabs and seen on a computer monitor match what would you see in a properly calibrated theater (home or theatrical.) They do not.

The Final Cut represents the very first time you're seeing the film the way the director intended. Like it or not, it's what he (not the "restorers" or anyone else) wanted, nor was it somehow updated to look fashionable. It's simply the way the filmmaker wants his film to look. That's why we left the other versions alone despite the new HD transfers, even if they don't represent Ridley's intended grading for the film, so that they would be historically preserved as they were.

I also don't think there's much value in directly comparing new frame grabs with old ones, aside from archival curiosity. Color-timing is meant to help create moods throughout the film at 24 frames a second, and to coldly dissect the grading on a static shot-by-shot basis deprives it of its intended effect...and that's made even worse by the mismatching colorspaces of a computer and a calibrated screen or projection system.
<<

Matthias Wivel

Rookie Rep Detect
Rookie Rep Detect

Posts: 5

Joined: Sun May 04, 2008 5:56 pm

Post Tue May 06, 2008 10:25 am

Re: thanks

Hi Charles, thanks so much for your reply!

First, allow me to pay my most sincere compliments on the Final Cut, Dangerous Days and the Blade Runner home video set. Great work.

While my comparative material and the screencaps in this thread of course do not fully do the new colour-grading justice, I have already seen the film multiple times, on different monitors as well as projected unto a large screen, from both DVD and BluRay (I unfortunately haven't been able to see it in a theatre yet), and think my basic observation stands, despite the differences between these individual viewing situations.

I am fully aware that the colour-grading was done according to the director's wishes -- something I also state in my review -- but still find it markedly different than the earlier versions, which to me appear much closer in colour to each other. It therefore seems obvious to me that the new colour-grading is an aesthetic choice made specifically for the Final Cut.

My further point is that, while it is clearly the prerogative of the director to do as he pleases in this situation (I wouldn't want to see a Final Cut in which he didn't), Ridley Scott of 2007 is not Ridley Scott of 1982. His aesthetic sensibility and preferences have naturally changed and evolved, and this is what I see in this new version of Blade Runner, which in its colouristic sensibility looks more like, say Kingdom of Heaven, than, for example, Legend. In other words, a film of the 2000s rather than the 1980s.

Additionally, I find it hard to believe that Scott would have graded the images like this in 1981-82, if he -- as you say -- had supervised the process more closely back then. And in any case, the film was made back then and is a product of that age. The look of the original release, which to my eyes is preserved rather closely, though not fully, even in the Director's Cut, is the look that has been so influential on subsequent filmmakers, game designers, graphic artists, etc. To change that to the extent it's been done is to change something much more fundamental than correcting continuity gaffes or substituting a new shot of the dove.

I think this is a pity, but of course still highly appreciate the work Ridley Scott and yourself have done on the restoration as a whole.
Last edited by Matthias Wivel on Tue May 06, 2008 10:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
Next

Return to Special Edition - Final Cut

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests

cron