Some thoughts about the NEW Road Warrior UHD - corrected/fixed audio track

[Uncle Entity]

Atmos, they have fiddled a bit too much with it; I don't understand the need for many of the new sounds - the bus they move to protect the base has gotten an engine sound now, that wasn't there before. But they've also removed sound entirely, and the sound of the fuse, before Max's car explodes, is basically gone now, which seems strange, as the sound of the fuse, seems to be what the guy next to the car reacts to, before it blows up. And the music has been subdued way too much for my liking.

But what really surprised me was the Original Theatrical 2.0. It sounds very, very good and actually has deeper explosions than on the DTS-MA 5.1 track. Listen to the base being blown up for example. The next time I'm watching the movie, I'm definately listening to the 2.0 track.

The DTS-MA 5.1 is okay; There's not too much surround activity as such, with back and front stuff, but the track sounds good nevertheless. The soundstage is very wide, and that is a good thing.

WARNING:

The scene at the beginning where Max finds the music box in the car. His reaction shot while listening to the music looks bad. The shots lasts about 5 seconds and the picture is poor quality.

[Stamper]

That's because it's an optical. The movie has lots of them, and they all look sub-par with the improved resolution.

[Uncle Entity]

That's because it's an optical. The movie has lots of them, and they all look sub-par with the improved resolution.

Found this review, talking about the OPTICALS in MM2:

"They've smoothed over most of the transitions, with whatever 'grain' is left behind showing off that smeary effect around movement, and in some of them they even seem to have selectively blurred the chroma channels, like on the close-up of Max playing with the music box that then fades out or dissolves into the next scene. The colour literally bleeds out for a few pixels around his head, the pink skin leeching into the blu sky, and it looks so bad. Not every optical is as janky as that, a few even look half decent, but when a movie is as full of editorial opticals as MM2 it means that a LOT of material is going to be dupe negative and it still baffles me that even though we're in the 21st century there's no better way of dealing with them than this. Do the people performing these grades actually think that it makes them less conspicuous than if they'd left them alone? Sure, HDR is not a friend to grain/noise and the excessive grain that some opticals carry is going to be a problem in that space, but this kind of treatment is so heavy-handed it makes the opticals stand out like a sore thumb anyway. *le sigh*

There is the possibility of having opticals rebuilt digitally by using trims of the original camera negative and Warners have done this a few times for new transfers recently, like the opening title sequence of The Goonies and the dissolves/fades in Shawshank Redemption, but this is contingent on several factors like whether the trims were even archived to begin with (as they were sent off to the optical house to have the effects applied, this OG material was sometimes lost or discarded as happened with Taxi Driver's final showdown) and if they were, do the filmmakers have enough clout to push for the opticals to be rebuilt and will the studio want to spend the extra cash? The Goonies was produced by Señor Spielbergo, Shawshank is a beloved favourite that was lensed by Roger Deakins who is now a two-time Oscar-winner, and Coppola owns his movies anyway so he kept everything and redid the opticals for the latest transfer of The Outsiders. But most everyone/everything else just has to put up with it, it's a pity that no-one's come up with an innovative solution like using AI to extract the colour and luminance from a 1st gen equivalent of the optical shot (many opticals cut to a 1st gen version of the same shot moments later/prior) and overlay it onto a de-noised version of the optical. Or, if they don't want to spend any mo money than they have to, JUST LEAVE THE OPTICALS AS THEY ARE."

[Stamper]

Completely agree. The movie has never looked better on 4K but they botched all the opticals.

[Uncle Entity]

Completely agree. The movie has never looked better on 4K but they botched all the opticals.

Damn. Maybe they had no choice.

[Uncle Entity]

Nobody purchased this?