Watched Journal: November 2024
In March, two long sought after James Cameron films were finally released on Blu-ray, True Lies and The Abyss.
The only catch was that these two releases (along with a new 4K version of Aliens) were treated with A.I., causing the movies to have a waxy finish - especially evident when I watched the 4K-UHD disc of True Lies where Jamie Lee Curtis often appeared to be made of plastic. The online backlash from cinephiles was harsh, accusing Cameron of giving his classic catalog the Avatar treatment, to which the director quipped, "When people start reviewing your grain structure, they need to move out of mom's basement and meet somebody." The Times even weighed in with a widely shared feature on how machine learning technologies are impacting film restoration.Cameron isn't alone when it comes to directors fumbling the home video releases of their films. William Friedkin, Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas are infamous for revisionist tinkering. But Cameron's faux-pas seem worse. The online consensus is that the 4K-UHD of Terminator 2: Judgement Day is unwatchable, blasphemous for an action classic that serves as a reference check for home theater aficionados. As the fortieth anniversary of the original Terminator film was approaching this year, fans wondered if a 4K-UHD was on the horizon and more importantly, how would it look?
Despite the criticisms of the spring trio of 4K-UHD discs, they were almost impossible to find after their release date, quickly going out of stock. Once a 40th anniversary 4K-UHD of The Terminator was announced in the summer, I pre-ordered with blind faith that it wouldn't suffer the same dark fate as T2. One promising note was that this release would include the original theatrical mono, long absent on home video versions of the film since the DVD era - no longer would Arnold's laser-sighted pistol go pew-pew-pew.
In a dystopian full circle, artificial intelligence has been applied to The Terminator. The sharpening adds new layers of clarity to the 1984 sci-fi classic, creating an elevated atmosphere of retro-futurism. The noir sections of the film, like the moody parking garage scenes, are crisper with enhanced detail. The daytime sequences of Sarah Connor biking to her diner job or Arnold stocking up on weapons showcase the bright afternoons of '80's Los Angeles. The mono soundtrack flexes its muscle, booming with each gunshot and roaring car chase.
This 4K release utilizes the previous 2K restoration from 2013, which seems like a missed opportunity to commission a fresh 4K scan from the original camera negative. Instead of a true restoration, the A.I. just polishes that decade old transfer. Thus there are moments when this release sparkles and others when it looks greasy. This lazy upscaling exemplifies one of the caveats of machine learning, the data matters.
What I watched in November:
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