Brundlefly

A pretty solid indication of the fact that an artist's evaluation of the own work often is totally amiss.

Ironically, The Way of Water is the opposite of Dune: While the latter is one of the rare occasions of Hollywood showing us, how devastating a victory can feel, the former goes full pro war à la 'to crush the enemy is the only solution to this'. Ideologically, these films are quite literally like water and fire (or let's say water and earth; Avatar and Oppenheimer are like water and fire).

Can anyone who bought this set confirm that this release is click-free, devoid of volume dips and worth the upgrade?

I love Fellini and I love that one especially! I may even prefer it over 8 1/2.

This Bond movie surprised me, its kind of a hidden gem, cause it's actually very good, escpecially the action sequences and the tense final castle break-in, despite never being mentioned among the superior entries of the Moore era.

I agree.

Is it possible that the first track of the album is an addition to the Dune Sketchbook and not actual score? Its position within the album, the length and the thematic focus would imply that.

Oppenheimer deserved all of these Oscars sooo much! The only thing that bothers me is the fact that it didn't win for the sublime script too.

You're right. Having seen the second part, I maybe just wanted to emphasize the narrative flow that I assume the three movies will be connected by. Yeah, it's more like Kill Bill and less like Nymphomaniac or 1900, where the films were just split up, AFTER they were shot and edited. I haven't read the books, but isn't it the case, that Villeneuve leans the second movie towards the Messiah book, unlike Herbert did?

I'm very happy that Dune: Part II got delayed. That way they can give the Oscar to Chrisopher Nolan this year and next year they can give it to Denis Villeneuve.

The ending feels so open (much like ESB) that I've got the impression, we will have a movie trilogy, where you won't feel the "cut" between the two books that the whole story is based on. It just will be one big seven and a half hours movie.

Oh no, why they doin' this?

Your logic is that you should get a free copy, only if there is little difference between the respective releases. I don't get that in the first place, but nevermind... You now imply that a new release which is more or less the same as the old release is not desirable, or at least not "desirable for those who already own the 2020 set". I get that. So, you want to get a free copy of the new release only if/because it is less desirable to you? I mean, why even bother then?

I think one reason is the fact that this movie does not really know what it is, a muscial, a light phantasy movie for children, a grim adventure - to me it always felt very inconsistent. The other thing might be the very stripped down and naive message about family - a major and sometimes eye-rolling shortcoming in (not only) my opinion. Spielberg has done that much more profound and subtle in E.T.

As one of the most vociferous critics of Intrada on this forum, I have to agree with @Yavar Moradi here. Of course any implication that it is just a sly strategy to hold back the definitive version of a score in order to make collectors buy more than one of their releases is pure madness. This is what these labels do, they produce the best sounding and most comprehensive release that is possible, depending on the source material and restoration techniques that is available at the time. So, how does it matter, whether the current release is just a slight or a considerable improvement on the prior release? Any complaint from collectors in one of these cases (which there are plenty of) comes from their desire to own the best sounding version available. There is simply no reproach to make towards the labels. The claim of a free copy is not completely incomprehensible to me (after all, I wrote something like that in this thread), but you can't really be serious to expect Intrada to do that without suffering grave economical disadvantages from it. Next question would be: where to draw the line? Should we all get a free copy of the new Hook, in case we have bought the 2012 release? I'm sure any of the special labels would send out all of their releases to anyone who wants them for free if at the same time it would be raining 100 dollar bills at their warehouses, but that won't happen. However, if one of these labels produces something that is lacking in any way, although the source material and restoration techniques they have access to would have allowed for a more definitive release, you can indeed criticize that. That's basically what I do. To me, the 2020 version becomes obsolete now, mainly due to its shortcomings. The improvement between the 2020 and the 2024 release might be bigger than it should have been if they had done a more meticulous work back then.

In the sample of "The Apology" I can hear the infamous digital clicking noises. Anyone else hear them (from 0:27 to 0:39 in the sample)? This is the same kind of clicks that they had on numerous releases in the past which is clearly not something that was in the source material all along. Are they serious? Again? They let this happen again?

Still haven't listened to it. My copy should have been a Christmas present, but didn't make it in time, so now it's lying at my parents' house until I visit them again.

The samples sound very well, some tracks are a noticable improvement. Still, I think of this more as a fix than a new release. People who bought the 2020 version should get a free copy.

And in between is the death day of Jóhann Jóhannsson.

I love the music on itself, but the film is cleary overscored - at one point I had exactly seven pieces in mind that, if you took them out of the film, would fix this issue.

"The Sand Volcano" from 2:14 to finish is the end credits suite consisting of Rick's Theme and the Love Theme. Three and a half minutes rounding off the album in wonderful and musical fashion. The haphazard film edit of the end credits - I would not include that, not only because it has no new music to offer, but also because it has some very unmusical and jarring transitions, which are downright offensive to the creator of this music. The end credits of Total Recall, for example, are a different matter - there was no end credits music composed or recorded, so the recreation of the film edit served to round off the album and to include the transition between the tracked cues which was in fact recorded for this purpose only.

The scandalous thing here is that it is not something to make up for the lack of a especially recorded end credits suite in order to elegantly close the main program - there already was an end credits suite, a really great one! Why on earth you need to replace it with that horrible compilation?! This decision is still baffling! The concern is very justified, they got themselves into that and they have to get out of it by themselves. The Hollow Man release was just the big showdown of carelessness for me, cause it gives you a hundred reason to purchase it again, when a fixed version will be released one day. LLL would just have waited (as they did with Hook) until they got all the needed tapes to make it a complete release and have employed competent staff for mastering and artwork. If they would end up re-recording the whole thing, I'd never ever dare to just think of the original recording any more.

I just typed in "Inchon improved re-release by Intrada" which is exactly what I did four years ago. I just hope it is not the exact same non-improvement we got back then.

As insightful as this text is (I mean, they admit that they could have been more meticulous), having bought the highly deficient 2020 release I feel a little annoyed now. This one really has to be the perfect release, absolutely complete, consistent volume, no clicks and a clear step up in sound - anything else would be galling.

That kind of gentle (re-)introduction to a score we actually got with the expansion of Always.