Indiana Jones 4K UHD Collection

[Nick1Ø66 4,687]

7 hours ago, Bespin said:

You lost your child heart...

He didn’t lose it. Mola Ram ripped it out and threw it into a fiery pit.

 

Show some compassion.

[Nick Parker 3,040]

Wait when did people start hating the ants scene?

[crumbs 14,287]

The Ants scene works for me, even if it feels like a rehash of the scarab beetles from the Mummy films.

 

At least Spielberg included a couple of gnarly deaths, though 80s Spielberg would have shown the aftermath of the ants devouring the soldiers (ie, some bloodied skeletons laying around the area).

[Manakin Skywalker 4,889]

31 minutes ago, crumbs said:

The Ants scene works for me, even if it feels like a rehash of the scarab beetles from the Mummy films.

 

At least Spielberg included a couple of gnarly deaths, though 80s Spielberg would have shown the aftermath of the ants devouring the soldiers (ie, some bloodied skeletons laying around the area).

 

And then there's also an ant scene in the Mummy spinoff The Scorpion King on top of that.

[rough cut 1,714]

I’ll pass on the 4K Indy box for now.

 

Maybe I’ll pick up the inevitable 5-movie box that’ll come out a year after Indy 5.

[Bespin 8,472]

9 hours ago, A. A. Ron said:

Ok then, what in the original trilogy do you think was as stupid as the monkeys or the quicksand? Even as a child I wouldn't have liked those 2 scenes, but it doesn't matter because I haven't lost my "child heart." If I had, I wouldn't bother watching Indiana Jones at all.

 

The magical effetcs of the Alliance Ark (really?), a melting face... a wizard who removes the heart from the chest of another with his hand, a knight from the medieval era still alive and protecting the St-Graal (HELLO????)

 

All the Indiana Jones movies elvoves in a "plausible" reality, but with a lot of magic and surreal events.

 

If you don't understand that, you'll never understand anything about Indiana Jones!

[Nick1Ø66 4,687]

 

A lot of it is in the way Spielberg directs these scenes and how they play out.  Those scenes in the Indy OT could easily have come across as very stupid and cheesy in the hands of a lesser director. Or 2008 Spielberg.

 

In KOCS, Spielberg was like Kaminski trying to copy Slocombe, only he was copying himself (with similar results). Because the Spielberg who made the Indy OT is gone and isn't coming back. He can still be a great director for a certain kind of film, but for things like Indiana Jones & BFG, which used to come second nature for him, he's lost his touch. He just doesn't have the sensibility to direct things like that with authenticity any more. Like an ageing rock star who has essentially become a cover band of his own hits. The guy who so perfectly captured childhood wonder in ET couldn't do the same in BFG because that guy is gone.

 

Authentic Spielberg now is the guy who directed The Post & Bridge of Spies. Ready Player One is the guy doing covers.

[crumbs 14,287]

20 minutes ago, Bespin said:

All the Indiana Jones movies elvoves in a "plausible" reality, but with a lot of magic and surreal events.

 

If you don't understand that, you'll never understand anything about Indiana Jones!

 

I don't think it has anything to do with the quicksand scene being unrealistic, just a really poorly directed sequence (IMO).

 

Koepp's dialogue is beyond atrocious and the acting not much better. It's just... hamfisted, like mostly everything in KOCS from Peru onwards. The direction is stilted, the comedy forced and unfunny, the badly lit soundstage obvious.

 

For the record, I have no issue with the nuked fridge sequence either. It's completely absurd but so are tons of things in the other 3.

[Nick1Ø66 4,687]

4 minutes ago, crumbs said:

 

I don't think it has anything to do with the quicksand scene being unrealistic, just a really poorly directed sequence (IMO). Koepp's dialogue is beyond atrocious and the acting not much better. It's just... hamfisted, like mostly everything in KOCS from Peru onwards.

 

Exactly. You'd expect there to be a quicksand scene in an Indy movie set in the Amazon. If it wasn't there I'd wonder why.

 

It's the awful dialogue ("Get help!"/"Henry, good name!", etc.) and the delivery (probably the worst of Ford's career) along with the fact that both Ford and Allen look and act exactly like what they are...two actors standing in a set...that makes the scene so awful. The snake gag wasn't helping things either.

[crumbs 14,287]

I haven't seen the film in years but I still remember how uninspired the blocking is there too. Just a thoroughly dull sequence given the "revelation" (aka the world's most predictable "twist") that occurs. Pair Spielberg's autopilot direction with that horrendous dialogue, cringeworthy acting, obvious set dressing designed to just lift and lower the actors in the "quicksand" with as little effort or damage to the costumes as possible (gotta get that lunch break in to fit Spielberg's fast schedule, so no wet mud or costume changes). Just... ugh.

 

And it's such a shame because if you look at other quicksand scenes done properly, this could have been an incredible sequence!

 

 

There's no reason this couldn't have been as memorable and energetic as the Bug Tunnel/Death Trap sequence from TOD. Instead, it's just... shit. At no stage is there any sense of danger. They even missed an obvious gag having the fedora go under, with Jones madly reaching back into the quicksand to pull it out (dripping in mud). Disgraceful!

 

 

I get the sense Spielberg checked out after the New Mexico and bike chase sequences were shot and lost interest (chronologically, those were shot first).

[rough cut 1,714]

I like Indy 4.

 

Problem is, the few scenes that are bad, are really bad - so bad that that they end up costing the movie a lot of credibility, and it’s already in a genre that requires its fair share of suspension of belief.

 

If only they’d cut a few scenes, then it’d be a really good movie instead of just passable, the monkey swinging Mutt being one of them. CGI groundhogs and ants being two other.

 

Maybe it’s not even the concept behind these three scenes, but more the execution.

 

Nuke the fridge, I have no problem with though.

 

However, the most offensive crime in Indy 4 is that Indy wears his satchel outside of his jacket, instead of inside.

 

 

[Holko 9,491]

16 hours ago, A. A. Ron said:

Nuking the fridge was crazy too, but no more so than jumping out of an airplane in a freaking raft.

I don't have huge issues with the fridge but I don't like this comparison. The plane raft "stunt" (quotation marks because it's only stunt dummies, not people) plays out in an uninterrupted real shot before your eyes, you see that this real prop falls out of a real plane (even if possibly not full scale), opens, slows down to touch down relatively lightly, doesn't flip over, etc. That helps sell it a lot more than crappily lit CG bounces in a bad CG dust cloud.

[Nick Parker 3,040]

This raft vs. fridge argument is making me so nostalgic for 2008. 

[bruce marshall 1,314]

People still trashing and.complaining about KOTCS.

How very ....very.... VERY sad!

I'm done here

[Chen G. 3,940]

6 hours ago, Holko said:

I don't have huge issues with the fridge but I don't like this comparison. The plane raft "stunt" (quotation marks because it's only stunt dummies, not people) plays out in an uninterrupted real shot before your eyes, you see that this real prop falls out of a real plane (even if possibly not full scale), opens, slows down to touch down relatively lightly, doesn't flip over, etc. That helps sell it a lot more than crappily lit CG bounces in a bad CG dust cloud.

 

Doesn’t make a difference to me. Both are implausible.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I like the fridge because it’s a good joke

[Edmilson 7,367]

When WWIII finally begins, I'll make sure to hide inside my fridge. Maybe it'll protect from the nukes, and I'll also be able to eat the food while I'm there!

[Nick1Ø66 4,687]

11 hours ago, Chen G. said:

 

Doesn’t make a difference to me. Both are implausible.

 

Not entirely true. While Mythbusters more or less proved that jumping out of a plane with a raft would almost certainly result in a crunchy death, surviving a nuclear blast in a lead lined refrigerator, even with the crash, is scientifically plausible.

 

I would have thought otherwise, given that people have, miraculously, survived falling from a plane. And IMO cinematically, the raft gag "seems" more plausible. And it certainly looks more plausible. But, well then, there it is.

[Nick Parker 3,040]

What's really implausible is that we haven't used the phrase "suspension of disbelief" yet!

[HunterTech 982]

Because it was probably overused the last time the subject was broached

[Nick Parker 3,040]

Something being overused, stopping us from bringing it up? Here, at JWFan?

 

 

 

...You will soon learn to appreciate us.

 

[Chen G. 3,940]

9 hours ago, Nick1066 said:

IMO cinematically, the raft gag "seems" more plausible. And it certainly looks more plausible. But, well then, there it is.

 

To me they're both around the same degree of implausibility.

 

Personally, I'm willing to give just about any movie a free pass for at least one implausible death-defying stunt. Apocalypto had been brought up earlier, and its about as gritty as action films ever get, and yet Jaguar Paw really shouldn't be able to outrun his pursuers for so long after having been pierced by an arrow. Likewise, in The Godfather, Vito really shouldn't have survived the shooting. In The Dark Knight, Rachel shouldn't have survived falling unto a car from a skyscraper with Batman, etc...

 

The raft one is pushing it because it happens twice: first the raft drops from the sky unto the mountainside, and then again off of a cliff into the river. But I'll let it slide, no pun intended. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is also pushing it simply because I'm having trouble buying this sexagenarian not necessarily surviving all these action scenes so much as going through them without throwing his back...

[Anthony 572]

On 5/15/2021 at 1:39 PM, crumbs said:

I get the sense Spielberg checked out after the New Mexico and bike chase sequences were shot and lost interest (chronologically, those were shot first).

 

This is as far as I can get with this film before it goes off the rails. The fridge didn't bother me - the worst part up to this point is the overuse of the prarie dogs. Once was fine, but they're in it for THREE separate gags.

[crumbs 14,287]

First screenshots are coming through and it's looking the goods!

 

And starting to see what type of CGI enhancements have been made. In this particular instance, removal of matte lines and cleaning up some of the crude water elements.

 

Bluray:

 

4K:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overall just looks substantially more filmic, less processed, and with natural colours truer to the source material. Nice layer of grain as well.

 

A big improvement on the Bluray! I had no idea just how processed that master was. It's like the whole film is coated in a blue/green filter.

 

 

[Jay 37,250]

Wow.  Those are all improvements, yes.

[crumbs 14,287]

A zoomed-in example of the detail improvement:

 

Bluray:

 

 

 

[Nick1Ø66 4,687]

Wow those look fantastic. I never minded the colours in the Blu-Ray, but the comparison makes it clear it was way over processed.

[Chen G. 3,940]

A lot of this seems to be the colour correction and oversampling the grains brining out the edges.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,488]

The shot of the Washington Monument (as good as it is) is not from RAIDERS...

[Holko 9,491]

Just now, Naïve Old Fart said:

The shot of the Washington Monument (as good as it is) is not from RAIDERS...

Where is it from then?

[Naïve Old Fart 9,488]

It's reused footage from THE HINDENBURG.

[Jay 37,250]

I never knew that!

[Holko 9,491]

Huh. Still, looks a ton better than the blu.

[Jay 37,250]

Here's the shot!

 

 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,488]

Absolutely. Maybe they should do a 4K THE HINDENBURG? 

[Nick1Ø66 4,687]

1 minute ago, Holko said:

Huh. Still, looks a ton better than the blu.

 

It should. They had top men working on it.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,488]

3 minutes ago, Jay said:

 

Anybody want to scan through the film to find it?

 

It's at 6.35.

[Jay 37,250]

Yes, I already edited my post before you posted that

[Naïve Old Fart 9,488]

18 hours ago, Nick1066 said:

 

 

 

18 hours ago, Jay said:

 

 

[Manakin Skywalker 4,889]

10 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Who?

 

Top.

 

Men.

[Jay 37,250]

11 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

I bet you didn't know where to look.

 

What does this mean?  If you're asking if I'd ever seen the film before, no, I hadn't.  But I quickly found it because I figured they'd set up the DC location early in the film.  I just mashed the right arrow key until I saw it

[crumbs 14,287]

Phew, the magenta tint in TLC has been fixed.

 

Bluray:

 

UHD:

 

 

 

 

 

No idea what Kaminski was thinking with that hideous green/teal tint on KOCS, but (mercifully) it hasn't been replicated on the new master:

 

Bluray:

 

4K:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Actually looks like a film now -- not some processed, smeary digital mess. Drastic improvement (shame they can't fix the film itself).

 

That sharpening/halo issue on TLC has also been resolved!

 

 

 

Raiders has reduced that extreme golden tint/contrast from the Bluray too. The grain structure is superb.

 

 

 

 

TOD looks improved but the Bluray was already excellent. Nice filmic grain and more natural grading now.

 

 

Nice detail improvement here:

 

[Chen G. 3,940]

1 hour ago, crumbs said:

 

 

 

 

These particular two shots still look a touch too glossy for me, but I suppose it was unavoidable.

[crumbs 14,287]

1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

 

These particular two shots still look a touch too glossy for me, but I suppose it was unavoidable.

 

Unfortunately that would be baked into the lenses Kaminski actually used to shoot the film. They can fix the colour but they probably can't remove all the diffused, glossy lighting.

 

But at least the colour is a huge improvement and the palette is closer to the first 3 now.

[Jay 37,250]

Nice work with those screenshots, crumbs

[toothless 963]

Got the steelbook boxset yesterday! Can't wait to watch!

 

In the meantime if you want more screencaps:

 

• ROTLA: https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=15954&d2=15953&c=6060

• TOD: https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=15959&d2=15958&c=6062

• TLC: https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=15964&d2=15963&c=6063

• KOTCS: https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=15966&d2=15967&c=6064

 

I'm glad the digital fake sharpening of the blu-ray (and its aliasing) is gone. The image is overall superb!

[Jurassic Shark 12,008]

On 5/15/2021 at 5:11 AM, A. A. Ron said:

Ok then, what in the original trilogy do you think was as stupid as the monkeys or the quicksand? Even as a child I wouldn't have liked those 2 scenes, but it doesn't matter because I haven't lost my "child heart." If I had, I wouldn't bother watching Indiana Jones at all.

 

He's more machine than child now.

[crumbs 14,287]

59 minutes ago, Jay said:

Nice work with those screenshots, crumbs

 

Looking at the jungle chase from KOCS, the improvement is even more drastic. It looks like an entirely new sequence now, like they've toned back the CGI foliage or something.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I suspect that intense green tint + oversaturation in the old master actually enhanced all the CGI elements, making everything sickly and unrealistic.

[Chen G. 3,940]

6 minutes ago, crumbs said:

 

 

This shot still looks BAD.

[crumbs 14,287]

This shot is probably the best example of how grading can change the entire feel of a sequence.

 

 

 

The top version looks absolutely nothing like an Indiana Jones movie.

 

11 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

This shot still looks BAD.

 

Absolutely, but that's what happens when you shoot half your major action sequence in front of a blue screen.

 

The entire opening sequence looks better now too. The rocket sled explosion actually looks quite realistic and violent now: