The Godfather Trilogy (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972-1990)

[Robert Chipeska]

LOL at Jeff Wells saying these UHDs won't be the "bump" they should be and he'd rather have it 60FPS and looking like something Peggy Hill would watch, whatta idiot

[swo17]

I'm mostly just glad I can finally get rid of my Blu-ray set with the stupid booklet that doesn't fit inside the case

[tenia]

LOL at Jeff Wells saying these UHDs won't be the "bump" they should be and he'd rather have it 60FPS and looking like something Peggy Hill would watch, whatta idiot

No surprise, it's of course non sense. He probably has no idea what he's talking about.

Wondering what he could even claim that from, especially since the BDs have never looked like reference material (and not because of the material itself, I've always been quite certain they've been at least slightly grain-managed). And of course, except if they screw it up, it seems like perfect movies to have HDR to support deeper shadow details.

[Roger Ryan]

I'm mostly just glad I can finally get rid of my Blu-ray set with the stupid booklet that doesn't fit inside the case

I actually took scissors to the booklet, carefully trimming the top and bottom so it would fit in the case!

[aox]

I'm mostly just glad I can finally get rid of my Blu-ray set with the stupid booklet that doesn't fit inside the case

I actually took scissors to the booklet, carefully trimming the top and bottom so it would fit in the case!

I had to do this as well.

[Stefan Andersson]

Ongoing discussion of the newest Godfather restoration (4 K/UHD), with the participation of Robert A. Harris:
https://www.hometheaterforum.com/commun ... hd.375086/

[Finch]

Caps-a-holic on the 4k of Part 1

[tenia]

Interesting to read Harris so casually saying the 2008 BDs were incorrectly graded with 1 extra point of red. Maybe my memory is faulty but I don't recall this having been pointed out then.

[Drucker]

But we don't yet have confirmation if the new set comes with remastered blu-rays, correct?

[aox]

Interesting to read Harris so casually saying the 2008 BDs were incorrectly graded with 1 extra point of red. Maybe my memory is faulty but I don't recall this having been pointed out then.

Agreed. In fact, I recall them at the time being touted as the gold standard for the handling of 1970s grain.

[Finch]

Part 2 caps a holics

check out cap 22 in particular.

[tenia]

Interesting to read Harris so casually saying the 2008 BDs were incorrectly graded with 1 extra point of red. Maybe my memory is faulty but I don't recall this having been pointed out then.

Agreed. In fact, I recall them at the time being touted as the gold standard for the handling of 1970s grain.

I can't say for the DCPs as I haven't seen them but I do recall a few people (including me) finding this claim a bit ludicrous for the BDs, as it was clear the grain wasn't as fine and precise as it should, and, well, the new caps-a-holic comparisons really aren't doing them any favor : not only the grain handling clearly wasn't that good, but the BDs' compressions were riddled with issues, including particularly egregious chroma issues.
I always thought these restorations (or at least their BD counterparts) weren't that good, and it seems like the new ones only show how improvable these actually were (and from what it seems, this isn't just a matter of having been able to find better elements for some shots).

[hearthesilence]

I thought the old BD's were pretty good, but I didn't think of them as the gold standard for various reasons.

The reissued film prints based on the same restoration looked great when I last saw them in 2009, though the only other 35mm print I've seen was a crappy one of the first movie struck before the restoration. (I remember it well because the opening scene was so milky and light, my immediate thought was "I wonder if this is how it's supposed to look instead of pitch black?" NOPE.)

[Finch]

Part 3 & Coda 4k caps are up now

[Finch]

Users in receipt of the new set have confirmed the Blu-Rays are also remastered.

[Drucker]

Is there a set that is dual-format? Or are there only two options: 4k+digital set and BD+digital set?

[tenia]

There doesn't seem to be one in the US except if you go with the collector set. There's a regular DF set in France though, which replaces the UHD-only set.

[Drucker]

Thank you. This one?

[tenia]

This one.
It's a digipack (with a slim outercase) with 9 discs (from what I gathered, it's basically a DF set for Godfather 1 / 2 / Coda, the UHD of the original cuts of the 3rd movie, the extra features BD, and then I suppose one of the original cuts of the 3rd movie on BD).

[andyli]

Part 3 & Coda 4k caps are up now

There is some blockiness here. Look at the sky and the buildings. The encode can definitely use some improvements.

[tenia]

It looks like the 2 cuts are offered via seamless branching but they still ended up with a quite lower AVB than the Coda cut, which isn't explained solely by their longer runtimes. Are there some extras on this UHD along with the 2 cuts ? Or are they that different ?
Paramount even had to go with a 48/16 track instead of a 48/24 to grab every Mbps they could.

[copen]

i can't find this info on the web.
in godfather part 1, i would maintain most of the scenes shot outdoors have dubbed voices by the actors. and the outdoor sounds (foley) are dubbed in as well. and there's a huge amount of foley, and voice overdubs going on in the indoor scenes. i guarantee that the sound effects people worked well beyond overtime on this movie. the whole situation is a bit surprising to me for a fairly big budget 1972 movie, and kind of/a little bit ruins the movie for me.

[hearthesilence]

i can't find this info on the web.
in godfather part 1, i would maintain most of the scenes shot outdoors have dubbed voices by the actors. and the outdoor sounds (foley) are dubbed in as well. and there's a huge amount of foley, and voice overdubs going on in the indoor scenes. i guarantee that the sound effects people worked well beyond overtime on this movie. the whole situation is a bit surprising to me for a fairly big budget 1972 movie, and kind of/a little bit ruins the movie for me.

I can't tell you how many times I'll notice this in older Hollywood movies. There's so many, I can't really single out examples, I'd have to keep a running tally and just post a list. The standards between then and now are just so different and this kind of thing was far more accepted. FWIW, It's even more apparent in Italian cinema because it was standard practice to overdub all dialogue after the fact - I think once someone accepts that and gets used to it, it no longer becomes bothersome. If anything, you can see the advantages to it, like allowing films to cast actors who can't speak Italian. (Visconti's The Leopard is a perfect example of this - it's one Burt Lancaster's greatest film performances, and yet he ultimately shares it with someone else because that's not his voice speaking the Italian dialogue.)

[Mr Sausage]

Tho’ this kind of thing works against the movie when an actor’s distinctive voice isn’t heard. Bava’s The Whip and the Body is marred by Christopher Lee’s rich baritone being replaced by a bland, toneless voice actor; and as Michael B has pointed out, the Italian dub of Fellini’s And the Ship Sails On loses Freddie Jones’ inimitable voice, an absence anyone familiar with the actor will feel every moment he’s on screen.

On the other end of this, while I try never to watch English dubs of Hong Kong films, I will if it’s a Jackie Chan film because often enough he’s dubbing his own lines, while he usually isn’t in the Chinese versions. And that voice for me is an inextricable part of the Jackie persona.

[copen]

they didn't have body microphones in 1972? i think that's what it all boils down to.
kubrick didn't have any problems like this in the previous year with clockwork orange. granted he didn't have a lot of big gatherings scenes in that movie.

and speaking of kubrick, see this post for a two hour 1987 kubrick audio interview
https://www.criterionforum.org/forum/vi ... 60#p810960