After reading through several threads over on Bluray.com forums, it seems that James Cameron now wants his older films to look a certain way.
If you didn’t know, new 4K presentations of Aliens, The Abyss and True Lies were released today on various digital platforms in the US.
Rather than simply perform 4K scans of the original negative like other transfers, Cameron has tweaked the picture, including the use of AI, to make the films look brand new.
The best way to describe this is by repeating a passage I saw on the discussion of Aliens.
I didn’t hate it. Part of the problem is there’s this cognitive dissidence with these new transfers. They’re too clean…but not waxy. They should be grainy, but they almost look digitally shot. They’re sharp but don’t look edge enhanced. It looks great. But it seems wrong… Color timing looked proper. Shadow detail was great. Blacks are deep without crush. The new 5.1 mix is a lot more active, you can tell it’s an Atmos downconvert. No, no new sounds have been added.
And there’s proof that AI tinkering doesn’t always work…
Generally, it sounds like True Lies is the weakest of the bunch (interestingly, the bonus features include interviews from 2012 which confirm a 2013 Blu-ray was prepared but never approved by Cameron) followed by Aliens and then The Abyss comes out on top relatively unscathed.
At the end of the day, it’s all down to personal preference. It’ll be interesting to read the reviews.
People are now wondering what the quality was like of previous scans. As I said, a Blu-ray looked to be ready in 2012 for True Lies (is that what Disney+ is using?) And of course The Abyss has appeared in HD on several streaming platforms albeit rather briefly (and are available on the high seas).