35mm makes CGI blend in so much better.

The 35mm film grain and color palette definitely helps blend the CGI better with everything else.

It’s crazy how much better a film looks when it’s not made to look like a movie shot digitally today.

Ok good, so I didn't dream that when I first saw the Phantom Menace it wasn't so damn BLUE. I have all these memories of the movie having a way more lifelike, colorful aesthetic.

Wow - the 35mm print looks so much more real!

It’s funny, some of these 4K shots look better in terms of color but some of the 35MM shots look better than the 4K.

All 35MM film should be archived and preserved at all costs!

6:24 look at Yoda's expression change from the CGI to the puppet 🤣

Me looking at the 4K: I don’t see that much of a change. Me looking at the OG: Oh my god! Yes! That’s it! That’s my childhood right there!

The 4K is cleaner, sharper, and has better colors, but the 35mm print has more detail. This is especially evident in every closeup of an actor. The grain removal process left their skin unnaturally flawless. For that matter, some of the detail is lost even in the CGI characters. For example, battle droids with scuffed paint in the 35mm print look like they just rolled off the assembly line in the 4K version.

TBH the 35 mm Prints looks better than 4K.

35mm looks incredible. Every frame is like a beautiful photograph

35 mm looks much better. Some color corrections could be done to improve it further, but the picture quality is miles better than the crappy 4K Blu-ray. Even the CGI characters look more real in 35mm thanks to the film grain and more muted/realistic colors...

I saw Phantom Menace in theaters when I was 6, and I always remembered the CGI in the movie looking way more lifelike than when I saw it again later as an adult. I had chalked it up to me being too young to remember properly, but now I'm convinced it properly looked better because of the film grain and color grading.

the 4k was DNR'd to death all detail is scrubbed so its waxy looking.

I found that the 35mm version reproduced more detail. 4k is missing fine detail.

Im 35 years old now and nothing can compare to the excitement of watching this on the day of release .... the excitement and the massiveness. Its unreal!! seeing both generations come together to see this at the time when the world was more real and pure!!! I cant explain it!!!!

Its amazing how beautiful and natural and just cinematic 35mm releases are. this hobby needs more releases like this of more films, should be a legitimate format just as dvd, bd...

Hello, I am a digital engineer/digital imaging technician in the Film Industry, so for what it's worth: -A lot of the baked in grain level, "green" color cast, and gamma levels are specific to this film print and not necessarily reflective of the actual DI grade. Not to mention the age of this print by the time it was scanned. So I don't think its fair to judge one color grade to the other. Lucas is notorious for completely re-grading his films during iterations of remasters, and I hate that too, but I'm not sure how much we can judge that from this print. -What is more telling is that whatever digital noise reduction tools were used for the 4K BluRay remaster clearly strip away a ton of fine details. Combine that with the digital sharpening, the end result might strip away film grain (which is an industry standard procedure) but it also makes the images look more sterile, plastic, and lifeless. Some of the frames of faces look like AI paintings. As others have mentioned, film grain is often used to help mask hard edges on CGI and other comp layers, blending the images better. Modern compositors rely on this less today, because both film and digital cinema cameras can produce native images with far less grain. Not to mention the tools to create digital compositions, CGI characters, etc have improved dramatically since the late 90s. -When you reach back in time to remaster something, you're removing one minor technical imperfection of the time, but trading that for major visual distractions that "break the 4th wall" or immersion in the story. It shows a tone deafness to what is important to world building and helping engross an audience; because that minor technical imperfection was a vital part of selling the digital elements (given the time & technological constraints of that era). -This feels very similar to Lucas' decision to insist on using the LaserDisc (or was it betatape?) master of Star Wars instead of the original archival film print. Now that 35mm prints of the original trilogy are surfacing and being scanned by fans with projects like 4K77, 4K80, 4K83, etc, they demonstrate the same theme: radical loss in quality going from an inferior old technology and trying to upscale to 4k, compared to taking the high quality prints as the definitive archival master. -Whenever a film print is scanned, denoise/degrain considerations are just a part of archival process. There is a way to do it respectfully while maintaining the integrity of the artistic vision & story. Phantom Menace goes way, WAY too far and becomes lifeless feeling, which is ultimately disengaging.

George: "The movie looked the way I made it, and I took that personally."

I am kind of annoyed by the digital noise reduction used for the 4K. Everything looks too waxy and smooth to an unrealistic degree which is weird since it was filmed in 35mm, and I think Revenge of the Sith looks better despite that movie being fixed at 2K for the 4K release.

4k....aka "Let's just blue shift everything". They did this with Terminator 2 as well.

6:24 "Shit, this edible ain't" 6:27 20 minutes later

Unpopular Opinion: I love the Theatrical Cut With the Yoda Puppet.

I do miss how in 35 the grain helped with the effects integration and the human characters didn’t look so pink

There’s just something about those old Arriflexes and Panavision Panifelxes. I feel like mid to late 90s we peaked at just the right sweet spot for how a beautiful image should look.

Damn i miss the 90's

4k has better colours, 35mm has better VFX integration

@people asking why the film looks so green. Film prints are made of chemicals, when it sits for 25 years the colours can skew and fade - they don’t stay pristine forever unless properly cold stored - which is usually reserved for camera negatives, not regular prints. Suffice it to say, it still may have had a green tint originally, you wouldn’t know unless you saw the lab notes when they originally made them. Even with the green I think the film looks a million times better. Would love to see 2 and 3 on 35mm prints and see if it makes them look less like a video game.

4K : Blue 1999 35 mm : brown

The grain of Real film will always win. Hands down

Fortunately for Lucas, the fact that he originally shot this on 35mm meant that he had the flexibility to make as many changes as he did.

in the future we're gonna get 4K99, 4K02, and 4K05. As original theatrical versions of the prequel trilogy.

Damn the CGI integration was so much better... Is there a 35mm version available somewhere ?

I totally had forgotten about how Yoda was puppet in the original cut.

This is why I will never get rid of my 2004 OT Box Set and 2005 Deluxe PT sets of DVDs. They are exactly as George intended them to be. Perfect in every way.

Keep in mind, this was one specific 35mm print. I saw it multiple times in the theater and I don't remember it looking that yellow...

The CGI characters including actors looked better in 35mm...upscaling it to 4k seemed to took it's great details.

It's criminal that Disney hasn't made a 35mm 4k version of the movie available. It was clearly not made to be seen with the artificial upscaling and color-correction. It needs that filmic grit that the originals had!

can't believe this movie is like 25 years old now. I grew up with these ones, and remember thinking how old the original trilogy was

What is blurays damn obsession with teal lol

To be honest, that 35mm film looks quite degraded. The whites & blacks are really, really off. As someone who saw the film in 1999, I don't think it appeared like that at the time.

Much prefer the 35mm. CGI looks better. Film looks grittier and less cartoon like. Blends better with the original theatrical version of New Hope, Empire and Jedi

phantom menace has such a weird neo-original trilogy vibe that II and III don't come close to replicating

35mm looks better in almost every shot. Really makes me wish I could find a film projection of the movie and experience it the way I did in 99. I'll never forget it. Not a perfect expierence though, because the film melted just as the ground battle was starting. The crowd was in an uproar lol. Thankfully, the projectionist had it repaired fairly quickly and the crowd responded with cheers. When I went back to see it two more times, there was a 10-20 second jump where the film had melted.

For those curious, If you have the bluray and a decent tv try changing the picture settings, some of them have a movie or film mode which can make huge differences.

The Battle of Naboo in the 4K is almost unwatchable, it's has so much blown out green and denoised visuals that it hurts my eyes. The 35mm really is the way I remember seeing it back in 1999.

Film grain should never be scrubbed from a film. Looking at you, Cameron!

Which 35mm scan is this from? Is it the 4k99 czech scan, or from a different source? If it is the Czech scan, how come it looks so crisp and green? The version I've seen is not this sharp and the grain is very soft.

As someone who owns the 2011 transfer and has seen the current 4K transfer in cinemas during its 3-day-rerelease... The Disney transfer is a major improvement over its predecessor. The colours, VFX and cinematography look much better than the unwarranted blue of the 2011 one. It actually looks less like a digital copy and more like an actual film IMO, and the industrial blues and earthy hues of the Droid control ship and Naboo come to life a lot better. However, the OG 35mm looks better than both with better integration of the CG, especially considering that The Phantom Menace was the last Star Wars movie to be shot on film until The Force Awakens 16 years later. Because of this, I feel that 4K99, a fanmade restoration of the original theatrical version in the vein of TeamNegative1's 4K projects using a Czech-dubbed print that was resynced with the English sound mix, is definitely the best looking version of the film available right now. However, the current Disney transfer comes second for me.

Back in 1999 we were still using incandescent lighting for pretty much everything which gave a yellowish tone. Since LED lighting became prevalent with it's super white light, that yellowish tint became a thing of the past. Basically, for a film to look "updated" they remove that yellow tint for that new white light look. Personally, I prefer the natural light look of incandescence.

The difference in Quality is most notably to me in the Mos Espa race motion blur on the ground. 4k looks like heavy antialiasing with no texture filtering, 35mm has all the detail even though the image is blurred which actually adds more "speed" to a static image.

My god. Imagine how "Clones" and "Sith" would have looked on 35mm film.

Man they really put no effort into the 4k releases

Just to point out, a lot of what people thought was CGI in this movie was actually (miniature) models. Like the Trade Federation ships, Republic Cruiser and Naboo fighters (in some shots).

I would love a version with the grain of the 35mm and the color grading somewhere in between the 4k and 35mm. The CGI of the 35mm film looks so much more realistic.

To bad that Disney uses the 4K master for theater. It didn’t look good at all on the big screen.

Just imagine a Project 4K ‘99.

If you want to achieve a similar look to the 35mm print at home, change your TVs colour temp to Warm/Warm 2. This best replicates how films look right off the film reel.

4k looks way better than 35mm. Nostalgia is crazy

I really need to get my hand on a dvd box set. When I was younger my parents had a box that was half of vaders mask and I used to find a lot of fun lining up the reflection so it made a full picture

I wish the team from the 4K77, 4K80, 4K83 projects get their hands on TPM as well. That film look got destroyed with the terrible remaster and upscale for the blu-rays releases

For the most part I prefer the 4K version, there are some 35mm shots that I like more but Phantom Menace was the only prequel shot on film so they clearly wanted to make it match the subsequent films. Having seen phantom menace in theaters and loving it, then trashing the prequels because obviously the original films are better, to now appreciating them for what they are I will gladly watch these again and forget Disney ever made 7,8, & 9.

It should be noted that this is the Czech print, even though it was in good condition, we aren't sure of what prints of TPM looked like in other countries, which could affect the color grade. Not to mention TPM would technically be only at 2K at most. Hope we can get another scan of this movie one day.

Where you get the 35mm version?

Now we need the 4K99 version.

This shows how important noise is in film (at least in 1999) to make (obvious) VFX shots less obvious

35mm actually looks better than what's shown here. 35mm can't be properly shown on TV screens ..People need to understand 4k Blu Ray isn't really 4k it's 2k. Not a fan of 4k Blu Ray . movies tend to get scanned and have film grain removed . Movies looked to be shot on video than film once the grain is removed . I'll stick to regular Blu Ray . The drastic changes usually are done when 4k disc are presented . More and more movies are looking worse in 4k because of the color grade is changed and the film grain is scrubbed to give a more modern look.

Where can one acquire this beauty!

I watched VHS tapes during all my childhood, then DVD came out and Ioved the sharpness and the widescreen formats, but shorlty after I missed the colors, the vibrancy of them. I dare to say most consumer video formats lose detail through convertion, encoding, etc. That´s something I miss from video tapes.

35mm looks way more stylistic. It brings nostalgia that the 4k remaster doesn't. But I gotta say that Darth Maul looks way cooler in 4k than in 35mm at 5:24. 4k makes the colors look way better but doesn't have the style and nostalgia.

Thank you for this! I recently put on The Phantom Menace on Disney+, and it kept bugging me because I didn’t remember the movie looking like it did. I remembered that The Phantom Menace out of the prequel trilogy, at least in color tone and grain, feeling more like the original trilogy. Now I know I’m not crazy!

I am seriously impressed at how much better the CGI looks on 35mm, especially the droidekas.

People in comments in have no idea 4k is NOT is focal length 😂😂😂 4k refers to pixel resolution 35mm refers to focal length (how wide or zoomed in the lens is) 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

I’m lucky enough to have the 35mm scan ❤️ I will cherish it forever

Maaaaan they really should have kept puppet Yoda

35mm with the 4K version's color grading would be the absolute ideal

All the precious film grain detail scrubbed away

35mm forever!

35mm looks much more natural and cgi looks more realistic, 4k has better coloring of special effects, otherwise dull and pastey looking.

I'm not saying I want him to be unalived, but when he's no longer with us I really hope they re-release the films again in uncut/un-edited and without this ugly color filter over them. These films, and we fans, deserves so much better.

The print is obviously a little too green in places, but the texture is so much nicer.

5:10 "10 lbs of Amazing, way to go, me!" -- Maul on his big entrance for a Brisk ad For the Phantom menace in glorious 3D (2012)

This is so heartbreaking it goes from the official 4K wax figure looking skin to perfect pristine 35 mm just imagine what could have been stupid Disney !

35mm all the way!!!!

The warmth. This is how I remember it.

The movie looks so much nicer in 35mm. They removed the color grading and yellow tint the movie used to have and upped the saturation too much then lowered the brightness. What they did is like turning up the colors on an Xbox 360 game and then lowering the brightness. It looks more colorful at a glance, but intricate details like scratches and start to get lost and disappear as a result of the over corrections to make the movie appear as if it’s more vibrant than it actually is.

A lot of these 35mm shots look like very well known promo pics from magazines and websites, like a lot of them. You sure there from a print?

Kind of reminds me that the prequels all ROCKED ON RELEASE. Jarjar was funny as hell in the theatre, the attack of the clones was incredible, and revenge of the sith was the most dramatic love story ever told. They only take a hit if you watch them critically, by yourself, alone.

And this is why we keep our VHS and DVD players still.

The 35 looks more real while the 4k has stronger colors

The color space is light years better than the horrible singular color of the 4K presentation. The greys on 35mm are preserved in their correct color where the 4K replaces its greys with harsh blues. Why Disney decided to ruin the color is a baffling mystery to me.

The 35 mm shots all have kind of a green faded look to them. I personally prefer the more natural colors of the 4K Blu-ray.

In some cases the 4K looks better, in some cases the 35mm looks better. It's about neutral color balance.

The older version i feel like blends everything together so much better, it makes the stuff look like it was all filmed in person, even the CGI. Whereas the new one everything looks too clean and bright, even the real props almost look fake.

Bluray colour is awful

I think the 4K version is better. The original has an ugly yellow wash.

It's like peeling away a layer of plastic. Kinda satisfying to watch.

That green tinting needs to be graded. The film never looked like that. It is because of aging film.

The green filter sucks but it made the movie feel real somehow