Next, watch my recent video on ‘movie collecting burnout’ - kzfaq.info/get/bejne/pZOCftdj1ce3fKM.html

When a film is made & signed off as "done", that is the movie! Any alterations to the movie for physical or digital release must be identified as such with a clearly seen disclaimer. That disclaimer should be a standardized list that reveals: "Scenes removed", "Scenes replaced", "Scenes altered", "DNR applied", "A.I. utilized for changes" , "Audio alterations (with specifics listed)", etc. The original that was signed off as "done" must be preserved permanently as the original & never be discarded because it will forever be "The original"! - My opinion.

I love the idea of having 2 versions. An original version disc and a new "remastered" version disc. Maybe in the same set or not. That'd be cool.

Thanks Elliot. Yes. You said it right away. Film preservation. This is why they go back and scan the original negative or the next best thing to get the best results as possible from the elements. This is digital revisionism. Its not restoration or preservation. The release of these 3 Jim Cameron movies also made people start to ponder "are we taking the 4k format too seriously?" Well... are we not supposed to hold this new and amazing format to a standard? Thats what its all about. Revisionism is going to divide people sure. But dont tell me (not you) that i cannot have an opinion on the matter and have standards that should be followed. Because thats what it feels like some of these YT channels are saying.

Coming soon will be Peter Jackson’s butchery of ‘Bad Taste’, ‘Meet the Feebles’, and ‘Braindead’. In 2018 he released ‘They Shall Not Grow Old’ which modernized WWI footage and even then, he was talking about running his earlier films through that software. I don’t think there’s much chance he won’t mess those up. 😒

It's about what James Cameron wants, not us. We are just the little people who made him a billionaire.

First of all, these are NOT restorations.

mature and rational take, Elliot. The real detail was captured at the time of filming and lives on the negatives. That's what I like to see in a good transfer. 30 years later it's ok for AI/computer software to redefine how it looks? That's bogus.

I love Siskel and Ebert reviews. I go on KZfaq all the time and watch them. They once blasted colorization of old black and white movies on TV, and for good reason. I believe some of what we are seeing is somewhat like that.

Same with comic books, the original comics exist (and certainly more accessible than the original films) but Marvel and DC etc have done a lot of restoration on their comics so the comics are cleaner, lines tweaked etc and probably in the future, these will be the versions that people will see and probably not the original comics as they decay or just become too expensive to look at. Marvel / DC etc own the comics and they can do what they want with the material. I would love to see the cleaned version + the original scan of a good comic; much the same with the films where the 'new' director cut version is available combined with the original theatrical release in a decent enough form with scratches and imperfections etc. Some sets seem to do that, it would be nice if most did.

Preach it Elliot! As someone that actually shoots film (mostly photography) I die a little inside when I see people saying they don’t like grain - particularly in reference to these Cameron restorations. Film grain is the equivalent to digital pixels. All the detail in a frame is inherently tied to the grain. When they scrub it it’s like hitting the blur tool on all your pixels so that all their unique details are lost. If you want your movies to look like wax you can turn your TVs digital smoothing on and let the rest of us enjoy the glory of film grain.

Your point about whether a film belongs to the artist or the viewer is an interesting one, because in so many behind-the-scenes stories and interviews I've heard directors complain about (excessive) film grain. It was something they were battling against, trying to minimize it, trying to get rid of it. Especially when the filmmakers were forced to use lesser quality film stock, as was the case with Aliens. So I can absolutely understand why Cameron would want to get rid of the grain that must've been bugging him from the beginning. The love of grain is more something you see with the film fans and younger filmmakers who grew up watching old (grainy) films. So who is right? I honestly don't think there's a correct answer. In an ideal world we'd preserve movies in an original state as a companion to any altered version a director might prefer, but with so many films out there and storage space costly that's hardly a feasible option. In the end it is the filmmakers who decide what their restorations are going to look like, so the film fan might just have to simply contend with that. Hold on to older physical media releases with a good transfer if you can, to at least preserve something of the original look. As an aside, I've been happily watching my Aliens blu-ray for many years now without realizing how different that one looks from the original. That is, until I saw the comparisons that have been popping up everywhere of the different transfers the movie's had over the years. The blu-ray is so teal!

This situation reminds of when the World of Wong Kar Wai boxset came out and he’d changed a couple of films aspect ratios and changed the ending of fallen angels back into colour. It’s a really interesting discussion and I feel like i’m somewhere in the middle that a filmmaker should have the freedom to update their films if they’d like to but for preservation sake we should always have access to the theatrical versions.

I'm glad you brought up Lucas. I feel like the fan base on these releases are split. Maybe some do like the SW SEs, I dunno. But, now, you can find 4K versions of the original trilogy on the torrents. Some people who found an original print and took it on themselves to scan at 4K and clean it up best as possible (perhaps using some AI based software in post). I hope that happens with Aliens and True Lies.

Thank you! Some other KZfaqrs have disappointed me for dismissing the valid and necessary critics these remasters have received. I knew you wouldn't disappoint. For me DNR is a sin but pairing it with AI is like exchanging the whole filmed picture for a cheap "animated" copy drawn by a talentless computer. If these remasters have success, studios will stop restoring films properly and AI upscaling and heavy DNR will be the rule from now on... That would be the end of movies for me.

I had 'True Lies' on pre-order, but after some disquiet from early reviewers I cancelled. I love the 'True Lies' movie (and the original version 'La Totale!') but will keep my original Region 1 DVD and, until a proper faithful restoration from the camera negative is done, I will avoid the 2024 4K UHD. Frank Tarzi and team at Kino Lorber have done fantastic work on the early works of Stanley Kubrick and I consider those 4K UHD discs proper restorations and should be seen as the benchmark for the future.

Hi Elliot, hope you and your family are well. I bought all 3 and have only watched The Abyss. We really enjoyed it and thought it looked good blown up to 150". It seems to me that James Cameron is more interested in technology and profits than restoration. The idea that two versions would be released into a niche market is a little pie in the sky. Overall, I'm glad to have the films. I'd prefer if they were authentic restorations. However, I last saw Aliens and The Abyss in a theater many many years ago and could not objectively compare.

Thanks for a very good youtube channel. Very important topic you address, film preservation. All the best from Malmö, Sweden.

I just think when you see a quality 4k restoration grain and all it can still look as amazing as a brand new movie. The new release of The Crow is a case in point. Jim Cameron is setting a dangerous precedent here for sure! I personally hate to idea that it will be harder and harder to find the "original" version of a movie as time goes on. And the more things are tweaked with ai, what we are seeing isn't even real anymore. What's the point?! I want to see real film making, not something sewn up with an algorithm.

I totally agree, I am absolutely shocked on what has been done to these films. The new 4K discs of the Cameron movies have nothing to do with good restoration. It’s lazy and poor work. For True Lies or the Abyss there are no good alternatives, so we are forced to accept these new 4K Masterings if we want to watch it on a high quality format. I will cover & review the individual discs on my channel as well. Thank you for your video. It’s important to be verbal about this. All the best Dennis

The Abyss looks amazing. I genuinely can't imagine it looking any better than it does now.

I’d have loved a two disc set with a 4k upgrade on one disc that had no digital retouching. I’m gonna give these a miss.

Film is art. Films should be restored to persevere the original look of how they were shot and projected. Image restoring a Picasso or Vermeer with modern paints changing the original colours.

When you talk about "preservation" should we get rid of DTS Mastering and Atmos audio tracks for films as well? Both these and HDR/Dolby Vision on the video side is not getting the film back to where it WAS. It's using modern technology to improve the film beyond what it ever could have been when it first came out. Those are also changing the viewing experience from the original just as cleaning up chonky grain is. And if done smartly.. and not overbearingly (which these were not, IMO) I'm good.

I'm not sure if a 4K release is necessarily ALWAYS going to be the FINAL restoration work for EVERY film though. Take Showgirls for example, it was given a 4K release from Capelight. But then it was later given a new 4K restoration and release from Vinegar Syndrome.

Thankfully The Abyss is nowhere near as bad as either True Lies or Aliens :-)

The 4K 77 Star Wars Project is a prime example of what should be done to officially archive all films. Note that HDR processing isn’t necessary to achieve accurate and brilliant results. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/nd9yfqmSupu-e4U.htmlsi=s-8dtgLhl5kJu_7A

For what it’s worth, I think the 4K disc of Aliens looks stunning. I love it. I prefer a crisp, clean image. Never liked grain.

I'm perfectly satisfied with The Abyss. Just glad to get anything over the DVD. In this case, beggars can't be choosers imo.

I read an article about Once Upon a Time in West in 4k that says it's plagued with DNR. May be not as bad as Cameron fims but something like Picnic on Hanging Rock. Does anyone has any further information?

Totally agree with you. We need these films re-released without the digital cleansing. Same with the OT Star Wars trilogy

Good way to tackle this topic. Agree with you fully. I also think at the moment there is a lot of opining on the topic regarding HDR and colour (e.g. with Three Colours release about a year ago) and generally what things should or shouldn't look like, how much they should match what was shown in cinemas etc. But we movie collectors as a whole don't have a good understanding of the topic, I think this needs years of research and hopefully in a decade we can discuss much more rationally about the subject. I would like to understand why I think the Shameless release of The Laughing Woman looks more natural to me than the Mondo Macabro release. It just does and I don't exactly know why (I also haven't gone and analyzed the image with a vectorscope or something like that). I'm also somewhat colour blind (less red cones I think, on the other hand I seem to be more sensitive to blue than most people) so that complicates things further for me. What my current thoughts are that even if the audience in the cinemas originally never saw the sharpness and detail we are seeing from OCN scans, I think that's what we want to see now in our homes, whenever possible. Even if it reveals special effects work that would have been hidden in theatres at the time. But the colour grades seem to be a lot more subjective area. I don't understand if there even can be an authority on this and is there a lot that depends on what exact timing process was used originally.

I object not just to the failure to present these movies in a "truthful" way, but also to the utter laziness of it all. Not even doing proper 4K scans of the source material, but instead using an ancient 2K scan and then applying bogus AI on it to upscale it, and then putting that on a disc seemingly without checking the result. In another KZfaqr's video about the True Lies restoration they showed a clip where Charlton Heston's character has a lanyard with an ID badge, and some light flashes across it. Except the AI couldn't handle that, and instead his photo on that badge starts to morph and becomes garbled. It's so obvious, and yet this wasn't caught? If Cameron isn't interested in preserving this -- which he seemingly isn't considering he apparently didn't care to work on these movies for 20+ years -- then why doesn't he hand it over to people who do care. He even fumbled the 4K release of Titanic by using an ancient master that was made for the 3D re-release; astonishingly the released version is missing several lines of dialogue! Which BTW almost happened with Aliens as well, except someone saw the movie last year when it was re-released in theatres and noticed the error, told this to Bill Hunt from the website The Digital Bits, and he communicated it to the studio who then corrected that error in time. And with Aliens, at least there are existing Blu-ray releases (which have their own flaws). But that's not the case for True Lies and The Abyss! A boutique Blu-ray label spent a lot of time and effort into restoring The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, a movie filmed on a shoestring budget with not great film stock, and it looks awesome. Meanwhile Cameron, a man who has several movies that generated more than a billion dollars, cannot be bothered to spend time and money and effort on properly curating several movies which are considered classics of the genre.

I think that the MOST important thing is that we FINALLY have True Lies and The Abyss on an actual high-quality format, and NOT stuck on crummy DVD any more (even if the 4K transfers are less than ideal and have issues, I still think this is FAR better than DVD) edit: although yeah I know unfortunately The Abyss 4K was cancelled in the UK

Disclaimer that I haven’t seen either of these 4Ks first of all and that I can’t imagine the work that goes into any film master, 4K or otherwise. While I’ll always be in the camp of “the director (or other main creative force) behind a film has the right to do what they want”, I really can’t understand why Cameron would use digital trickery to augment what is essentially an “analog” film. If it was filmed digitally, then use all the digital trickery you want to augment it, as that’s what is probably best to use on a digital file. If a film was originally filmed on film, though, I fail to see how digital methods would be better at remastering it than going back to its original analog elements and remastering it in an “analog” way.

I appreciate your discussion. I am going to keep my Aliens Blu-ray. I am stuck with Abyss and True Lies. I didn’t think the Abyss was that bad. It’s the best we have as I don’t have the ancient DVD. I think it’s his film and he can present it as he wants it shown. I don’t like it and he’s not the only one. I am sitting down now to watch American Graffiti on Blu-ray because the 4K got terrible reviews. Lucas does the same thing too! I guess it’s what we are stuck with and as consumers we can not buy it.

True Lies had a little uncanny valley effect, but Aliens looks fantastic. Gave me a sense of seeing a film I adore with new eyes.

I am in the camp that I don't think directors should add or remove stuff or try to re-make effects later, or if they do the original should always be on offer alongside the new version. As far as film grain and colour stuff is concerned I don't really know enough or care enough. There are of course examples of when colour-grading have gone way to far in some direction, but as for some weeks here and there, I'm not going to notice or remember exactly how it looked the first time I saw it however many years ago, and who's to say the old DVDs or Blu-Rays were more true if that's what you are comparing to? And I don't mind film grain, but I also don't miss it when it's not there as long as the image don't have any clear issues with scrubbing damage. Purists like film grain because it was part of the original experience, but if they could have gotten a crystal clear image on film, or if 4K HD digital cameras had been invented 100 years ago, most people would not have wanted any grain in their images. I think it is far more important that the movies themselves are available and that the original versions are being kept and made publicly available, than it is debating all the super fine details. I haven't seen either True Lies or Aliens in these new editions yet, though I absolutely loved The Abyss that I saw yesterday. You probably wouldn't like it, cause it did look like it was shot this year, but achieving that and still keeping the feel of the original movie and still feeling like you are watching a late 80s movie without being taken out of it (at least not me) is it's own achievement.

The general Public have gone through this with Spielberg and Lucas. George Lucas once went to Congress to argue against Colouring Black and White Movies, yet look how he treated the Star Wars Trilogy.

Waiting for the Aliens grain cut

I watched ‘Aliens’ on 4K a few days ago and was hoping just a few people being fussy. It’s not. It’s noticeable and distracting. Worse than the grain removal is what you called “edge enhancement”. It looks like that "Sharpen" filter in photo editing software. It doesn’t look good for an 80’s film but it would even look wrong on a 2024 movie shot digitally.

A very interesting topic indeed!!! I would love to see a survey on whether people prefer the automatic look of a film like myself or manipulated like Aliens & True lies etc. Also love to know what James Cameron thinks about that. Or even better a discussion between him and Christopher Nola on this subject.

Your evaluation is absolutely spot on. Cameron is one of my favorite directors but it is very disappointing how he has chosen NOT to respect the limitations of the original elements. In the commentary of Aliens, he complained about the emulsion of the Kodak stock he used when shooting in 1985 and how grainy it made the picture look. Well, too bad, it created a certain look, and he should have accepted it - as part of the film’s history. Robert Harris is calling these revisions “revisualizations” and not restorations in any way. They apparently didn’t even need to go to the original negative because they just touched up the already existing digital intermediate with AI tools. It is a bizarre choice. True Lies is the worst looking offender. It is difficult to understand why he didn’t see how unnatural it looks.

Thanks for the heads up. I would not have even suspected a director would want to do this. I won't be bothering to buy either of these on 4K. George Lucas & James Cameron please stop fiddling with classic or for that matter any films. Your idea of two versions might be a good solution.

Glad you understand. Seeing so many people blindly buying and praising these, it's like the loudness wars for music all over again. Film should look like film.

I agree there should be a version with the original color timing and grain!

Bought and watched The Abyss 4k yesterday and was really disappointed with the image. It looked completely smoothed out, overly sharp and at the same time lacking in detail. I also thought the highlights were blown out a lot of the time. Not a natural looking image at all. And by removing the grain and trying to make the film look digital, they also removed the atmosphere of the film. A shame.

I agree with preservation of the original works (ergo Star Wars situation) but i also in alot of ways agree with the artist wanting to update or reinvent thier works. All i ask is that the original remains preserved and available. Plus no one is taking my other copies of the movies i have and for those who haven't seen those versions they wont know any different.

This is a very interesting topic to me, and I find myself somewhat ambivalent, with no strong opinion one way or the other. I am traditionally a grain lover, and grew up in the 1980's, watching movies with tons of grain, either at home on VHS or in the theater with the hazy flickering projectors. And nowadays, my favorite 4K discs have been those that preserve the look of the original film, a la Alien. However, having recently watched the 4K of Aliens, to my surprise, I actually really enjoyed it, and did not find the look to be too "artificial" or "digital." I popped in the 2011 blu-ray of Aliens right after having watched the 4K, in order to compare the two, and, despite there being a smidge more grain on the blu-ray, there was not nearly as much detail in the image and the colors and blacks and whites were much more washed out. I strongly prefer the 4K over the blu-ray. Anyways, I don't think Cameron will set some kind of precedent that will take over the entire film industry going forward with 4K releases, as there are plenty of filmmakers out there who don't want their films to be manipulated by AI to look sharper and more digital. I suspect there may be a few directors who follow Cameron's lead, but not many. This whole thing has been blown out of proportion, imo, but what do I know? I'm far from an expert and I'm not really a die hard "film purist," I guess. It's up to each individual director in terms of how they want to present their films. Changing the content of the films is a whole other topic--Star Wars special editions being the most egregious example. If a filmmaker is going to do that, then they should at least preserve the original version and make it available to the public alongside the new version or director's cut, or whatever they want to call it.

From what ive heard, the studio let the original negative for True Lies fall apart in their vault. He didnt have a lot better sources to work with. So.. .

I tend to disapprove of old films having Dolby Atmos implemented. It might sound nifty; but that's not the way the filmmakers intended it to sound. The good news though, is that you almost always have the option of turning it on or off. And even though I detest colorizatiion of black and white films; once again the original black and white versions have still been available. However, what Cameron and Lucas have done, is a tragedy and saddens me deeply. And there's no going back.

The Abyss and Aliens look superb on my 12ft wide screen. Anyone who has a problem with the visual quality of these is using either poor equipment or poor settings on their equipment.

I personally don't care what James Cameron does with his films; I have Aliens in the Alien Anthology on Bluray and that's fine for me: the film in this series I really wanted looks simply stunning on 4k, treated as it should be! No, for me, the problem is the precedent this sets for studios who care more about the bottomline than art; to me, the risk here is that other studios see that even though Cameron basically ruined the films, they sell like hot-cakes and I assume that the process he used with AI a.s.o. was cheaper than how Ridley Scott treated Alien, so they are making more money per unit sold. GREAT news for the beancounters!! So even though I wasn't going to buy thse films anyway, next time that AI and scrubbing is used on a film I DO want and I'll be angry!!! And as you say; the preservtion aspect is important and he's ruining the films. Imagine if someone decided to make van Gogh's paintings look "better" and "more modern" by having someone add some smoother, longer strokes of oil paint on the originals; I'm sure that would go down really well... I. Am. NOT. comparing Cameron and van Gogh (laughable!) but you get the idea.

Not sure if you've seen the Rocky IV 4K; the image on director's cut was heavily processed to look more clean/modern, the theatrical cut retained the film grain to likely match the original presentation. That's what I would really like see with Aliens. It should be hard anyone to disagree with your thoughts on this issue.

I do not have enough thumbs to indicate how much I agree with your statements Elliot.

I don't have a problem with directors changing things, and I even like the idea of making what's actually already there better, but what I don't like is the idea of losing the original.

I was able to pick up all three movies for less than $15 apiece through my Disney club subscription and I’ve only watched aliens so far but it looks OK to me, definitely not the worst 4K I’ve seen but far from the best, I would say it’s worth 3:14 sure both of those movies will look the same, if not better than aliens, people let’s be thankful we have high-quality copies of these older movies. Do I wish somebody like Vinegar Syndrome or arrow video would have the rights to properly remastered these movies, but we all know that will never happen. Lets be thankful we have these movies in 4K at all? I know I am.

Evening Elliott, very good vid,ive watched Aliens 4k and I'm actually happy with it,it does have a few scenes which look a little too smooth but overall i enjoyed watching it again....i know True Lies is supposed to be the worst of the 3 with The Abyss being the best ,but these are probably going to be best we'll ever get them unless someone like Second Sight are allowed to work their magic.

A very interesting video Elliot thanks as always. IMO the issue hinges on what you mean by "authentic " or if this really has meaning or value. The reality was you could only originally see a movie at your local cinema as projection of a copy on film. Probably the projection equipment was fairly basic and of a 35mm print, not a super high quality 70mm print. The resolution, brightness and contrast were dictated by many factors and were probably quite poor. Or maybe you only saw it on SD TV where it was "butchered" to fit. Or on DVD. Then regarding HDR I can't see how this could ever be "authentic" if your definition of this is "how it was when released" since the tech to do this even in the cinema didn't exist. Cameron has also said for Aliens the film stock was substandard and over grainy (new stock subsequently withdrawn presumably because it was a bit crap). So the original look was not his intent anyway. I don't buy grainy being positive in any form really- my personal opinion of course. A "gold standard " preservation/ authentic 4k like Lawrence of Arabia IMO still looks pretty terrible in some parts with "buzzing" grain in skies especially that to my eye looks pretty horrid. Regardless it's "authentic ". A big topic with no right answer tho as you say. My tuppence 😁

I saw these films when they were released in theaters and haven't cared too much about them since. I was only interested in watching THE ABYSS again. I found the look of this 4K disc improved for me by converting it to sdr and projecting it in 1080p. If I ever watch TITANIC, which is usually only if friends want to screen it, I prefer to show it in 3D, which only enhances the silly artificiality of the film for the better. I've seen the TRUE LIES Spanish blu-ray, which looks like it was mastered from the old HD-VHS master, and is maybe a better version for those who can't tolerate the new 4K disc, which I've yet to see since it's probably my least favorite of Cameron's movies after AVATAR 1 and 2.

Extemporaneous but very well spoken Elliot. I agree with you completely.

Exactly True Lies, Aliens and The Abyss are not Modern Movies and this is why i will not gonna get those 4Ks from James Cameron if anybody is happy with this more Power to you but to me is a No-Go because i grew up with those Movies and don't wanna see them like some kind of a Avatar Movie but hey that's just my Opinion.

The biggest disappointing part of this new Aliens 4K is the total lack of LFE channel. I had to check to see if my subs were even on or working properly. I switched my Alien 4K copy for one of my older blu ray Aliens and sure enough, the LFE channel was stronger with the blu ray version. I suspect anything coming from Disney/Buena Vista has a different focus on LFE channels.

Very few directors have the luxury of going back and adjusting/overhauling their films. Coppola recently changed the ending to Godfather 3, but he didn't change the look of the film from the original release. Cameron seems to have a frustration (contempt?) for fans of his earlier work. It's almost as if he doesn't want to be bothered by remastering his previous work. For someone who came of age in the 70's and generally loved the look of that era's films, l find the 'immediacy of the look of modern films' annoying. Everything looks like it has been shot for television. There doesn't seem to be any separation between the viewer and the action onscreen. I find that a negative when viewing modern films. But that is just me. Well-placed fog filters rule!

I am like you Elliot firmly in the negative camp on these releases. When they were first announced I had low expectations given Cameron's record with T2 and his hatred of grain and unfortunately what I feared became a reality. I know there are plenty waxing lyrical about these releases saying how good they look but they look too pristine and in many places look like digital video footage instead of film. Each to his own but I will be sticking with my blu-rays. My worry is if it becomes the norm to use this destructive process on other older films.

Thank you for this well articulated and important message

Thanks Elliot. Great video.

I love you for making this video. Yep I agree and these were exactly my thoughts as well and what I have been saying. The other thing is is that we 100% do NOT want to see other films or 4ks or studios utilising this "Remastering" process in the future. Because Studios and Labels might even jump at the chance to use them because this process would be way cheaper to just upscale an old master and 'clean' it up rather than do a new scan and proper restoration or remaster. That is one hell of a scary thought. These Cameron releases have opened up a dark path that if we are not careful we will head down and film restoration could become a thing of the past where the general consumers will gorge on their AI Upscaled DVD masters in streaming. That could happen, especially as we hear rumors that more 20th Century catalog movies might fall to this fate. If we finally get a 4k UHD release of The Fly (1986) and it is just AI Upscaled from the old master then there will be hell to PAY!

I watched a True Lies comparison video by LE LABO DE JAY and it shocked me to my core. He basically uncovered that the original film hat soft focus on many shots and this 4K revisal tries to sharpen that with awful results. So Cameron is trying to fix 30 year old errors that originated on set.

Jim Cameron's Aliens, True lies etc. 4K release isn't restoration, it's a revisioning, it's how JC would've have liked his films to have looked, if it wasn't for the limitations of film stock back in the day. I've watched this film in Cinemas, Vhs , bluray, and now 4k and tbh i've never seen it looking so good. It's a bit of slap in the face to start of with, if your use to the old transfers of aliens, but i think they've done a fantastic job on this 4k. I get it that people like the grundgy grainy feel of the original film transfer. But if thats the case you would just get the version you prefer. I've just looked at the reviews on Amazon uk and 74% have given it 5 stars reviews, mainly on picture quality. So what does that say, 74 % of people who bought Aliens are wrong, or that the negative reviews of this 4k are generated by pissed off elitists? Idk, i'm just grateful i've now got a physical 4k copy of a a film i love,.

As much as I’m not a fan of these revisionist restorations, to the argument about “who owns a work of art”, the answer is “the artist”. Unless it’s entered public domain, and unless it was a specifically commissioned piece, the artist owns the rights and intellectual property of their art. Which means James Cameron has the ultimate say on how his art is presented. Wether we like that or not. The guy clearly hates film, he specifically mentions how much he dislikes the grain in Aliens on the commentary track, and he’s obviously very invested in digital and CG. He also says in the commentary that a lot of the Alien Queen stuff could be done easier nowadays with CGI, like it would be preferable! The reality is, this is what we’re going to get with a restoration overseen by Cameron himself. I expect the 4K of The Terminator to have the same levels of digital revisionism, and no amount of complaining is going to change his mind. He thinks it looks better, so that’s what we’re going to get. Best we can do is just not buy them if we don’t like them.

I wonder how James Cameron would feel if one of his favourite movies he grew up watching as a kid let's say for example an old black and white movie like Psycho was tinkered and meddled with (colourised) with the approval of Alfred Hitchcock. Would he mind or would he be angry with the filmmaker for agreeing to the alteration.

I’ve watched the Abyss and True Lies so far. Aliens is in my watch pile. I enjoyed the movies but understand what you are saying about the JC changes made. Not everyone’s cup of tea. T2 in 4k was absolutely terrible and I hear getting a welcome re-do later this year. Hopefully T2 and the original Terminator 4k re releases will be more in line with the original versions. It would be interesting to hear what JC has to say on the subject. He must know as it’s all over the internet.

I understand grain, and I prefer watching my 4K movies through my bulb projector, not on a digital TV. However, I'm more forgiving with sci-fi films. I bought both 4K films and have watched Aliens so far, with the extra minutes added. I loved it. I'm in the positive camp.

I dunno. I remember my old worn out VHS looked subpar in comparison when I got the Aliens on DVD. It also looked better on an HD screen and a lot cleaner. Just technology changing. That said, I'd love to have options to see the original cut (as released theatrically) with the fancy new bells and whistles edition that James Cameron is happier with.

Not too much to add other than I got to see Aliens the way it was intended to look; at a movie theater in Memphis, Tennessee in September, 1986. I have a very good memory for details.

If it wasn't the original director changing them, I would have a problem. But this is his vision and I'm OK with that.

Have you heard of the online community that restored the Star Wars films? They also do other films, such as Cameron’s.. worth seeking out as a lover of film 🎞️

11:43 11:43 Hopefully places around the world like the BFI will be storing original stock copies of most films and even some James Cameron films. In that way it will preserve many of the original aliments of the Wonderful old 35 and 70mm prints. At least until they fade away but can we not make copies of them without the directors consent ?.

There's also The Abyss which I just got, after waiting for 10 years for a BluRay release, and it looks fantastic! It doesn't seem to have quite the issue you seem to have with True Lies and Aliens.

I absolutely loved Aliens in 4K disc I kept my blu ray for the best “original” look

Its ironic that James Cameron has come to embrace the ideology of Skynet.

I bought all 3 Cameron films from the US (and in fact not long ago Titanic on 4k also) and I have to agree with you Elliot. I think Titanic looks great and feels like it authentically reflects its original vision, and to a large degree The Abyss also looks pretty decent, some outdoor scenes aside. But unfortunately I was quite disappointed with Aliens and particularly True Lies. I have heard some supposed explanations about source material issues for True Lies so who knows but even so I feel they could have still tried to make it look less artificial/digital surely ? And Aliens....it's totally lost its "gritty war film" look and feel and is just way way too clean for my liking. It doesn't work for me and sadly I think I prefer the older Blu ray and will continue to watch that and will probably never watch the Aliens 4k disc again. I'm sure there will be plenty who like this "clean modern digital look" but I'm not one of those people and like you Elliot I'm not a fan of film revisionsm. I prefer the authentic original look and feel and organic filmic qualities to be preserved. Or include both versions as you've suggested and that will then please everyone. I'm not a big fan of "modern James Cameron" and his approach/views on filmmaking based on the minimal things I've seen/read and I much prefer the way he went about things back in his classic years. Avatar is ok but does not really overly excite me and I certainly can't imagine having to sit though 7 of the bloody things or whatever number of Avatar films Cameron is planning to make. Having said all that I feel Avatar gives Cameron plenty of scope to play around with the modern clean digital look but I really think he should have held back a bit on these legacy restorations. People will have varied opinions on this but personally I don't think a director necessarily "owns" a film they make. Once it's out in the public domain and has a rabid fanbase I think the creator (Cameron in this case) need to respect the fandom and the reasons why that film became so successful and stay true to preserving that original vision that made that film successful and which also made HIM as a director successful. I put Lucas in the same category though his revisionism is of a slightly different nature. Jackson also did this with LotR 4k and wanted a clean digital look to match the Hobbit. Fortunately that 4k LotR set although problematic is mostly very good compared to Aliens and True Lies. Sometimes I think the ego"s of these directors makes them tend to forget about the fans and what made them successful in the first place and get totally drunk on the smell of their own farts. Obviously we don't know the full story on these "restorations" from Camerons perspective so I am of course putting some of my own musings and speculative thinking across that perspective and I would certainly like to hear from Cameron himself so we can fully understand why these ended up looking as they do. For the most part the view seems negative and controversial so you have to wonder how they would not have predicted such blatant revisionism wouldn't have caused a lot of potential negative feedback and why they'd want to subject themselves to such hassle. Maybe Cameron just doesn't give a crap what anyone else thinks and fully believes they ARE his films and he can do whatever the hell he wants to satisfy himself and HIS vision. Though I daresay given the significance in the different look and feel that this was NOT his original vision back then and he has changed that within his own mind over time. I think it's a fine line and quite risky to mess with established art especially in the pop culture space. I wish they simply wouldn't go down such paths and fortunately in MOST cases we do get authentic and organic filmic looking 4k restorations but its just frustrating that such significant films of my younger years happen to be the victim in this case and I just wish more care would be taken to focus on how the fanbase will react to purposely changing things significantly. If there are source material limitations which are unavoidable that's a different story but I feel like with Aliens particularly that doesn't seem to have been the case and it was a conscious (and IMHO jarring) choice to "pretty it up". Just ..why? Why was it necessary? It just makes no sense to me. Maybe True Lies was a different story in terms of poor source material but who knows. Anyway... At the end of the day these are the versions we are stuck with as the latest and greatest but at least I still have my Alien Quadrilogy Blu ray set to fall back on as well as my Trie Lies DVD. For those that like how these look, no problem. I'm glad you enjoy them and each to their own. But for me personally they are quite disappointing. Oh well. You can't win them all and at least 98 per cent of stuff coming out tends to look great these days so overall as physical media collectors we are still winning!

“ Hello dear viewer” :)

Now go tell this to George Lucas

I agree with everything you have says but saying that. The movie has already been altered by HDR which wasn't in the original movie. But I do believe these movies have been altered for a new younger audience. That I've grown up with video games. With that clean bright sharp image

I get where you are coming from , I would have loved a proper film restoration ( like alien) however I knew going in what Cameron does to his films. I think (with his intention deliverled) that both alien and the abyss looked and sounds great , like an alternative edition, I still have the blu ray for aliens if I want to re visit the original. True lies however was a mess , traded that in.

I'm not some kind of movie purist who believes that a revised version of a film has to look as close to the original release as possible: look better but also somehow not "too" much better - newer looking, but not too much newer looking. There's a lot of grey area there for people to agree and disagree on. So my only real criteria for a revision is that it look better overall and doesn't introduce changes that will distract me too much from the story. The only one of these new Cameron releases I've seen so far is Aliens, and I have to say that I have mixed feelings about it. Some parts look great, and I wasn't sitting there pausing scenes to see how the grain looked in white rooms or whatever, BUT the real negative for me was how it affected some of the special effects. It's an old movie, and without a little bit more of that grain and a tad more shadow to obscure things a little, it's much more painfully obvious you're looking at miniatures on wires, etc. Now if Cameron could have gone back and also redone some of the special effects... that might have made my endorsement less equivocal. ;) P.S. For the record, as probably obvious form my comment above, I don't mind things like redone and improved effects, but I'm completely opposed to redoing scenes to conform to current social norms, as Lucas did.

well at least he told the bbfc to fuck off when they wanted him to alter the abyss even more by removing a scene from the film… talking about film preservation indeed… but i also wonder how the DOPs think about what he is doing to these films… they are artists too and traditionally more responsible for how a film looks than the director. lets hope this doesnt catch on… until then i‘ll keep the spanish blu-ray of true lies…

The story that the film negatives were danaged makes no sense. Wizard of oz was restored and would have been pretty bad. Theres is always the technique of layering multiple scans of different sources of film and combined to create a final image with all the data restored. They did this for starwars fan edits despecialised versions.

This whole debacle led me to forgo the new release, and instead buy a used copy of The Abyss on DVD. Cost me $10. No regrets. Thanks for your videos, mate!

A major disappointment. I have The Abyss and overall I was okay with it, especially after the last official release was a 4:3 widescreen DVD which was just a transfer of the Laserdisc. But True Lies was really disheartening since this was the one I was truly waiting for and overall, it’s terrible. The image looks like an AI transfer (not a digital transfer) some shots featuring close ups of the actors faces are too smooth and almost looks like a terrible game cut scene. Having said that it only happens rarely. What really disappointed me was the Atmos mix which I needed to put the volume up as well as the level of my subwoofer. Normally with Atmos I could keep the volume down to anywhere between 8-10, with this one I had to put the volume up to 19! I have Aliens but I’ve yet to see it, in two minds about returning it.

I bought the true lies 4k and after watching for 10-15 minutes of it, paused and cancelled my pre order for aliens. I couldn't cancel my coolshop preorder for abyss. It's not how you do a 4k and should have been made clear. Also should have learnt from feedback from terminator 2. If I somehow bumped into him I would tell him he's topped the rubbish of his smurfs films...his 4k supervision nonsense.

Probably someone on twitter have already posted an open matte 35mm alternative scan 😂

True Lies is definitely off-putting, but I really don't mind Aliens and think The Abyss looks wonderful for 95% of the runtime

The Park Road Secret Sauce is the new DNR.

I don't completely dislike the ai perfect versions. At least with aliens We have the Blu-ray as an option.

My POV is that I prefer digitally shot movies in 4k, but I also prefer that movies shot on film look like they were shot on film. What Cameron is doing is inherently destructive, a bit like pitch correcting singers. It takes a lot away from the experience, and doesn't add anything of actual value.

Watched these films along with The Last Picture Show and Thelma and Louise. I enjoyed them all. This weird gatekeeping is tiresome.

I liked the copy of the abyss(us import) bit the only other time I had seen it was on Vhs and laserdicsd. So I dont have a reference for comparison really. I cant comment on the other ones as I haven't seen them. I own the aliens 4k but haven't got around to watch it. From what I heard the aliens one is personal preference but the true lies is generally voted as terrible by anyone who has seen it. I dont mind the use of dnr when it's not too heavy. but sometimes it can enter the realm of the uncanny valley and can make things look plastic. It can look very odd at times.