Essential La La Land Records 2CD expanded soundtrack CD: lalalandrecords.com/godfather-the-50th-anniversary-expanded-and-remastered-limited-edition-2-cd-set/ I had an impossible time trying to get the multitude of visual issues to show up very well in either screencaps or clips so I have included all of my viewing notes here instead: Viewing Notes: The Godfather UHD Timestamps are for the 4K UHD disc. Very generic menus Dolby vision New Coppola intro Black screen for intro in complete darkness no modern studio logo Opening scene lights from blinds too bright and some shots look devoid of grain with grain frozen halos Don in front of wall photo pointing to Bonasera Opening wedding not timed as bright as 2008 but sort of close still slightly overexposed. Frequently some bits look slightly rough or digital with some highlights too bright Grain scrubbed on closeups of Kay with frozen grain Frozen grain halo over tons head with waltz outside house Some wobble on Don getting up 36:52 Fade outs and fades are weird like they hold or maybe it’s oled Frozen grain around Sollozzo and Luca at bar. Aliasing and stairstepping in subtitles 55:40 line on Clemenza’s wife’s face Then very soft hazy shot I think from stock footage of car under El train tracks-then shot of car driving through city also stock footage soft Frozen grain above wheat in take the cannoli 1:04:33 digital artifacts around lights and lattice work. More artifacting everywhere along hallways Frozen grain on shot of stairs where footsteps are heard by Michael Swirling noise in hospital doors behind them on steps outside on first long shots 1:19:40 frozen grain around Clemenza explaining about taped gun to Michael 1:20:50 frozen grain around Sonny saying bye to Mike and Tom as well. 1:28:00 frozen grain around Solozzo when Michael comes back to the table DNR and frozen ness when Sonny sees Connie in her apartment beaten Frozen grain around Apollonia on honeymoon night Maybe frozen grain when Vito is told of Sonny’s death Frozen grain five families meeting Frozen grain around Don you’re out Tom on couch The Vegas signs do look weird in footage Frozen grain around Moe Greene at table Frozen grain around Michael telling Fredo off 2:28:15 small wobble on Vito about to tell Michael I didn’t want this for you Frozen grain on Vito and Michael Frozen grain or DNR on Kay asking Michael End credits appear to stutter slightly as they scroll Last credits fade out to vintage Paramount logo then zoetrope restoration credit The frozen grain is EVERYWHERE even around Kay leading the schoolchildren as Michael watches. Some weirdness in shadows especially on faces noise and color issues look at Michael coming into see Carlo at the end. Noisy in dark scenes like outside hospital Occasional white speck or two Small tic in mono as toms car pulls up at woltz 29:25 Mono tic 1:38:00 when they’re standing on fields and a second one when in town of Corleone Mono tic when first bell of cemetery at funeral Extra hiss in mono during baptism Noise fan like sound when Michael confronting Carlo Blu-ray is sdr and has horrible macroblocking everywhere. The frozen grain is still there but covered up more by being in 1080p. The bright white light light from the hdr is still there but tamed by being in sdr. Some spots have seeming light coming in but actually seem to be blown out spots where they had gone crazy in the hdr grading not being downscaled right. The noise in spots is horrible but gets ok throughout. It softens and hides some of the frozen grain nonsense usually behind macroblocking and digital noise. Noticing a few occasional specs and white spots I didn’t see before on the UHD. Maybe I just didn’t see them.
Godfather Part II UHD Select language old school paramount menus at first Generic menus has no auto resume boots straight back to main menu Dolby vision grade Lossy mono Frozen grain in Paramount pictures white text First shot of Michael looks ok then next shot of kissing the hand looks DNRd and color drained Frozen grain on title card? Fade into Sicily shot weird fade and during roll out shows blob of color noise in center. Frozen grain for opening text on same shot. Sharpening and noise and aliasing on ALL subtitles Flash spot on right as guard walks in behind mother through gate Shirt sleeve of Don very bright Brown noise in shots of men asking for boy Vito Major frozen noise in transition to Statue of Liberty and ship and frozen grain Frozen grain halo around young Vito in front of window. Color fringing in title to grandson at services -title text opticals may be redone Some frozen grain on Jonny Ola coming in? Weird color on faces in shadows and noisy. Frozen grain on lamp when Michael comes in room to see kids photo Frozen grain around Michael when putting Anthony to sleep Noise in color in Michael’s face in shadows Frozen grain and pixelization macroblocking in light fixture transition to Vito 43:33 Frozen grain when he picks up and puts down baby Sonny 49:23 street shot has noise and pixelated white day sky and some moving frozen grain around other people walking down street Possible DNR on Vito’s wife at dinner table when he gets Gun bag from Clemenza? 52:15 frozen grain or just noise in background of shop 54:07 pixelization light bulbs 57:47 frozen noise pixelization in front of light coming through window curtains 1:01:46 Noise on screen door, rainbowing, macroblocking Frozen pixelization on curtains behind Roth 1:06:30 light frozen grain halo around Michael maybe and Pentangeli when he sits down. 1:10:50 Frozen grain pixelization behind them as they walk up 1:16:13 frozen grain on Kay and car interior 1:22:00 look mostly good on rooftop but Michael looks frozen grain somewhat DNR maybe. Then when cuts to Roth closeup sitting it’s DNRd on his face and frozen grain. Frozen grain and when they were talking alone. 1:26:00 inherent stutter shaking vibration on frame of car pulling up 1:34:24 frozen grain on shots of Michael when Roth is talking around Roth 1:36:20 frozen grain and noise on background dancers 1:41:44 weird bump king line effect on top of frame making chandeliers lights seem to flicker Can’t tell it might be frozen grain on you broke my heart 1:46:35 black shape on frame when smashing machines Noisy frozen grain on establishing stock footage Vegas shot Noise on background window in hotel room Noise on light bulb pixelization over baby Fredo in fade in Some shots of Vito on roof and coming in door have sky super bright Going down stairs some shaking Possibly some tiny frozen grain and noise on killing of Fanucci Fade is weekend Intermission card is static frozen grain 2:07:25 Michael looking at toy car seems DNRd Michael noisy face in shadows coming into house Frozen grain and noise when Michael talking to Mama Corleone Noisy transition. Noise and DNR and frozen on shot with fruit merchant Windows blown out 2:14:05 2:24:28 noise and pixelization on Michael’s hand on table in hearing. Weird bit where the sound sounds almost like a remix when Michael gets up from table then back to mono 2:28:20 sound seems to almost cut out for a second? Light frozen grain halos around Michael and Fredl. Some mono tics and or dropouts during Fredo’s explosion. 2:33:00 some footage of Pentangelli suddenly looks orangish and like another source then back to other Noise in background of hotel Washington Frozen grain on Kay in hotel room and DNR DNR on Michael’s face sitting on couch Frozen grain on kids outside 2:43:00 some noise on Corleone station sign TONS of frozen grain in all of plume of train smoke Frozen grain around people at family table in Sicily 2:45:45 tic in music Frozen grain clonking glasses in wine cellar Frozen grain rooftop guard 2:47:22 frozen noise macroblocking background through scene Noise behind Tom and Fredo In window Noise behind Connie on chair confessing to Michael. DNR on her face with a frozen halo lightly Slight stop in mono when Tom looking at Fredo teaching Anthony fishing pole Weird noisiness in killing Roth discussion scene and color on faces frozen grain halos on faces 3:01:40 very DNR on shot of Tom and Frankie smoking cigars looks almost like degrained video They walk along and get buzzing light noise on mono then stop and Tom’s coat is covered in noise 3:04:30 frozen grain Connie when she comes in door 3:06:10 frozen grain and pixelization behind Kay on cab driver in doorway Water surface is super bright when Al taking Fredo Al and Fredo in boat establishing shot looks a bit weird-sun is very bright Noise on window with Michael watching Noise on right lamp as Michael sits down in dark empty office Super DNR in flashback on some shots especially when Carlo introduced to Connie Fade in on end credits seems a little weird Some slight noise in music End credits have that stuttering look to them Vintage paramount golf western logo is soft Then static text credit for new restoration Somehow looks weird noisy grain throughout that seems harsh and then DNR spots. Bright light spots in places. Some spots and elements seem way too bright Occasional speck, tiny speck or sorta small mark 1080p sdr is same with frozen grain but much noisier and hides the frozen grain more. The blown out whites are still there but tamed slightly by being in sdr. Macroblocking everywhere runs rampant. Light behind young Vito totally blown out which hides macroblocking. Godfather Part III UHD Dolby vision grade Generic menus use noisy still of main Pacino photo 5.1 true hd from old bd 4k trilogy exclusive disc with theatrical and 1991 directors video cut 4k main disc is Coda cut only 90’s Paramount logo Godfather part 3 logo has grain or noise that is moving Different timing color much darker on Fredo killing flashback plus frame source wobble on Michael shot in window. Some noisiness but grain looks healthy not seeing frozen Color palette is much more naturalized without the 2008 red golds. Darker too on the black levels. Some color noise on the faces in shadows and black levels again Noise on Michael face and hand when sitting in darkness Noisy behind Vincent on front of window perhaps a tiny frozen grain halo? Noise grain behind whole office Vincent Joey ear biting scene in windows Fade out and in from party to apartment shows some color noise Noise on face when dude trying to kill Vincent in room. Noise on faces when they close door at end of scene then flash when door closes transition to Michael Perhaps frozen grain halos very small around people or am I just seeing things Some grain or noise issues on top of church establishing shot and then some color grain noise in bishops face Fade from cars to Vatican is weird Aliasing and sharpness on subtitles Fade from Vatican to NYC weird Maybe some noise around Kay in hospital also some noise in wall. Fade from hospital to Vincent’s apartment is weird Fade weird from Zaza killing to Michael hospital room 1:21:16 audio tic in surrounds Frozen grain halos light putting Michael to bed 1:35:51 some sort of halo around Vincent in front of house wall or moving something Fade from vi cent and Don to church is weird and goes gray splotch for a bit 1:45:50 frozen grain around Connie and then a small white scratch almost in a circle pops up 2:00:00 light brightness fluctuations on Michael sitting at table medium shot Frame wobble on stock shot of crowd waiting for pope announcement Frozen grain or total DNR on Don Tomasino in casket next to Michael Some flicker on fade into City before opera house Noisy on final fade-out of opera Cymbal crashes a bit harsh Some sort of spots or noise on end credit card that appears gray when fading out may be frozen grain I don’t know Coda cut has modern Paramount logo Coppola introduction New title card and subtitle card which is superimposed over church shot and now meeting with archbishop is the new opening. This should have always been the opening. Not seeing frozen grain it’s the same base transfer as the other versions. Probably no frozen grain because coda cut was down first years ago for Blu-ray only. Coda Cut thoughts: Coda cut removes several of Eli’s scenes. STUPID! ABSOLUTELY STUPID! Several small trims all over kinda like the theatrical cut did. Many nice little bits missing that are only in the video dc Glasses killing is more brutal and bloody apparently uncut but the big blood spurt looks hilariously overdone. I can see why they cut it or used an alternate take before. It’s not as good with the fake blood spurt. Does trim the 1 and 2 flashbacks in the ending which is good and goes for a saying and freeze instead of Michael falling over dead. Glad the flashbacks are gone. Flashback to dancing with Mary still there and they fade to the full shot panning down of old Michael sitting there already with sunglasses on-then cut in to him putting them on them instantly this new quote which is….uh idk. I miss him falling over dead to parallel Vito with the dogs nosing around and no one else there. Opening being meeting and flashbacks removed from end are the two changes that should have always been. But the gap left by removing the flashbacks in the end doesn’t work and neither does recutting it in the way they did. Video dc is the proper version and would be made perfect if archbishop scene was opening. I swear I remember vhs first rental double tape set was done this way. Ends with new zoetrope coda restoration credit card
What I’m learning from finding your channel is that these large companies like WB, Paramount, Sony, etc don’t take the time and dedication to really give consumers what 4K is capable of, but instead choose to make a quick buck at our expense with a subpar product. Your channel has allowed me to re-evaluate my physical collection, that I just restarted last year, when it comes to 4K. I’ve instead choose to opt for a blu-ray release on most with exceptions and choose to cater more towards 3rd party boutique retailers such as Arrow, shout factory, 88 films, criterion, etc. Thanks for your due diligence!!
I recently bought 1&2 on 4K because of the glowing praise they've gotten elsewhere. It's difficult to figure out quality of 4K releases before buying bc of screencap quirks and lack of technical knowledge from a lot of these "review" sites/channels. Some of the people writing/filming reviews are bordering on hypemen, blindly praising most releases to pump up those amazon affiliate numbers and/or rationalize their investment in the format. I'm sure its mostly just ignorance though. I'll have to buy the old blu rays to compare for myself, appreciate all the info
There’s very few people I’d sit through an almost 2 hour review for a movie I’ve never seen. But Damn Fool Idealistic Crusader never misses, so you know I’m watching! I’ve been passing this around man. IT’S DISGUSTING how many 4K releases are just dropping the ball like this. I fear 4K is the last physical format we will be getting from studios, and for such a highly regarded film to be given this kind of treatment, worries me that there’s ZERO incentive for lesser known films to be cared for at all when it comes to restorations. Your analysis is always appreciated!
This review really opened my eyes to the truth that just because its 4K, doesn't mean its going to automatically be good. Its a real shame that this piece of crap was not only accepted by the masses, but will now be considered a shining example of a perfect restortation to this day.
It still boggles the mind how so many received this with the ultimate praise and the flaws are so apparent in 4K viewing that they practically jump out like flashing neon signs. Paramount had no business making these kinds of changes and alterations.
The vast majority of 4K restorations are still overall better, when not far better, than the blu-ray counterparts. That said, even such a butchered restoration like The Godfather will still give you some obvious technical improvements in the picture. This is a matter of weighing the pros and cons, as the 2007 blu-rays have their own major cons, they look quite noisy. I would recommend both the 2007 blu-rays and the UHDs. I'm not worried about standards lowering, because we kept getting mostly good to great UHDs in the year right after this, and we keep getting them by both boutiques and studio labels. Hell, Paramount themselves released good UHDs of Pulp Fiction and Ferris Bueler's Day Off. And right now there is a great UHD of Peeping Tom coming out by StudioCanal.
@@matheus5230 Even though its noisy, the heavy grain and original adds a sense of old world feel that gives the movie its style and flair. The old DVD had a very similar look, and its become very definite for good reason at least in my opinion.
@@Eva01-jy2qu7pu9r I totally understand preferring the 2007 blu-rays, especially because of the color timing (the sepia is so iconic to the identity of The Godfather) and more consistent presentation overall. The UHD jumps all over the place from nice grain to it all being scrubbed. Ultimately, I hope to see The Godfather within the next 5 or 10 years getting a far better 4K UHD treatment. Hell, it doesn’t even need to be a great UHD, I just want it to be decent to good, an overall improvement in all areas over the BDs. It baffles me that The Godfather films got screwed like this, especially when considering how many good to amazing restorations we are getting all the time, releases that even when not ideal are still unarguably an improvement. That said, at least The Godfather is nowhere the nadir of the otherwise fairly high standard of the UHD format. That position of truly horrible UHDs belongs to American Graffiti and T2. And also, to only a slightly lesser extent, True Lies and Aliens when those UHDs come out, if the existing streaming 4K transfers are any indication. While the use of deep-learning algorythms to create detail was so unnecessary to begin with (just scan the negative, literally every studio and label does that!), at least it seems like he put actual effort in Titanic and especially The Abyss. Teal timing aside, the latter looks overall really good from what we've seen so far, not too bad. But True Lies and The Abyss are abominations, nothing more than excuses for Cameron to do his own thing, being insane and playing with new tech toys, alongside the likes of Peter Jackson and George Lucas.
It’s the single biggest thing I’ve learned starting to dip my toes into the UHD game. Plenty of releases get a spec upgrade at the expense of making artistic and historical changes. As a bit of a theatrical purist, there are plenty of movies that I’ll enjoy way more by just upscaling the 1080p Blu-Ray and not splurging on rebuying it on 4K. Sometimes those versions have more accurate colors, grain structure, and original audio mixes where as the UHD is trying to slowly push older films to modern A/V standards.
Robert Harris worked with Gordon Willis and that is why the 2007 blu-rays are true to the original releases of the films - especially Godfather 1 and 2. The colour grading and brightness in the 4K release does not reflect the Gordon’s cinematography. The films are supposed to be dark and have a tendency to yellow. Modern audiences will be happy but they have no knowledge of the original look. To those of us who saw the films in their original release, Robert’s bluray restoration of 2007 is superior.
The reviews online are so misleading. I already have the blu ray release and I'm happy with it. I take this is the definitive way to watch them as of 2024.
After I saw this video I watched my copy of The Godfather 4k disk. I didn’t notice any of the issues mentioned. I have a 65” OLED TV and a Panasonic Reference class player. Not sure why I didn’t notice those issues
Maybe it's either the Damn Fool's TV, or some other part of the chain of video components he utilizes for evaluating UHD 4k Blu-ray discs, that's actually the weak link in his set-up causing this mysterious "frozen grain" that supposedly surrounds Brando in the scene where he, as Don Corleone sits down in his chair at the meeting of New York's 5 crime families. Because no other reviewer has ever mentioned such a supposed cloud of "frozen grain" that the Damn Fool claims he can't miss when seeing The Godfather 4k BD on his TV. However, 2 weeks ago, my wife & I watched the 4k disc of The Godfather on our top of the line 85" Samsung 4k TV that had the 4k Blu-ray signal fed to it by the top rated Panasonic UB-820 UHD 4k Blu-ray player, that has its video settings carefully adjusted to reach up to the standards used by the most technically proficient video equipment reviewers, like well known, & widely respected, Vincent Teoh. And neither the Mrs, nor I, noticed any sign of such supposed "frozen grain" surrounding Don Corleone (Brando) during any part of the meeting scene of the "5 Families"! If such grain ISN'T visible on our well tweaked 85" flagship model Samsung TV, which employs Mini-LED back-lighting, such "frozen grain" simply ISN'T there! So I'd suggest that the Damn Fool have his equipment fully checked out by a professional calibrator to determine if the set-up is operating properly. And if results from the pro's testing show the TV & its associated video equipment are performing up to specifications, the next thing the Damn Fool Idealistic Crusader should do is have his own visual acuity fully measured!
You didn't notice such issues simply because they're figments of the imagination of the Damned Fool Idealistic Crusader, who has the gall to come up with such nonsense despite it clearly contradicting the view of Robert A. Harris, the most renowned film restoration expert in the world, who put in thousands of work hours to achieve the 2007 restoration of 1972's The Godfather. Mr Harris has closely studied every scene of that landmark film classic, and must know how each scene originally looked, better than any living person does, since the man who was the movie's cinematographer, Gordon Willis, left this world 10 years ago. Anyway, the fact that neither Robert A. Harris, nor any of his colleagues in film restoration, have seen the "frozen film grain" surrounding Brando's character in The Godfather that the "Damned Fool" claims is unavoidable when watching 2022's 4k BD of the film, tells us a lot more about the "Damned Fool's" accuracy (or lack of) as he evaluates picture quality of 4k BDs of movies which were shot on film, than the Damned Fools's opinion tells us about true film professionals!
Thank you so much for this! I could feel your frustration and annoyance over this ongoing revisionist approach, which is alas, still plaguing so many home video releases. There have been some truly amazing and beautiful restorations in recent years, but it is very probable we are coming to the end of the era of being able to own hard copies of favourite films and television programmes to place in our very own beloved collections. DVD and Blu-ray sales are falling and some titles by-pass disc altogether and go straight to streaming services. So it is more important than ever to get these things right.
One important thing I have learned as a "Cinephile" is that sometimes older home video releases of classic movies will faithfully represent their original release whereas a re-release with a new transfer from a new modern restoration won't. I have noticed that this is becoming more and more common nowadays. I have always been extremely happy with my 2008 Blu-Ray set of The Godfather Trilogy and I still love the transfers on it. I thought about getting the remastered Blu-Ray set that came out last year but I decided to re-watch the 2008 discs and I was still very impressed by them. After that I didn't feel the need to double-dip anymore. I still however need to buy the Blu-Ray of The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone. I borrowed it from the Public Library shortly after it was released and I really liked it.
I totally get you on that and would suggest just getting the UHD trilogy set when it’s on sale. That way you get the new coda cut plus the exclusive theatrical cut of III which has never been released before. Plus, you’ll also get the two nice little new bonuses on the exclusive bonus disc. I’ve seen it go on sale for as low as $35 already although I still think that’s too much to pay for the massive inherent problems.🤣
So far I can definitely say a handful of criterion titles like Shaft or a number of arrow titles like Prince of Thieves or Croupier. Also, the BFI release of Get Carter and I’m about halfway through reviewing the Arrow Bruce Lee set which is phenomenal. Ignite’s release of invaders from Mars is the best that is humanly possible with that film and an absolute marvel considering how bad off the elements were.
Thanks so much for this video. Very thorough ass-ripping of Paramount. Fortunately, I have not yet purchased the Godfather 4K set, but have the 2008 blurays. Will now just stick with those. I wonder what Paramount is smoking! Last night I viewed the latest (1080p version) of Fatal Attraction. Of course, the film itself is awesome, and the underlying 4k restoration is beautiful. But, the wise wizards over at Paramount clearly decided to remove ALL grain and DNR the release to hell. The result is a smoothed out image, that would have looked so so so much better WITH GRAIN and without DNR. So for the love of god, WHY PARAMOUNT?? Anyway, good that you let them have it!
Man. Ever since the advent of UHD Blu-Ray discs, the chess game of wanting to produce the ultimate cinema experience in the home has been the Holy Grail for the cinematic nerd. There's so much messing around with how the image should look when first viewed many moon's ago in the cinema which has been a stain at times on some of these new transfers. Trying to deliver the ultimate transfer that is nearer to the original cinema experience is near impossible. Tampering around with grain levels. Altering dark and light levels. Trying constantly to achieve that once-in-a-lifetime look is highly difficult. At times it's gone beyond the very essence of crazy. But in Paramount's case, it's certifiably just not bothered. I've heard good things about Dragonslayer, but does this mean Paramount have finally found their mojo in restoring a past film? I'm beginning to wonder whether I should've kept my old Godfather DVD set. I do have the Blu ray set though....
Paramount occasionally puts out something that hasn’t been torn apart but usually still has the earmarks of some issue. I haven’t seen the UHD of Dragonslayer yet but I do have the letterbox LD reissue. Fully agreed it’s not hard to do the job right which is why I referenced the BFI’s release of Get Carter. They did EVERYTHING right and it’s still affordable even to import. When I do my review on the Indy UHD box I have a ton to go into.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader Should be interesting to see what you have to say about the 4K "if" you do get it. I look forward to a possible future review.
This release of the Godfather is clear evidence of studios showing utter contempt for those who wish to see original theatrical presentations preserved in the best quality possible. But if we sit back and think for a few seconds, there has never been a period where studios have given their titles true archival presentations as a whole. During the days of VHS and Laserdisc in the 80s and 90s, everyone understood well and clear that seeing a film in the theatres was never going to be matched a single bit, ESPECIALLY when you had a decent amount of films being given the 70mm blow up treatment in the big cities particularly in the 80s. As good as Laserdisc was at the time, no collector thought that it was going to remotely come close to matching the theatrical release. So even when Laserdiscs and VHS often didn't reflect the original presentation, it was easier to excuse it as technical limitations. But even during those days, it seemed like they were trying to use cable to replace VHS regardless of the fact that it never fully succeeded but you could still see that even the studios didn't care about accurate presentations of films when they seemingly wanted to replace physical access even back then. And of course they had Ted Turner running around doing his usual shenanigans with many of the films. By the time DVD comes around, we have a whole new era of physical access where we have the potential to get as close to the original presentation as possible in the home. Blu Ray was the first format that really has the capability to give you a image closer to the original presentation. But, outside of a few really decent releases, most releases were revisionist/flawed from a small to a enormous degree. We have a era that still goes on to this day where original sound mixes are either not represented the best or are completely rejected, grain removal ranging from small to excessive and colour almost never truly presented accurately and often bastardised. If it weren't for the boutique labels, the idea that we have been living in a "golden age" for "film restorations" wouldn't be nearly as catchy when you got Darth Vader's Nooooooooo cringing everyone up to the high heavens. Now, they are attempting to do the digital equivalent of what they failed to do in the 90s: Replace home video with streaming. Even though just like back then, its not completely succeeding but it doesn't stop them from trying. When they have tried multiple times to get physical access to become a niche in favour of cable and streaming, why would we be shocked by how their treat their own titles? Maybe in reality they don't want to show people the true art of how films were made back then because it would show how unique the craft was at the time which would possibly lead to a bigger rejection of their modern filmmaking techniques, so they try to make the classics intermixed with the modern titles. However, you do a slow increasing interest of film cameras, which is quite interesting to see in this climate. Maybe it shows that bits of the past are slowly becoming the future in ways that the establishment might not exactly like.
I have always loved La La Records. Good to see they came through again. I've never owned GF on disc. I grew up on the 'Saga' versions and have awaited that release. Coppla hates that version and I wait still, but I thank you for pointing me toward the 2008 blu ray. We need folks like you.
Thank you!!! I’m not big on the chronological edits but agree there should be some version available. I thought it was ridiculous to not scan the deleted scenes in HD or at least have the new HBO max Saga version as a boxset exclusive.
I just watched the hallway scene that you referenced on the 4k steelbook, not the same trilogy but i assume the same transfer and noticed no artifacts.
I saw that and it killed me. It’s ridiculous how people will just continue to rubber stamp things without having any knowledge of what they’re doing. Those awards only focus on big name releases anyway and regularly award releases that are junk.
Well I've seen these movies once and wished I hadn't even done that. So this specific problem doesn't really affect me. However It's pretty bad when Paramount seems to be more concerned about a Transformers set rather than this one.
The problem with modern day restoration is these ‘poor revisions’ on these 4K scans are ‘director approved’. So one has to wonder where the line gets drawn. Even the horrible Heat 4K was ‘director approved’ with its horrible dark colour palette where you cannot make out anything. It’s really weird when directors are approving terrible transfers.
It's funny what you say about Heat because when I saw that film in the cinema, the film did look dark. Some people who have seen that film via the cinema said the same thing. This is the problem. You need to see the movie at the cinema first. But memory and time can be an issue when 20-40yrs have passed you by. Trying to remember what the picture looked like is rather hazy to some people. Whilst others do remember what the image projected looked like.
@@dr.impossibleofcounterpunc1984 Michael Mann said for the Heat restoration "the ambition here was: If I was shooting the film 2-3yrs ago, what would it look like?" That's why it was a little controversial, he wanted to update it rather than "archive" it, and this is the case with many "director approved" transfers. Other notable examples of this approach are WKW's Fallen Angels where he stretched the 1.85 image into anamorphic widescreen. The Director/DP approved Memories of Murder is another that looks absolutely nothing like the original - I think Bong said he wanted to update it to look as he originally envisioned, rather than how it looked in theaters. Friedkin also had a hilarious debacle of a remaster to French Connection that was later updated with a new release bc of how controversial it was.
@@gphonk7359 I have to say that I haven't personally seen a copy of the Warner/ Heat transfer on 4K. All I have is the standard UK disc on DVD. Sounds like Heat's been overly darkened.
Heat was also changed in its audio mix. I only watch the laserdisc which has seemingly the theatrical ac3 track which is very aggressive and particularly in its loudest moments.
Yes the scene in part 2 where they smoke cigars looks like a VHS copy i noticed that the first time i saw the uhd, also the Window scene with the super bright light, Who made the decision to blast the hdr to 10000.there should be some kind of quality control.
Love your reviews, dude! Finally somebody who knows what they're talking about!! Not joking, your channel should be more popular than it is. I'm not a super-duper videophile expert, but I know a few things, and there is definitely off about these getting 5 star reviews everywhere.... I'm looking at screenshots on capsohalic (and please correct me if I'm wrong anywhere) it seems like GF1 looks the worst. Especially that first screenshot with hideous dnr/encode. GF2 looks great in some caps, but others have dnr and wooden compression. I think overall GF2 is still a huge improvement over the older bluray, if it weren't for the color change. I like the color for the old GF2 bluray and I don't want it changed. This is why I'm sticking with the 2008 disc as much as it pains me, because otherwise the detail looks massive (for a lot of it) on the UHD.
The new source scans and work put in made for good materials to work from that were technically beyond what could be done in 2007. The trouble is other people got their hands on them and did seemingly what they wanted to resulting in the mess that is on the UHDs. It really doesn’t make sense and if someone else could work directly from the same raw scans a proper disc release could be made from them.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader During the "I know it was you Fredo" scene the audio loops. It'll be obvious when you know what you're looking for. I even compared it to my old Coppola Restoration disc which doesn't have the error.
Someone did a video on why colors have gotten darker recently, and it's because digital cameras are more sensitive to light whereas film is much less sensitive, so you fan crank up the light way more. And on digital, clipping looks bad, so there's this push not to clip. Old film movies had clipping, and it looked good and was part of the film. But that clipping isn't there in today's releases. It's an interesting take. My biggest issue with these new releases isn't color so much as DNR. I hate how smeary and waxy it looks. My TV can "fix" that if I wanted to turn on that feature, but the film grain can never be recovered.
Very frustrated after rewatching these movies on 4K for the first time as I knew the coloring revisionist is correct for Part 1 & 2. I am going to stick with the 2008 Blu-ray releases of Part 1 & 2. I do respect with the Coda cut which is the version of Part III I am sticking with. Though I am only keeping the 4K discs of Part III in general, even though the movie itself is inferior to Part 1 & 2.
It’s the original Blu-ray releases for me and nothing else unless I want to look at the old 1.33 video masters with mono or glance at the Coda cut of III. These 4K masters are so painfully bad that I’m sure it’ll be a case like early screwy DVDs or BDs that are finally reviled years later when crud like this manipulation is more obvious.
Greetings from Santiago de Chile. Another thing that should be considered in the restoration work is the "film release" in 35mm. Although you could argue that a projector or a sound system could affect the way you saw a film, but how about the quality of the version could not be altered. If the distributor says "this is the theatrical presentation", you could believe that a movie was extremely dark or bright but that is not the case and not the intention of the filmmakers. I studied cinema, and many of my teachers work with 35, 16, 8 and Super 8 and told me that in those days not all the movies that were shown in theaters were OK and these was the fault of the studio that wanted too many copies of one movie and that they didn't respect the same standards. And lets not forget that only few cinemas around the world are certified to have the same quality as a post production facility (like Phenomena in Barcelona). For these reasons I cannot accept the argument of "film release" as the definitive version, and prefer to considered as "work in progress" and that in its next releases (Bluray, 4K, or what comes next) we will discovered other things that always were available but could not be seen or heard. In the case of "The Godfather" we could argue for hours, but at least we have the possibility to choose between 35mm, IB TECH PRINT, DCP, and all the home versions. And that for me is an opportunity that could not be missed. Adiós amigo.
That with all due respect is a flawed argument. Just because certain prints are brighter or darker than others does not change the fact that all film prints have a consistent colour palette, grain structure and overall aesthetic. Gordon Willis, the cinematographer of the Godfather films explicitly said that they were supposed to be dark with a golden palette resembling that of a vintage photo from the early 20th century. The new 4K release does not reflect that at all. The grain structure is completely destroyed with excessive DNR on top of that. They did not ask for the approval of Gordon Willis or even Robert A Harris who played a significant role into helping with Coppola to fully restore the film back in 2007. Saying that a good original 35mm print is not the definitive version both contradicts and violates the purpose of the Library of Congress and the National Film Registry. That and film preservation communities have a specific goal, to preserve what is 'culturally, historically and aesthetically significant'. Arguing that altering the film's historical original presentation with its aesthetics is acceptable and that the theatrical presentation is nothing more than a 'work in congress' not only is completely inaccurate, but ruins historical and aesthetic preservation that further takes away from the film's cultural identity. That is a extremely dangerous road that should not be taken in order for history to be preserved.
I agree with your point on "The Godfather" case. My main concern is that many reviews of movie restorations take as reference the "theatrical versions" and not the notes of the filmmakers during the post production of their movies. For that reason I prefer to buy as many versions I could of my favorite movies to compare and choose which is the best in terms of image and audio.
@@gaspargh The original presentations reflect the filmmakers intent 99% of the time, otherwise the filmmakers would have demanded changes. The only exceptions most of the times is when the studios or the filmmaker or both change their mind about how the film should be decades after the fact.
Whoa. Let’s gets this sorted once and for all. You could not be more wrong about this transfer. So you are saying Spielberg, Copula. Paramount and all these qualified people got it wrong and you got it right. I have to tell you it’s you who has got it wrong. It’s a beautiful transfer and looks like a new movie, retaining the tonality of the film as it was intended. My system plays this movie perfectly and I am over the moon with my purchase. My advice is get your TV and player professionally calibrated because it must be way way off.
I’m glad you’re able to enjoy it because the manipulation performed here is really appalling. Yes these people did get it wrong. Horribly wrong. Even the films previous restorer Robert Harris has expressed extreme regret at how this master has turned out and that it does not represent the original films. My gear is properly calibrated. It is paramount behind this monstrosity. The visible frozen grain halos that even move along with movement in addition to the HDR revisionism, and poor treatment of the original audio is blatantly obvious.
Does anyone have good resources to help learn more about the technical things such as encoding, grain, noise, and other things to be looking out for? I know I can look them up but if anyone has a particular video or article that helped them understand it better I would appreciate the mention.
Unfortunately there’s no one easy guide. You have to read, watch and study a bit. It helps to have your tv calibrated the best you can and especially seeing bad transfers and how they compare to good transfers. Once you see notable examples of each a few times it helps tremendously. That’s what I meant about an “educated eye”. The more experience you get looking more critically at home and in theaters the easier it becomes to spot things. Which is also a headache because then you’ll start seeing stuff everywhere.
Hey Spencer... I remember back in the olden days when you used to post videos about stuff you actually liked...(that was a not-so-subtle hint that we still haven't gotten your Best of 2022 video 😀... Great rant as usual but this one was too late for me, alas. I'd already picked up the set a while back. Too bad you can't get advance screeners (although after this review I'd check anything you got in the mail from Paramount to see if it's ticking)...😂
True on all counts.😂 don’t worry my best of is coming soon. I wanted to make sure and cover the last few contenders that all dropped late December or were delayed slightly into January. The new set does have the two new extras for die hards plus the theatrical Part 3 so at least there’s that for trying to not feel bad forking over money to Paramount. I’m the nut who bought two sets for review purposes….🤪
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader If it's any consolation, your channel has been a masterclass for me on what is and isn't a good transfer from a film preservation perspective (rather than a "showcasing the AV tech" perspective).
The only reason I bought the deluxe 4K version was for the bonus disc that had the theatrical version which was just a delight to see but nothing else in that set is worth it. I still watch my laserdiscs if I want to see these movies and that doesn’t seem to be changing soon
Getting the theatrical III is a real win. The LDs are ok for the time but aren’t the greatest being 1.33 and the monos on the BDs while lossy do sound a bit better.
It seems to be several scenarios. One can be bad compression but what you see here is more like a DNR pass was done but they leave or add back some grain to try and cover it up. I think the new trend is to leave a sort of halo space around people or objects moving so that it gives the sense of normalcy but if you look closely you'll see all the telltale trails and traces of this grain halo blob on a DNR surface. Usually it's very minor and I wouldn't be able to see ti without having a pretty good OLED tv. OLED hides nothing and makes even the tiniest bit of a frozen or noise halo painfully obvious. Then again I'm a bit primed for seeing this as I'm used to looking for old LD masters with ringing in them. lol.
Everything corporate is trash. Stay away from corporate food. Corporate politics. Corporate medications. And now corporate film preservation. Excellent video. I wish there was a better way of showing what we got vs what we could and should have gotten.
I wish coppola saw this video and paramount, i wonder what they would say about All this, how can this be especially with this trilogy. All the reviews missed this.
Unfortunately most “director approved” transfers are either them looking at earlier versions that differ from the final release or they either don’t know what is being done or think/are led to believe it’s fine. Here my guess is Paramount did all of this after Zoetrope finished their part but it’s impossible to say when and where the damage was done.
Watching this today ... Will compare myself ... I have familiarity with all these tools ... My guess is that its not as egregious as presented here ... But maybe somewhat disturbing nostalgia driven reviews. I agree that if there are blowouts, broken grain or over brightening etc it will be sad.
@@OldFashionedCinephile The supplements are all the same except for the paltry amount added for the new UHD release. You have the original ones dating back to around 1991 with the bulk of the other extras being done for the DVD release and then several new extras being done for the first Blu-ray release. all of those files have been ported over multiple times without any upgrading so the only thing the UHD does is add the one or two very brief new supplements plus the infuriating new extra where they’re patting themselves on the back for their “restoration”.
Not a Godfather fan ... but what a crap release. Everything reeks of no sensitivity to neither artistic expression, style, design or restoration ! You are doing good work helping fans avoid this
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader speaking of shoddy restorations, the new 4K restoration of The Terminator is gonna be hitting theaters very soon. I can only imagine how destructive that's gonna be, knowing that James Cameron is directly involved.
@@newmedia2862 I’ve been dreading it for months but yesterday it was revealed the new master has been done by park road post with an Atmos remix so now we know 100% for sure that video hell is coming…
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader welp, guess we'll be hanging on to our 2001 Special Edition DVDs :P And I shall eagerly await your review as I go and grab some popcorn.
No, I haven’t seen that master yet. I don’t even think there’s a USA release and that it’s still one you have to import. I do remember quite a lot of discussion back when it came out about a new modernized color timing in addition to some DNR discussion.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader Yeah they inexplicably took DeBont's ice cold color timing (symbolizing the ice-pick theme and her ice cold personality) and made it warm and teal and orange.
I would love it if you showed zoomed screenshots. I hear what you're saying, but I have no way of verifying. And I want to believe you know what you're saying, but it's hard to relate without a comparison. I'm talking about all your videos I've seen so far. Something like 10 of them.
@@Saturn2888 I tried so many times to get the frozen grain effect to show when I was making this video. I still don’t know how to clearly show examples because it’s hard for it to pick up when aiming a camera at a TV screen and it’s also something you have to see in motion so screen caps won’t do it either. I even tried making clips extremely zoomed in, but that doesn’t quite work.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader Yeah, video editing is tough :P. I don't do it myself anymore either, I pay someone else. I appreciate you making an effort to capture this!
I really like this channel. There's a lot of content that doesn't really appeal to me (purely because our interests don't align) BUT there's never any doubt about your knowledge/insight/research. When you put a video out that DOES appeal to me and my taste in movies, I'm fascinated. I don't have 4K capability but I sat through this and your Superman video gripped due to your stellar, comprehensive breakdowns of the product. The home video market needs you on the inside making changes. Keep up the great work! Maybe your other videos will turn me on to new interests and movie picks!
Oh gosh, thank you!! That’s what I strive for in these videos. Since I’ve never been able to get my foot in the door I began making these videos to have something out there that was both honest and as factual as possible. I do all kinds of research like this anyway on my own time so it’s nice to have somewhere to put it!😂
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader I'd love to see and hear you comb through the various home video releases of Halloween, particularly concerning the controversial colour grading/transfers and soundtrack revisions. I'd argue that Halloween's original mono soundtrack being stuck on Laserdisc is a worse fate than the Star Wars trilogy (at LEAST we got those 2004 Laserdisc transfers on DVD!)
They would be baked into the master itself as they were on the SDR Blu-rays. Streaming compression rates and added compression noise might disguise some things.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader That makes sense! I bought T2 on 4K for my girlfriend (I bought it mainly for the steelbook and the blu ray itself is fine, also was only $14) and she and I who are not like cinephiles by any means totally notice how rough that 4K was. I guess streaming really is the main focus these days.
even if everything you say is true, it won't affect 99% of people watching it. only 0.1% of people who are obsessive expert cinephiles will notice any short comings. to my laymen eye, it was an truly astonishing remaster. with beautiful ultra high definition textures
I don’t have a good way to capture 4K footage at the moment and also it doesn’t really help very much with both video compression and RUclips‘s compression causing all kinds of anomalies. Most of what you see in comparison videos on RUclips are actually not fully representative of the original source. I’m also afraid of getting copyright strikes which can happen at any time.
I’m fine with the 2007 blu ray as well. I haven’t upgraded to 4K at any rate. I’m a poor bastard, can’t afford a 4K player or 4K television. Perhaps in another decade or so. Took me years to make the switch from DVD to blu ray.
4k, the visual side, is a con in my opinion. 1k was always absolutely acceptable. The film companies are doing a huge cash grab, the only way they can make 4k stand out on normal home AV, is by enhancing the colours and contrast (look at colour issues on The Exorcist (that film isnt suppose to be colourful).
No it wasn’t. They reused the 5.1 remixes and the lossy mono on 1 and 2 from the Blu-rays. The only difference is that they made the lossy mono on Part 1 sound worse.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader Other reviewers said the mono audio was restored. Like you said it is slightly different, but albeit not being presented in lossless form. What makes it sound worse? Also Robert’s Harris post about the film is not nearly as negative as you make it out to be. He seems to be very pleased with the restoration actually, but acknowledges the differences.
The blurays have a yellow tint that supposedly wasn't with the original movies. Don't act like we can buy the original in some kind of way. The 4k remaster was supervised by Francis Ford Coppola. If that is his vision than so be it.
The Coppola Restoration Blu-rays were supervised by Coppola and Gordon Willis and done by a team of restoration experts determined to be as correct as possible. For the time period they did about as best as they could and made a proper version of record. Paramount merely operated off of this work and then decided to ignore it and do whatever they wanted. The 4K master is not a proper reference version and shouldn’t be sold as one.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusaderWhere are your sources for any of this? Between this and your review of the Indiana Jones box set it seems like you have an axe to grind with Paramount. Without the context of specific articles or interviews that go into the nuts and bolts of the restorations you are just making assumptions that may or may not be true.
I just read the review of the UHD 4k Blu-ray of The Godfather (the original, 1st film of the trilogy) by Robert A. Harris, the world renowned restoration specialist who was the main restoration pro who worked on the 2007 restoration of The Godfather. And though Harris noted that the film's original grain is reduced some in 2022's 4k Blu-ray, resulting in a look that's different from how the film originally looked, Mr Harris made NO mention of such things as "frozen grain" supposedly surrounding Marlon Brando's head as he sits down at the meeting of the 5 crime families, nor did Mr Harris mention seeing any problem with the 4k's video presentation of dark corridors of the hospital where Don Corleone is recovering. Robert A. Harris, due to literally having spent thousands of hours studying all the scenes of The Godfather in order to accomplish his 2007 restoration of the film, knows as well as any living person just how the film should look. That should make all of us wonder just how the Damned Fool Idealistic Crusader can easily see "frozen grain" that he says "can't be missed", though every other reviewer of that disc, including Mr Harris, continually misses seeing that awful "frozen film grain"! So IF somehow, Robert A Harris had managed to miss such an unmissable defect on the 4k disc of The Godfather, surely some of his colleagues in the film world would have brought this "frozen film grain" travesty to Mr Harris's attention. Therefore, as so many different reviewers, as well as serious fans of film at home, all failed to notice this floating "frozen grain" picture defect that the Damned Fool Idealistic Crusader defines as very hard to miss, leads me to the logical conclusion that he has an unusual one in a hundred type view of the situation regarding the 4k Blu-ray of The Godfather that either results from his own TV, or its associated video equipment, not functioning properly, or otherwise, he's likely to be suffering from a defect in his vision that he's just not aware of. BTW, despite the Damned Fool Idealistic Crusader claiming (inaccurately) that Robert A Harris had slammed the 50th Anniversary 4k Blu-ray edition of The Godfather with a negative review, the following paragraphs, within quote signs are directly from Mr Harris's "A few words about..." review of The Godfather 50th Anniversary UHD 4k Blu-ray release of the 1972 film: "Will someone look at the 50th and after three minutes, think to themselves that something is different. Very doubtful, as it looks terrific. What we had performed has been called a technical restoration, tracking every shot as Mr. Willis wanted them to be seen - 2007. Tastes change. Technology changes. New audiences arrive, and while there are differences, there's no downside. Beginning with a more modern scan, with a deeper bit depth, allowed for some updates, which work nicely. The restoration still took thousands of hours of digital clean-up and repair, then color and densities." That was from Mr Harris's end remarks on 2022's release of The Godfather 4k BD as he added that IHO even longtime fans of the film, like him, or me, will feel the BD looks great! And like me, many longtime film fans on Home Theater Forum, DON'T hate grain, but love this 4k BD!
Just because Paramount spent a lot of money doesn’t mean they got it right or had the film’s best interest at heart in an archival sense. I think the best way to put it is how the films previous restorer Robert Harris said that this new master was Paramount‘s new version where they did what they wanted to. The motion halos alone I find so bad that it’s unwatchable. On top of that in spite of all the money they spent they didn’t pay attention to the audio at all, except that they made the first film sound worse.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader it's part of the industry's ongoing mission of bulls--t to make older films look/sound like new films. Between this and the rumors of a Vertigo remake with Robert Downey Jr, it sounds like every upper level executive at every studio is in need of a sanity hearing.
Whatever. You dont know what you're talking about. The images I've seen from this new 4K transfer looks fantastic. And there have been many great reviews for this trilogy
Essential La La Land Records 2CD expanded soundtrack CD: lalalandrecords.com/godfather-the-50th-anniversary-expanded-and-remastered-limited-edition-2-cd-set/
I had an impossible time trying to get the multitude of visual issues to show up very well in either screencaps or clips so I have included all of my viewing notes here instead:
Viewing Notes: The Godfather UHD
Timestamps are for the 4K UHD disc.
Very generic menus
Dolby vision
New Coppola intro
Black screen for intro in complete darkness no modern studio logo
Opening scene lights from blinds too bright and some shots look devoid of grain with grain frozen halos Don in front of wall photo pointing to Bonasera
Opening wedding not timed as bright as 2008 but sort of close still slightly overexposed.
Frequently some bits look slightly rough or digital with some highlights too bright
Grain scrubbed on closeups of Kay with frozen grain
Frozen grain halo over tons head with waltz outside house
Some wobble on Don getting up 36:52
Fade outs and fades are weird like they hold or maybe it’s oled
Frozen grain around Sollozzo and Luca at bar. Aliasing and stairstepping in subtitles
55:40 line on Clemenza’s wife’s face
Then very soft hazy shot I think from stock footage of car under El train tracks-then shot of car driving through city also stock footage soft
Frozen grain above wheat in take the cannoli
1:04:33 digital artifacts around lights and lattice work. More artifacting everywhere along hallways
Frozen grain on shot of stairs where footsteps are heard by Michael
Swirling noise in hospital doors behind them on steps outside on first long shots
1:19:40 frozen grain around Clemenza explaining about taped gun to Michael
1:20:50 frozen grain around Sonny saying bye to Mike and Tom as well.
1:28:00 frozen grain around Solozzo when Michael comes back to the table
DNR and frozen ness when Sonny sees Connie in her apartment beaten
Frozen grain around Apollonia on honeymoon night
Maybe frozen grain when Vito is told of Sonny’s death
Frozen grain five families meeting
Frozen grain around Don you’re out Tom on couch
The Vegas signs do look weird in footage
Frozen grain around Moe Greene at table
Frozen grain around Michael telling Fredo off
2:28:15 small wobble on Vito about to tell Michael I didn’t want this for you
Frozen grain on Vito and Michael
Frozen grain or DNR on Kay asking Michael
End credits appear to stutter slightly as they scroll
Last credits fade out to vintage Paramount logo then zoetrope restoration credit
The frozen grain is EVERYWHERE even around Kay leading the schoolchildren as Michael watches.
Some weirdness in shadows especially on faces noise and color issues look at Michael coming into see Carlo at the end.
Noisy in dark scenes like outside hospital
Occasional white speck or two
Small tic in mono as toms car pulls up at woltz 29:25
Mono tic 1:38:00 when they’re standing on fields and a second one when in town of Corleone
Mono tic when first bell of cemetery at funeral
Extra hiss in mono during baptism
Noise fan like sound when Michael confronting Carlo
Blu-ray is sdr and has horrible macroblocking everywhere. The frozen grain is still there but covered up more by being in 1080p. The bright white light light from the hdr is still there but tamed by being in sdr.
Some spots have seeming light coming in but actually seem to be blown out spots where they had gone crazy in the hdr grading not being downscaled right.
The noise in spots is horrible but gets ok throughout. It softens and hides some of the frozen grain nonsense usually behind macroblocking and digital noise.
Noticing a few occasional specs and white spots I didn’t see before on the UHD. Maybe I just didn’t see them.
Godfather Part II UHD
Select language old school paramount menus at first
Generic menus has no auto resume boots straight back to main menu
Dolby vision grade
Lossy mono
Frozen grain in Paramount pictures white text
First shot of Michael looks ok then next shot of kissing the hand looks DNRd and color drained
Frozen grain on title card?
Fade into Sicily shot weird fade and during roll out shows blob of color noise in center. Frozen grain for opening text on same shot.
Sharpening and noise and aliasing on ALL subtitles
Flash spot on right as guard walks in behind mother through gate
Shirt sleeve of Don very bright
Brown noise in shots of men asking for boy Vito
Major frozen noise in transition to Statue of Liberty and ship and frozen grain
Frozen grain halo around young Vito in front of window.
Color fringing in title to grandson at services -title text opticals may be redone
Some frozen grain on Jonny Ola coming in?
Weird color on faces in shadows and noisy.
Frozen grain on lamp when Michael comes in room to see kids photo
Frozen grain around Michael when putting Anthony to sleep
Noise in color in Michael’s face in shadows
Frozen grain and pixelization macroblocking in light fixture transition to Vito 43:33
Frozen grain when he picks up and puts down baby Sonny
49:23 street shot has noise and pixelated white day sky and some moving frozen grain around other people walking down street
Possible DNR on Vito’s wife at dinner table when he gets Gun bag from Clemenza?
52:15 frozen grain or just noise in background of shop
54:07 pixelization light bulbs
57:47 frozen noise pixelization in front of light coming through window curtains
1:01:46 Noise on screen door, rainbowing, macroblocking
Frozen pixelization on curtains behind Roth
1:06:30 light frozen grain halo around Michael maybe and Pentangeli when he sits down.
1:10:50 Frozen grain pixelization behind them as they walk up
1:16:13 frozen grain on Kay and car interior
1:22:00 look mostly good on rooftop but Michael looks frozen grain somewhat DNR maybe. Then when cuts to Roth closeup sitting it’s DNRd on his face and frozen grain. Frozen grain and when they were talking alone.
1:26:00 inherent stutter shaking vibration on frame of car pulling up
1:34:24 frozen grain on shots of Michael when Roth is talking around Roth
1:36:20 frozen grain and noise on background dancers
1:41:44 weird bump king line effect on top of frame making chandeliers lights seem to flicker
Can’t tell it might be frozen grain on you broke my heart
1:46:35 black shape on frame when smashing machines
Noisy frozen grain on establishing stock footage Vegas shot
Noise on background window in hotel room
Noise on light bulb pixelization over baby Fredo in fade in
Some shots of Vito on roof and coming in door have sky super bright
Going down stairs some shaking
Possibly some tiny frozen grain and noise on killing of Fanucci
Fade is weekend
Intermission card is static frozen grain
2:07:25 Michael looking at toy car seems DNRd
Michael noisy face in shadows coming into house
Frozen grain and noise when Michael talking to Mama Corleone
Noisy transition. Noise and DNR and frozen on shot with fruit merchant
Windows blown out 2:14:05
2:24:28 noise and pixelization on Michael’s hand on table in hearing.
Weird bit where the sound sounds almost like a remix when Michael gets up from table then back to mono
2:28:20 sound seems to almost cut out for a second?
Light frozen grain halos around Michael and Fredl. Some mono tics and or dropouts during Fredo’s explosion.
2:33:00 some footage of Pentangelli suddenly looks orangish and like another source then back to other
Noise in background of hotel Washington
Frozen grain on Kay in hotel room and DNR
DNR on Michael’s face sitting on couch
Frozen grain on kids outside
2:43:00 some noise on Corleone station sign TONS of frozen grain in all of plume of train smoke
Frozen grain around people at family table in Sicily
2:45:45 tic in music
Frozen grain clonking glasses in wine cellar
Frozen grain rooftop guard
2:47:22 frozen noise macroblocking background through scene
Noise behind Tom and Fredo In window
Noise behind Connie on chair confessing to Michael. DNR on her face with a frozen halo lightly
Slight stop in mono when Tom looking at Fredo teaching Anthony fishing pole
Weird noisiness in killing Roth discussion scene and color on faces frozen grain halos on faces
3:01:40 very DNR on shot of Tom and Frankie smoking cigars looks almost like degrained video
They walk along and get buzzing light noise on mono then stop and Tom’s coat is covered in noise
3:04:30 frozen grain Connie when she comes in door
3:06:10 frozen grain and pixelization behind Kay on cab driver in doorway
Water surface is super bright when Al taking Fredo
Al and Fredo in boat establishing shot looks a bit weird-sun is very bright
Noise on window with Michael watching
Noise on right lamp as Michael sits down in dark empty office
Super DNR in flashback on some shots especially when Carlo introduced to Connie
Fade in on end credits seems a little weird
Some slight noise in music
End credits have that stuttering look to them
Vintage paramount golf western logo is soft
Then static text credit for new restoration
Somehow looks weird noisy grain throughout that seems harsh and then DNR spots. Bright light spots in places.
Some spots and elements seem way too bright
Occasional speck, tiny speck or sorta small mark
1080p sdr is same with frozen grain but much noisier and hides the frozen grain more. The blown out whites are still there but tamed slightly by being in sdr. Macroblocking everywhere runs rampant.
Light behind young Vito totally blown out which hides macroblocking.
Godfather Part III UHD
Dolby vision grade
Generic menus use noisy still of main Pacino photo
5.1 true hd from old bd
4k trilogy exclusive disc with theatrical and 1991 directors video cut
4k main disc is Coda cut only
90’s Paramount logo
Godfather part 3 logo has grain or noise that is moving
Different timing color much darker on Fredo killing flashback plus frame source wobble on Michael shot in window.
Some noisiness but grain looks healthy not seeing frozen
Color palette is much more naturalized without the 2008 red golds. Darker too on the black levels.
Some color noise on the faces in shadows and black levels again
Noise on Michael face and hand when sitting in darkness
Noisy behind Vincent on front of window perhaps a tiny frozen grain halo?
Noise grain behind whole office Vincent Joey ear biting scene in windows
Fade out and in from party to apartment shows some color noise
Noise on face when dude trying to kill Vincent in room. Noise on faces when they close door at end of scene then flash when door closes transition to Michael
Perhaps frozen grain halos very small around people or am I just seeing things
Some grain or noise issues on top of church establishing shot and then some color grain noise in bishops face
Fade from cars to Vatican is weird
Aliasing and sharpness on subtitles
Fade from Vatican to NYC weird
Maybe some noise around Kay in hospital also some noise in wall.
Fade from hospital to Vincent’s apartment is weird
Fade weird from Zaza killing to Michael hospital room
1:21:16 audio tic in surrounds
Frozen grain halos light putting Michael to bed
1:35:51 some sort of halo around Vincent in front of house wall or moving something
Fade from vi cent and Don to church is weird and goes gray splotch for a bit
1:45:50 frozen grain around Connie and then a small white scratch almost in a circle pops up
2:00:00 light brightness fluctuations on Michael sitting at table medium shot
Frame wobble on stock shot of crowd waiting for pope announcement
Frozen grain or total DNR on Don Tomasino in casket next to Michael
Some flicker on fade into City before opera house
Noisy on final fade-out of opera
Cymbal crashes a bit harsh
Some sort of spots or noise on end credit card that appears gray when fading out may be frozen grain I don’t know
Coda cut has modern Paramount logo
Coppola introduction
New title card and subtitle card which is superimposed over church shot and now meeting with archbishop is the new opening. This should have always been the opening.
Not seeing frozen grain it’s the same base transfer as the other versions. Probably no frozen grain because coda cut was down first years ago for Blu-ray only.
Coda Cut thoughts:
Coda cut removes several of Eli’s scenes. STUPID! ABSOLUTELY STUPID! Several small trims all over kinda like the theatrical cut did. Many nice little bits missing that are only in the video dc
Glasses killing is more brutal and bloody apparently uncut but the big blood spurt looks hilariously overdone. I can see why they cut it or used an alternate take before. It’s not as good with the fake blood spurt.
Does trim the 1 and 2 flashbacks in the ending which is good and goes for a saying and freeze instead of Michael falling over dead. Glad the flashbacks are gone. Flashback to dancing with Mary still there and they fade to the full shot panning down of old Michael sitting there already with sunglasses on-then cut in to him putting them on them instantly this new quote which is….uh idk. I miss him falling over dead to parallel Vito with the dogs nosing around and no one else there.
Opening being meeting and flashbacks removed from end are the two changes that should have always been. But the gap left by removing the flashbacks in the end doesn’t work and neither does recutting it in the way they did. Video dc is the proper version and would be made perfect if archbishop scene was opening. I swear I remember vhs first rental double tape set was done this way.
Ends with new zoetrope coda restoration credit card
Im late...
Thanks! I believe you can, if you want to, pin this comment at the top of the comment section somehow.
That line from star wars that alec guiness says, in your user name, got u a sub.
What I’m learning from finding your channel is that these large companies like WB, Paramount, Sony, etc don’t take the time and dedication to really give consumers what 4K is capable of, but instead choose to make a quick buck at our expense with a subpar product.
Your channel has allowed me to re-evaluate my physical collection, that I just restarted last year, when it comes to 4K. I’ve instead choose to opt for a blu-ray release on most with exceptions and choose to cater more towards 3rd party boutique retailers such as Arrow, shout factory, 88 films, criterion, etc.
Thanks for your due diligence!!
I recently bought 1&2 on 4K because of the glowing praise they've gotten elsewhere. It's difficult to figure out quality of 4K releases before buying bc of screencap quirks and lack of technical knowledge from a lot of these "review" sites/channels.
Some of the people writing/filming reviews are bordering on hypemen, blindly praising most releases to pump up those amazon affiliate numbers and/or rationalize their investment in the format. I'm sure its mostly just ignorance though.
I'll have to buy the old blu rays to compare for myself, appreciate all the info
We need this out. This helps wake buyers up.
Thank you!!
There’s very few people I’d sit through an almost 2 hour review for a movie I’ve never seen. But Damn Fool Idealistic Crusader never misses, so you know I’m watching! I’ve been passing this around man. IT’S DISGUSTING how many 4K releases are just dropping the ball like this. I fear 4K is the last physical format we will be getting from studios, and for such a highly regarded film to be given this kind of treatment, worries me that there’s ZERO incentive for lesser known films to be cared for at all when it comes to restorations. Your analysis is always appreciated!
I couldn't agree more. Are there any 4K transfers that are the best way to watch?
This review really opened my eyes to the truth that just because its 4K, doesn't mean its going to automatically be good. Its a real shame that this piece of crap was not only accepted by the masses, but will now be considered a shining example of a perfect restortation to this day.
It still boggles the mind how so many received this with the ultimate praise and the flaws are so apparent in 4K viewing that they practically jump out like flashing neon signs. Paramount had no business making these kinds of changes and alterations.
The vast majority of 4K restorations are still overall better, when not far better, than the blu-ray counterparts.
That said, even such a butchered restoration like The Godfather will still give you some obvious technical improvements in the picture. This is a matter of weighing the pros and cons, as the 2007 blu-rays have their own major cons, they look quite noisy. I would recommend both the 2007 blu-rays and the UHDs.
I'm not worried about standards lowering, because we kept getting mostly good to great UHDs in the year right after this, and we keep getting them by both boutiques and studio labels. Hell, Paramount themselves released good UHDs of Pulp Fiction and Ferris Bueler's Day Off. And right now there is a great UHD of Peeping Tom coming out by StudioCanal.
@@matheus5230 Even though its noisy, the heavy grain and original adds a sense of old world feel that gives the movie its style and flair. The old DVD had a very similar look, and its become very definite for good reason at least in my opinion.
@@Eva01-jy2qu7pu9r I totally understand preferring the 2007 blu-rays, especially because of the color timing (the sepia is so iconic to the identity of The Godfather) and more consistent presentation overall. The UHD jumps all over the place from nice grain to it all being scrubbed.
Ultimately, I hope to see The Godfather within the next 5 or 10 years getting a far better 4K UHD treatment. Hell, it doesn’t even need to be a great UHD, I just want it to be decent to good, an overall improvement in all areas over the BDs. It baffles me that The Godfather films got screwed like this, especially when considering how many good to amazing restorations we are getting all the time, releases that even when not ideal are still unarguably an improvement.
That said, at least The Godfather is nowhere the nadir of the otherwise fairly high standard of the UHD format. That position of truly horrible UHDs belongs to American Graffiti and T2. And also, to only a slightly lesser extent, True Lies and Aliens when those UHDs come out, if the existing streaming 4K transfers are any indication. While the use of deep-learning algorythms to create detail was so unnecessary to begin with (just scan the negative, literally every studio and label does that!), at least it seems like he put actual effort in Titanic and especially The Abyss. Teal timing aside, the latter looks overall really good from what we've seen so far, not too bad. But True Lies and The Abyss are abominations, nothing more than excuses for Cameron to do his own thing, being insane and playing with new tech toys, alongside the likes of Peter Jackson and George Lucas.
It’s the single biggest thing I’ve learned starting to dip my toes into the UHD game. Plenty of releases get a spec upgrade at the expense of making artistic and historical changes.
As a bit of a theatrical purist, there are plenty of movies that I’ll enjoy way more by just upscaling the 1080p Blu-Ray and not splurging on rebuying it on 4K. Sometimes those versions have more accurate colors, grain structure, and original audio mixes where as the UHD is trying to slowly push older films to modern A/V standards.
Man Paramount needs to get their shit together. Their 4K discs have been nothing short of lousy.
They are significantly better than Blu ray disc Dolby Vision disappointment is lack of Dolby Atmos
Robert Harris worked with Gordon Willis and that is why the 2007 blu-rays are true to the original releases of the films - especially Godfather 1 and 2. The colour grading and brightness in the 4K release does not reflect the Gordon’s cinematography. The films are supposed to be dark and have a tendency to yellow. Modern audiences will be happy but they have no knowledge of the original look. To those of us who saw the films in their original release, Robert’s bluray restoration of 2007 is superior.
The reviews online are so misleading. I already have the blu ray release and I'm happy with it. I take this is the definitive way to watch them as of 2024.
After I saw this video I watched my copy of The Godfather 4k disk. I didn’t notice any of the issues mentioned. I have a 65” OLED TV and a Panasonic Reference class player. Not sure why I didn’t notice those issues
Only he seems to have these problems.
@@pietroscarpa2384 Well, he worked in a theater, so seating people makes him an expert.
Maybe it's either the Damn Fool's TV, or some other part of the chain of video components he utilizes for evaluating UHD 4k Blu-ray discs, that's actually the weak link in his set-up causing this mysterious "frozen grain" that supposedly surrounds Brando in the scene where he, as Don Corleone sits down in his chair at the meeting of New York's 5 crime families. Because no other reviewer has ever mentioned such a supposed cloud of "frozen grain" that the Damn Fool claims he can't miss when seeing The Godfather 4k BD on his TV. However, 2 weeks ago, my wife & I watched the 4k disc of The Godfather on our top of the line 85" Samsung 4k TV that had the 4k Blu-ray signal fed to it by the top rated Panasonic UB-820 UHD 4k Blu-ray player, that has its video settings carefully adjusted to reach up to the standards used by the most technically proficient video equipment reviewers, like well known, & widely respected, Vincent Teoh. And neither the Mrs, nor I, noticed any sign of such supposed "frozen grain" surrounding Don Corleone (Brando) during any part of the meeting scene of the "5 Families"! If such grain ISN'T visible on our well tweaked 85" flagship model Samsung TV, which employs Mini-LED back-lighting, such "frozen grain" simply ISN'T there! So I'd suggest that the Damn Fool have his equipment fully checked out by a professional calibrator to determine if the set-up is operating properly. And if results from the pro's testing show the TV & its associated video equipment are performing up to specifications, the next thing the Damn Fool Idealistic Crusader should do is have his own visual acuity fully measured!
You didn't notice such issues simply because they're figments of the imagination of the Damned Fool Idealistic Crusader, who has the gall to come up with such nonsense despite it clearly contradicting the view of Robert A. Harris, the most renowned film restoration expert in the world, who put in thousands of work hours to achieve the 2007 restoration of 1972's The Godfather. Mr Harris has closely studied every scene of that landmark film classic, and must know how each scene originally looked, better than any living person does, since the man who was the movie's cinematographer, Gordon Willis, left this world 10 years ago.
Anyway, the fact that neither Robert A. Harris, nor any of his colleagues in film restoration, have seen the "frozen film grain" surrounding Brando's character in The Godfather that the "Damned Fool" claims is unavoidable when watching 2022's 4k BD of the film, tells us a lot more about the "Damned Fool's" accuracy (or lack of) as he evaluates picture quality of 4k BDs of movies which were shot on film, than the Damned Fools's opinion tells us about true film professionals!
Thank you so much for this! I could feel your frustration and annoyance over this ongoing revisionist approach, which is alas, still plaguing so many home video releases. There have been some truly amazing and beautiful restorations in recent years, but it is very probable we are coming to the end of the era of being able to own hard copies of favourite films and television programmes to place in our very own beloved collections.
DVD and Blu-ray sales are falling and some titles by-pass disc altogether and go straight to streaming services. So it is more important than ever to get these things right.
One important thing I have learned as a "Cinephile" is that sometimes older home video releases of classic movies will faithfully represent their original release whereas a re-release with a new transfer from a new modern restoration won't. I have noticed that this is becoming more and more common nowadays.
I have always been extremely happy with my 2008 Blu-Ray set of The Godfather Trilogy and I still love the transfers on it. I thought about getting the remastered Blu-Ray set that came out last year but I decided to re-watch the 2008 discs and I was still very impressed by them. After that I didn't feel the need to double-dip anymore.
I still however need to buy the Blu-Ray of The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone. I borrowed it from the Public Library shortly after it was released and I really liked it.
I totally get you on that and would suggest just getting the UHD trilogy set when it’s on sale. That way you get the new coda cut plus the exclusive theatrical cut of III which has never been released before. Plus, you’ll also get the two nice little new bonuses on the exclusive bonus disc. I’ve seen it go on sale for as low as $35 already although I still think that’s too much to pay for the massive inherent problems.🤣
What 4K UHD catalogue release are in your opinion perfect, or very close to perfect? Thanks.
So far I can definitely say a handful of criterion titles like Shaft or a number of arrow titles like Prince of Thieves or Croupier.
Also, the BFI release of Get Carter and I’m about halfway through reviewing the Arrow Bruce Lee set which is phenomenal.
Ignite’s release of invaders from Mars is the best that is humanly possible with that film and an absolute marvel considering how bad off the elements were.
Great video and really an eye opener for someone who was previously uninformed of the changes made to these films
Thanks so much for this video. Very thorough ass-ripping of Paramount. Fortunately, I have not yet purchased the Godfather 4K set, but have the 2008 blurays. Will now just stick with those. I wonder what Paramount is smoking! Last night I viewed the latest (1080p version) of Fatal Attraction. Of course, the film itself is awesome, and the underlying 4k restoration is beautiful. But, the wise wizards over at Paramount clearly decided to remove ALL grain and DNR the release to hell. The result is a smoothed out image, that would have looked so so so much better WITH GRAIN and without DNR. So for the love of god, WHY PARAMOUNT?? Anyway, good that you let them have it!
Pretty ironic considering the DVD of Fatal Attraction is pretty grainy.
Man.
Ever since the advent of UHD Blu-Ray discs, the chess game of wanting to produce the ultimate cinema experience in the home has been the Holy Grail for the cinematic nerd. There's so much messing around with how the image should look when first viewed many moon's ago in the cinema which has been a stain at times on some of these new transfers. Trying to deliver the ultimate transfer that is nearer to the original cinema experience is near impossible. Tampering around with grain levels. Altering dark and light levels. Trying constantly to achieve that once-in-a-lifetime look is highly difficult. At times it's gone beyond the very essence of crazy. But in Paramount's case, it's certifiably just not bothered. I've heard good things about Dragonslayer, but does this mean Paramount have finally found their mojo in restoring a past film? I'm beginning to wonder whether I should've kept my old Godfather DVD set. I do have the Blu ray set though....
Paramount occasionally puts out something that hasn’t been torn apart but usually still has the earmarks of some issue. I haven’t seen the UHD of Dragonslayer yet but I do have the letterbox LD reissue.
Fully agreed it’s not hard to do the job right which is why I referenced the BFI’s release of Get Carter. They did EVERYTHING right and it’s still affordable even to import.
When I do my review on the Indy UHD box I have a ton to go into.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader Should be interesting to see what you have to say about the 4K "if" you do get it. I look forward to a possible future review.
This release of the Godfather is clear evidence of studios showing utter contempt for those who wish to see original theatrical presentations preserved in the best quality possible. But if we sit back and think for a few seconds, there has never been a period where studios have given their titles true archival presentations as a whole. During the days of VHS and Laserdisc in the 80s and 90s, everyone understood well and clear that seeing a film in the theatres was never going to be matched a single bit, ESPECIALLY when you had a decent amount of films being given the 70mm blow up treatment in the big cities particularly in the 80s. As good as Laserdisc was at the time, no collector thought that it was going to remotely come close to matching the theatrical release. So even when Laserdiscs and VHS often didn't reflect the original presentation, it was easier to excuse it as technical limitations.
But even during those days, it seemed like they were trying to use cable to replace VHS regardless of the fact that it never fully succeeded but you could still see that even the studios didn't care about accurate presentations of films when they seemingly wanted to replace physical access even back then. And of course they had Ted Turner running around doing his usual shenanigans with many of the films.
By the time DVD comes around, we have a whole new era of physical access where we have the potential to get as close to the original presentation as possible in the home. Blu Ray was the first format that really has the capability to give you a image closer to the original presentation.
But, outside of a few really decent releases, most releases were revisionist/flawed from a small to a enormous degree. We have a era that still goes on to this day where original sound mixes are either not represented the best or are completely rejected, grain removal ranging from small to excessive and colour almost never truly presented accurately and often bastardised. If it weren't for the boutique labels, the idea that we have been living in a "golden age" for "film restorations" wouldn't be nearly as catchy when you got Darth Vader's Nooooooooo cringing everyone up to the high heavens.
Now, they are attempting to do the digital equivalent of what they failed to do in the 90s: Replace home video with streaming. Even though just like back then, its not completely succeeding but it doesn't stop them from trying. When they have tried multiple times to get physical access to become a niche in favour of cable and streaming, why would we be shocked by how their treat their own titles? Maybe in reality they don't want to show people the true art of how films were made back then because it would show how unique the craft was at the time which would possibly lead to a bigger rejection of their modern filmmaking techniques, so they try to make the classics intermixed with the modern titles. However, you do a slow increasing interest of film cameras, which is quite interesting to see in this climate. Maybe it shows that bits of the past are slowly becoming the future in ways that the establishment might not exactly like.
I have always loved La La Records. Good to see they came through again. I've never owned GF on disc. I grew up on the 'Saga' versions and have awaited that release. Coppla hates that version and I wait still, but I thank you for pointing me toward the 2008 blu ray. We need folks like you.
Thank you!!! I’m not big on the chronological edits but agree there should be some version available. I thought it was ridiculous to not scan the deleted scenes in HD or at least have the new HBO max Saga version as a boxset exclusive.
I just watched the hallway scene that you referenced on the 4k steelbook, not the same trilogy but i assume the same transfer and noticed no artifacts.
This set just received an award for best restoration. No joke.
No way
I saw that and it killed me. It’s ridiculous how people will just continue to rubber stamp things without having any knowledge of what they’re doing. Those awards only focus on big name releases anyway and regularly award releases that are junk.
@@Thecatdrums3 Yes way.
It's amazing 4K. This guy is mad to me
Well I've seen these movies once and wished I hadn't even done that. So this specific problem doesn't really affect me. However It's pretty bad when Paramount seems to be more concerned about a Transformers set rather than this one.
The problem with modern day restoration is these ‘poor revisions’ on these 4K scans are ‘director approved’. So one has to wonder where the line gets drawn. Even the horrible Heat 4K was ‘director approved’ with its horrible dark colour palette where you cannot make out anything. It’s really weird when directors are approving terrible transfers.
It's funny what you say about Heat because when I saw that film in the cinema, the film did look dark. Some people who have seen that film via the cinema said the same thing. This is the problem. You need to see the movie at the cinema first. But memory and time can be an issue when 20-40yrs have passed you by. Trying to remember what the picture looked like is rather hazy to some people. Whilst others do remember what the image projected looked like.
@@dr.impossibleofcounterpunc1984
Michael Mann said for the Heat restoration "the ambition here was: If I was shooting the film 2-3yrs ago, what would it look like?" That's why it was a little controversial, he wanted to update it rather than "archive" it, and this is the case with many "director approved" transfers.
Other notable examples of this approach are WKW's Fallen Angels where he stretched the 1.85 image into anamorphic widescreen. The Director/DP approved Memories of Murder is another that looks absolutely nothing like the original - I think Bong said he wanted to update it to look as he originally envisioned, rather than how it looked in theaters. Friedkin also had a hilarious debacle of a remaster to French Connection that was later updated with a new release bc of how controversial it was.
@@gphonk7359 I have to say that I haven't personally seen a copy of the Warner/ Heat transfer on 4K. All I have is the standard UK disc on DVD. Sounds like Heat's been overly darkened.
Heat was also changed in its audio mix. I only watch the laserdisc which has seemingly the theatrical ac3 track which is very aggressive and particularly in its loudest moments.
Yes the scene in part 2 where they smoke cigars looks like a VHS copy i noticed that the first time i saw the uhd, also the Window scene with the super bright light, Who made the decision to blast the hdr to 10000.there should be some kind of quality control.
QC seems to no longer exist unless it’s being handled entirely by Indicator.
Love your reviews, dude! Finally somebody who knows what they're talking about!! Not joking, your channel should be more popular than it is. I'm not a super-duper videophile expert, but I know a few things, and there is definitely off about these getting 5 star reviews everywhere.... I'm looking at screenshots on capsohalic (and please correct me if I'm wrong anywhere) it seems like GF1 looks the worst. Especially that first screenshot with hideous dnr/encode. GF2 looks great in some caps, but others have dnr and wooden compression. I think overall GF2 is still a huge improvement over the older bluray, if it weren't for the color change. I like the color for the old GF2 bluray and I don't want it changed. This is why I'm sticking with the 2008 disc as much as it pains me, because otherwise the detail looks massive (for a lot of it) on the UHD.
The new source scans and work put in made for good materials to work from that were technically beyond what could be done in 2007. The trouble is other people got their hands on them and did seemingly what they wanted to resulting in the mess that is on the UHDs.
It really doesn’t make sense and if someone else could work directly from the same raw scans a proper disc release could be made from them.
There's an audio glitch in the mono mix of Part II on the 4K!
Where did you find something? It wouldn’t surprise me if they goofed up something when porting the bd lossy mono.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader During the "I know it was you Fredo" scene the audio loops. It'll be obvious when you know what you're looking for. I even compared it to my old Coppola Restoration disc which doesn't have the error.
@@stitch2002 I’ll take a look at it when I get my UHD player working again.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader Sounds good! The 5.1 mix is unaffected of course.
Someone did a video on why colors have gotten darker recently, and it's because digital cameras are more sensitive to light whereas film is much less sensitive, so you fan crank up the light way more.
And on digital, clipping looks bad, so there's this push not to clip. Old film movies had clipping, and it looked good and was part of the film. But that clipping isn't there in today's releases.
It's an interesting take. My biggest issue with these new releases isn't color so much as DNR. I hate how smeary and waxy it looks. My TV can "fix" that if I wanted to turn on that feature, but the film grain can never be recovered.
Very frustrated after rewatching these movies on 4K for the first time as I knew the coloring revisionist is correct for Part 1 & 2. I am going to stick with the 2008 Blu-ray releases of Part 1 & 2. I do respect with the Coda cut which is the version of Part III I am sticking with. Though I am only keeping the 4K discs of Part III in general, even though the movie itself is inferior to Part 1 & 2.
It’s the original Blu-ray releases for me and nothing else unless I want to look at the old 1.33 video masters with mono or glance at the Coda cut of III. These 4K masters are so painfully bad that I’m sure it’ll be a case like early screwy DVDs or BDs that are finally reviled years later when crud like this manipulation is more obvious.
Greetings from Santiago de Chile. Another thing that should be considered in the restoration work is the "film release" in 35mm. Although you could argue that a projector or a sound system could affect the way you saw a film, but how about the quality of the version could not be altered. If the distributor says "this is the theatrical presentation", you could believe that a movie was extremely dark or bright but that is not the case and not the intention of the filmmakers. I studied cinema, and many of my teachers work with 35, 16, 8 and Super 8 and told me that in those days not all the movies that were shown in theaters were OK and these was the fault of the studio that wanted too many copies of one movie and that they didn't respect the same standards. And lets not forget that only few cinemas around the world are certified to have the same quality as a post production facility (like Phenomena in Barcelona). For these reasons I cannot accept the argument of "film release" as the definitive version, and prefer to considered as "work in progress" and that in its next releases (Bluray, 4K, or what comes next) we will discovered other things that always were available but could not be seen or heard. In the case of "The Godfather" we could argue for hours, but at least we have the possibility to choose between 35mm, IB TECH PRINT, DCP, and all the home versions. And that for me is an opportunity that could not be missed. Adiós amigo.
That with all due respect is a flawed argument. Just because certain prints are brighter or darker than others does not change the fact that all film prints have a consistent colour palette, grain structure and overall aesthetic. Gordon Willis, the cinematographer of the Godfather films explicitly said that they were supposed to be dark with a golden palette resembling that of a vintage photo from the early 20th century. The new 4K release does not reflect that at all. The grain structure is completely destroyed with excessive DNR on top of that. They did not ask for the approval of Gordon Willis or even Robert A Harris who played a significant role into helping with Coppola to fully restore the film back in 2007.
Saying that a good original 35mm print is not the definitive version both contradicts and violates the purpose of the Library of Congress and the National Film Registry. That and film preservation communities have a specific goal, to preserve what is 'culturally, historically and aesthetically significant'. Arguing that altering the film's historical original presentation with its aesthetics is acceptable and that the theatrical presentation is nothing more than a 'work in congress' not only is completely inaccurate, but ruins historical and aesthetic preservation that further takes away from the film's cultural identity. That is a extremely dangerous road that should not be taken in order for history to be preserved.
I agree with your point on "The Godfather" case. My main concern is that many reviews of movie restorations take as reference the "theatrical versions" and not the notes of the filmmakers during the post production of their movies. For that reason I prefer to buy as many versions I could of my favorite movies to compare and choose which is the best in terms of image and audio.
@@gaspargh The original presentations reflect the filmmakers intent 99% of the time, otherwise the filmmakers would have demanded changes. The only exceptions most of the times is when the studios or the filmmaker or both change their mind about how the film should be decades after the fact.
Whoa. Let’s gets this sorted once and for all. You could not be more wrong about this transfer. So you are saying Spielberg, Copula. Paramount and all these qualified people got it wrong and you got it right. I have to tell you it’s you who has got it wrong. It’s a beautiful transfer and looks like a new movie, retaining the tonality of the film as it was intended. My system plays this movie perfectly and I am over the moon with my purchase. My advice is get your TV and player professionally calibrated because it must be way way off.
I’m glad you’re able to enjoy it because the manipulation performed here is really appalling. Yes these people did get it wrong. Horribly wrong. Even the films previous restorer Robert Harris has expressed extreme regret at how this master has turned out and that it does not represent the original films.
My gear is properly calibrated. It is paramount behind this monstrosity. The visible frozen grain halos that even move along with movement in addition to the HDR revisionism, and poor treatment of the original audio is blatantly obvious.
Amazing 4K collection
Does anyone have good resources to help learn more about the technical things such as encoding, grain, noise, and other things to be looking out for? I know I can look them up but if anyone has a particular video or article that helped them understand it better I would appreciate the mention.
Unfortunately there’s no one easy guide. You have to read, watch and study a bit. It helps to have your tv calibrated the best you can and especially seeing bad transfers and how they compare to good transfers. Once you see notable examples of each a few times it helps tremendously.
That’s what I meant about an “educated eye”. The more experience you get looking more critically at home and in theaters the easier it becomes to spot things. Which is also a headache because then you’ll start seeing stuff everywhere.
@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader Well I will get to educating myself as best as possible. Thanks for the advice!
Wasn't expecting spoilers in this review. I haven't seen these movies yet and wanted to know which Format to buy them on.
I am curious what you thought of the Apocalypse Now 4k remaster?
Hey Spencer... I remember back in the olden days when you used to post videos about stuff you actually liked...(that was a not-so-subtle hint that we still haven't gotten your Best of 2022 video 😀...
Great rant as usual but this one was too late for me, alas. I'd already picked up the set a while back. Too bad you can't get advance screeners
(although after this review I'd check anything you got in the mail from Paramount to see if it's ticking)...😂
True on all counts.😂 don’t worry my best of is coming soon. I wanted to make sure and cover the last few contenders that all dropped late December or were delayed slightly into January.
The new set does have the two new extras for die hards plus the theatrical Part 3 so at least there’s that for trying to not feel bad forking over money to Paramount. I’m the nut who bought two sets for review purposes….🤪
I'm not the biggest Godfather fan but you sold me on the 2008 Blu-rays,Thanks.
You got duped. The 2008 blu-rays are terrible transfers.
@@thischannelisdeletedthey look fine to me. I’m fine watching them and don’t feel the need to upgrade to 4K.
I have no experience with the Blu-rays except for the dvds but I really liked my 4K part 2 copy
"I see everything. That is my curse" - Sherlock Holmes.
I so strongly associate with that quote!😂
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader If it's any consolation, your channel has been a masterclass for me on what is and isn't a good transfer from a film preservation perspective (rather than a "showcasing the AV tech" perspective).
@@DanKeatis thank you! That’s very nice to hear. I try to cover everything I can think of in a review.
Wish I had seen this before I bought this set. Although, I had never seen, nor owned these movies before. Subbed.
The only reason I bought the deluxe 4K version was for the bonus disc that had the theatrical version which was just a delight to see but nothing else in that set is worth it.
I still watch my laserdiscs if I want to see these movies and that doesn’t seem to be changing soon
Getting the theatrical III is a real win. The LDs are ok for the time but aren’t the greatest being 1.33 and the monos on the BDs while lossy do sound a bit better.
How is “frozen grain”, which I saw myself, created in the first place? Bad encode? Compression?
It seems to be several scenarios. One can be bad compression but what you see here is more like a DNR pass was done but they leave or add back some grain to try and cover it up. I think the new trend is to leave a sort of halo space around people or objects moving so that it gives the sense of normalcy but if you look closely you'll see all the telltale trails and traces of this grain halo blob on a DNR surface. Usually it's very minor and I wouldn't be able to see ti without having a pretty good OLED tv. OLED hides nothing and makes even the tiniest bit of a frozen or noise halo painfully obvious. Then again I'm a bit primed for seeing this as I'm used to looking for old LD masters with ringing in them. lol.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader Thank you for such a detailed explanation, Damn Fool! 🙂
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader I have been looking for a specific definition of "frozen grain" as opposed to "grain". I think I get it now
Everything corporate is trash. Stay away from corporate food. Corporate politics. Corporate medications. And now corporate film preservation. Excellent video. I wish there was a better way of showing what we got vs what we could and should have gotten.
Fascinating! Is it not best to grab the dvd versions and run them upscaled?
I wish coppola saw this video and paramount, i wonder what they would say about All this, how can this be especially with this trilogy. All the reviews missed this.
Unfortunately most “director approved” transfers are either them looking at earlier versions that differ from the final release or they either don’t know what is being done or think/are led to believe it’s fine.
Here my guess is Paramount did all of this after Zoetrope finished their part but it’s impossible to say when and where the damage was done.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader ok
Watching this today ... Will compare myself ... I have familiarity with all these tools ... My guess is that its not as egregious as presented here ... But maybe somewhat disturbing nostalgia driven reviews.
I agree that if there are blowouts, broken grain or over brightening etc it will be sad.
What version is the best to buy on blu-ray? 2008 Coppola restoration?
Yes. All the Blu-ray editions released before this new 4K master are the same Coppola collection discs and are your best option still to this day.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader I am curious which Blu ray has all or at least the best special features?
@@OldFashionedCinephile The supplements are all the same except for the paltry amount added for the new UHD release. You have the original ones dating back to around 1991 with the bulk of the other extras being done for the DVD release and then several new extras being done for the first Blu-ray release. all of those files have been ported over multiple times without any upgrading so the only thing the UHD does is add the one or two very brief new supplements plus the infuriating new extra where they’re patting themselves on the back for their “restoration”.
Not a Godfather fan ... but what a crap release. Everything reeks of no sensitivity to neither artistic expression, style, design or restoration ! You are doing good work helping fans avoid this
"Not a Godfather fan", someone I wouldn't trust to pick up my mail.
This is just a man who may (or may not) look a day over 30, yelling at the clouds.
If i didnt know any better, i wouldve said Paramount has a weird specific vendetta against Spencer in particular.
😂😂admittedly it’s starting to become a recurring nightmare like LJN games for the AVGN.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader speaking of shoddy restorations, the new 4K restoration of The Terminator is gonna be hitting theaters very soon. I can only imagine how destructive that's gonna be, knowing that James Cameron is directly involved.
@@newmedia2862 I’ve been dreading it for months but yesterday it was revealed the new master has been done by park road post with an Atmos remix so now we know 100% for sure that video hell is coming…
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader welp, guess we'll be hanging on to our 2001 Special Edition DVDs :P
And I shall eagerly await your review as I go and grab some popcorn.
Did you cover the AWFUL Basic Instinct 4K release by Studio Canal?
No, I haven’t seen that master yet. I don’t even think there’s a USA release and that it’s still one you have to import.
I do remember quite a lot of discussion back when it came out about a new modernized color timing in addition to some DNR discussion.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader Yeah they inexplicably took DeBont's ice cold color timing (symbolizing the ice-pick theme and her ice cold personality) and made it warm and teal and orange.
I would love it if you showed zoomed screenshots. I hear what you're saying, but I have no way of verifying. And I want to believe you know what you're saying, but it's hard to relate without a comparison.
I'm talking about all your videos I've seen so far. Something like 10 of them.
@@Saturn2888 I tried so many times to get the frozen grain effect to show when I was making this video. I still don’t know how to clearly show examples because it’s hard for it to pick up when aiming a camera at a TV screen and it’s also something you have to see in motion so screen caps won’t do it either. I even tried making clips extremely zoomed in, but that doesn’t quite work.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader Yeah, video editing is tough :P. I don't do it myself anymore either, I pay someone else.
I appreciate you making an effort to capture this!
I really like this channel. There's a lot of content that doesn't really appeal to me (purely because our interests don't align) BUT there's never any doubt about your knowledge/insight/research. When you put a video out that DOES appeal to me and my taste in movies, I'm fascinated. I don't have 4K capability but I sat through this and your Superman video gripped due to your stellar, comprehensive breakdowns of the product. The home video market needs you on the inside making changes. Keep up the great work! Maybe your other videos will turn me on to new interests and movie picks!
Oh gosh, thank you!! That’s what I strive for in these videos. Since I’ve never been able to get my foot in the door I began making these videos to have something out there that was both honest and as factual as possible. I do all kinds of research like this anyway on my own time so it’s nice to have somewhere to put it!😂
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader I'd love to see and hear you comb through the various home video releases of Halloween, particularly concerning the controversial colour grading/transfers and soundtrack revisions. I'd argue that Halloween's original mono soundtrack being stuck on Laserdisc is a worse fate than the Star Wars trilogy (at LEAST we got those 2004 Laserdisc transfers on DVD!)
Were these issues on streaming? I didn’t see any of these.
They would be baked into the master itself as they were on the SDR Blu-rays. Streaming compression rates and added compression noise might disguise some things.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader That makes sense! I bought T2 on 4K for my girlfriend (I bought it mainly for the steelbook and the blu ray itself is fine, also was only $14) and she and I who are not like cinephiles by any means totally notice how rough that 4K was. I guess streaming really is the main focus these days.
Good evening all
I have The Godfather soundtrack CD but it's an older release I got back in 2004.
Coppola pulled a Lucas or a Peter Jackson?
Paramount or someone certainly screwed around with all kinds of things.
even if everything you say is true, it won't affect 99% of people watching it. only 0.1% of people who are obsessive expert cinephiles will notice any short comings. to my laymen eye, it was an truly astonishing remaster. with beautiful ultra high definition textures
You complain about many vudeo issues, why did you not do a comparission view of this 4k version vs. the 2007 restoration? Others have.
I don’t have a good way to capture 4K footage at the moment and also it doesn’t really help very much with both video compression and RUclips‘s compression causing all kinds of anomalies. Most of what you see in comparison videos on RUclips are actually not fully representative of the original source. I’m also afraid of getting copyright strikes which can happen at any time.
I'm fine with the Blu rays of the 2007 restoration
I go into great details on why those are still the best way to watch the trilogy.
I’m fine with the 2007 blu ray as well. I haven’t upgraded to 4K at any rate. I’m a poor bastard, can’t afford a 4K player or 4K television. Perhaps in another decade or so. Took me years to make the switch from DVD to blu ray.
4k, the visual side, is a con in my opinion. 1k was always absolutely acceptable. The film companies are doing a huge cash grab, the only way they can make 4k stand out on normal home AV, is by enhancing the colours and contrast (look at colour issues on The Exorcist (that film isnt suppose to be colourful).
4K is amazing. Get a Sony Bravia TV if wanna see
The audio was restored.
No it wasn’t. They reused the 5.1 remixes and the lossy mono on 1 and 2 from the Blu-rays. The only difference is that they made the lossy mono on Part 1 sound worse.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader Other reviewers said the mono audio was restored. Like you said it is slightly different, but albeit not being presented in lossless form. What makes it sound worse?
Also Robert’s Harris post about the film is not nearly as negative as you make it out to be. He seems to be very pleased with the restoration actually, but acknowledges the differences.
Why are there 10min of adds before your video?????
I’m not sure. That’s a RUclips thing and I’ve noticed they’re recently gone up on the number of ads everywhere.
The blurays have a yellow tint that supposedly wasn't with the original movies. Don't act like we can buy the original in some kind of way. The 4k remaster was supervised by Francis Ford Coppola. If that is his vision than so be it.
The Coppola Restoration Blu-rays were supervised by Coppola and Gordon Willis and done by a team of restoration experts determined to be as correct as possible. For the time period they did about as best as they could and made a proper version of record. Paramount merely operated off of this work and then decided to ignore it and do whatever they wanted. The 4K master is not a proper reference version and shouldn’t be sold as one.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusaderWhere are your sources for any of this? Between this and your review of the Indiana Jones box set it seems like you have an axe to grind with Paramount. Without the context of specific articles or interviews that go into the nuts and bolts of the restorations you are just making assumptions that may or may not be true.
Sorry, I had to laugh when about 80 mins in you say "So, in short..."
@@damianp564 haha that’s why I left it in when editing.
I just read the review of the UHD 4k Blu-ray of The Godfather (the original, 1st film of the trilogy) by Robert A. Harris, the world renowned restoration specialist who was the main restoration pro who worked on the 2007 restoration of The Godfather. And though Harris noted that the film's original grain is reduced some in 2022's 4k Blu-ray, resulting in a look that's different from how the film originally looked, Mr Harris made NO mention of such things as "frozen grain" supposedly surrounding Marlon Brando's head as he sits down at the meeting of the 5 crime families, nor did Mr Harris mention seeing any problem with the 4k's video presentation of dark corridors of the hospital where Don Corleone is recovering.
Robert A. Harris, due to literally having spent thousands of hours studying all the scenes of The Godfather in order to accomplish his 2007 restoration of the film, knows as well as any
living person just how the film should look. That should make all of us wonder just how the Damned Fool Idealistic Crusader can easily see "frozen grain" that he says "can't be missed", though every other reviewer of that disc, including Mr Harris, continually misses seeing that awful "frozen film grain"! So IF somehow, Robert A Harris had managed to miss such an unmissable defect on the 4k disc of The Godfather, surely some of his colleagues in the film world would have brought this "frozen film grain" travesty to Mr Harris's attention. Therefore, as so many different reviewers, as well as serious fans of film at home, all failed to notice this floating "frozen grain" picture defect that the Damned Fool Idealistic Crusader defines as very hard to miss, leads me to the logical conclusion that he has an unusual one in a hundred type view of the situation regarding the 4k Blu-ray of The Godfather that either results from his own TV, or its associated video equipment, not functioning properly, or otherwise, he's likely to be suffering from a defect in his vision that he's just not aware of.
BTW, despite the Damned Fool Idealistic Crusader claiming (inaccurately) that Robert A Harris had slammed the 50th Anniversary 4k Blu-ray edition of The Godfather with a negative review,
the following paragraphs, within quote signs are directly from Mr Harris's "A few words about..." review of The Godfather 50th Anniversary UHD 4k Blu-ray release of the 1972 film:
"Will someone look at the 50th and after three minutes, think to themselves that something is different. Very doubtful, as it looks terrific.
What we had performed has been called a technical restoration, tracking every shot as Mr. Willis wanted them to be seen - 2007.
Tastes change. Technology changes. New audiences arrive, and while there are differences, there's no downside.
Beginning with a more modern scan, with a deeper bit depth, allowed for some updates, which work nicely. The restoration still took thousands of hours of digital clean-up and repair, then color and densities."
That was from Mr Harris's end remarks on 2022's release of The Godfather 4k BD as he added that IHO even longtime fans of the film, like him, or me, will feel the BD looks great! And like me, many longtime film fans on Home Theater Forum, DON'T hate grain, but love this 4k BD!
He also gave the James Cameron AI disasters top marks. He's just not a very trustworthy reviewer, despite his pedigree as a restoration specialist.
Is this real video or trolling? The 4K is amazing. They spent a lot of time and money on this remaster.
Just because Paramount spent a lot of money doesn’t mean they got it right or had the film’s best interest at heart in an archival sense. I think the best way to put it is how the films previous restorer Robert Harris said that this new master was Paramount‘s new version where they did what they wanted to.
The motion halos alone I find so bad that it’s unwatchable. On top of that in spite of all the money they spent they didn’t pay attention to the audio at all, except that they made the first film sound worse.
Yeah who cares of looks bit different to 10800 Blu ray SDR version
I couldn’t stand the initial Blu-ray release of the films. It looked like Coppola took a piss on them.
the blu ray looks ok to me.
This set is like colorizing Citizen Kane, ffs
Haha I hadn’t thought of that comparison. All this stuff is a new realm of revisionism.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader it's part of the industry's ongoing mission of bulls--t to make older films look/sound like new films.
Between this and the rumors of a Vertigo remake with Robert Downey Jr, it sounds like every upper level executive at every studio is in need of a sanity hearing.
Whatever. You dont know what you're talking about. The images I've seen from this new 4K transfer looks fantastic. And there have been many great reviews for this trilogy
This is just old man yelling at the clouds.
Godfather 4Ks are amazing
No they aren't
They did a proper big money remaster. Documentary about it on the 4K. Amazing picture
@ps5andstuffhere It's a modern scan, but then they did revisionist color grade and random encoding and dnr.
Make an hour video explaining why is that the case, then we'll see who is right and who is yelling at the clouds.
thanks