It’s sometimes easy to fall into the trap that a bigger number on something means that it’s subjectively better, when really it’s just objectively “more” on some measurable axis.
That’s exactly what I see happening when it comes to 4K UHD Blu-ray or even the 4K streaming version of movies and shows. These are often considered the “definitive” versions of a film, when the 4K (or sometimes even HD) versions offer an inferior experience to the original intended fidelity the content was made for.
When “more detail” becomes too much
When a film is made, the decisions around makeup, props, camera angles and blocking, and everything else around the production focus on how audiences will see that content. In other words, filmmakers can rely on the limitations of contemporary cinema and home TV technology to balance the cost and attention to detail of their films.
Credit: Sydney Louw Butler/How-To Geek
Creating much higher-definition or wider aspect ratio versions of a film or show from its original film negatives can end up revealing details that go against what was intended. It can make makeup, prosthetics, matte paintings, stunt-double faces, or other details become obvious. Destroying the illusion the film’s going for. Something that had a dreamlike quality where you easily suspend your disbelief now looks like a stage play.
The film grain problem
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Movies shot on film have natural film-grain, which is integral to the look of the film. Grain causes all sorts of headaches for digital video. For one thing, it wreaks havoc on compression algorithms and streaming services like Netflix have to remove it and then simulate it so that movies look right.
When making a 4K version of a movie or show shot on film, the grain issue can ruin things in many ways. The grain may be too sharp and obvious compared to how the movie is meant to look, or as in the case with James Cameron’s Aliens, (via the Hollywood Reporter) fans may hate how grain has been removed.
In the end, the DVD or Blu-ray version might have the more pleasing integration of grain with the rest of the image.
Not all restorations are created equal
Credit: Sydney Louw Butler / StudioCanal / How-To Geek
There are many giant forum threads out on the web complaining about how the 4K release of a movie has messed with the colors of a film or how tacking HDR onto movies that weren’t shot for it completely changes the intended look and feel.
Even worse, some of these 4K releases are done using AI upscaling from lower-res sources. So it’s not like any detail is being recovered from a high-quality source, and the AI upscaler can add made-up details into the content that never existed, with some incredibly strange and disturbing results.
It takes incredible skill, understanding of a film’s original vision, and perhaps most importantly, restraint to create a 4K restoration of something without making it worse than the versions that have come before. Aggressive denoising is a big culprit, and sometimes even meddling with original elements like VFX, though that’s not strictly speaking a 4K-specific issue.
A good 4K release of a classic movie or show should look like how you remember it (not necessarily how it actually looked) but with improvements in areas where they make things better, not worse.
That’s always going to be a subjective judgment call, and you can’t phone it in. Yet, in many cases, the 4K release of a film is exactly that—a phoned-in cash grab to prey on collectors who want to own the “best” version of their favorite media.
When “less” really is more
For me, this is something I really live by. When I watch The Matrix, I watch the original DVD release. I never saw the movie in theaters, and whether that DVD release has color grading true to the theatrical version or not, that’s what I think the movie should look like. Now, if you personally saw the later releases with their different approaches to color first, that might not apply to you. But, that goes to show how nuanced this conversation is.
Likewise, I consider my standard Blu-ray extended edition of Terminator 2 to be the definitive version to own. The 4K release has numerous problems, not least of which the color being so different that it completely changes the character of the movie.
1999’s Fight Club is a gritty, grainy movie that absolutely relies on the specific look of the movie to do a lot of the heavy lifting. Creator David Fincher is working on a 4K release (via Collider) but is incredibly aware of the challenges that it presents if you want to do it right for almost all the reasons I mentioned above.
I wish all creators or IP owners looking to release an old movie in this new format had Fincher’s integrity and anxiety around the process, but sadly the reality is that I need to treat any 4K release of content that predates that resolution with plenty of skepticism.
