War of the Worlds (1953) 4K Remaster!

[Batutta]

Any fans of vintage sci-fi should check out the latest remaster of this movie. It's only on streaming sites, but it looks and sounds phenomenal. I watched it on iTunes (both the HD and 4K are the same master). The image has never looked better. Beautiful technicolor imagery. Controversially, they digitally removed the wires on the space ship shots. I'm fine with that as they were always distracting, but that's the only tinkering they did. The movie was an early stereo release, so the audio has been spread out to the surrounds and has a lot of punch in the low end. I love watching some of these old classics. They are so uncluttered story wise, and the dialogue scenes have a lot of energy and pace to them. Too many dramatic scenes in movies these days are filled with long, silent pauses and drawn out, mumbled dialogue.

 

[spgreen65]

Thanks for the heads up.

 

[scorsesefan]

Great film. The remake was pretty good save Dakota Fanning's antics and the the fact that they made Tom Cruise a working schmo instead of a scientist, which IMO made t less interesting. Not sure that I like the digital removal of the wires though -- never noticed them myself...

 

[Batutta]

Not sure that I like the digital removal of the wires though -- never noticed them myself...

I've always been able to see them on the ships, and on the camera snaking through the house. The filmmakers did their best to try and hide them with lighting and smoke, so I think it's fine to finish the job.

 

[Jim Arthurs]

Had the opportunity back in '86 or so to see it projected at an art house in 35mm... really enjoyed seeing it the way an audience in the day would have. Don't like the fact they tried to touch up the wires. Hands off, IMO.

The Spielberg remake is a solid film, but for me more in context of a bookend to his work on Close Encounters of the Third Kind...

It's interesting to see how Spielberg (as a young man/young director) depicts in CETK a father who abandons his entire family in context of a childlike upbeat inspiring film, to (as a mature, older filmmaker) showing a father who learns to accept fatherhood and responsibility in context of a dark, grim movie...

 

[cyvideo]

Yes indeed. Managed to to find a 4k version as an MKV with the following encode specs. Is this the one?

: 1
Format : HEVC
Format/Info : High Efficiency Video Coding
Format profile : Main 10@L5.1@High
Codec ID : V_MPEGH/ISO/HEVC
Duration : 1 h 25 min
Bit rate : 8 154 kb/s
Width : 2 962 pixels
Height : 2 160 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 1.371
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 24.000 FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0 (Type 2)
Bit depth : 10 bits
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.053
Stream size : 4.86 GiB (96%)
Title : @NAHOM
Writing library : x265 3.0_RC+14-46b84ff665fd:[Windows][GCC 8.2.1][64 bit] 10bit

Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Color range : Limited
Color primaries : BT.2020
Transfer characteristics : SMPTE ST 2084
Matrix coefficients : BT.2020 non-constant
Mastering display color primar : R: x=0.708000 y=0.292000, G: x=0.170000 y=0.797000, B: x=0.131000 y=0.046000, White point: x=0.312700 y=0.329000
Mastering display luminance : min: 4.1250 cd/m2, max: 4000.0000 cd/m2

Apparently it is only offered as a stream. They have no intention of releasing it as DVD or BD which is a shame. It's from an Italian source with Italian as the prime audio. It has English as an optional audio track selection so I've just de-muxed it and re-wrapped to MP4 with English only. Beautifully clean vision. 1953 in living breathing high quality color. Will watch it tonight!

EDIT: It was a HEVC x265 4:2:0 10-bit file so have re-wrapped the HEVC 10-bit to English and re-encoded it as an MP4 8-bit file as my TV won't look at the HEVC encodes. Both look pretty good.

Chris Young

 

[scorsesefan]

It's interesting to see how Spielberg (as a young man/young director) depicts in CETK a father who abandons his entire family in context of a childlike upbeat inspiring film, to (as a mature, older filmmaker) showing a father who learns to accept fatherhood and responsibility in context of a dark, grim movie...

Questions of paternal responsibility have always been present in Spielberg's films. As you noted, in his early films the father is often absent or abdicates his responsibilities in some way. This recurring theme in his films is often attributed to the break up of his family as a child and his father leaving his mother. Spielberg blamed his father...

For years Spielberg believed that it was his father that abandoned his mother and the family. Recently, his mother admitted that it was she who had fallen in love with another man and so his father left. They kept up the lie for many years to protect his mom.

Spielberg was working under this assumption for many years before he learned the truth. I'm sort of glad that he didn't know the truth because he made so many great films during that period based on this false family narrative...