Welcome to Monday's Open Thread / Coffee Hour. For today's suggested topic of discussion I would like to share a article in one of the newsletters I subscribe to: The Price of Blu-ray Perfection, By Jason Bovberg. The upshot is the new Blu-ray disks can record the original films master so accurately that if not re-edited one can see flaws that no one saw before.
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photo from wikipedia
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This is a Open Thread / Coffee Hour, and all topics of conversation are welcome. How are you doing today? What is for dinner? And what is on your mind? If you are new to Street Prophets please introduce yourself in a comment below. More about the Cinephile’s Dilemma beyond the fold.
The article talks about obvious wires holding up the Cowardly Lion’s tail. In the original movie release the print did not show the wires, but they were there. And the television release on the small screen hid the wires very well.
But, the new blu-ray release would have shown the wires. The question is should the wires be removed digitally to preserve the magic of the movie?
Where does the digital manipulation stop? If we’re talking about the hypothetical wishes of a film director who is no longer with us, how can we be sure we’re not going too far? Should we include film grain in the argument? Why not cleanse older films of all sense of their age, scrubbing all film grain and creating clean, sharp transfers of all older films? And what about goofs? Imagine restoring Hitchcock’s classic North by Northwest and, in the process, digitally erasing that blond kid who covers his ears before Eva Marie Saint shoots Cary Grant. Such goofs have become part of film history, and erasing them would arguably sanitize a very human, warts-and-all endeavor.
From: The Price of Blu-ray Perfection, By Jason Bovberg
Another notorious example is Star Wars. In the newer releases the director used digital magic to alter the film extensively. So much so South Park did a whole show lampooning the changes. George Lucas changed the bar scene where Hans Solo shot the bad guy. This was a plot change.
What do you think?