Top Gun Maverick. It basically had no right being as good as it was. After the cheese-fest that was the original, this was a genuine bona-fide action film through and through. The sort of movie I thought they stopped making about 25 years ago. It made my mum cry but she apparently saw the original at the Odeon 6 times back in the day and rented it at Blockbuster every other weekend and also had a massive poster of Tom Cruise on her wall. If you’ve seen it, you can probably guess what part made her cry.
@nessisonett My brother took my nephew and he said it was structurally pretty much identical to the first movie with a fairly blatant rip off of the 'Star Wars' Death Star Trench attack thrown in for good measure. That notwithstanding he said it was absolutely brilliant and his best movie going experience since "Avengers:Infinity War". I'm actually a little bit jealous - but not enough to pay to go and see the thing.
@JohnnyShoulder That's good news - it's a really great transfer so it's a shame that a dodgy batch made its way onto store shelves. I've been fairly lucky in that regard although I did have to apply for a replacement copy of "Akira" because the initial release of the UK 4K disc somehow got mastered,pressed and shipped without HDR. Weird how stuff like that can sometimes get past quality control.
@LN78 Indeed. I only got Donnie Darko 4K after Arrow sorted out the discs. Have you seen the new steelbook of of the first Indiana Jones movie? Now I'm not bothered about steelbooks either way, but this is so much better than ones you get with the box set.
Life is more fun when you help people succeed, instead of wishing them to fail.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
@JohnnyShoulder Glad your The Thing 4K was okay. After getting quite a few of my favourite films in 4K when I got my PS5 I'm getting much more selective as to which films are worth an upgrade from the Blu-ray. I just wish James Cameron would find the time to oversee the transfer of some of his films. I would really like an Aliens and Terminator 2 4K. I know there are T2 4ks out there but I've heard they're not very good. Plus I don't think The Abyss has been available since VHS.
@BearsEatBeets Yeah I'm trying to only buy movies in 4K that are my faves, and most of them are from the eighties, nineties and noughties as I think you notice the upgrade more. Saying that I got Universal Soldier that is nowhere near one my faves but really enjoyed it when I got round to watching it, and was really impressed with the visual upgrade.
Looks like James Cameron is busy making 20 Avatar movies at the moment. I'm not sure how good it will be having his name attached to the 4K releases of his films though, as apparently the botched Teminator 2 he oversaw in some capacity. But it looks like they won't happen without him signing off on them.
@JohnnyShoulder Yeah I think you see more of the improvement in older films. I remember watching something a while back about how modern day CGI special effects are only created in HD as it would take too much processing power to do it in 4K. So a lot of these effects heavy films are just upscaling anyway.
I'm kind of hoping the botched T2 he let out is the reason why he won't allow any more of his films to be done without his direct oversite. But yeah, he's going to be tied up with Avatar for years to come.
@BearsEatBeets There's a special edition DVD of "The Abyss" and I've got a Spanish Blu-Ray of "True Lies" (not sure why it hasn't been released in the US or UK - it must be a rights thing) but as you said the 4K release of "T2" is dreadful. It's essentially an upscaled but de-3D'd version of the theatrical cut that got churned out at the height of the 3D fad that looks like it has been coated in wax because of the digital noise reduction. To add insult to injury (for the non multi-lingual) the Atmos track is absolutely superb but only available in German!
@LN78 I must have missed the dvd of The Abyss, it's certainly been a long time since I've seen it. With Disney now owning Fox I thought it might have got added to Plus but nothing yet. Still it took a while for the Alien and the Predator films to appear on there.
@BearsEatBeets There has apparently been a James Cameron approved HD version of the movie ready to go for years but Disney is getting out of the physical media business as it pertains to their back catalogue (which now includes all of the Fox library) so I don't think it'll ever come to 4K blu-ray at this point. Same for the remainder of the "Alien" series and stuff like "Fight Club" and "Romancing the Stone" - which is a damn shame.
I'll never understand your affection for "Batman and Robin" (it's really,really bad) although I will admit that I've warmed (no pun!) to it on my last couple of viewings [...] because a friend of mine said that I should watch it as a big budget modern take on the Adam West show from the 1960's.
Well, it sounds like you do understand after all, as that's exactly what it's always been to me. As a single-digit kid, I grew up watching reruns of Batman '66 on BBC Two because my mother had loved the show in her childhood (this is roughly the same reason why I'm a Trekkie). I was too young for the Burton / Keaton movies and so, as far as I was concerned, Adam West was Batman and the whole property was a camp farce. I was nearing my eighth birthday by the time Forever rolled around, and it was being purposefully advertised as "family friendly" after the minor outrage Returns had caused, so it became the first superhero movie I got to see on the big screen. It was a transformative experience. I came out of that theatre singing the soundtrack's central march, obsessed with capes and grappling hooks... but alas, my folks hadn't enjoyed its psychedelic extravagance, so fast forward a couple years later to the release of Batman & Robin (a.k.a. Forever dialled up to eleven) and my pleas to go see it fell on deaf ears. As we all know, tell a kid something's forbidden and you're just making it all the more desirable, but I wasn't even ten yet, so there was no way I could sneak out and see it for myself. I got by on the occasional toy commercial and magazine advert, all of which was naturally designed to make the movie look incredible. The negative reviews passed me by, not that they would've made a difference. I was convinced I'd missed out, and determined to adore the blasted thing whenever I finally got to see it, no matter what.
According to reports, Joel Schumacher would start each take by yelling "Remember people, it's a cartoon!!" into a megaphone, and I can totally believe that. I wholeheartedly agree with Ness, it's a movie that knows what it wants to be, for better or worse. Despite all the commercial considerations driving the production and dictating the tone, I genuinely get the sense that it just wants to be fun, and I can't hate anything for wanting that. Dutch angles, neon, and Elliot Goldenthal's perfect soundtrack make it what it is. I also have huge respect for Arnie's performance throughout, considering that he had a rig of blue LEDs in his mouth the entire time, which would start to leak battery acid every ten minutes.
I didn't see the Burton / Keaton movies until much, much later, way beyond my formative years. I agree that it's jarring to compare them to the Schumacher duology, even though they're supposed to share the same continuity, and so I also prefer to separate them in my headspace. I personally can't say whether they're "better" or "worse" than one another, mainly because they are so different. There's nothing wrong with wanting big, dumb, over-produced popcorn nonsense from time to time. I laugh at it, I laugh with it, but at least I'm laughing... just like I'm laughing whenever I watch Batman '66.
By the way, speaking of that Frank Miller statue back there, have you seen the two-part animated adaptation of The Dark Knight Returns, starring Peter Weller as Batman? The comic was never my favourite, but I really enjoyed those movies. They make it all work for me, somehow.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger I have the animated "TDKR" (my second favourite Batman story after "Year One") on my shelf next to most of the other recent adaptations of classic comic runs and I think it works rather well except for the removal of the interior monologue that was front and centre in the comics. Apparently that was (somewhat ironically) in response to the VO being too overbearing for many in the animated "Year One" movie. Anyway, it was leaps and bounds better than "The Killing Joke" but perhaps not as good as "The Long Halloween". Next time I watch "B&R" I'll keep repeating to myself "it's a cartoon, it's a cartoon" and see if that mitigates things further but I just can't help feeling (like Schumacher himself evidently did) that the whole enterprise was a gaudy monument to corporate cynicism and little else. At least it's better than "The Batman".
EDIT - Do you have the 4K blu-ray of "B&R"? I honestly can't recommend it highly enough.
@LN78 I don't have any 4K Blu-Rays yet, but those four bat-films are high on my list for when I do start collecting, as I'd already heard excellent things (although I'm grateful for your endorsement, as I know you follow such things far closer than I). Shame about the generic artwork on the steelbook there, although it's the same story for my current Blu-Rays, as I've got the collection with the minimalist logo covers.
Urgh, I'd tried my best to forget that abhorrent adaptation of The Killing Joke. It holds the dubious honour of being the only Blu-Ray I've ever thrown straight in the trash after watching, no hyperbole. What a nauseating travesty of a thing that was. It's kinda why I mentioned The Dark Knight Returns funnily enough, since, all things considered, it's one of the most faithful adaptations, missing monologue aside. I do understand that criticism of the animated Year One movie, though. I felt that Ben McKenzie was ever-so-slightly miscast as Batman (he was much more entertaining in Gotham, especially once that show surrendered to its eventual insanity). Beyond the obvious choice, I reckon that Peter Weller, Bruce Greenwood and Roger Craig Smith are my favourite Batman voice actors, at least in terms of animation.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger I sometimes wish that "Robocop" wasn't one of my favourite movies (and that it didn't have such a weird synergy with the works of Frank Miller) because I can't hear Peter Weller's voice without thinking of that character - even though his work in "TDKR" was undeniably excellent.
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