HD screencaps of CutThroat Island on the Blu Ray format.
When i heard one of my favourite films of the nineties was being released on Blu Ray i was very pleased but wondered if the transfer would be any good.
Lionsgate have unfortunately released a number of lacklustre over processed films on the high definition Blu Ray format. Films such as Basic Instinct, First Blood and Total Recall look far from their best. Unfortunately you can now add CutThroat Island to the list of poor Lionsgate releases.
I initially defended this release when i was a member of the AVS forums but i don't mind admitting i was wrong. This transfer is very disappointing.
I spent a lot of money importing the Japanese DVD with full bitrate DTS several years back and i have been able to carefully compare that release with this one.
The DVD suffers from a bit too much noise and edge enhancement but equally the Blu Ray suffers from too much DNR and automated scratch removal.
I have been trying to find a way to do mouse rollovers with WordPress and while you can do it within the page i have had difficulty finding a way to do it with large clicked images thus you will have to either download the comparison images and use Windows picture viewer or click between the browser images. If anyone has a solution to this then contact me.
I will not get into the whole debate about whether the film is good or bad because i have come to the opinion you either love this film or hate it. I personally enjoy it a lot and think it's a throwback to old fashioned pirate films of the fifties and early sixties.
This film should not be compared to Pirates Of The Caribbean as that is like comparing apples to oranges. CutThroat Island entertained me more and has a wonderful sound mix.
Why can't these studio's lay off the tools and just give us the film warts and all. I'll take some specks, dirt and film grain over what they have given us on this disc.
The release is better than the DVD and yes it's most certainly high definition with lots of detail but i did not find the image film like. Occasionally they give us a glimpse of what might have been and leave a little bit of the original grain intact but mostly they have scrubbed the image so that everything is super clean with just a hint of the original grain structure sometimes being visible.
I have added this film to my Major Issues List which you can view by clicking here.
I captured the DVD images using the BT 601 colour scheme.
Note that there appears to be slightly more information at the sides on some scenes in the DVD edition but slightly less top and bottom. This was shot in a Scope format and not Super 35 and i believe the reason you see slightly less image at the sides on the Blu Ray is because the original 2K image that would be used for this transfer is being slightly cropped rather than undergoing a downconversion procedure. I believe this is becoming common practice.
Check out the first image and you can see scratch removal tools have erased heavy water/rainfall in the cell scene. In motion the rain drops down and parts of it are missing as it falls down.
Edge enhancement and contrast differences obviously highlight the rain more in the DVD edition but it disappears and reappears if you frame advance on the Blu Ray. Obviously you don't watch a film that way but i feel scratch removal tools have removed some of the rain as it disappears and reappears much like the arrows and flames in Gladiator.
When you look at Geena Davis in frame 2 below her face is thinner in the DVD edition. I believe this is an issue when scaling the anamorphic DVD image of 720×480 to 1920×1080 resolution and it is not an issue with the Japanese DVD. I will look into fixing this for any future comparisons and may repost the three DVD captured images below if i find a solution.
You may need to click the image again to see the full size.
I provide fifteen more images from the Blu Ray release below. Check out the second image below and you will notice they have left a touch of the original grain intact. That scene lasts seconds.
