DarkRealmFox

I am pleased to say the first of the eight films that i will be providing screencaps for has been treated to a fabulous restoration, there is film grain present. When Count Dracula is handed a newspaper by Renfield early on in the film, you can make out text that was a blurry mess in the DVD edition, the extra resolution is visible throughout the film, so don’t let anyone tell you that older films don’t benefit from high definition blu ray releases.

This was made in the days of the R rated action flick, more violence, more profanity and more gore, just how i like my action flicks, it’s such a shame that most big budget action flicks from the last decade went the PG-13 route, some have been enjoyable but have most certainly had their power reduced by the decision to go PG-13, even some of the so called R rated flicks have been soft rather than pushing the boundaries of the certificate, buy this release and go back in time and re-visit a sci-fi action classic.

Lawrence Of Arabia has never looked or sounded as good as it does here, those with large screen projection systems will be over the moon, a classic film that has been treated with love and respect, enjoy the screencaps below and bear in mind that in motion the film looks fantastic, until they release a 4K version this is the best way to enjoy the movie in the home. Click the post to view some blu ray screencaps of Lawrence of Arabia.

Animated films tend to simplify stories and keep away from controversy, considering that Anastasia is based on a true story, i would have enjoyed a harder hitting animated film but at the same time i do recognize that they are aiming these films at a younger audience and the film cannot get too dark as it would alienate the core viewers they are marketing the movie at.

View blu ray screencaps from Anastasia in this post.

The Invasion is the third english speaking remake of Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers, the original came out in 1956, a remake followed in 1978 and again in 1993, the 93′ edition was called Body Snatchers.

Tthis version of the film was released in 2007 and stars Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig.

Veronica Cartwright appeared in the 1978 film and has a nice cameo in this one.

I’ll post a full film review soon but for now you can click the link to view some blu ray screencaps from The Invasion.

Blu Ray Screencaps – Jurassic Park.

You can usually rely on Steven Spielberg movies to look film like and natural on the blu ray format, but Jurassic Park all too often looks processed and has far too much edge enhancement sharpening, i believe some digital noise reduction has been applied during a number of the daytime scenes and i am just surprised that with Spielbergs power in Hollywood that even he could not stop Universal from tampering with yet another back catalogue release, this does not bode well for Jaws and E.T. which are expected to come out next year.

Blu Ray Screencaps – The Lion King.

I thought the elephant graveyard scene had some fabulous animation with smoky dust visible in the air as the young lions are pounced upon by the hyenas, obviously some of what you see in these scenes is computer animation mixed with traditional animation but it works so well. The musical number, I just can’t wait to be King, featured bright and psychedelic animation which reminded me a lot of a sequence seen in Dumbo.

Blu Ray Screencaps – Vera Cruz.

Vera Cruz will not be a film people use for demo purposes, its not especially detailed, it’s grainier than the average film from this time period and the sound quality is not that great, suffice to say it just cannot look any better than this, the average bitrate for each chapter is consistently around 36 to 37mbp/s and it needs to be to handle the heavy grain structure, as i said in my review i am happy with this release.

Blu Ray Screencaps – Star Wars: Episode 6 – Return Of The Jedi.

I felt this film was slightly more consistent with its image quality but still had minor issues, Vader’s lightsaber had pinkish tones in some scenes. I also felt the audio mix was very good with a richness to the music score and good surround effects, clear speech and deep controlled bass

Blu Ray Screencaps – Star Wars: Episode 5 – The Empire Strikes Back.

I felt image quality was average, just like A New Hope i saw some minor instances of edge enhancement and frozen grain. I also felt the sound mix was a touch harsh and lacked the richness of the first film, speech also sounded a tiny bit harsher to me, it is an upgrade over the DVD edition of the film.

Blu Ray Screencaps – Star Wars: Episode 4 – A New Hope. I felt the image quality on this, the original Star Wars, was at times good but there was also a few issues with minor edge enhancement and frozen grain early on in the film. The sound mix was very good with the music score sounding rich and detailed, speech sounded better than ever and there was also some nice deep bass in the mix.

Blu Ray Screencaps – Star Wars: Episode 3 – Revenge Of The Sith. A quick summary of my feelings about the release is that i felt the image quality was easily the best of the saga, lots of fine detail is on display, the sound mix was weaker than the previous two prequels, indeed i was disappointed with the soundtrack on this film, for a 2005 big budget sci-fi epic it failed to deliver. Have your opinion heard and leave a comment after viewing the screencaps.

Blu Ray Screencaps – Star Wars: Episode 2 – Attack Of The Clones. I felt detail was much improved over the first prequel, black levels might not have been as good as 35mm shot movies but i put this down to the limitations of the digital cameras used, i also felt the sound quality was slightly better than The Phantom Menace, lightsaber clashes had a nice bassy sound to them and the music score was rich and powerful.

Blu Ray Screencaps – Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace. A quick summary of Star Wars: Episode 1 is that i felt this release had just a little too much digital processing applied, i could see edge halo’s in a number of scenes and DNR was a major issue resulting in a loss of fine detail and at times a smoother almost waxy appearance on faces, while i was very disappointed with the image quality i did feel the sound mix was superb.

Blu Ray Screencaps of Rio Bravo. – The problem with this release is its re-using a transfer optimized for HD DVD and comes in at around 23GB, thats low for a film running around 2 hours and twenty minutes long. Warner try to keep the bitrate very low in a number of scenes, i believe to do this they needed to filter out some of the film grain and along with it some of the high frequency image detail, Its not all bad news, there are a number of scenes where the film grain is better resolved and seems intact, for those scenes the bitrate is higher and image detail improved.