'The Shining' - High-Def Digest review

[jed]

Just posted Peter's review of 'The Shining.' A longtime fan of the film, he says its highly anticipated high-def debut is first-rate. The transfer is the best I've ever seen the movie look, and the extras aren't too shabby, either. The only weak point is a remixed TrueHD track, but Peter says not to let that stop you from picking this one up.

Full review here
http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/432/shining1980.html

[DrAndonuts]

Yeah, I watched this tonight, and thought it looked fantastic. The dialogue was a bit too low, but nothing too bad. Great release.

[PEARLJAM IN HD]

SHOCKED at the VIDEO, WoW what a classic, the sound was a bit (eh) but i wasnt expectin much from that.

[ColinRobertson]

I just picked this up tonight (on Blue ray) and was quite pleased with the overall awesome transfer of my favorite, and the best horror film ever made...

BUT. In the scene where Danny is playing with his trucks right before going into room 237, I noticed the tennis ball that rolls up to him in the hall was pink colored... Weird, I dont remember it being pink... whatever... so I popped my old original DVD in (non-remastered version) and sure enough, there it was in good old tennis ball green. I havent actually watched the whole disc yet, so if this is an isolated scene, I can look past it, but it better be an isolated scene...

Also, am I the only one slightly bothered by the meddling with the aspect ratio? As I understood it, it was Kubrick's intention for it to be 4:3. Lets be clear here folks, there is less to see on these new high-def versions because the widescreen is a matte. Normally, this would have been the original intent, and I would be fine with this, I'm not a "must see as much of the frame as possible" zealot, but I would prefer to respect the filmmaker's original intentions. In any case, the widescreen print certainly is preferable now that I have a widescreen HDTV, but when I step into projector territory, where obnoxious grey bars and burn in arent issues... well, let me see it the way it's meant to be damnit!!

BTW, from what I have heard so far, the lossless audio track is quite good and much better than the original DVD; cant say if it's any better than the remastered DVD in terms of the mix, but at least the music comes through much better on this new disc than ever before.

[Vriess]

The original intent was the version we have now, not 4x3 which looks like crap.

[ColinRobertson]

Originally Posted by Vriess

The original intent was the version we have now, not 4x3 which looks like crap.

I'm just wondering; where is your source of him saying so?

[Dave Mack]

Here ya go....

The original DVD was open matte.
The extra info on the top, (a bit on the bottom) was not shown in the theaters. The way it is now is the way it was composed.

The OAR was 1:85-1.
The 4x3 being his "preferred AR" thing came about because he was horrified when he saw how 2001 was butchered on TV, panned and scanned.
Kubrick "protected" for 4x3 but told his DP and 2nd unit director to compose for 16x9.



there is a book called "The stanley kubrick archives where...


From The Stanley Kubrick Archives, page 452:



Note the faded red marker frame labeled "1-1.85", and the indication top right:

THE FRAME IS EXACTLY 1-1.85
Obviously you compose for that
but protect the full 1-1.33 area."


These are from Kubrick himself.

Why would you want to see what was never originally suppossed to be in the film the way it was meant to be seen in the theaters?

I and many other have always wanted the shining in it's true OAR. We finally have it.

[dvdvision]

Wow, so there's still hope, I hope the others transferts are better than Clockwork Orange, Kubrick doesn't deserve MOR HD-DVDs.

Thanks for posting that storyboard frame, you couldn't dream a better hard proof !

[SweetBrownsugar]

when does this come out?

[AmishFury]

Originally Posted by SweetBrownsugar

when does this come out?

it comes out yesterday

[jroadley]

and 2001 looks lovely!

[ben1080p]

awesome to see such good scores..just wished my bb had it in stock

[ColinRobertson]

Originally Posted by Dave Mack

Here ya go....

The original DVD was open matte.
The extra info on the top, (a bit on the bottom) was not shown in the theaters. The way it is now is the way it was composed.

The OAR was 1:85-1.
The 4x3 being his "preferred AR" thing came about because he was horrified when he saw how 2001 was butchered on TV, panned and scanned.
Kubrick "protected" for 4x3 but told his DP and 2nd unit director to compose for 16x9.

That must have been where I got confused on the " kubrick preferred" aspect ratio. Thanks for the info! Now to figure out why the tennis ball looks pink...

[ColinRobertson]

Originally Posted by dvdvision

Wow, so there's still hope, I hope the others transferts are better than Clockwork Orange, Kubrick doesn't deserve MOR HD-DVDs.

Thanks for posting that storyboard frame, you couldn't dream a better hard proof !

I forgot to grab A Clockwork Orange last night when I picked up the other discs, but if the other remasters are any indication, it should look very good! FMJ looks very natural, the Shining (apart from the aforementioned pink tennis ball) looks better than ever, and from the few clips I saw of EWS, that looked pretty good, and natural, but probably not as spiffy (given the films age) as the rest of the lot.

BTW; EWS was the fully unrated version, with, from what I could see, no option to watch the rated R version as indicated from the packaging. Woo hoo!

[runchuckrun]

Good review of the movie, though I'll probably just rent The Shining to check out the HD transfer. I've seen the movie several times before and have never really been impressed with it. IMO there are better Kubrick films to watch/own.