The 192 kbps AC-3 mono track on the R1 blu-ray sounds great! Very little (if any) hiss reduction, no bass reduction, and very detailed overall.
I certainly prefer it to the 5.1. The music in the remix has been integrated from the original stems, and so sounds more detailed and has better separation. But everything else sounds worse, especially dialogue, which is spread over the front channels and has been noise-reduced rather strongly. It sounds hollow and echoey. The dialogue in the mono sounds drastically more natural and human-like.
There's a lot of added Foley in the remix, too. Usually birds and atmospheric effects, sometimes in closed rooms. Compare the two mixes in the first scene, for example: after the famous opening shot, the rest of the scene is filled with little birds chirping in the background in the remix. Those birds are also present in many other scenes in the remix.
I didn't compare the two at length since I'm quite satisfied with the mono, but I did catch (while flipping through indiscriminately) some ADR work that is much more poorly integrated in the 5.1: 19 minutes and 52 seconds in, Kay says, "Please Michael. Tell me." This line's way louder than the lines preceding and following it in the remix, but perfectly level in the original mix.
As far as I can tell, the Coppola restoration on blu-ray and DVD marks the first time the original mix has been available on home video since the LD/VHS days.
You forgot the fact that for this and the second movie on the 5.1 remixes, pretty much all of the gunshot sounds were replaced. But fortunately in both instances the original mono mixes were included as another option. (Which is how I always watch both of the movies)
ReplyDeleteI’ve also noticed those replaced gunshots sound on 5.1 and another change I noticed from the original mixes is when Michael’s 1st wife is going into the car triggering the bomb meant for him The explosion sound is much different.
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