And you can make these comparisons yourself because Universal has included both options on the blu-rays. The old MCA LaserDisc from 1988 is better (slightly less rolled-off high frequencies and a few scenes with ambient detail that's been selectively filtered out from the 2.0 track on the blu-rays), but the blu-ray 2.0 is good overall.
The original mix is frequently very bright, especially dialogue and the score... but that's a production choice, and it's often rather striking. And while the dialogue on the remix is more neutral, ambient sounds (small noises, rustling movements from the actors, etc.) can no longer be heard. The score is much weaker, especially in the final scenes - the most noticeable change.
One line is edited out from the MCA LD, poorly: "You are not going as a terrorist!"
the 7.1 mix also contains a huge amount of the revisions done from the 5.1 remix done back in 2002 when the special edition was created
ReplyDeleteI noticed during a scene towards the end you were able to still hear a couple of the walkie talkie sounds despite the guns being restored in the scene.
Yeah, When they were doing the 2002 restoration for the theatrical version and they were creating the 20th anniversary version of the film they forgot to take those sound effects out of the 1982 version’s restoration as both were meant to be combo together and they didn’t even have the original 2.0 mix on the 2002 DVD.
DeleteIt was pretty nice Spielberg to consider fans of the film as he didn’t want to repeat the mistakes George made and not release the original version at all. (Although there were rumors the original theatrical version was exclusive to that gift box. I think it should’ve been a three disc set for both the general release and the gift box with the additional DTS sound track for both versions.Can I have the soundtrack and other extras exclusive to that set.)
Didn't the older home video tracks just carry over the boosted highs on the film prints for penetrating perforated cinema screens? If you are using a perf screen in your home cinema these mixes would be great, but the vast majority of people are not doing this, so those mixes would sound too harsh throughout an entire movie unless you have one of the older processors with the cinema EQ setting that cut this boost.
ReplyDeleteOf course there are variables to how much the high boost is cut in the remixes, as indicated by the wide margin of changes mentioned in this blog.