Arrow Video working on a 4K release of The Thing!

Depending on one's TV setup, Arrow & Shout should look excellent. Not attacking either version, both seem to be very good transfers. Just from those few examples, Shout is a little sharper & darker. Arrow is a little more on lighter side & softer. It's all on the viewer's preferences.

 

You can see major edge enhancement and digital manipulation on the Shout transfer though. This Arrow blog on the restoration is good reading. The Shout transfer was from the IP, and the Arrow from the original negative. Something tells me the Arrow will look far more natural and accurate in motion.

Also take a look at the comparisons here: http://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0&d1=11006&d2=11009&s1=107716&s2=107778&i=8&l=0

http://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0&d1=11006&d2=11009&s1=107728&s2=107789&i=19&l=1

 

Having taken a close look at the screenshots, I think the Arrow easily beats the SF...by a long shot. This is how you properly restore a film and the Arrow makes the SF transfer look so artificial and digitally manipulated in comparison. I didn't know that the whole film had such a blue tint to it, and I didn't realize how extreme it was! And it's not just here and there, it's like they set it on default across the entire movie. And the artificial sharpening and edge enhancement are just insane. Apply SOME sharpening, sure. Most films are sharpened a tiny bit anyway but you're doing it wrong if it LOOKS like you sharpened it. That seems to be the case here. The Arrow also looks so much more natural and not as boosted. SF's is also just way too dark. And there's clearly distortion. It's actually kind of a mess in comparison. On its own I guess it looked okay initially (compared to Universal's blu-ray it obviously destroys it), but now knowing that they clearly sharpened the shit out of it and applied rigorous amounts of edge enhancement and auto-cleanup (the ping-pong ball, and there's another example of it in screenshot 16) it just makes it feel like bad restoration work. Which it is.

However, I do think screenshot 6 looks better on Shout's disc, the color actually works for that ONE shot and it's kind of gorgeous. For a second I also thought screenshot 1 looked better on SF's disc, but upon closer inspection, the Arrow wins again. The mountains and clouds just have more depth, even though the dog technically looks more detailed on the SF, the whole shot looks flat in comparison. Based on the screenshots, Arrow wins easily and I can't wait to see it in motion. I can't believe what a huge difference there is between the two transfers. And how digitally manipulated the SF looks. Wow.

~Matt

 

Over at Caps-a-holic, if you do a comparison with Arrow and SF during the outdoor fire scene, man, Arrow's looks very bright and blurry. Not too impressed, but I've yet to see it in motion.

 

On dvdbeaver here:

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film5/blu-ray_reviews_73/the_thing_blu-ray.htm

there's much less difference and on some the Arrow release looks better than the Shout Factory version.

 

The Arrow release looked better on pretty much all of them to me when looking on dvdbeaver. Shout's disc did look sharper when looking on caps-a-holic but if it is artificially enhance I don't like that. A lot of shots on the Shout disc also look too dark to me. The colours on Arrow's look much more lively.

 

That's the way the movie looks. The SF is just sharpened to hell. The movie is not supposed to look like that.

Check out the Arrow video deck article that zbinks posted on the other page. All other versions of The Thing come from the same interpositive scan, this is the only time The Thing has been restored from the negatives.

The colours on the Shout just look wrong. Even the scenes with the flares have a pink hue whereas on every other transfer they're orange. The SF is totally botched. The same thing happened when Fargo and Rocky got 4K scans from MGM. They appeared to look softer, but it turned out the older masters were just digitally manipulated with increased sharpness and edge enhancement.

~Matt

 

All fair points.

 

On the dog transformation caps.

http://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0&d1=11006&d2=11009&s1=107716&s2=107778&i=8&l=0

The Arrow looks very good. But on the other hand Shout looks more, how do you say, scarier and little less fake. But like mentioned before, I would have to see this in motion to get a better judgement.

 

Arrow does look bettter.....but I'm perfectly fine with the SF disc. For now at least.

 

I think so too. The Shout! one looks a little more moody. Should we be seeing everything so bright and colorful in such a scary movie? Granted I only saw this ONCE at the theaters in '82 (with HUMONGOUS as the co feature) and I recall the movie looking dark an dingy like Alien.
But...they're the experts on the how the flick should look I spoze. I prefer the Shout! look.

 

It's funny how it takes one company's restoration to bring out the flaws in another company's release. I know Shout's release wasn't perfect and some folks were criticizing it but now it seems like EVERYONE is panning it as garbage lol. My Arrow copy is on it's way so I won't be able to make comparisons but I'm leaning towards declaring the Arrow edition the winner in this race. In this case, I'll go with the flow

 

I really regret not jumping on the limited edition. I'm fine with the standard edition I guess but now having seen the comparisons, fuck I want the limited edition with the poster and the booklet. Lol oh well...

~Matt

 

Watched it last night... wow. It's the best it has ever looked.

 

So glad I jumped on the LE when it came up for pre-order I'll probably keep the SHout though just for the plethora of extras but it's nice to have options.

 

I'm doing the same. The Shout disc seems more contrasty/blue but the Arrow disc is just beautiful and beautiful in motion. Keeping both.

 

Same here. I love these Arrow Limited Edition sets and The Thing was a must to own. I was lucky to get it on Amazon after the first lot sold out in a flash. Now I'm just waiting for it to get here so I can give the new transfer a whirl and check out the nice packaging in person. I sold off my Shout disc.

 

Excellent in-depth review (with many screenshot comparisons) of the Arrow release: https://www.thedigitalfix.com/film/content/84805/the-thing-limited-edition/

I received it from Amazon UK earlier today. Beautiful presentation, and glad they used the thicker box on this one again.

 

I wish more Blu-Ray reviewers would go into that amount of technical detail.

 

No kidding. And it's a real, thoughtful review that breaks nuanced technical observations into practical explanations.

The Arrow disc is amazing, to these eyes.