Yes, it is NIGHT indof the living dead, and for a great majority of the film it *is* indeed night. But, there were some daylight scenes were intended as a segway, and they look just awful in those captures. Clearly a color timing error has occurred. Even if it is an CCIC 601 vs RGB color timing, the shift in brightness wouldn't be as blatant as is depicted.

Between this and THE DEADLY SPAWN, we've had quite our share of screwups of B-level horror films this year on Blu.

It is a shame that color "revisionism" is even done. irst it was THE MATRIX, then FRENCH CONNECTION, and now the original TERMINATOR has been 'modernized' (at least in the new UK release). Give us what we saw in theatres, dammit! This revisionist crap is really pissing me off.

I definitely hear you on the bang-for-your-buck front, but I was referring to specific films which wouldn't have gotten a release otherwise and had excellent transfers. They're certainly a major notch below Criterion, MoC, Shout, or even, for my money, Olive.

you can hardly see the damn movie in the darker tint - ewww... glad I didn't fork out 30 bucks for this release.

I do agree with there entirely; I just wish they'd treat them as true limited editions and make them special, versus some slapdash, no frills, overpriced release. This feels like the dawn of DVD all over again!

I own both the DVD and the new Twilight Time BD. The screens posted in the thread seem to be exaggerating the brightness difference, though it does in fact exist. It's mostly confined to the first 27 minutes of the film, before they meet the other people in the house.

The Blu-ray itself has a solid transfer, someone at Sony or associated with the film simply looks to have consciously altered the color timing of the opening act. If I had to guess, someone felt making it darker worked better than the overly bright scenes on the DVD.

Good point, any 2nd/3rd act screen comparisons?

^ In my quoted post above, I accidentally mentioned "compressed" originally but it should state "uncompressed".

Well, here's a quote from Savini off his FB page:

"You know what...I watched it last night and it's beautiful. I can't see anything wrong with it and I watched it on my 70 inch high def Sharp"

I guess that settles that.

Well, I got my copy yesterday, but I didn't open it because I was waiting for something like that. I guess I'll watch it tonight and see how it looks for myself.

P.S. I've been reading the blu-ray.com forums to follow this, and it reminds me why I post here instead. After all the people screaming 'Down with Twilight Time' and saying they wanted a response from Savini, a bunch of them are now saying he's 'wrong' since his answer isn't what they wanted to hear.

They are extreme, but I agree with them. I'm not sure when it became acceptable to arbitrarily change he look and tone of a film and think its ok. Given the nature of Twilight Time, they cater to the folks who will definitely be uptight about these sorts of changes.

It bothered me, and I'm glad I cancelled my preorder. I'm also a person who tacked down the R2 Return of the Living Dead blu just to get the original audio.

Whether Savini likes it or not, that blu is not the movie I loved since 1990. I actually lied my way into the theater to see it (I was 14).

At least I have my VUDU copy.

I agree with that. What I thought was funny was they were like "Savini needs to see what they did to his movie!" and acting like his word would be final. Then when it turns out that he liked the transfer, all of a sudden it's "It doesn't matter what he thinks."

I'm going to pop open my Blu-Ray tonight and check it out. Twilight Time and Don May Jr. have both remarked that the changes aren't as extreme as in a lot of the caps.

I'm not happy with revisionism, but I can sort of live with this. I would prefer they did an exchange and offer the original color timing...but I guarantee that's not happening now.




Edit: Official response from Twilight Time:

I still think it's kind of crap to just change the coloring of a film like that. It definitely makes me wary of future releases, although I likely will still preorder Christine and hope no one decided to change it.

I really don't know what to do with my copy. Should I give it as a gift as intended or send it back? The high-def digest review really does not sound too promising.

If this is the "approved" transfer, where was his complaints when the DVD came out?

Did anyone really think Sony or Savini would acknowledge a difference? That was wishful thinking, and I'm afraid we are stuck with this 'revisionist' version. I will be satisfied with my DVD, and may acquire the HD version by nefarious means, but I will not support such 'revisonism' with my wallet.

Now, to get ENEMY MINE, which thankfully has been given a great transfer -- NO color timing problem, and is still available to purchase. So, with my $35 I will be supporting that release, with a sigh of relief that it was done *correctly*.

the VUDU HDX version looks great. If you sign up you get a $5 credit. So for about $10, you can snag it non-nefariously

OK, I will do that. Thanks for the info.

So does Vudu burn a Blu-ray for you... or Wal-mart?

Saved in the Vudu cloud

You can download a copy it too.

Exactly.

It's all pretty fucked up.

Over on Blu-ray.com I was reading the shitstorm thread about this title, and someone mentioned that after you buy this movie on vudu, that Wal-mart will make you a copy for $2- and some people claimed they'd be going that route. What they didn't elaborate on though if it was a DVD or Blu-ray. If it was a DVD why not stick with the original release... right? I was curious if anyone here knows what they mean.

As some have already said, Vudu let's you save it to the cloud or download a copy to your computer, what else do you need. Vudu=Walmart

Yep, I get the cloud. Thanks. I understand how downloading and watching things on your computer works as well.

So let me try and restate it again, and try to be a little clearer. Blu-ray.com members, several of them, mentioned Wal-mart has a service to convert downloaded Vudu films to disc. Since everyone is up in arms about the transfer, some mentioned that they were going this route. You know the HIGH DEFINITION vudu version of the film, that isn't dark or has revisionist color-timing. Now I know this is hard to believe, but there are some people in this day and age who use older computers that aren't HD friendly, or don't have HTPCs- like me. So what confuses me is that since multiple people over there were going to try this, why they didn't either just buy the MGM DVD or burn a copy themselves. The comments didn't make sense to me. So does Wal-mart offer a High definition to Blu-ray burn on demand service? Since this thread and that thread are all referring to the High Definition version of this film- it almost sounds like some people are saying or think that you can get the Vudu version of this film in High Definition from some sort of MOD Wal-Mart service, as an ALTERNATIVE to the Twilight Time version.

Since I:

Don't have a computer that can play HD smoothly.
Don't have a blu-ray burner.
Don't have an HTPC (refer back two lines)
Already have the MGM DVD
Would like this film in High Definition with the older color timing.
Don't understand why Blu-ray.com members would mention this service as an alternative if it's just a SD copy of the film...

... I would like clarification from someone who is familiar with this service, if it exists. And if it doesn't exist- fine.

Or you know, a fourth person could explain to me what vudu is and how downloading movies from the internet works- oh and the cloud.