You can find the full interview here. Not very long but some interesting titbits on various projects including a new Terminator (he reveals nothing).
Bad question framing and bad answer. The issue is the AI distortions, not the grain. Cameron surely knows this, so he’s responding with a straw man.
Get a life? It’s your industry, man. And maybe don’t denigrate the people buying your movies. Lots of other studios get this right.
That said, I think the online criticism of True Lies (haven’t watched the Aliens disc yet) is overblown except for maybe 3-4 scenes where it’s super obvious, awful, and distracting.
At least The Abyss looked great.
He’s fine saying that, as long as AI wasn’t used to hallucinate details.
I HATE DENOISING I HATE DENOISING.
I jest. I’ve watched some 35mm transfers and the noise is distracting
So what’s wrong with a little grain? off colors? I mean, the audio world is shifting back to vinyl because it is imperfect but unique in a way that you can only appreciate when you hear other versions and dislike them because they don’t “pop, skip, smoosh” the same way as you record does.
But the problem with Cameron is that he’s removing the grain almost completely, using AI to help do it and it’s making the films look worse.
To be fair he’s using it at different levels, Titanic and The Abyss look the best but Aliens and Truth Lies look the worse.
Topaz Video AI has a great grain removal feature. I already do this to other upscaled Hollywood junk.
Transcription:
So you’ve also had recently the 4K transfers of Aliens and True Lies that came out. It did get blowback in the fan community, some feeling that the image quality wasn’t as high as they wanted it to be. You obviously have a very high standard. So l’m wondering what you thought?
When people start reviewing your grain structure, they need to move out of mom’s basement and meet somebody. Right? Im serious. I mean, are you fucking kidding me? I’ve got a great team that does the transfers. I do all the color and density work. I look at every shot, every frame, and then the final transfer is done by a guy who has been with me [for years]. All the Avatar films are done that way. Everything is done that way. Get a life, people, seriously.
lol, honestly respect him for not bending over backwards or giving a “political” response.
Sometimes you just need to tell people to fuck off and suck it up, especially when you’ve got nerds looking for a reason to be angry.
God forbid someone exhibit humility and introspection. Nope, just commit to being right and never listen to anyone.
I mean, Cameron is a douche, but he’s right in this case. There’s a lot to complain about with his body of work, but grain levels just aren’t on the list.
It’s a straw man. A lot of the 4k cameron remasters are not good. Color correction being extremely off being one of the biggest sins.
Also. His argument is awful “my team has done this forever”… Well they’ve done it wrong, guy. Literally have not heard of any other movie getting criticism for a 4k remaster except his
It feels like he’s jumped on the one time the criticism wasn’t that valid, to invalidate all the times legitimate complaints have been raised.
Who cares about grain levels, it just looks like shit.
The comparison images from the link sure seem to show reducing the grain was the right decision, but I haven’t seen it in motion.
They focus on the grain reduction nagging in Aliens when that was not even that big of an issue.
My main problem with these recent 4K releases was True Lies, it has straight up AI hallucinations in it, I really doubt he rewatched the final product at all.
