So, I’ve just started looking at @ParamountMovies ’ ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST #4K #UltraHD disc, and I can tell right away (and I’m sad to report) that it’s going to be divisive. And if you’ve seen the film in 4K Digital version on Vudu, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. (It’s been available there since mid-2022.)
I believe the most recent work was done in 2018 by Paramount’s remastering team, working with L’Immagine Ritrovata and The Film Foundation. The 4K disc includes the 165-minute extended edition of the film, reportedly sourced from the original 35m Techniscope camera negative, and its supposedly been graded to honor “the 2007 Film Foundation photochemical restoration overseen by legendary director Martin Scorsese by matching its build and color palette.” But this 4K HDR grade looks a good deal warmer to me than the 2011 Blu-ray sourced from that work. Highlights are more natural here and shadows are deeper, as you’d expect from HDR, but some fine detail has definitely been lost to noise reduction that’s obviously been employed to reduce grain. What grain remains is a vague digital swirl, and the underlying image looks softer now overall compared to the previous Blu-ray. The 4K image is obviously “cleaner” in its appearance, and to some novice cinephiles that will automatically mean “better.” (You know the type: The folks who write breathless reviews on Amazon and social media saying: “Don’t trust the haters!”)
But this is a film that should look a little gritty and it doesn’t. (Note that the new Blu-ray included in this package is based on the 4K remaster—it’s not the same disc as before.) Some additional notes: The 4K disc is a UHD-66, with video data rates around 35-40Mbps. Audio options are 5.1 DTS-HD MA and original mono in lossy Dolby Digital.
Personally, I would love to see what Paramount’s 2018 raw scan looks like. Because had someone had a lighter touch on the remastering, this might be a very nice UHD release. As it is, if you’re on the fence I would suggest spending $14.99 on the 4K Digital version first, to see if you’re okay with the image enough to spend $40 on the disc. That’s not a recommendation you’ll hear me make often, but there it is.
I’ll share my full review of this title on @TheDigitalBits website in the next day or two.
They won't back down because it's based on the Scorsese restoration but it feels like we are at a point like the early days of CGI were they abandoned physical effects and the digital tools weren't up to scratch, so the effects have aged badly (and might need redoing). People are using AI for cleaning up the grain because they can when the tools will get better versions in a year or two. So that "final" 4k release might not be that definitive. It likely won't happen in the case of the Cameron clean-up, but I could see a different firm doing a better job with the master scan than this.