French Connection Blu Ray Review

jcsamsung · 12-06-2009, 05:30 PM

RATINGS:

Movie Content - 5 stars

Video Quality - 0 stars

Sound Quality - 3.5 stars

Extras - 2.5 stars

Family Content - 2 stars

Tech Specs - English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, 50GB Dual Layer, AVC 34.5 Mbps, 1.85:1 WS, 20th Century Fox.

Comments - I got this movie on sale for $20 and thought I had a bargain since it retails for $35+. I have watched TV broadcasts, VHS and DVDs of this movie for years and never - I MEAN NEVER - have I been so disgusted. I was so happy with the DVD I thought I would be blown away by the Blu Ray version. Well I was...just not the way I was expecting. Let me tell you, the Blu Ray rendition of this movie should have been renamed "Grain Connection". The quality of the transfer is so poor, it's a disgrace to the movie. Some people say this is the way a movie from the 70s should look. To them I say, you don't know what you are talking about. Look, Blu Ray is supposed to be the best definition possible - yes I think I read that somewhere. If not, why would we shell out thousands of dollars to buy these HD TVs and players? And if it is true that, for some unfortunate reason, a particular movie simply cannot be properly transferred to Blu Ray - then DON'T. But selling movies of this quality under the label of ULTIMATE HIGH-DEFINITION EXPERIENCE is a fraud. DO NOT BUY THIS BLU RAY.

HD Goofnut · 12-06-2009, 08:23 PM

0 for the video quality? You sure about that? I gave 28 Days Later a 2/10 for it's video quality and it is the worst looking BD I have ever seen. I have not reviewed The French Connection, but it surely cannot look that bad.

ack_bak · 12-10-2009, 10:17 AM

Go back and read up on this movie at other hidfef forums. The reason it looks the way it does on Blu-Ray was due to directors intent. Per Josh Zyber's review at HDD:

Quote:

The new color scheme looks unnatural and doesn't suit the material at all. I'd like to support the right of a director to control the way his movie looks, but this is just ridiculous. Filmmakers are artists, but sometimes artists lose their perspective over the years and try to impose revisionist ideas that are not in the best interest of the original work (see also: Lucas, George). Even though Friedkin may not have removed or added any footage to the movie, his color changes are so severe that what we have on this Blu-ray shouldn't be called 'The French Connection' at all. It's a different movie now. This is 'The French Connection Redux'.

So what did he do, exactly? The recoloring process is explained in some depth in the disc's supplements. Essentially, after the original film negative was scanned for the video transfer, Friedkin felt that the colors were too intense and detracted from the "documentary-like" style he wanted. That sounds like a sensible enough complaint. You'd think that the logical solution would be to simply dial down the colors. Instead, Friedkin had the entire color palette digitally stripped from the movie, leaving him with black & white image. He then took the color layer, oversaturated it, defocused it, and bled it back in on top of the black & white layer. The director describes the new colors as "pastel." How giving the movie pastel colors is supposed to make it look more like a documentary, I cannot fathom. There's a profound disconnect between what Friedkin says that he wants and what he's actually doing.

The problems with this process are evident right in the movie's opening shot, a skyline view of Marseilles. There's a building on frame left. As a result of the recoloring, the side of the building is now the exact same shade as the sky, which makes the shot look like a bad matte painting with a huge gap down the middle. The other sides of the building are a different color entirely. You'd think the director might notice that.

The effect of all this is that 'The French Connection' now looks like one of those old black & white movies that Ted Turner colorized in the '80s. It's a cartoonish facsimile of the movie. The colors are filled with chroma noise and frequently bleed. Flesh tones often have a sickly purple hue for no good reason. Friedkin also jacked up the contrast while he was at it. Whites bloom and shadow detail is crushed. And because the color layer was defocused, that means that part of the image is literally out of focus. In the color timing featurette, Friedkin proudly demonstrates before-and-after comparisons of the original negative against his "corrected" version, and you can watch half the detail in the picture vanish as soon as he flips the switch. The combination of boosted contrast and defocusing also gives many parts of the image, especially facial features, a strange glow.

In other respects, the 1080p/AVC MPEG-4 transfer (presented in its 1.85:1 theatrical aspect ratio) has detail that varies shot-to-shot from fair to downright awful. 'The French Connection' was always rough around the edges. In its original conception, the movie was meant to look drab and grainy. However, Friedkin currently claims that he now hates film grain, and boasts that his new process will clean it all up. That stands in stark contrast to how the disc actually looks. The picture is still grainy as hell, and all the digital manipulation gives the grain a nasty electronic texture that isn't film-like at all.

I rented this to see how bad it really looked, and I found it to be an utter travesty. Highly recommend folks rent before buying this one. I can only hope that one day this will get a proper transfer without this horribly process that the director chose to use on the Blu-Ray version. Ughh..

GymBrat98 · 12-16-2009, 03:44 PM

Thanks for the review. I was thinking about getting it for my grandpah, now I won't.

12-06-2009, 05:30 PM	#1
jcsamsung Because life is HD... Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 1	French Connection Blu Ray Review RATINGS: Movie Content - 5 stars Video Quality - 0 stars Sound Quality - 3.5 stars Extras - 2.5 stars Family Content - 2 stars Tech Specs - English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, 50GB Dual Layer, AVC 34.5 Mbps, 1.85:1 WS, 20th Century Fox. Comments - I got this movie on sale for $20 and thought I had a bargain since it retails for $35+. I have watched TV broadcasts, VHS and DVDs of this movie for years and never - I MEAN NEVER - have I been so disgusted. I was so happy with the DVD I thought I would be blown away by the Blu Ray version. Well I was...just not the way I was expecting. Let me tell you, the Blu Ray rendition of this movie should have been renamed "Grain Connection". The quality of the transfer is so poor, it's a disgrace to the movie. Some people say this is the way a movie from the 70s should look. To them I say, you don't know what you are talking about. Look, Blu Ray is supposed to be the best definition possible - yes I think I read that somewhere. If not, why would we shell out thousands of dollars to buy these HD TVs and players? And if it is true that, for some unfortunate reason, a particular movie simply cannot be properly transferred to Blu Ray - then DON'T. But selling movies of this quality under the label of ULTIMATE HIGH-DEFINITION EXPERIENCE is a fraud. DO NOT BUY THIS BLU RAY.

12-06-2009, 08:23 PM	#2
HD Goofnut The Official HDF Reviewer Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Mississippi, U.S.A. Your resident Dune, Star Wars, and war film expert Posts: 8,145	0 for the video quality? You sure about that? I gave 28 Days Later a 2/10 for it's video quality and it is the worst looking BD I have ever seen. I have not reviewed The French Connection, but it surely cannot look that bad. __________________ Living Room Sharp LC-46SB57UN 46" 120Hz 1080p LCD (24fps)-Onkyo TX-SR606 7.1 Receiver-Onkyo SKS-HT540 7.1-Phillips OTA HD Antenna-Nintendo Wii-LG BH200 Super Blu-Toshiba HD-A20 Bedroom Sanyo DP46848 46" 60Hz 1080p LCD-Terk OTA HD Antenna-Magnavox NB500MG9 Office HP G60 Laptop-HP 2159m 21.5" 60Hz 1080p LCD-Logitech X-540 5.1-Sony 40 GB PS3-ASUS SBC-06D1S-U External BD Drive-Toshiba HD-A2 My Movie Collection 417~139 Latest BD Review: *Ip Man*

12-16-2009, 03:44 PM	#4
GymBrat98 HD Is Off Da Hook! Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 7,314	Thanks for the review. I was thinking about getting it for my grandpah, now I won't. __________________ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UuLAZpHbMo http://www.highdefforum.com/sports-f...s-you-f91.html "Stereotypes are devices for saving a biased person the trouble of learning"

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