Forum - View topicREVIEW: Interstella 5555 - The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem 4K "Remaster" Review
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Amuro1X
Posts: 208 |
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What a travesty. Criminal even. AI is the worst thing to happen to art.
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anime_layer
 Posts: 58 |
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I dug out the page from the Cannes' Directors' Fortnight from 2003, where Interstella 5555 had its premiere at a special screening:
https://web.archive.org/web/20030626001037/http://www.quinzaine-realisateurs.com/fr/archives/fichefilm.asp?filmID=13923&todo=resume It shows the film being shown from a 35mm print, which I had assumed would be the case. Hard to imagine it being produced in SD only and shown like that at Cannes or later in the cinema. So, I guess it's true that they lost some master but I would also assume some film prints still exists. Maybe they opted for a cheaper upscale of a digital SD master they had at hand instead of doing a more expensive scan and restoration of a print? |
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KabaKabaFruit
 Posts: 1902 Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba |
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Realistically speaking, only tech purists are going to give a rat's behind over the state of the presentation. The casual fans would look at the release as something else to add to their library. I speak as someone who has been royally screwed on multiple occasions by such cheap upscaling gimmicks in order for the company to maximize as much sales revenue as possible at the expense of real restoration that requires painstaking effort.
I hate to say this, but unless the disdain about cheap upscaling methods carry over to the casual fanbase to the point where they will refuse purchase, these practices (including AI upscaling) will only continue. |
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Zendervai
 Posts: 202 |
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There’s a good chance that even if a proper master existed back then, it’s long gone now. Toei has historically had some issues taking care of their master copies (note the frequent colour correction issues in their older shows) and this is a movie where there’s a rights split involved that means Toei might not have been particularly careful about the original master copy. And the record label (EMI?) might not have bothered asking for a proper master of it on their end because they assumed Toei would handle it like Hollywood and not misplace it somewhere.
I will say, in terms of this release…I don’t know if it’ll do well in the big picture. The social media buzz around the theatrical release was a lot of “this looks really weird and I don’t know why”. A crappy upscale is one thing, but this release looks incompetent on a scale that’s really hard to miss, not just inconsistent. |
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WatcherZer
Posts: 312 |
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Its likely the 35mm print was just a blow up of the Analogue TV quality master, while anime had started moving to digital production around that time the switch wasnt complete and they were still making some productions by hand, especially from veterans. Using 25fps rather than 30fps was also a trick many did in the pre-digital era to save money by reducing the number of frames that had to be drawn and it was always intended primarily for a PAL rather than NTSC release. Interstella never had a wide cinema release, only being released in 30 cinema's in France alongside the Cannes showing all to promote the DVD which was released at the same time. |
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 3046 Location: Email for assistance only |
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Did you look at the screenshots? |
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Troyen
Posts: 27 |
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I'm gonna be honest. Having never seen the original, I had a hard time trying to spot most of the issues in the screenshot comparisons. I could see the extra noise lines on that moon picture and Stella's face looked distorted on both of those comparisons, but on the others I'm still not sure what the issue is even with the captions pointing out where to look. It might be a different story looking at the animated sequence where inconsistencies will stand out more or on a theater where the screen is a hundred times bigger than my laptop's and small details are magnified more, but my overall impression just from the article samples is "eh". If I was a die-hard fan and had watched the originals a dozen times then certain changes would likely rub me the wrong way, but as a one-off viewing I can't say without seeing it in motion. Are they marketing the remaster towards fans of the original or are they aiming it at people who like Daft Punk but have never heard of this movie before? |
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Primus
 Posts: 2823 Location: Toronto |
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Daft Punk's fanbase exceeds the amount of people who are going to look up screenshot comparisons or gripe about it on social media. Even those that do care might just take the lumps as this is the first time it's ever been given a wide theatrical release. I live in the largest city in Canada and the "one-night" screening has been extended to at least Sunday because of multiple sellouts. A new home video release is a different story as the main audience buying those are hobbyists. But even then, I wouldn't say rule out it making enough to justify its existence. The other releases have been out-of-print for so long that they sell for multiples of their MSRP now. There are undoubtedly fans who missed the BD release a decade ago. |
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Iritscen
 Subscriber Posts: 803 |
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Looking at the screenshots in the article, I couldn't really see most of the issues because the images have been shrunken so much for publication. I think for an article like this, where the images matter so much, ANN should have a way to let the reader zoom in on them. I tried opening one in a new tab in case it was actually in a higher resolution, but the image didn't get any bigger so I still couldn't see what the author was complaining about.
But I agree it's a shame that the upscale was produced so poorly. It's shocking that Toei didn't have a better source to use for a movie where visuals were so important. I was thinking of taking someone who hasn't seen 5555 with me to the theater release, so I'm glad I read this review. |
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