OK, finally got motivated to pull out the UHD version of the movie Arrival and play it. My wife and I watched it together.
Overall we very much enjoyed it. The movie is based on a short story, "The Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang. Watching his interview in the extras, the man is super smart and well read. He got well into many quantum physics and philosophical issues facing physicists today. I would love to read his short story.
I think the problems which there are some with this movie stems from taking that short story and making it a feature film. The director talks about the most difficult part of making the movie being the editing. I think they partially failed to get that right.
When you listen to Ted Chiang talk, he has a core thesis which I won't tell you but it is the fundamental to the story. In the movie this comes to surface only in the last few minutes. When you think back to rest of the movie, one sees that those bread crumbs were left too haphazardly to support that important message. There are also some flaws such as the conversation with the chinese military leader.
I found the pacing slow but just enough to keep us going. The whole process seemed doggedly uneventful for such a movie about discovery of aliens. But somehow, helped by amazing music score, it kept us there and engaged until the end where it pulled us way up emotionally.
That gets us to the best part. We listened to the movie on my 2-channel system. I must say, the fidelity of the soundtrack was exceptional. Not only did it match what was going on in the movie but the balance of bass to highs and dynamics were some of the best I have heard. The sound design and music were one of the best aspects of this movie.
In the making bonus material the composer talks about how they took music that they played and ran it through tape loops on a 16-track recorder many times! It was this plus speed adjustments created this out of world music which fundamentally was very much grounded in this world. Almost no effects other than reverb were used.
Interesting tidbit outside of that, all the sound stations they showed were using Genelec professional monitors in all different sizes. Genelec owns so much of that market.
Picture Quality:
This was a huge let down but by design. The movie has a very low key/dynamic range. HDR does little for it because there are no blacks. Everything is in a fog and haze. If anything HDR at times is too distracting in how it highlights a window behind the actors.
Likewise there is no color pop anywhere remotely. Even scenes not related to the alien encounter are shot in a moody style that while not monochromatic, still very pale.
Resolution likewise didn't do much for us given how we were sitting too far from our 4K OLED display (LG) to care.
Interesting enough though watching the extras showed the images to be quite soft at times. I assume they were in 1080p but still, either the main movie was sharper than I think or the extras were shot poorly.
Regardless, get this movie for the sound, not picture quality.
Summary
Overall I definitely recommend watching the movie. I would get it on physical media to experience the great sound. It is an imperfect jewel, one that could be made better the second time around. But still, it is nice to get a "thinking movie" instead of all the shoot them up, western science fiction.
Overall we very much enjoyed it. The movie is based on a short story, "The Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang. Watching his interview in the extras, the man is super smart and well read. He got well into many quantum physics and philosophical issues facing physicists today. I would love to read his short story.
I think the problems which there are some with this movie stems from taking that short story and making it a feature film. The director talks about the most difficult part of making the movie being the editing. I think they partially failed to get that right.
When you listen to Ted Chiang talk, he has a core thesis which I won't tell you but it is the fundamental to the story. In the movie this comes to surface only in the last few minutes. When you think back to rest of the movie, one sees that those bread crumbs were left too haphazardly to support that important message. There are also some flaws such as the conversation with the chinese military leader.
I found the pacing slow but just enough to keep us going. The whole process seemed doggedly uneventful for such a movie about discovery of aliens. But somehow, helped by amazing music score, it kept us there and engaged until the end where it pulled us way up emotionally.
That gets us to the best part. We listened to the movie on my 2-channel system. I must say, the fidelity of the soundtrack was exceptional. Not only did it match what was going on in the movie but the balance of bass to highs and dynamics were some of the best I have heard. The sound design and music were one of the best aspects of this movie.
In the making bonus material the composer talks about how they took music that they played and ran it through tape loops on a 16-track recorder many times! It was this plus speed adjustments created this out of world music which fundamentally was very much grounded in this world. Almost no effects other than reverb were used.
Interesting tidbit outside of that, all the sound stations they showed were using Genelec professional monitors in all different sizes. Genelec owns so much of that market.
Picture Quality:
This was a huge let down but by design. The movie has a very low key/dynamic range. HDR does little for it because there are no blacks. Everything is in a fog and haze. If anything HDR at times is too distracting in how it highlights a window behind the actors.
Likewise there is no color pop anywhere remotely. Even scenes not related to the alien encounter are shot in a moody style that while not monochromatic, still very pale.
Resolution likewise didn't do much for us given how we were sitting too far from our 4K OLED display (LG) to care.
Interesting enough though watching the extras showed the images to be quite soft at times. I assume they were in 1080p but still, either the main movie was sharper than I think or the extras were shot poorly.
Regardless, get this movie for the sound, not picture quality.
Summary
Overall I definitely recommend watching the movie. I would get it on physical media to experience the great sound. It is an imperfect jewel, one that could be made better the second time around. But still, it is nice to get a "thinking movie" instead of all the shoot them up, western science fiction.
