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Ridley Scott's 'Alien' Will Finally be Released in 4K HDR For Its 40th Anniversary (arstechnica.com)
The long wait is over for sci-fi and horror film buffs: the 1979 classic "Alien" will be released in 4K and HDR for the film's 40th anniversary. The remaster will be available on an UltraHD Blu-ray disc. From a report: 20th Century Fox and partners embarked on an effort to remaster the film in 4K last year, under supervision by Pam Dery and Director Ridley Scott. "Alien" was originally shot on 35mm film, and the remaster was made using the original negative. Remastering older films for the UltraHD era has sometimes proven challenging for studios. In many cases, original film masters have degraded, and 4K on a 65-inch TV is adept at revealing graininess and other flaws that result from aged or damaged film.
The short answer is neither.
The actual answer becomes a lot more complicated because ultimately film is analog, and the smallest conceptual "pixel" in a 35mm film print is way higher than 4K. (The answer I found on Google is that it's closer to 175MP, while 4K is a "mere" 8MP.)
However, that ignores the realities of film grain and focus. And these factors can make it so that going all the way to 4K is kind of pointless, because you're no longer getting more details out of the image, you're just getting more noise. Of course, these factors depend on the type of film used and the lighting conditions. Some 35mm shots are probably in quite good focus and have low enough film grain that they'd make excellent 4K transfers.
Which also leads to a problem where not all shots are created equal - darker shots are more likely to show off far more film grain than brighter shots.
There is no real answer to this question, but to invent one, I'd say 35mm film usually seems to be better quality than 1080p, but somewhat worse quality than low-noise 4K shot with modern digital equipment. But it depends greatly on how the 35mm was originally shot. (And it's trivially easy to shoot bad digital 4K that will look worse than any 35mm print.)
A 35 mm release print of a film, used to project a film in a threatre back in the day, is considered to be roughly equivalent to 2K or 1080p, and those are at least a third generation copy from the original master.
This UHD release is supposed to be scanned from the original negative, so, however how grainy it is, it should at least be as good as it could be.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
(I know nothing about all this, but here's what I found after several Google and Wikipedia searches. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)
"What is 35mm film really equivalent to when it comes to 4K, 1080, etc? Can the film pick up the detail to translate to HD?"
35mm film can be scanned in at 2,400 (and higher) DPI.
35mm is 36 × 24 mm.
At 2,400 DPI, this is means 3,402 × 2,268 pixels.
That's pretty close to the TV/consumer media 4K UHD, which is 3840×2,160.
This particular 35 mm print is probably well-preserved, so 4K should pick up the details.
Now the special effects and and rubber alien suit will be very obvious.
But I wonder why its soundtrack will only be remastered in 4.1, instead of 5.1 for the 2003 revision?
Not sure what can be gained here, the first one wasn't that high in action.
ALIENS however should look AWESOME in High Def!
Alien Queen VS Mech Suit!
Film will give enough information for 4K.
The movie is getting a 4K restoration.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
In my experience, the difference between 1080p and 4K for scanned 35mm is like this: Imagine if you took a 1920x1080 image, printed it on a piece of paper, then scanned it at 2400dpi. I'm still only seeing a 1920x1080 picture, but now I'll also get to see every last little detail of the paper fibers.
Getting to see the film grain in a whole lot of extra detail is of limited value.
It would actually be really nice to have a large display with a picture quality so high you couldn't tell the difference between it and an actual window looking out somewhere, even better if it's the whole wall-- like sitting on your porch. Of course pixel count isn't the biggest issue holding us back from realizing that, but really who wouldn't want a wall in their house like that?
Just a big screen like screen tech today, sure it wouldn't be worth it, but when picture and real life are indistinguishable? Bring it on!
As someone who saw it when it came out in theaters on post when I was in Germany, having a woman as the strong female lead wasn't even in consideration. It was just a fscking cool movie.
One of the strangest issues today is the so called "Strong Female Lead". Hollywood brays as if women were not even in films before, and this is some sort of great liberation over evil "white males". I wouldn't have even put that in there, but anyone thinking otherwise needs to research Brie Larson, the racist and sexist female lead in the new Captain Marvel movie.
If you actually have a strong female lead, you don't have to tell people she's a strong female lead. They can tell by watching the movie. Ripley kicked ass, and you cared about what happened to her. Sarah Conners in the first couple Terminators. Gal Gadot was good in WW, even if feminists were enraged that she shaved her armpits. https://www.maxim.com/entertai... Disclaimer - I do like Linda Carter WW better, but no problem if others differ.
It is high time that Hollywood stop acting like they are embracing racism and sexism. Just because the object of your hatred and vilification is white males, one does not eliminate racism and sexism by becoming a racist and a sexist. And a stronf female lead isn't whining, and inserting your political views into the movie.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
35mm is 36 × 24 mm.
Only for still cameras where it runs horizontally. For motion pictures it runs vertically so it's more like 24 × 18 mm.
You can get about 3000-4000 horizontal pixels of usable info out of a 36x24mm film frame
But 35mm cinema frames are more like 24x18mm.