AvPGalaxy Forums

Hi guys

I was watching AVP-R recently on standard DVD. Now if I watch the film with the following two conditions
a- on my laptop/PC with plasma screen
b- at night with the lights off

I can see the movie crystal clear as the colour/contrast is naturally faint on each screen. Now this amazed me for two reasons
a) I could actually see the movie clear as day even the night/dark scenes
b) I was amazed at the extent of how bad the production values were; even for a 2008 film (stop laughing at the back)

Its no secret the film only had a $40 Million budget which is not a lot; but to me it was like watching a low rent straight to DVD flick.

In the cinema during its original release I'll admit it looked better pitch black as it added to the effect of horror.

So what do you think?

They f**ked up.  Whatever equipment they screened it on during grading and subsequent testing wasn't calibrated properly.  Can't see any other explanation for why it was reported as being too dark in so many different instances.

Quote from: SM on Jun 17, 2012, 11:30:21 PM
They f**ked up.  Whatever equipment they screened it on during grading and subsequent testing wasn't calibrated properly.  Can't see any other explanation for why it was reported as being too dark in so many different instances.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the Bros. say something similar? Because the film looks fine in the trailers, but when it came to theaters, that's when the problem started to happen.

Pretty much.  I don't know if they ever fessed up as to where the f**k up happened, but it wasn't the fault of the DP or gaffer.

They said when they screened it prior to release it looked fine and were surprised that so many reviews were coming back saying how dark it looked.

Maybe it was dark because someone forgot to turn the lights on.

Quote from: SM on Jun 17, 2012, 11:30:21 PM
They f**ked up.  Whatever equipment they screened it on during grading and subsequent testing wasn't calibrated properly.  Can't see any other explanation for why it was reported as being too dark in so many different instances.

During production stills you can clearly see the Strauss Brothers using an IPAD style plasma screen. I think that explains why it looks fine (as did my PC and Laptop screen) due to said colour/contrast settings but when it was added to a standard cinema DVD screen it went tits up.

Also AVP-R was a rushed production so maybe the had neither the time, budget or resources to correct their mistake. I'm still pissed they didn't fix the issue for the DVD/Blu Ray transfer as that was the number one complaint on Amazon and internet reviews.

One person even said its as about as clear as watching a Pirate Copy.

Quote from: SM on Jun 18, 2012, 01:06:11 AM
Pretty much.  I don't know if they ever fessed up as to where the f**k up happened, but it wasn't the fault of the DP or gaffer.

They said when they screened it prior to release it looked fine and were surprised that so many reviews were coming back saying how dark it looked.

Ah, well that's probably what my mind is remembering, that they were surprised that reviews were saying it was so dark.

I thought they said they intentionally kept it dark out of fear the aliens looked silly running around the town.

Quote from: whiterabbit on Jun 18, 2012, 10:10:45 AM
I thought they said they intentionally kept it dark out of fear the aliens looked silly running around the town.

It did look silly and out of place.

In fact many scenes in AVP-R remind me of this TV advert for the AVP-Extinction video game

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qVmsNfFMNo# (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qVmsNfFMNo#)

Quote from: AVP-CAPCOM on Jun 18, 2012, 10:26:50 AM

Quote from: whiterabbit on Jun 18, 2012, 10:10:45 AM
I thought they said they intentionally kept it dark out of fear the aliens looked silly running around the town.

It did look silly and out of place.

In fact many scenes in AVP-R remind me of this TV advert for the AVP-Extinction video game

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qVmsNfFMNo# (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qVmsNfFMNo#)

Hey those commercials would have made for a better movie!  :laugh:

QuoteAlso AVP-R was a rushed production so maybe the had neither the time, budget or resources to correct their mistake.

I don't recall it being especially rushed.  I remember hearing at one point that they were on time and on budget and Fox were pleased enough with hwat had been delivered so far, that they gave them extra money to shoot the Predator planet stuff.

But as you said, even after all the negative feedback about the darkness - they still didn't bother to fix it for the home media release.

Quote from: SM on Jun 18, 2012, 11:45:18 PM

QuoteAlso AVP-R was a rushed production so maybe the had neither the time, budget or resources to correct their mistake.

I don't recall it being especially rushed.  I remember hearing at one point that they were on time and on budget and Fox were pleased enough with hwat had been delivered so far, that they gave them extra money to shoot the Predator planet stuff.

Exactly what I remember myself.

I really would like to know the answer to this because the film is damn unwatchable. Even for a low budget, the trailers looked fine, and the scene on the Predator homeworld looks great. Everything else is just too damn dark. This needs to be fixed. Are there any bootleg versions online with fixed lighting and contrast? I'd actually like to try to watch the movie, because I do find the Predator scenes fun - in a "Predator 2" kinda way.

I spoke to Colin Strause about this last year and he claims Fox refused to let them touch the DVD/Blu-Ray at all. They said the west coast prints were fine but the east coast prints were dark. So they wanted to make the movie brighter but found out after they got the Blu-Ray from Fox, that the studio had made the movie a lot darker. They never had any say about it.

Bit of a surprise cos I always thought the darkness was their choice. It's easy to blame the Strauses but they just never stood a chance with this movie.

Quote from: Darkness on Jun 23, 2012, 07:33:49 AM
I spoke to Colin Strause about this last year and he claims Fox refused to let them touch the DVD/Blu-Ray at all. They said the west coast prints were fine but the east coast prints were dark. So they wanted to make the movie brighter but found out after they got the Blu-Ray from Fox, that the studio had made the movie a lot darker. They never had any say about it.

Bit of a surprise cos I always thought the darkness was their choice. It's easy to blame the Strauses but they just never stood a chance with this movie.

if that is the case - then its too bad.  i hate movies where the lighting is too dark to see unless i watch them at midnight.

i can see them being screwed b/c the movie didnt do so well and the studio had more leverage over them.

i think they had high aspirations and i wouldnt knock them for their effort.  heck - i am not in the motion pic biz - so i have to be happy with what others do as they have to be happy about what i do in my profession.

for the record - watching aliens on lv-426 they lit it only with the marine lights -- and cameron actually fired the guy in charge of the lighting because of the guy wanting to ligght it differently. [just watched this on the making of doc]

i had no problem with those scenes - but jeez - the bros strause are far from the only ones who had movies that were too dark and bothered me for that fact

Quote from: Darkness on Jun 23, 2012, 07:33:49 AM
I spoke to Colin Strause about this last year and he claims Fox refused to let them touch the DVD/Blu-Ray at all. They said the west coast prints were fine but the east coast prints were dark. So they wanted to make the movie brighter but found out after they got the Blu-Ray from Fox, that the studio had made the movie a lot darker. They never had any say about it.

Bit of a surprise cos I always thought the darkness was their choice. It's easy to blame the Strauses but they just never stood a chance with this movie.

Quote from: Darkness on Jun 23, 2012, 07:33:49 AM
I spoke to Colin Strause about this last year and he claims Fox refused to let them touch the DVD/Blu-Ray at all. They said the west coast prints were fine but the east coast prints were dark. So they wanted to make the movie brighter but found out after they got the Blu-Ray from Fox, that the studio had made the movie a lot darker. They never had any say about it.

Bit of a surprise cos I always thought the darkness was their choice. It's easy to blame the Strauses but they just never stood a chance with this movie.

Well that explains why people say that it wasn't dark, while others say it was.

So your saying West Coast prints of the theatrical release were fine, or DVD/blu-rays sold in the West Coast were fine? I really don't understand how a movie can have such a glaring problem as being too dark, and they are willing to sell it countless times, that way. It's not like they only made so many copies. I still see 2-packs being put out of both movies.

The theatrical version on the west coast of the US was fine.

I've just stuck my copy in to have a proper good look at this issue because I havn't seen it for a long time (probably because its shit).

I actually own a US region coded DVD (im in the uk) because I thought the UK version wasn't the extended one (turned out it was just the Blu Ray that wasn't) but anyway while it's very dark at times, I don't think its unwatchable. I do tend to tweak the settings on my TV before watching it though. I actually find turning the brightness down a little bit (not much) helps more because turning it up washes everything out. So I usually turn the brightness down to about 40 (default is 50) and then whack the colour up a bit and put the contrast right up.

The darkest scene in the film are the parts in the sewers and I have no problem seeing whats going on in any of the sewer scenes, although they are darker than they should be.

Do some people literally have copies where it's nigh on impossible to make out some of the scenes?

Going from Darkness said, I can appreciate the darkness of the film being somewhat out of the Strauses hands.  Especially the home media release.

When the Predator comes out of the swamp, all the way to when he self destructs the crashed ship, I can barely see anything. I have the region 1 blu-ray, btw.

i think it was there, because they wanted it to be scary, but things arent scary just because its dark...
and the action scenes were also dark, action scenes are the last thing that should be dark.