The 1994 James Cameron film True Lies starring Arnold Schwarzenegger was recently re-released in Ultra HD 4K disc format giving viewers the opportunity to watch these classic films in unprecedented detail.
Not only True Lies but Cameron’s The Abyss and sci-fi classic Aliens were also released on Ultra HD Blu-ray with Geoff Burdick, senior vice president of Lightstorm Entertainment, who tells The New York Times that he thinks they “look the best they’ve ever looked.”
But not everyone agrees.
“It just looks weird, in ways that I have difficulty describing,” the journalist Chris Person tells The Times. “It’s plasticine, smooth, embossed at the edges. Skin texture doesn’t look correct. It all looks a little unreal.”
This is like early CGI effects in film. Some of those effects are the worst in film history (see Reptile from Mortal Kombat), and some were so good that we don’t even know CGI was used (See helicopters in Black Hawk Down). This is a new technology which is going to be abused majorly in tons of notable cases and we probably won’t notice the instances where it was used successfully.
The tech is clearly not sophisticated enough at this point to reliably enhance film images realistically. However, this technology at this stage of development would probably be excellent for old animation or films whose originals have been severely deteriorated.
Now wait for Gen A to grow up and start using bad AI smoothing as a desirable retro effect, like vinyl crackle, tape hiss or obvious autotune on vocals.