Nadia Sanders, as Gaia, and Roland Carey, as Jason, in THE GIANTS OF THESSALY (1960)
One of the most anticipated and long awaited titles to be released in HD is finally here: THE GIANTS OF THESSALY. It's streaming in Italy in HD. What took so long is a mystery.
A 4K version of the film was shown last December in New York city at the MoMA! I believe this is in anticipation of THE ODYSSEY movie coming out this summer. It's also in honour also to its amazing director, Riccardo Freda. If only HERCULES and HERCULES UNCHAINED got this treatment. Oh well...
As for the print itself, the clarity is beautiful. But the print is pretty much the same as the ones released before on DVD. As I wrote at BY THE GODS! blog, there were two versions available on DVD, the French one and the Spanish one. I personally preferred the Spanish one as the French print has a brownish hue which I don't care for.
Here are three screenshots of the three prints for a quick comparison.
As for the print itself, the clarity is beautiful. But the print is pretty much the same as the ones released before on DVD. As I wrote at BY THE GODS! blog, there were two versions available on DVD, the French one and the Spanish one. I personally preferred the Spanish one as the French print has a brownish hue which I don't care for.
Here are three screenshots of the three prints for a quick comparison.
The French DVD has an unpleasant brownish hue which I don't like. The Spanish print doesn't have a brownish hue but it does have a slight yellowish one. But the greys look grey. The colours of the Spanish version and the new HD Italian streaming version are almost identical but there's a brownish hue to it, as one can see in the columns and bricks. I would say the movie was filmed like this but the Spanish DVD is not like this so it's a transfer issue. The clarity of the HD print is excellent and compared to the two DVD releases, there's additional information of both ends of the widescreen format, which is always welcomed. But the reds and other colours between the Spanish DVD and the new HD print are identical and vibrant, which is sorta why this release is a bit anticlimactic. I love it but I'm not wowed by it since I'm so familiar with the Spanish release (I did a Fan Dub with it and spent hours studying it).
I hope the spectacular movie will be released on Blu-ray, with English dub. I will look at the new HD version in greater detail and determine if a more thorough comparison is worth doing.
Thanks to my European source for this new HD print.
