[Released] Panic Room Special Edition

[Bigrob]

@dvdmike, we'd save some time pointing at what's left intact, 'cause everything looks "True Lies"-fake, oversharpened at best, digitally tweaked all over the place: every curtain has been changed and straightened, every glass window and window frame as well, every light reflection on the ceiling erased and yet lensflares have been added when a lightbulb is in the frame. He erased light reflections on glasses and bottles. He changed set elements. It doesn't even feel like a real home anymore, it's a digital set. He even changed the Coca-Cola can so you can now read the brand instead of the back label where the ingredients are written. I guess we know who financed this nonsense, then. The guy is completely out of his mind. He was my favorite back in the day, and now I hate him. The only silver lining would be colors and contrast, I guess.

https://slow.pics/c/kIkrIJam
https://slow.pics/c/lVjaWGem
https://slow.pics/c/QlmV5zLe

The coke can was a continuity error by all accounts. In 2 shots it was facing different ways

[Beber]

You'd think that about the can, I know, untill you check the pizza place in "Seven" where they meet the FBI guy and realize he did it there too, so "Coke" now reads "Coca-Cola". And frankly, that level of OCD for such minor continuity error is hilarious at best, concerning at worst. If you open the continuity error can of worms, you're in for quite an insane journey. They're all over the place in every movie.

[dvdmike]

OCD would work if he didn't add more in Se7en

[Virtualcrane]

The guy is completely out of his mind. He was my favorite back in the day, and now I hate him

I think it's a little overkill to completely disavow and disregard one's love and admiration for a director's work over this. I'm personally annoyed by what he did with this and Se7en and I guess Fight Club now, but I have my original DVD's,web-dls, blu-rays that have the least altered version (Note: He's been doing this tinkering for some time, but in the past it had to do with lighting and color timing, not VFX. See here and here).

Fincher's like Lucas. I have a love/annoyed relationship with them both. Yes, some of the special edition changes are annoying and dumb (I actually feel his changes to THX to be the worst "fixes" he's ever done and I would take the special edition changes over them any day) but the guy made some of my favorite films of all time (Graffiti being my personal fave and IMO Lucas's best) and I can't and shouldn't take that away from him.

[Beber]

That's the problem: we don't take that away from him. He takes that away from us.

[Beber]

New batch of insanity: https://slow.pics/c/DxMDagq0

So apparently, in Fincher's mind, it's not just drapes and curtains, even plastic wraps can't have any fold or wrinkle in them, they have to be smooth:

[WXM]

Two pointed out in the blu-ray.com thread...

"
https://slow.pics/c/i7RYiTBo

What exactly did he change in this one? Replace a piece of cement wall
with a different piece of cement wall?"
:D

And someone pointed out that Kristen's shadow is missing in the new one there.

Here's another.  Darn all those pesky camera lenses for not removing perspective!
https://slow.pics/c/t1lxSgTg

[iguanaclerk]

I posted this over at blu-ray.com (in hopes that some other folks look at if there's been more done), but he's digitally messing with Jodie Foster's face, too.

https://slow.pics/c/CrZPgQaz
There's this brief closeup, which has been treated with the blur filter you might see in a modern makeup ad. Gross. (The comparison shows the old master color matched to the BD (to make the change more apparent), the new BD, and the old master with its original colors).

https://slow.pics/c/tDQThJeh
There's also this closeup, which seems more involved. (The splotchiness of the detail and color on the old master is what's available, try not to focus on that so much but rather that she has a whole new set of pores).

I think they've created a new layer of skin for her cheek, potentially by abusing the generative fill tool or piecing it together from different frames in photoshop, which they've then motion tracked over her face as it moves. (also reducing the natural coloration under her eye and maybe some stuff above her lip).
Whatever they've done, it looks uncanny as hell and is deeply inappropriate. Like I already object to this stuff on the principle that it's archivally wrong: that it muddies discussion of these films because you can't be sure what was done in 2002 or 2025*, but this is a new layer of screwed up. Jodie Foster presumably didn't consent to this.

*There's room for changes here given the nature of reconforming a new scan of the negative to a 2K DI where Fincher was digitally mashing takes together, but it still should be more transparent than this and it certainly shouldn't involve messing with Jodie Foster's face

[Plissken1138]

jesus, the sheer hubris both fincher and cameron developed...