[Fan edit] Terminator 2 Judgment Day (1991) 4K - SO2F Cut (Regraded, dewaxed...)

[sanjuro_61]

...Standing On 2 Feet.

Hey guys.
So, this is a fancut of the film. I removed a couple of unfunny/embarrasing moments that have been bugging me for some time. One scene has been added!

Editing changes:

# bar scene.
The t-800 throws the long-haired guy through the air and he lands on the kitchen. He burns himself and drops to the ground. That's supposed to be funny, but it's not (I'm growing old).  It also breaks the flow of the scene.
It's gone now.
- 4.2 sec.

# "stand on one foot"
No, John, no. Terminators stand on two feet.
This scene is the reason for the fancut. You know, there's humor and then there's a parody or a spoof movie. This scene belongs in a Scary Movie kind of film, or even in one of the sequels, not here. 
This one required reframing a couple of shots and a bit of editing. Is the end result perfect? Probably not, but anything is better than the original.
- 12 sec.

# chip scene
I felt like by just removing things, even if the film improved, I was making it "less" in a way (like, why is a decaffeinato cheaper than a regular coffee dispite all the process to remove the caffeine?), so I wondered if I could include something from the extended version, without hurting the already perfect pacing of the theatrical. The chip scene is the obvious answer. 
Here it is in all its glory... or almost. I did a bit of editing when Sarah and John are arguing after removing the chip. The shot when John replies "but he is my friend, all right?" is gone, and I also fixed the shot where we see Sarah moving her mouth ("Maybe"), but there's no audio (looks like an editing mistake, because the "Maybe" is in the next close up).
+ 196 sec

Dewaxed, regraded
· First of all: we need a proper release, with no dnr, and no shitty AI processing (I mean, Cameron can't let T2 be the only of his movies without the AI treatment, right?).
All the processing I did is just makeup. It can make the film look more pretty, more watchable, which is the goal, of course, but that's it.
So.
I did some pre-processing in Hybrid. Dynamic dehaloing and removing jagged edges.
Then, in Resolve I played with soften and sharpen and texture detail, after that, added a bit of 50% opacity blur, and finally a layer of grain.
Like I said, makeup.
Did I go too far softening some shots? It's possible that this looks softer than what a proper mastering would look, but still not as soft as the old pinkish telecine, so I think we're good.
· I used the good 35mm print scan floating around as reference. It's one of the best scans I've seen, but we should not turn our brains off just because we read "35mm print scan". The thing it's not perfect. It tends too look too dark (Sarah and Silverman scenes, for example), it has that orangey red tones that many scans have for some reason, and blues tend too look a bit too purpleish sometimes. There's actually an overall bluish tint during a good part of the film, with, somewhat, washed out colors (specially noticeable in the desert scenes. The other scan out there looks worse overall, but it shows more vibrant warmer colors there). Those are minor things, not a big deal, but they are there, and it's necessary to look beyond the flaws when matching colors.
The sound comes from the 2007 French bluray. That's right, the one sourced from the original mix! First of all I sync'ed it to the 4K, which surpisingly, wasn't as difficult as I expected, then all the editing. I couldn't do all the things I wanted, like removing a couple of lines of dialogue (only audio editing, without cutting anything). Anyway, it's done.

54.66 GB
Video: HVC1 3840x2160 23.976fps [V: hevc main 10 L5.1, yuv420p10le, 3840x2160 [default]]
Audio: FLAC (framed) 48000Hz 6ch 4608kbps [A: flac, 48000 Hz, 5.1(side), s16 [default]]
Subtitle: UTF-8 [S: Español [spa] (subrip) [default]]
Subtitle: UTF-8 [S: English [eng] (subrip) [default]]
Subtitle: UTF-8 [S: No subtitles]

Gallery (95 pics): https://postimg.cc/gallery/nrLdJ1F









I tried to do one of those mouse-over comparisons (there are a a few pics of the retail UHD included in the gallery). And I failed miserably. The hosting site kept asking me to rename the pics before uploading them (slow.pics asking something about columns and stuff). If anybody knows another hosting site, please, feel free to post a comparison!

[Beber]

What does SO2F stand for?

[sanjuro_61]

What does SO2F stand for?

Bro, the answer is the first line of the post

[Beber]

Oh, right. I somehow missed that. I thought the S would be for Special as in Special Edition, so I figured it was an acronym for Special something, or maybe Sanjuro something.

[alexp2000]

Looks amazing, there's only so much anyone can do with that Silberman scene though!

[Beber]

there's only so much anyone can do with that Silberman scene!

Yeah, I dont know how thick the layer of fake grain would need to be to hide the overprocessed AI ugliness of the 2017 remaster disaster, especially on close-ups such as those on Silberman's wrinkled face. It's 2010 Predator UHE level of unacceptable. But then again, the only guy on Earth who praised the work from the technicians who worked on the 2010 Predator UHE debacle was one James Cameron, so... That's why I'm currently working on the antique 2003 master still used on the 2015 Blu-ray as it is at least the most acceptable and historically non-anachronic, without digital alterations, so that everything in it was already there in 1991, even if, sadly, backlit shots are blown out in the highlights.

[sanjuro_61]

there's only so much anyone can do with that Silberman scene!

Yeah, I dont know how thick the layer of fake grain would need to be to hide the overprocessed AI ugliness of the 2017 remaster disaster, especially on close-ups such as those on Silberman's wrinkled face. It's 2010 Predator UHE level of unacceptable. But then again, the only guy on Earth who praised the work from the technicians who worked on the 2010 Predator UHE debacle was one James Cameron, so... That's why I'm currently working on the antique 2003 master still used on the 2015 Blu-ray as it is at least the most acceptable and historically non-anachronic, without digital alterations, so that everything in it was already there in 1991, even if, sadly, backlit shots are blown out in the highlights.

The Silberman shots are not only dnr'ed to death (which also comes with a dose of sharpening itself), I think they also used a power window to specifically sharpen the face (unsharp mask). Trully a mess.

[Beber]

Oh, yeah. Definitely more than DNR involved there. My guess is it’s the first one that Park Road processed with their neorotoscopic (as I like to call it) algorithm that digitally draws over the filmed footage since the savage degraining that was made beforehand ruined the actual detail, definition and film texture. We simply did not know at the time about Park Road, but it already had the same horrendous look in 2017 as the other Cameron’s fiascos that would follow. Every reviewers were amazed at the time that the lack of grain didn’t involve too much waxy faces that DNR used to create as a side effect. The new tool that replaced edge enhancement to fool the audience regarding definition after the heavy DNR pass is that neorotoscopic AI that draws back the erased detail and adds new "detail" while at it that were never even there on shooting day for the camera to capture and that idiots praise as "sharp detail and better definition than ever before".

[Tylerdurden389]

I tried working around that whole "Terminator-doggy" scene but I couldn't find a way to make it work without removing the entire subplot of John ordering the Terminator to do/not do things. I made my own edit a long time ago where, after John says "We have to get her outta there" I just cut to the next scene (The T-1000 arriving at the hospital) but was still left with "I order you not to go" since there's really no way to work around that either.

One attempt I tried some years later was, after Ed says to go get her, I cut to Arnold saying "Of Course", then cut to Ed looking at him (not speaking) and hearing Arnold say its "One of my mission parameters", then cut to Arnold just standing there as Ed says "I'm gonna go get my mom, and I order you to help me" and Arnold walks outta frame. Cue next scene. Decent attempt but it not only looks weird hearing one actor talk while holding focus on the actor NOT talking (especially for more than one shot), but plot-wise, you still have no explanation as to why the Terminator doesn't kill (I initially figured "Well, he didn't kill anyone in the bar, so maybe a Terminator's main objective is to neutralize a threat, rather than eliminate it"). However, the scene when the S.W.A.T. team is shooting at him, Arnold only shoots them in the legs. If a Terminator is stabbed, it fights back with its hands or the same knife. Bring a gun to a Terminator fight? You're getting shot in the head, lol.

[sanjuro_61]

I did remove as least as possible. The scene is still pretty much the  same, except for all the the "stand on one foot" stuff.