Bram Stoker's Dracula (Blu-ray)

poke around the internet, and you'll find screenshots from various releases that indicate that this has a botched transfer. some scenes are too dark (in one case, so dark that you almost can't see the handwriting that was superimposed on a sequence), and some scenes replace blues with green or white. surprisingly, the featurettes on the disc offer footage from the movie that looks better than the main presentation itself!!!

Unfortunately, simply comparing screenshots doesn't always determine whether one or another is "better" or "right," but simply different. I've read that for the Blu-ray edition, Coppola wanted the color corrected and some scenes darkened from what he saw on the regular DVD releases and from what was apparently on the original print. The questions are whether or not HE was happy with the result and whether or not he would admit it even if he didn't like it.

John

john,

while i agree that it's (generally) up to a director to determine how good/bad he wants his/her movie to look, as viewers, we can still determine for ourselves whether or not we can see small details or if they've been obscured by excessively dark transfers. in the case of "dracula", much of the movie is now buried in heavy shadows.

eddie

But as much as I like the movie, some of it deserves to be "buried in heavy shadows."

John

john,

if coppola really wanted people only to hear the audio track, then he should've just made a radio show.

eddie