Samurai Jack… IS BACK.
- Thread starter X-SOLDIER
- Start date
Recently revealed via WB's press site. Please do yourself a favor and purchase the blu-ray version of Season 5. DVDs will never do it justice (though I don't see why you'd not want a nice complete boxset with remastered episodes).
I am stoked to see this. I hope we see a preview of how a remastered episode looks. The DVD's for Samurai Jack were plagued by compression artifacts and interlacing, effectively sucking the life out of the artwork.
Orders are open on Amazon Complete Series & Season 5 (US only at this point, hopefully other regions will follow?)
The only way this boxset could get any better is if they had included a complete soundtrack with it.
If the remaster was done properly (which I hope to god it was!), the episodes should look much closer to the original background paintings.
Compare the top (background paintings from Scott Wills' blog), cropped to match the DVD frames) images to the bottom (DVD) images:
- Intro
- Episode 10 - "Jack and the Lava Monster"
- Episode 13 - "Aku's Fairy Tales" (A)
- Episode 13 - "Aku's Fairy Tales" (B)
- Episode 15 - "Jack Tales"
- Episode 19 - "Jack Remembers the Past"
- Episode 28 - "Jack and the Rave"
- Episode 33 - "Jack and the Annoying Creature" (A)
- Episode 33 - "Jack and the Annoying Creature" (B)
- Episode 37 - "The Birth of Evil"
- Episode 42 - "Samurai vs. Samurai"
- Episode 45 - "The Scotsman Saves Jack" (A)
- Episode 45 - "The Scotsman Saves Jack" (B)
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(First look at HD remaster)
I've put together a quick comparison between the footage in the trailer to the original release of the premiere movie DVD. I've upscaled the DVD frame to match the enlarged look you'd get from playing the DVD on a modern HDTV. The dimensions of 1440x1080 match the 4:3 HD dimensions of the remaster. I expect the blu-ray to have a sharper picture, as YouTube can degrade video quality.
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Samurai Jack: Premiere Movie Event - Press Kit
As I've done before, here are comparisons between the press release images and frames from the premiere movie DVD. There is some cropping on the remaster, and I have to assume they had a good reason to do so. Aside from that the details are much better and it seems the colors are either corrected or how they were meant to be seen originally. I hope we get some details on how they remastered these seasons. Can't wait to have the blu-ray set in my hands!
As I've done before, here are comparisons between the press release images and frames from the premiere movie DVD. There is some cropping on the remaster, and I have to assume they had a good reason to do so. Aside from that the details are much better and it seems the colors are either corrected or how they were meant to be seen originally. I hope we get some details on how they remastered these seasons. Can't wait to have the blu-ray set in my hands!
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- AKA
- Jesse McCree. I feel like a New Man
I've enjoyed this series from start to finish! It's been a blast, and I'm glad I finally saw the end of it!
Gotta love that the unused background which spurred many an alternate ending/blu-ray extra ending segment theories, is being used as a backdrop image... Never thought we'd see it show up here of all places.
I've also made some more comparisons from the extra footage:
- Exclusive Clip | DVD [1]
- Exclusive Clip | DVD [2]
- Exclusive Clip | DVD [3]
- Exclusive Clip | DVD [4]
- Exclusive Clip | DVD [5]
- Exclusive Clip | DVD [6]
- Exclusive Clip | DVD [7]
- Exclusive Clip | DVD [8]
- Exclusive Clip | DVD [9]
- Exclusive Clip | DVD [10]
- Exclusive Clip | DVD [11] (note the DVD compression artifacts affecting a fast motion scene)
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So did anyone go to the movie event?
It was pretty cool seeing Jack listed among other movies.
Thanks to traffic (it's NYC after all), I made it in at 7:15. Small attendance, about 45 people. The remaster really does look stunning in motion. Yes, the left and right sides do have slight cropping as the trailer and press kit images showed, but it's not a detracting issue. I must say, I enjoyed it on the big screen. Also sounded great, I hope that all the remastered episodes have 5.1 sound. Hopefully I can replicate the experience with my 60" HDTV and surround sound system.
The segment with Genndy at the end was nice. Though I wish they had gone into how they accomplished the remaster.
Much to my disappointment, despite picking a good spot to stand, so that all those exiting could see it, not one person commented on the shirt (even though I caught a couple of glances at me/it).
If anyone wants one btw: Rave Jack
As soon as I get the blu-ray set, I'll be able to see the details much better than the DVD screenshot I used (I tried to make this 95% as close as possible to that exact frame) and if need-be I'll make some adjustments.
I have plans to make more of these for other memorable Samurai Jack moments from all 5 seasons.
It was pretty cool seeing Jack listed among other movies.
Thanks to traffic (it's NYC after all), I made it in at 7:15. Small attendance, about 45 people. The remaster really does look stunning in motion. Yes, the left and right sides do have slight cropping as the trailer and press kit images showed, but it's not a detracting issue. I must say, I enjoyed it on the big screen. Also sounded great, I hope that all the remastered episodes have 5.1 sound. Hopefully I can replicate the experience with my 60" HDTV and surround sound system.
The segment with Genndy at the end was nice. Though I wish they had gone into how they accomplished the remaster.
Much to my disappointment, despite picking a good spot to stand, so that all those exiting could see it, not one person commented on the shirt (even though I caught a couple of glances at me/it).
If anyone wants one btw: Rave Jack
As soon as I get the blu-ray set, I'll be able to see the details much better than the DVD screenshot I used (I tried to make this 95% as close as possible to that exact frame) and if need-be I'll make some adjustments.
I have plans to make more of these for other memorable Samurai Jack moments from all 5 seasons.
So I'm hearing some not great things regarding the blu-ray set.
There have been reports of at least one person getting 2 copies of season four, with the second copy replacing the fifth season and another who says season 5 is entirely absent from their set. Adding on to this, the redemption code for the UV copy doesn't work for anyone.
I've seen reports on the blu-ray.com forums that the glue on the outer box isn't holding. As for the season blu-ray cases, there's at least one typo; located on the spine of season 4. Instead of "THE COMPETE FOURTH SEASON" it reads "THE COMPLETE FOURTT SEASON". And perhaps it's just a personal nitpick, but on the 3rd season's cover, Jack's rave hat should be red and white, not dark red and light red.
I find it a bit odd that the mock-up images of the set has the logo on each blu-ray, but the final product doesn't.
This may not be a QC issue and just a final stylistic choice. If it is indeed meant to be that way, they made that decision late into production as the graphics clearly were made with space for the logo.
Yet the more I stare at the covers, the more I think they were designed to have the logo/season identifier (there's clearly an intended area of space in the top portion of the front covers) and either it was a late-stage decision to omit them, or we're looking at another QC failure.
I tossed this together (though I took a minute to replicate the black/white slices on the 4th season cover) using one of the few unboxing videos on YouTube.
As-is:
Photoshoped:
I think it looks better in a way?
For such a highly praised series, with multiple awards, the long-awaited complete blu-ray set seems to have next to no QC.
Lastly I learned that seasons 1-4 only have Doubly Digital 2.0 (stereo). That may not mean much to most, but well... I consider this a HUGE disappointment for me. I can take typos and other odd errors but this is....not what I expected. The premiere movie DVD had 5.1 and I suspect that the rest of the series (that is before Season 5 happened) also had 5.1, but to conserve space on the season DVDs, they only offered stereo (which also had to deal with extra dubs for Spanish and French, further reducing space for an English 5.1 mix).
When the final episode of Season 5 used a portion of the original intro, that was in 5.1. I extracted the audio and Mako-Aku's vocal track was in it's own channel (along with separate channels for the original intro BGM, and various sfx). As that intro is NOT used in the premiere movie cut, I had hopes that if/when they ever re-released the series, they would use 5.1 for it all.
If anyone is curious about that 5.1 intro segment, I made a video for it:
The last bit at the end where Jack arrives in the future has a slight stutter...but I never redid the video as I wasn't sure I'd need to ever make it public.
I really do think that there IS a 5.1 mix for all four seasons (otherwise, where did the audio for the original intro in various channels used in the final episode of Season 5 come from???) but for some really unfathomable reason it wasn't used for this remaster.
Now... the question I'm sure I'll see is "what does it matter if it's stereo or 5.1?". Well to most it may not matter. But to those who have surround sound systems, a 5.1 mix would've really made the experience even better. I also expected....more from this set, remastered video and audio. I kinda also wanted to listen to the BGM channel for the episodes, since we've yet to get an official soundtrack for seasons 1-4.
Of course visually the remaster looks great (I'm still waiting for Amazon to ship mine)... but I must say the stereo audio does bum me out quite a bit (note season 5 has 5.1).
There have been reports of at least one person getting 2 copies of season four, with the second copy replacing the fifth season and another who says season 5 is entirely absent from their set. Adding on to this, the redemption code for the UV copy doesn't work for anyone.
I've seen reports on the blu-ray.com forums that the glue on the outer box isn't holding. As for the season blu-ray cases, there's at least one typo; located on the spine of season 4. Instead of "THE COMPETE FOURTH SEASON" it reads "THE COMPLETE FOURTT SEASON". And perhaps it's just a personal nitpick, but on the 3rd season's cover, Jack's rave hat should be red and white, not dark red and light red.
I find it a bit odd that the mock-up images of the set has the logo on each blu-ray, but the final product doesn't.
This may not be a QC issue and just a final stylistic choice. If it is indeed meant to be that way, they made that decision late into production as the graphics clearly were made with space for the logo.
Yet the more I stare at the covers, the more I think they were designed to have the logo/season identifier (there's clearly an intended area of space in the top portion of the front covers) and either it was a late-stage decision to omit them, or we're looking at another QC failure.
I tossed this together (though I took a minute to replicate the black/white slices on the 4th season cover) using one of the few unboxing videos on YouTube.
As-is:
Photoshoped:
I think it looks better in a way?
For such a highly praised series, with multiple awards, the long-awaited complete blu-ray set seems to have next to no QC.
Lastly I learned that seasons 1-4 only have Doubly Digital 2.0 (stereo). That may not mean much to most, but well... I consider this a HUGE disappointment for me. I can take typos and other odd errors but this is....not what I expected. The premiere movie DVD had 5.1 and I suspect that the rest of the series (that is before Season 5 happened) also had 5.1, but to conserve space on the season DVDs, they only offered stereo (which also had to deal with extra dubs for Spanish and French, further reducing space for an English 5.1 mix).
When the final episode of Season 5 used a portion of the original intro, that was in 5.1. I extracted the audio and Mako-Aku's vocal track was in it's own channel (along with separate channels for the original intro BGM, and various sfx). As that intro is NOT used in the premiere movie cut, I had hopes that if/when they ever re-released the series, they would use 5.1 for it all.
If anyone is curious about that 5.1 intro segment, I made a video for it:
The last bit at the end where Jack arrives in the future has a slight stutter...but I never redid the video as I wasn't sure I'd need to ever make it public.
I really do think that there IS a 5.1 mix for all four seasons (otherwise, where did the audio for the original intro in various channels used in the final episode of Season 5 come from???) but for some really unfathomable reason it wasn't used for this remaster.
Now... the question I'm sure I'll see is "what does it matter if it's stereo or 5.1?". Well to most it may not matter. But to those who have surround sound systems, a 5.1 mix would've really made the experience even better. I also expected....more from this set, remastered video and audio. I kinda also wanted to listen to the BGM channel for the episodes, since we've yet to get an official soundtrack for seasons 1-4.
Of course visually the remaster looks great (I'm still waiting for Amazon to ship mine)... but I must say the stereo audio does bum me out quite a bit (note season 5 has 5.1).
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This video compares the intro sequence from the 2006 DVD release of "Samurai Jack: Season 3" with the remastered iTunes release in 2017 (specifically episode "XXVII: Jack and the Rave").
If you missed a comparison (some do go by quickly), try slowing the video down to 0.25.
I will redo this video for the blu-ray once my copy arrives, as I expect the video to be of better quality.
Even 1080p streams have less quality than their blu-ray counterparts due to reduced size and compression. The iTunes HD episodes range from 860MB to 960MB, while the Blu-ray episodes should have a much larger file-size, and therefore better quality/details. Expect to see HD/SD episode comparisons in the near future.
Fan comic: Samurai Jack re-imagined
