Jaws 3 might be the worst 4K ever released as of this very moment. It’s that bad and that horribly butchered with AI and awful DNR/Color Timing. The 2D version always looked a bit off due to the way that the film was shot specifically for 3D but with this abysmal 4K transfer it’s limitations and issues are blown up and become glaringly obvious. Then on top of that you have AI interperetation the likes not even god has seen.
The film legitimately looks like it was created with Midjourney on more than one occasion. Or entire frames look like the washed out color tone SNL bumpers. Remember those from the 70’s and 80’s that used to show the host for the night? Entire sequences of the film look like that. No film should look like that in 4K. People look like paper cut outs in more than one frame. This is abhorrent.
I said this in another comment thread but will post here too:
The bigger question is why is the upscale suddenly so much worse than it was before?
Plenty of films finished at 2K had 4K UHD discs put out that were nothing more than upscales with HDR grades applied, but they were never this bad. It’s like AI upscales became a thing and the studios tossed out whatever previous methods they used, that seemingly worked JUST FINE, in favour of new technology that has GLARING flaws such as this.
“the original is available illegally or secondhand” is not even a little bit reassuring. of course someone will preserve old media but a large barrier to access is obviously not ideal.
I don’t really care… In my opinion, these films have already been released on digital media in good enough quality (1080p) anyway and that will last forever; I don’t need 4K myself, as my screens nor eyesight (it’s not that bad, I just prefer watching movies at a small angular size) would be able to convey a meaningful difference. If you understand the problem of AI upscaling, you are probably savvy enough to get your hands on a pre-AI copy. This is better than George Lucas’s (O)OT erasure, which cannot be so easily mitigated and that started before HD digital media.
it’s nice that the issue doesn’t affect you, but acting as if it doesn’t affect anyone else is solipsistic and tone deaf.
obviously the problem isn’t with jaws 3 specifically, it’s with an ever-growing trend in the entertainment industry.