They Shall Not Grow Old

[Spiny Norman]

Also, my own own observation it isn't at all, but the name they got wrong. The quote goes "they shall grow not old".

FTFY

Perhaps I should have been more precise: The title is a quote from a poem by a Laurence Binyon, a war poet (although not in the combattant sense). It's often used for Remembrance Sunday.
Just as you assume peter jackson knows what he's doing, I assume that the poet knew what he was writing. Let's see if you or me are still quoted in a hundred years' time before doing otherwise.

[Paul Penna]

Also, my own own observation it isn't at all, but the name they got wrong. The quote goes "they shall grow not old".

FTFY

Perhaps I should have been more precise: The title is a quote from a poem by a Laurence Binyon, a war poet (although not in the combattant sense). It's often used for Remembrance Sunday.
Just as you assume peter jackson knows what he's doing, I assume that the poet knew what he was writing. Let's see if you or me are still quoted in a hundred years' time before doing otherwise.

Do they specifically cite it as a quote from the poem? If so, that would would be wrong, but if the intent was merely to evoke the sentiment behind it, I wouldn't think it a problem.

[pbma]

the reality is that viewership ratings plummet for black and white programs and films. Older material also tends to attract a viewership that is top heavy with older people, which skews the demographics and scares off advertisers.

[missdupont]

So basically all they're doing is pandering to young people.

[bigshot]

Serving an audience isn't pandering. There are programs aimed at old farts, and there are programs aimed at normal people. Everybody gets some of the pie. Even though I'm an old fart, I never really cared for Lawrence Welk or Murder She Wrote, but it's fine those programs exist for the geriatric set. I'm interested in new things and new ways, not just old ones.

[Jim Roots]

Serving an audience isn't pandering. There are programs aimed at old farts, and there are programs aimed at normal people. Everybody gets some of the pie. Even though I'm an old fart, I never really cared for Lawrence Welk or Murder She Wrote, but it's fine those programs exist for the geriatric set. I'm interested in new things and new ways, not just old ones.

Out of curiosity, how many years differentiate between "the old farts" and "the geriatric set"?

Just want to fit in correctly.

Jim

[Rick Lanham]

Serving an audience isn't pandering. There are programs aimed at old farts, and there are programs aimed at normal people. Everybody gets some of the pie. Even though I'm an old fart, I never really cared for Lawrence Welk or Murder She Wrote, but it's fine those programs exist for the geriatric set. I'm interested in new things and new ways, not just old ones.

Out of curiosity, how many years differentiate between "the old farts" and "the geriatric set"?

Just want to fit in correctly.

Jim

A nurse told me that at her hospital, geriatric care is for those over 70.
I think there are old farts of many ages, though.

Rick

[Arndt]

I am more of an old stick in the mud myself.

[Oppiedog]

I prefer Old Fogy ... but my ex used some more colorful titles.

[Donald Binks]

I became an Old Fart at the age of 19 - when everyone else was listening to the Rolling Stones or the Beach Boys - I was listening to Richard Tauber, Bing Crosby and Al Bowlly as well I was watching old pictures!

[R. Cat]

Serving an audience isn't pandering. There are programs aimed at old farts, and there are programs aimed at normal people. Everybody gets some of the pie. Even though I'm an old fart, I never really cared for Lawrence Welk or Murder She Wrote, but it's fine those programs exist for the geriatric set. I'm interested in new things and new ways, not just old ones.

Normal people? That notion should get you a bigger slice of pie, ...delivered with all the gusto of Laurel & Hardy in Battle of The Century! Is that the hill you're ready to diet on? Do you really think you can save face from merraing while rallying the troops at custards last stand?

I'll admit that I'm somewhat stodgy in my views, but I've been that way all my lifie. I'm passionate about maintaining a historical record so that future generations have an opportunity to appreciate our film heritage in some way. Simply put, I'm reluctant to embrace revisionism to make things more accessible without first considering the long term cost. If my conclusion is that something is a corrupting influence, I'll weigh in on it, if not, I take a more measured stance.

That doesn't mean that I eschew "new things and new ways" with wholehearted disregard for those approaches, but my inclination is to take a longer, more conservative view on tinkering with the arts.

In short, new farts don't pass the smell test any better than old farts.

It isn't about what we like or dislike, it's about educating those who've grown up wearing blinders to our rich cultural heritage through indifference or limited exposure. I'm persuaded that there's plenty of room for rediscovery and appreciation of earlier experiences by future generations as a part of expanding their own. Making your own history is part of the ebb and flow of life, but not at the expense of revisionism.

While embracing the future we should still be able to look in the rear view mirror. Are things closer than they seem or more distant? As a society we should consider the future through a historical lens, warts and all. Being interested in new things is commendable ...and in most cases... a desirable enterprise, bigshot. But passing off a generation's cumulative experience as geriatric behavior, genuflecting to next gen priorities as if to say it's the "new way or the highway" isn't a towel I'm ready to throw in quite yet, my friend.

[Paul Penna]

So, should this be excoriated as well? I think it's mesmerizing.

[Donald Binks]

So, should this be excoriated as well? I think it's mesmerizing.

Aw shucks! It ain't been coloured or put into widescreen!
No, seriously, thanks for posting. Quite fascinating.

Some observations - it must have been photographed in summer as most of the gentlemen are wearing boaters instead of bowlers. (They are nearly all dressed in three-piece suits and stiff collars - before the dawn of deodorants - the stink must have been ghastly!).
- Did New York have cable trams? (I noticed a slotted track in the centre of the tram tracks)
- Motor cars were driving on the right hand side of the road - but the steering wheel was mostly on the right instead of the left?

[bigshot]

It isn't about what we like or dislike, it's about educating those who've grown up wearing blinders to our rich cultural heritage through indifference or limited exposure.

And our rich current culture! Technology is a great way to turn people on to the good stuff, both new and old. It's just as mportant to not live in the past as it is to not ignore it.

[Paul Penna]

- Did New York have cable trams? (I noticed a slotted track in the centre of the tram tracks)
- Motor cars were driving on the right hand side of the road - but the steering wheel was mostly on the right instead of the left?

All of New York's cable trolley lines had been converted to electric by around 1903. These slots access underground electrical conduits.

Some vehicles were still being made in the US with right-hand drive until the early 1920s.

[R. Cat]

It isn't about what we like or dislike, it's about educating those who've grown up wearing blinders to our rich cultural heritage through indifference or limited exposure.

And our rich current culture! Technology is a great way to turn people on to the good stuff, both new and old. It's just as mportant to not live in the past as it is to not ignore it.

Alas, one can't help living in the past when your home decor is Victorian.

[Spiny Norman]

Is anyone here familiar with the so-called "four yorkshiremen" sketch?

[Jim Roots]

In short, new farts don't pass the smell test any better than old farts.

I have a new signature line now!

Jim

[s.w.a.c.]

Is anyone here familiar with the so-called "four yorkshiremen" sketch?

In my day...

[R. Cat]

Is anyone here familiar with the so-called "four yorkshiremen" sketch?

My favorite version is the one with Marty Feldman...

https://youtu.be/_nL6isGPhzk

[Spiny Norman]

Is anyone here familiar with the so-called "four yorkshiremen" sketch?

My favorite version is the one with Marty Feldman...

https://youtu.be/_nL6isGPhzk

The only thing that that original version lacks is that they didn't have to pay 'mill owner commission for the privilege of coming to work.

[realist]

Also let us not forget that by far the greater part of WWI "documentary" footage was staged. Life at the front was too dangerous for filming. So maybe the footage was never that authentic in the first place.
Still my personal bugbear is that in all documentaries about anything these days the image is cropped to widescreen. Not only do you lose significant parts of the image, you see the footage not in the way the cameramen and directors intended. It's a bit like the Mount Sinai segment in Mel Brooks' HISTORY OF THE WORLD, where Moses brings the Israelites the fifteen, oops! never mind, the ten commandments.

You make an excellent point here. A very good companion to this documentary is the DVD "World War 1 - American Legacy" which contains high quality still pictures taken during the "Great War." It's narrated by David Caradine and contains great period music and sound effects.
Since war footage for WW1 & WWII was shot silent, sound editors are free to add music and effects as they please. I must say I was disappointed with the re-issue of "The World at War" series which boasted Hi-Def quality and 5.1 surround soundtrack. I was expecting to hear loud explosions and gunfire from the back of the room, but that was not the case. Just stereo music and minimal sound effects. Plus the footage was cropped for widescreen leaving the contemporary interviews (from the 1970s) with the subjects heads and chins chopped off. I wish that producers would have enough confidence in the material they select to leave it in the original aspect ratio (you can even put curtains on each side of the screen to let people know the film was shot in a square format).

As to colourization, I'm OK with it. Yes, young people of today don't understand the aesthetic quality of black and white films. I remember quite well showing William Wellman's "Wild Boys of the Road (1933) to my high school US History class to have them learn about the depression of the 1930's. I had them write about what they learned about the 1930s from watching this film. One student wrote, "I liked the film a lot, but the black and white hurt my eyes." I was almost on the floor with laughter, but in a way, it was really sad they couldn't get past "oh, it in black and white" (and not worth watching).

[CoffeeDan]

So basically all they're doing is pandering to young people.

Why look, here comes one of them now. Let's find out what he thinks:



He clarifies some of his remarks in the comments on the YouTube page, which are also worth reading.

[missdupont]

Pandering to young people. Would he like it if it was all black and white, I think not, because the color brings it to the present, who cares about that old fogy stuff. Gimmicky in other's hands by adding color and changing aspect ratio, but not Jackson's. Yeah, right. Silent London knows what she's talking about.

[All Darc]

Not contrast fuzzy footage from newsreel poor prints this time, but quality footage and prime colorizing and 3D conversion work.

Jump to 19:20 of the video :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kDc-6amUf4


It'ws a level of realism and detail (color detail) I never saw.
I wonder what company is doing the job. Maybe Legend Films/Legend 3D.

I always felt like Legend Films could do better but preferred to cut costs or even sacrifice some color balance of some object or sometimes skin color distribution, to finish the work fast and profit more. But their work in Warsaw Uprising was nice. Maybe now Peter Jackson demanded more details for color variance.

Look the green war tank, how we can see some brown stain in the some portions of the metal surface. The brick wall in 21:05, with the space between blocks with well defined colors and the gray stains too, instead of a typical color gradient signing a color for each shadow tone as did in most colorizatrion projects.
Look the horses crossing the river. Is that just me or they created intermediary frames to make the scene less "speed up" like Keystone Cops movies ?

Once I imagined that the 3D conversion, the depth masks created in the 3D conversion process, would turn possible to make perfect colorizations, since it would make possible track surfaces and pieces by textures and not just by 2D sellections and shadow tones to add color. Maybe they just now managed to conjure both technologies for that.

[Jim Roots]

Well, I thought he was a good reviewer and he appeared to fully understand what he was experiencing on the screen. I didn't sense any condescension ... quite the opposite, in fact; he was very respectful both of the originals (films, soldiers, situations) and of what Jackson was aiming to do.

The one thing I felt Luke got somewhat wrong was his reference to "grandparents". The fact is that anyone who was alive at the time of WW1 would be over 100 years old now and they would be his generation's great-grandparents. Just a small slip there.

Jim

[westegg]

Nice, but this topic has been kicking around for a while on this forum, right below as it were. Why a new thread?

[s.w.a.c.]

The one thing I felt Luke got somewhat wrong was his reference to "grandparents". The fact is that anyone who was alive at the time of WW1 would be over 100 years old now and they would be his generation's great-grandparents. Just a small slip there.

Yep, my maternal grandfather was a bit too young for the First World War, and a bit too old for the Second World War. And one of my maternal great-grandfathers worked on the railroad, so that might have earned him a dispensation from serving in the First World War (I'm thinking of Buster Keaton's character during the Civil War in The General).

My paternal grandfather was living in the U.S. during the First World War, and wound up in the navy, although he never got shipped overseas and spent the war at the Great Lakes Naval Station, between Chicago and Milwaukee, "flying barrage balloons over Lake Michigan".

[All Darc]

Sorry, I didn'tr kinew about.

If the moderartor could conjoin both topics it would be fine.

Nice, but this topic has been kicking around for a while on this forum, right below as it were. Why a new thread?

[All Darc]

The dupe look of the footage it's gone after digitral clean-up. It looks so good that I suspect it could be work of Lowry Digital. Grain and contrast get much better, without add soft look of many typical grain reductions technics.

The colorization also look far better than most works I know, and indeed looks the best I ever saw.

Colorization can be expensive and prime digital restoration (with such quality) can cost a lot. And they said they restored and colorized and 3D converted up to 10 hours of film. It took quite some dozen of milion dollars I bet.

Legend Films had good technology to colorize, but was lazy (probably due budget) to add more color details, often placing a entire color gradients (sellection of colors for each gray value in a area of image dellected) for things that would be mnore sellections. For example, Legends Films didn't used to colorize right the brick walls, the space between the bricks and different bricks color, but pasted a single gradient and the space between bricks often get wrong look in color.
See the green tank and the many color variances it have, colors for the stains of soils and others.

And it looks like they managed to also reduce the speed of the footage (that looked like Keystone Cops often) not by just reducing projection speed but creating new intermediary frames between the original frames, making if lower in speed but also "smooth" in motion.
Look the scene of the horses crossing the river. The before and after it's incredible.

My only complain is that they keeped the overexposed look of some B&W footage,instead of give a exposure adjust more adequate to color film. Very bright looks fine to B&W, but for colors and to allow more saturation it's not the best option.

It's not the first time WW1 films have been colourized -- I have a DVD set of colourized films issued by, I believe, the BBC.

But, yes, if we can believe this trailer, Jackson has done one hell of a job here. Not only has he colourized them, he has also obviously restored them to perfection.

As a passionate life-long devotee of WW1, I pray this gets released for home viewing and isn't restricted to one screening in New York City!

Jim