• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

HBO is airing a marathon of The Wire remastered in HD (one season per day, Dec 26-30)

Status
Not open for further replies.
C

Chris R

Member
Almost done with Season 3 (college football ruined my idea of trying to finish it over the new years)

I'd have to rank things 1 > 3 > 2 so far. Didn't like the first half of 2 but it finally picked up towards the end. Thinking a good editor could cut it down to 8 or 10 episodes and still keep 99% of the good stuff without the fluff/filler... Not bad tv, just not nearly as good as the first season was for me.
 
A

ahoyhoy

Unconfirmed Member
This show can really be summed up best by the Season 2 scene involving D'Angelo and the prison book club discussing The Great Gatsby. There can be second acts in American lives (Bubbles is the prime example, and maybe McNulty if the end of the series implies he's getting back together with Beadie) but it sure is a damn hard trick to pull off.

The city of Baltimore, though, gets no second acts. New faces, same old shit. Boats against the current and all that.
 
M

Mr.Swag

Banned
Been watching since last week and everything so far was spectacular.

Except season five... What the fuck is happening?
a fake serial killer? Really? This is the only dumb thing this show has ever done. Hope it pays off, but I am disappointed by this last season direction. 1,2,3,4 where magnicifuckingcent.
 
S

Slo

Member
Just finished watching the entire series for the first time. Season 5 is stupid as hell.

#TeamCarcetti
 
L

Layell

Member
Season 5 is still better than most TV out there, worth it for what happens so some of the longtime characters.
 
R

RBK

Banned
I really feel like some of you guys are missing the point of why some the stuff in the series is there.
 
D

Doc Holliday

SPOILER: Columbus finds America
This is my 3rd time re watching the show and Marlo's crew is still as scary as ever. Chris is one is bad man.
 
M

Mr.Swag

Banned
I love the way Marlo walks. Gonna try an emulate that shit.
Just finished the series right now actually.
Didn't love the finale and I almost hated season five. Overall, I'm going to need to rewatch the series to know where I put it. So far I'm thinking

Breaking Bad > The Shield > The Wire >Mad Men > House of Cards >The Sopranos.

*note
I haven't watched Six Feet Under or Deadwood
 
P

Phrynobatrachus

Neo Member
I burned through seasons 1-4 on HBOGO recently, but it took me a while to finish 5. The whole premise of the season put me off for a bit, but I guess it's really not much weirder than some of the other things in the show. It's still satisfying to see everything play out, plus some standout scenes ("My name is my name!"). If I had to rank I would probably say 1 > 3 > 2/4 > 5
 
F

Fallout-NL

Member
TarpitCarnivore said:
I would go 2, 4, 1, 3, 5 but I feel like it works better as 2, 1/3/4, 5. Season 2 stands on its own so well, while seasons 1/3/4 all work together in a way that they could have been a really good show on it's own with just those 3 season.

But fuck, season 2 is just good. Ziggy is the most underrated character in the entire show. Perfect execution of character development.
Click to expand...

Yeah, season 2 is incredible. Possibly my favorite season of The Wire. Frank and Ziggy are such tragic characters.

/edit: oh and for all the other posters in this thread that love Ziggy: make sure you watch Generation Kill.
 
D

Dr.Horrible

Member
Recorded all of these and just wrapped up season 1. The hype is real and if season 2 is even better then damn.

Edit - how spoilery is this thread? I'd like to browse through more.
 
F

Flunkie

Banned
I didn't get a chance to DVR this. Are they in the same format on Amazon or was this re-air the definitive HD way to watch?
 
B

Blader

Member
I absolutely loved season 5, my second favorite behind 3. It's just so dark and it delivers on some unexpectedly great endings for basically every character. It also really heavily reminds of The Shield, particularly its last seasons, which is another plus.
 
M

Mr.Swag

Banned
Blader said:
I absolutely loved season 5, my second favorite behind 3. It's just so dark and it delivers on some unexpectedly great endings for basically every character. It also really heavily reminds of The Shield, particularly its last seasons, which is another plus.
Click to expand...
I hated HATED McNultys thing.
 
R

real_slime

Banned
So lemme get this straight

They shot on 35mm film, but used a technique to block out the sides of the frame (I don't know how/if this is done so I'm asking) and so the actual image negative itself is in a 4:3 aspect ratio.

So that means they can rescan the film as HD, but the 4:3 ratio is forced since the actual image information was never there at the sides by intention.
 
B

blainethemono

Member
real_slime said:
So lemme get this straight

They shot on 35mm film, but used a technique to block out the sides of the frame (I don't know how/if this is done so I'm asking) and so the actual image negative itself is in a 4:3 aspect ratio.

So that means they can rescan the film as HD, but the 4:3 ratio is forced since the actual image information was never there at the sides by intention.
Click to expand...

Some information here:

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/griffin_nick/hbo_the_wire.php

The Wire is shot entirely with Panavision cameras. David Insley let us know that, "These later episodes of the show are shot Super 35, 3-perf, and that saves a lot of money because that means we're shooting about three quarters of the film we used to. But we're only using the 4 x 3 part, so we're losing the edges of the 16x 9, but it's less than we were using when it was 4-perf, so (the image is) somewhere between a Super 16 image and a standard 35 (mm) image."

And perhaps the final contrast to the rest of high-end episodic television, The Wire for each of its five seasons has been produced in good old fashioned 4 x 3 standard definition. DP Dave Insley recalled, "The reason the show has stayed 4x3 is because David Simon thinks that 4x3 feels more like real life and real television and not like a movie. The show's never been HD, even 4x3 HD and that (SD) is how it is on the DVDs. There is no 16x9 version anywhere." As a viewer with an HD set I will point out that like much of SD television that makes its way to HD channels, it appears that HBO utilizes state-of-the-art line doubling technology. It may still be standard definition, but line doubled it looks considerably better on a high definition set than it would on a standard definition set.

Insley explained, "When the show started 2001 / 2002 they framed it for 16 x 9 as a way of future-proofing. Then a couple of seasons ago, right before Season 4 began shooting, there was a big discussion about it and after much discussion -- David, Nina, Joe Chappelle, the Producers, the DPs -- and we discussed what should be the style of the show. David made the decision that we would stay with 4x3. The DPs pretty much defined the look to be what it is now. And it's been consistent for the past two seasons."
Click to expand...

Blog post by David Simon explaining the conversion process:

http://davidsimon.com/the-wire-hd-with-videos/

More fundamentally, there were still, upon our review, a good hundred or so scenes in which the widening revealed sync problems with actors who would otherwise have remained offscreen, or even the presence of crew or film equipment. These scenes, still evident in the version that HBO originally intended to broadcast several months ago, required redress. The high-definition transfer also made things such as Bubbles’ dental work, or certain computer-generated images vulnerable; other stuff held up pretty well in the transfer.

This is no poor reflection on HBO’s initial efforts. In traversing 60 hours of film, the HBO production team had done a metric ton of work painting out C-stands and production assistants, as well as solving a good many sync problems. They felt they had protected sufficiently to air the drama in HD and widescreen several months ago. However, for myself and Nina – examining even a small portion of the whole and finding light flares and sync issues that could be better corrected – we were confirmed in our need to slow the process and take a last, careful look.

Unfortunately, as we have spent the fall in production for HBO, there was no chance we could find time enough to attend to a complete review of the entire series. That fell to a film editor in whom we place great trust and who knows the The Wire well from his service to it over the years. Matthew Booras took the notes and concerns of the surviving filmmakers into an editing suite and began making hard decisions about what we might live with, what we might improve, and which choice did the least violence to the story when a scene became vulnerable. Narrowing the workload for Nina and myself, he made it possible for us to focus on the handful of essential problems in every episode. The hard work here on our part should actually be credited to him.

At HBO, Rosalie Camarda managed the synthesis of our late notes with the film edit, and long before Matthew weighed in on the remaining problems, Laurel Warbrick capably performed the lion’s share of the transfer, going scene by scene through the cuts and resizing and painting away problems throughout. The two then worked with Matthew, Nina and myself on the remaining issues, and we are grateful for their patience and commitment to the process.
Click to expand...
 
B

blainethemono

Member
Femmeworth said:
Trying not to read spoilers. How did this turn out? Can it be safely cropped back to 4:3?
Click to expand...

if you mean like, watching the 16:9 version while blocking out the sides of your screen, probably not. Some shots would look worse than others though.

Having only seen the first season so far I can't complain too much about what they've done with it. Most of it looks fine and it's probably worth it just for how great the PQ is overall.
 
M

Megasoum

Banned
Rewatching right now. I'm at the end of Season 2.

I swear, I actually hate Valcheck more than any of the bad guys for that season.

The fucker's face when he finally arrest Sobotka at the end....Argh
 
C

Chris R

Member
Almost done - Some S5 spoilers

Blind guy ;_;

Prop Joe ;_;

McNutty drinking again and sleeping around on port cop chick ;_;

Marlow better get his from Omar
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

‘The Last of Us’ Season 1 Finale Scores 8.2 Million Viewers, Reaching Series High
News 2 3
141
7K
Zephyrus0 replied
HBO Original | The Last of Us | Part 1 OT | Endure & Survive
79 80 81 82 83
4K
185K
VulcanRaven replied
Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League |OT| Sent to Die
18 19 20 21 22
1K
58K
T-0800 replied
Coming Soon to Game Pass: Far Cry 6, Remnant II, SteamWorld Build, and More
37
3K
Jesb replied
Bungie Announces Marathon | PlayStation Showcase
2 3 4 5 6
287
17K
Aenima replied
Top Bottom