898 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

[hearthesilence]

The Blu-rays of the 4K restoration haven't had the best encoding - they all have macroblocking issues with the non-Criterion ones being egregiously bad - so at minimum I imagine the UHD will look better for that reason alone.

[Zot!]

It is a bit of a niche release without a new transfer, especially as the Complete Z to A (which has everything) is going for a measly $45, and this 4K alone will retail for $50. I get why casual fans might feel satiated. I wish I liked The Missing Pieces more, as that is unique to this set, but as somebody mentioned before it mainly serves to illustrate how good Lynch was at judicious editing. I mainly enjoyed it for the glimpses at characters who were cut.

I am the exactly the intended niche however, as I own the old BD TV collection and that is lacking the feature...which I have previously only ever owned on laserdisc. Looking forward to it....by the way is anybody attending this? https://davidroywilliams.com/tours/twin-peaks-2025/

[Finch]

Paramount never addressed the audio sync issues that plagued all of Peaks Seasons 1 & 2 as well as FWWM, even when it came to reissuing all that along with Season 3 in the Z-A set, so, if nothing else, at least FWWM will have fixed audio carried over from the Criterion BD and likely/hopefully better compression. If Paramount or Criterion eventually upgrade all of Twin Peaks to 4K, hopefully they'll dial back the overly red skintones everyone has in S1&2. The Pilot looked real nice in 4K.

[andyli]

It is a bit of a niche release without a new transfer, especially as the Complete Z to A (which has everything) is going for a measly $45, and this 4K alone will retail for $50.

Why compare the sale price of one item with the SRP of the other? I’m getting FWWM for no more than $25 for sure.

[Zot!]

It is a bit of a niche release without a new transfer, especially as the Complete Z to A (which has everything) is going for a measly $45, and this 4K alone will retail for $50.

Why compare the sale price of one item with the SRP of the other? I’m getting FWWM for no more than $25 for sure.

Just talking broadly here about why someone who bought Z to A, which really, in terms of value for content, must be one of the best collections ever, might pass on this. As mentioned already, I will be buying the FWWM 4K.

Paramount never addressed the audio sync issues that plagued all of Peaks Seasons 1 & 2 as well as FWWM, even when it came to reissuing all that along with Season 3 in the Z-A set, so, if nothing else, at least FWWM will have fixed audio carried over from the Criterion BD and likely/hopefully better compression. If Paramount or Criterion eventually upgrade all of Twin Peaks to 4K, hopefully they'll dial back the overly red skintones everyone has in S1&2. The Pilot looked real nice in 4K.

I recently rewatched ALL the seasons as well as the Missing Pieces, on BD, and experienced no problems. At this point there is no way they will fix, and I think we can consider it a bonus mystery "feature", because after 10 years there is zero consensus on what causes it, or what player are consistently incompatible.

I also highly doubt they will try to do a second pass on reworking season 1&2 on 4K, unless it's some cheapo upscale, which I have no interest in. I think the best we could hope for is the remainder of the Return episodes.

[Finch]

I'll only say that I've had this problem with players from different manufacturers and leave it at that. FWWM, the Pilot, Episodes 14 & 29 and most of the Return is all I return to anyway, and at least the Pilot 4K, The Return discs and the Criterion 4K of FWWM are or will be in sync, so short of a good Dolby Vision grade on the entire thing and a good encode, I'm probably done with buying Twin Peaks on home video.

[Roger Ryan]

I'll only say that I've had this problem with players from different manufacturers and leave it at that...

For nearly all of the North American Blu-ray discs I own with audio synchronization problems, the issue is resolved by disabling the Blu-ray player's 24 frames per second output so the disc plays at 1080p/60. This has properly synched the audio with the image for not only Fire Walk With Me ("Twin Peaks: The Complete Mystery" box set version), but also MGM's Annie Hall, Kino Lorber's Barton Fink, and Criterion's Nashville (which oddly goes out of synch otherwise about 90 minutes in). This has happened enough that I suspect there must be some mastering issue where the audio is transferred at a standard video frame rate (30 frames per second) while the video is transferred at 24 frames per second although I'm not knowledgeable enough about mastering practices to know if this is even a thing.

I mentioned "nearly all" in that first sentence because disabling the 24 frames per second output on the player DID NOT correct the audio synch problems with FWWM "The Missing Pieces" ("Twin Peaks: The Complete Mystery" box set).

[Finch]

I'll try that with the original season discs in the Z-A set, thanks Roger!

[omegadirective]

Anyone in Canada that doesn't care about the stickers willing to ship me their 4K sticker in the mail?

I like to keep the stickers that have the director's signature on them, and my copy that came in the mail this week didn't have a sticker on it.

I can e-transfer you a few bucks to offset the cost of the mailing.

[Finch]

Just finished rewatching the film in full for the first time in years. One thing that occurred to me this time was that Mrs. Chalfont's painting is not mentioned in the pilot or in the series, I think? Last time it's seen in the film is when Laura following her dream puts it upside down on the desk and it's not brought up again.

Considering how draining an experience the film remains, I think it's wild that the closing scene with the angel was not in the shooting script. It just had her sitting in Cooper's lap. Lee mentioned it at a time that she told Lynch there needed to be an element of hope and I guess he sensed that the ending as written was unsatisfying and the addition of the angel aligns it with the sense of peace felt in the endings of Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Wild At Heart and subsequently Inland Empire. Nowadays she's more coy about what brought the angel about. I don't recall if Ronette's angel was part of the shooting script (which I don't have at hand) but I have a hunch that it wasn't either. Either way, it comes together so beautifully, Lee's acting, the lighting, Badalamenti's beautiful score and then the still shot of Laura's smile scored to the Cherubini choir. My favorite Lynch ending and in a way, my preferred ending of Twin Peaks, and one of my favorite endings to any film.

EDIT: Forgot to mention the 4K. I thought the textures were a touch more noticeable and the colors ever so slightly more vibrant but it is a shame that Lynch passed before he could approve a Dolby Vision pass. Still, the encode is very good, miles better than the shoddy Paramount set.