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Comment by allenu | Hacker News Reader

> Some people genuinely like the green cast of the 2008 Blu-ray.

I never did the see the original Matrix movie in theaters (I watched on a "DivX;)" rip provided by my roommate at the time). Did the original theater version not have a green tint to it? The rip that I saw did and to me that feels like the "definitive" look of The Matrix. Am I misremembering and it was only added to the 2008 Blu-ray?

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The green tint was always there, but was more subtle and the "Matrix" sections had also washed up colors. It become way more obvious in Reloaded/Revolutions and for the BD version they used the same color grading to contrast reality/real world sections in all three movies.

The green tint was not part of the original theatrical release. The green tint was used in the sequels and then added back to the DVD/Blu Ray release of the original movie.

You can go on Youtube and watch trailers for the original theatrical release and compare them to clips posted from later DVD releases. For example here is a comparison of the original theatrical trailer to a fan made trailer using clips off of the DVD using the infamous "Guns... lots of guns..." scene:

https://youtu.be/tGgCqGm_6Hs?t=91

To this:

https://youtu.be/atqOCj3qzzA?t=110

You can compare other scenes as well, it's clear the original film had no green tint and in fact I personally like it better without the tint.

Trailers often have radically different things then the theaterical releases. That can be scenes, tinting, or sounds, so simply having a trailer with a different tint does not prove how it was originally shown.

The original is strongly 'green & teal' tinted, as you can see in the first video.

According to this in-depth video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEdgmNZnLs4, both the theater release and the first DVD version had way more green than the BR ones (see 5:45).

I had it on a VHS circa 2000. It was my favorite movie at the time and I must have watched it 100 times. Definitely had a green tint in that version (I remember being concerned it was my tv and adjusting the colors).

Download an old cam or telecine and have a look?

Download where?

Have you tried downloading Morpheus?

Thanks for that. Chortled.

Blast from the past! I assume that in addition to referring to the latest Matrix movie, you are also referring to the file sharing software: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morpheus_(software)

> Download an old cam

Are these noted for their high color fidelity?

There is actually a 35mm scan with iffy colors, but absolutely no extreme green tint. For example Neo in the office is just basically normal colors, same as the new 4k remaster.

Edit: Here are some screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/f8630kc

Looks like the 2004 DVD also had a green tint

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