Turtlemania!! With a new short in theaters, a new season of the animated series, a reboot of the IDW Comics series, and a scorching hot Arrow Video Limited Edition box set of the original movies, there’s no question it’s totally Turtlemania time! Join us as we celebrate the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!
This article contains comparisons which contrast Arrow Video’s new 4K restoration against Warner Bros’ prior 2009 Blu-ray. The frames aren’t necessarily exact matches, but should give a solid indication of the visual differences.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is notably grainy, a low budget, often darkly-lit film which was independently produced. The film was previously released on Blu-ray by Warner Bros, beginning in 2009 and with several subsequent solo and series re-releases. My personal observation is that the WB release appears to have some mild DNR was applied to mitigate the grain, as well as some tweaking of contrast. It’s not a terrible looking Blu-ray, but I’ve always been a little underwhelmed by its softness.
In my opinion Arrow’s 4K restoration brings the film back to its original glory. Yes, it’s swimming in grain, as it should be. Keep in mind that in motion, the flowing image looks better than individual screen captures project.
To be honest, I almost didn’t want to do this Blu to Blu comparison and I’ll tell you why. I’ve watched both the Blu-ray and 4K UHD versions of Arrow’s release, and there’s a marked difference between them. Personally I sometimes can’t perceive a massive difference between Blu-ray and 4K UHD, but in this case, because the film is so grainy, the difference is huge. In 4K, the gain is extremely fine. On 1080p Blu-ray, it’s chunkier and more noisy in appearance.
The 4K version is markedly better than either Blu-ray version, new or old. So just to be abundantly clear, this article is a 1080p Blu-ray comparison – but I heartily recommend purchasing the new Arrow 4K Edition which blows both of these comparisons out of the water.
On to the boilerplate.
The “slider” images below allow for a quick comparison of the stills from both discs by color, cleanliness, framing, but are downscaled and not representative of the full 1080p resolution, much less 4K. These are only illustrative of differences, and not definitive, especially in terms of resolution and clarity.
Keep in mind these are Blu-ray to Blu-ray comparisons. So this certainly does not demonstrate the additional resolution and color palette of the 4K UHD disc!!
For a truer direct comparison, it’s recommended to download the image files and view them at full size on a large monitor with 1080p or higher resolution. You can download all images at full resolution via the zipfile below:
Opening Logo and Titles
The opening logo has been restored to the correct original version.
Shiny surfaces / blowout
Even though the new transfer leans toward a brighter overall appearance, one thing it does exceptionally well is maintain color information and detail in bright areas, reducing whiteout that commonly appeared in the older Blu-ray. We can see this demonstrated…
….in the glow of televisions.
…in the shiny accents of the costuming.
…in the richer detail of the campfire flames.
…in the subtle gradient of an evening sunset.
…in the flash of an angry blade.
…in the Shredder’s hardware for making coleslaw.
Color Timing
It’s not always evident (this is often a darkly lit film) , but generally speaking the newer transfer has more natural color.
Close-ups
Additional Comparisons
the one you’ve really been waiting for…
A/V Out
