The Aliens 4K Remaster's AI Grain Removal Turns Faces Into Wax Figures

If you have watched a classic movie on a big new 4K television recently and thought the actors' faces looked like melted wax figures, you are not imagining things. One of the most troubling trends in modern remastering is using AI to aggressively scrub away film grain, and James Cameron may be the worst offender of this on the new Aliens remaster.

Why Film Grain Exists and Why Modern Audiences Read It as a Flaw

Most modern movies are shot digitally, so they simply do not have photochemical film grain to begin with. The movies that are still shot on film today have much finer, less noticeable grain because film stocks have improved so much over the years. As a result, modern audiences have gradually become accustomed to movies without film grain and often associate that clean look with higher quality or with HD itself.

Grain is not a mistake. Unlike dust, hairs, or scratches that can sometimes find their way onto a negative, grain is part of the photochemical process itself. But to many modern audiences, it reads as a sign that a film looks old. Studios, and even filmmakers themselves, have started treating grain as though it were a defect that needs to be fixed rather than a natural part of how the image was captured.

What Cameron Actually Did to the Aliens Remaster

On the Aliens remaster, James Cameron used AI to eliminate the film's natural photochemical grain, upscaled the footage artificially, and artificially reconstructed and sharpened the detail underneath. The results are terrible. The actors' faces have been smoothed over so aggressively that their skin now looks like wax.

The gritty, grainy texture that perfectly complements the film's dark, grimy, industrial world has been completely erased, replaced by a sterile, plastic sheen.

Cameron's Goal Was Never to Preserve the Original Look

Cameron's goal is not to accurately represent the look of Aliens when it was released. His goal is to make the thing he shot in 1986 look like it was shot today.

Cameron's Response to Fan Backlash

When fans criticized the remaster, Cameron dismissed the backlash by telling them to move out of their parents' basements and get a life.

What do you think of the AI grain removal on the Aliens 4K remaster?