MichaelLAX

As part of my interest in this topic, some years ago, I purchased on eBay the Laserdisc Boxed Set of The Godfather Trilogy (6 discs plus the bonus 7th disc: The Godfather Family - A Look Inside and booklet).

I never used it and have wanted to put it back on eBay to sell.

I am willing to sell it to any interested person here first who is willing to pay me the same $150 I paid plus about $25, shipping and handling from Los Angeles.

What software do you use to edit out commercials, etc.?

I have the Happauge HDPVR-1212 and use the Macintosh software frontend for capping.

I can also run Windows XP if editing software requires it.

Thanks!

jswert123 said:

ok that doesnt explain much...since ive not seen it yet.......   FF said: Besides the official DVD looks fantastic compared to this full screen Laserdisc sourced edit.          so i was simply asking why wasnt a higher quality source used...such as blu ray...

That is why my reply started with the statement:

"Subject to correction, the "missing scenes" are only available in "full-screen" and not "wide-screen" formats; hence this fan edit was completed in "full-screen" format for consistency."

Feel free to ignore the remainder of my comments!

Perhaps you are not aware that the Blu-Ray version uses "wide-screen" format and not the "full-screen" format used by the deleted scenes on the DVDs.  Hence the format of the deleted scenes required the use of the full-screen versions of the motion pictures (of which the best format available of the full-screen versions are Laserdisc)...

So, as you noted quoting FF: "Besides the official DVD looks fantastic compared to this full screen Laserdisc sourced edit."

Subject to correction, the "missing scenes" are only available in "full-screen" and not "wide-screen" formats; hence this fan edit was completed in "full-screen" format for consistency.

As Fanfiltration suggests, watch the original movies first: purchasing the Coppola restoration DVDs are an excellent way to watch them now.

Probably it was Coppola who started the progression towards adding back "deleted scenes" in rereleased versions of a movie.  Usually one can realize why the director decided to delete the scenes in the first place.  But for truly iconic movies, such as the Godfather series, it is fun to see what was left on the cutting room floor in context of the film itself and not just as "extras" on a DVD.

It was financial considerations that led Coppola to start this practice.  NBC had already aired Godfather I and II separately, when Coppola was running into financial overages (for which he was committed to cover) on his Apocolypse Now epic.  

So he sold NBC on the idea of running both films again as a four night mini-series, with the films re-edited chronologically.  And he used the occasion to add about 75 minutes of deleted material, since for network television he had to remove some of the heavy violence footage.  

If my memory serves me well, I believe that Coppola supervised this edit by satellite from the Philippenes (a first for the use of this technology), where he was producing Apocolypse Now.  This version aired in November, 1977 as The Godfather Saga.

Given the rising importance of the home video market in the early 1980's, Paramount offered Coppola the opportunity to release this concept on home video.  Coppola restored the missing violence, tighten up some of the editing choices and made some different choices on which deleted scenes were restored to the project.  This was released in 1981 as The Godfather 1902 - 1959: The Complete Epic.

Following the release of The Godfather Part III, another compilation in chronological order with a different set of missing scenes was released in 1992 as The Godfather Trilogy: 1901–1980, but only on VHS and Laserdisc and never on DVD.

I believe that Fanfiltration has restored all of the missing scenes with the exception of those exclusive to The Godfather Saga version, since a high quality copy of that version is unavailabe (recent re-telecasts on television have been on cable channels that superimpose logos and other promotional material on screen during their telecast and it was never released to home video as this version).

There is a website that details all of the deleted scenes, but I do not have a link readily available.  Some research on Google and you should find it (and be sure to share its address with us when you do).

Enjoy!!!

Did you do a search for "Fanfiltration"?

This looks like a terrific amount of hard work and the quality is on the screen!

Nice job!

This is a nice addition to my video collection which includes The Godfather 1901-1959: The Complete Epic on VHS, The Godfather DVD Collection and the recent addition from eBay: The Godfather Trilogy: 1901-1980 on Laserdisc (which I was going to digitize until I discovered your version).

I am currently watching Disk 1, and I have a question:

Was your intention to add all deleted scenes into your version?

If my recollection is correct, the only version of the the extended releases I ever saw was the home video release of The Godfather 1901-1959: The Complete Epic in the 80s ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Godfather_Saga http://www.thegodfathertrilogy.com/epic/ ).  In that version, Tom Hagen is having dinner with the movie producer Woltz and is thrown out and as he is leaving he sees the young acting protegee on the upstairs balcony.

The next scene is Hagen back in New York with Vito discussing the ways to get at Woltz, including his exposure for having a sexual relationship with his underage protege.  Then we see Woltz in bed the next morning awakening with the horse's head.

This New York discussion scene is missing from your version.

It appears that this might be the same meeting where Vito, Sonny and Tom discuss Sollozzo's proposal for drug dealing, which is next in your version (not so, see my UPDATE below).

Was this a creative deletion on your part?  Are there others?  Thanks again!

UPDATE:  I see from rereading your first post, that you changed your mind about including any footage from VHS sources (chosing better quality Laserdisc sources instead), hence extra scenes in the EPIC that are not included in the TRILOGY would not be included in your version.

Another website post indicates that this scene concludes with Vito telling Tom to send Luca Brasi to Hollywood to take care of Woltz; which makes more sense in dealing with the beheading of the racehorse.

NOTE: Using Handbrake to convert to H.264 with AAC stereo audio in AppleTV format slims this project down to 6.83Gigs.

LAST QUESTION (for now!): I assume that the advantage of using the Collector's Edition on laserdisc, instead of the DVD versions, is the aspect ratio of 1.33 to 1; is that correct?  So, does that mean you reduced the aspect ratio of the deleted scenes from The DVD Collection? And, if so, how did you achieve that result with your tools?