THX-1138 1971 Theatrical (Unspecialized Reconstruction based on 16mm)
Is there a better one?
The latter for some reason has the vomit blu ray ending.
Probably because I was going off of the ‘movie censorship’ website changelist, which really only mentions the text color. I think I adjusted the rest of the color as well, but I don’t recall perfectly well, honestly. There was definitely not a high quality looking source for the end sequence, at the time.
The edit is a relatively rough (but still decent, and still time consuming to make) attempt. So there are tons of imperfections. Thanks for taking a look, though. I think you’re the first person on OT besides myself to mention it. The main reason for it is indeed simply to have a film that lacks the barfy CGI moments, while having the bulk of it intact as decent quality video.
I agree it’s pretty good overall.
Here is how I think it can be improved though. First off as I mentioned the ending. Honestly if you don’t know a bird is supposed to fly through the screen I don’t think it’s even noticeable on the blu ray ending. And that’s just one issue with that ending. So if you take the ending on this version: THX 1138 - Japanese LD preservation and replace it you already improved the 1971 theatrical release.
Then perhaps take that new version (with ending replaced) and make the minor edits required to restore the 1978 “George Lucas” release.
Makes sense. If I had known a bit more about the ending I probably would have done that.
That said, it definitely won’t be updated by me. It’s just sort of a (somewhat) quick hack job. The scene with SEN + the kids is of course intercut with the black and white 16mm footage. There are some other issues, as I recall. The edit where LUH delivers his “sedation” chopped out some original footage, I think. So I ended up slowing down the truncated shot and interpolating some frames to match the run time. I don’t actually have the raw project files for this project anymore anyway, so I wouldn’t really be able to update anything.
Anyway, I’m certainly looking forward to whatever projects utilize newer scans. As nice as a fully restored scan would be, I’d really love to see the truly “despecialized” version built from a color corrected BD and 35mm scan.