PART II: THINGS TO DO
With Part 2, there was considerably more work to do apart from two instances of logo replacement.
- German title.
The German title is shown not over black this time, but actually over an animated background (sky). This needed to be also addressed in terms of color correction, as the sky needed to be transitioned +/- seamlessly into the credit sequence.
Here is the logo in question:
On a side note: the design of the logo is once again slightly different from both the poster and Part 1 film versions. The dots over “Ü” have been moved higher. The “C” and “K” have been, unfortunately, separated. However, the R in ZURÜCK has more similarity to the film version from Part 1.
- TO BE CONCLUDED
The logo for To Be Concluded was localized for the German theatrical release. Here, the LD took a rather odd approach to it. One has to know that for the most parts of the LD, original video was used, and only the German elements were rescanned and cut in. And while the title logo was scanned in the original 1.85:1 aspect ratio, the To Be Concluded sequence was actually scanned in 4:3 and then SQUEEZED to fit the 1.85:1 frame, effectively losing vertical resolution. Very weird.
Also noteworthy: the German text actually translates as “TO BE CONTINUED” (not “CONCLUDED”).
- BACK TO THE FUTURE PART III logo.
At the end of the preview for Part III, we have the German ZIDZ3 logo appearing over a photo of Marty & Doc. Here, we have the same problem as in TO BE CONCLUDED: the 4:3 frame was scanned from German elements and then squeezed to 1.85:1.
- Audio
The English and German LD audio needed to be included.
- Subtitles
Here the task was a bit more daunting. The German theatrical version used on-screen subtitles in order to translate 1) the intro intertitle (Saturday…) and the newspaper headings. Also it used blending effects to translate changing newspaper headlines.
The LD re-created those translations digitally, as did the VHS.
Other than that, regular English & German subtitles needed to be included.