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Idea: An American Tail - Original 1986 release audio restoration/reconstruction project?

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 (Edited)

Sometimes, I have heard through the internet grapevine that a lot of fans of Don Bluth, Steven Spielberg, and David Kirschner’s 1986 animated feature film, An American Tail, were still very upset way beyond crestfallen with the horrific way that they (Universal) tampered with the original 1986 Dolby Stereo release audio for An American Tail when they put it out on DVD and/or Blu-ray Disc.

According to TVTropes, “background music and sound effects were changed or added, new voice-overs were inserted (which wasn’t the bad part, since they seem to have come from the original recording sessions), and the orphans who bully Fievel near the end had their voices re-dubbed for unknown reasons.”

So I thought:

If they (again, as in Universal) can’t or won’t even re-release the first American Tail film using the original 1986 Dolby Stereo release audio masters as some audio source anytime soon, could we not even try and reconstruct or restore them or especially dub the original English audio from the movie’s original laserdisc release over the HD BluRay picture a la the Despecialized Editions of the original Star Wars Trilogy or something?

Given that much of the needed material (like James Horner’s expanded score for the movie, which was released in 2019 through Intrada Records) has been released in some way or another, a little audio clean up or something should yield results that at least come as close as possible.

Or maybe not.

What’s your word on all this, everyone?

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this sounds really cool actually, I’d support it

Raccoons

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One could rip the laserdisc audio and then sync it to the Bluray, yes. I don’t have the LD but I can look into seeing if anyone has it.

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The first step is tracking down a user with a LD rip

Then find someone with proper editing software

Raccoons

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SpacemanDoug said:

The LD rip is on myspleen

Well, for some unknown reasons, I just can’t even sign up for MySpleen or let alone its forums.

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They closed invites, I can try to download and PM it to you if you want

Raccoons

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timbox2.0, check your PMs.

For the benefit of the thread, I’ll mention here that the synced audio available on MySpleen is AAC. Only the raw PCM capture is lossless. Maybe someone can re-sync the capture and release it in PCM.

Army of Darkness: The Medieval Deadit | The Terminator - Color Regrade | The Wrong Trousers - Audio Preservation
SONIC RACES THROUGH THE GREEN FIELDS.
THE SUN RACES THROUGH A BLUE SKY FILLED WITH WHITE CLOUDS.
THE WAYS OF HIS HEART ARE MUCH LIKE THE SUN. SONIC RUNS AND RESTS; THE SUN RISES AND SETS.
DON’T GIVE UP ON THE SUN. DON’T MAKE THE SUN LAUGH AT YOU.

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Dek Rollins said:

timbox2.0, check your PMs.

For the benefit of the thread, I’ll mention here that the synced audio available on MySpleen is AAC. Only the raw PCM capture is lossless. Maybe someone can re-sync the capture and release it in PCM.

can you PM me this too?

Raccoons

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Since the Dolby Stereo was already synced, but in AAC, this was quite easy to do.
If you own the BluRay and would like the BluRay-synced Original Dolby Stereo from the LaserDisc in FLAC you can PM me.