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Official Jacob's Ladder UNCUT Fan Edit Thread (a WIP)

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 (Edited)

Hey all,

After searching the site and other corners of the net carefully to make sure no one’s already done this, I’ve decided to take up the mantle to assemble a fan edit of Adrian Lynne’s “Jacob’s Ladder” (1990) with the infamous deleted scenes inserted back into the narrative.

I’m starting this thread to make updates on progress, get feedback and ideas, and other JL-related discussion. Jacob’s Ladder is one of my favorite films and I have long wished that Lynne would make a “Director’s Cut” with the excised footage restored, as he expresses great affinity for the footage in spite of his instincts (and test audience results) in 1990 to cut the scenes.

There are some significant problems that will make this a very amateur effort. Chief among these problems are:

  1. As of now, the only sources I have are the US and UK blu-rays, which are a decent scan of the original, with grain intact, but certainly nothing to write home about.
  2. The deleted scenes are pretty abysmal in quality. 720x480 non-anamorphic, fuzzy, lots of picture noise, audio is noisy as hell. It will take some finesse to make them even minimally acceptable.
  3. There are, as yet, still MORE deleted scenes that are not available anywhere AFAIK, as evidenced by some BTS in the “Building Jacob’s Ladder” featurette on the blu-ray. A scene is shown where, early in the film when Jacob is stuck in the subway station, he enters a men’s bathroom and is confronted by two men having sex (perhaps two demons.) Other bits of scenes not found in the film are seen in this featurette, and in various trailers. Without these elements, of course, no COMPLETE uncut edit of Jacob’s Ladder can ever happen.

I have a few technical questions, for any of you who are interested in this edit:

  1. The blu-rays feature a newer DTS-HD 5.1 audio mix. Of course, the original theatrical prints had Dolby Stereo tracks. There are a couple of other audio options I could add to the final video file. The Special Edition letterbox US laserdisc (2001) has an AC-3 track; the P&S earlier US release (and almost every other LD release) feature the Dolby Stereo/Surround PCM tracks. Would you prefer all of these options?

  2. The MPEG4 AVC movie file is 23.98 fps, but the non-anamorphic deleted scenes are 29.97. Does anyone have any advice on what FPS setting is proper in my master session settings for editing?

That’s all for now.

Cheers,
Peter Z.
“Ah HA! A creeping kid! … for my film… ‘The Creeping Kid!’”

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while I’ve nothing helpful to add
I am extremely interested!!
any progress on this??

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From looking at technical threads in other places, I believe it’s best to go with the lower framerate. Apparently upscaled framerate looks bad whereas downscaled frames is just find. I could be wrong though.
Anyways, I’m super interested in this.

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Thanks, jrzag… I had a feeling such was the case, but happy for that to be confirmed by someone else.

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Hey

Looking for the same original uncut Jacobs ladder

Update???

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Jacob and friends… I’m so embarrassed I have dropped the ball on this. I began my first year of law school and as one would expect it took priority.

I successfully cropped and upscaled the deleted scenes (doing some careful comparisons between AE’s Detail-Preserving upscale and Topaz’s offering)… but the real hurdle here is the sound. The sound on the deleted scenes is a dirty, hissy mono. I cleaned up quite a bit of the hiss, and I could just use those tracks as they are, but my stupid ambitious mind went “I’ve got some extensive SFX libraries… what if I built a reasonable sounding 5.1 mix for these scenes, so that they would fit well into the rest of the film’s audio?”

Which of course adds a whole layer of work, which maybe I’m not in a great position to do.

So I’ve decided to just insert the scenes as they are, upscaled and cleaned up, but with mono sound (in a stereo mix.) This will at least allow us to view the film with the scenes intact, and then perhaps someone can take up the mantle of recreating a proper 5.1 mix for the new fanedit.

Will keep you posted.

~ Peter

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Made an account just to post this: Was literally re-watching Jacob’s ladder last night and found this thread searching google for information about deleted scenes. This all sounds awesome. I’m looking forward to whatever progress is made. Wooooooooooooooooo

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 (Edited)

Don’t worry about quality let’s just get an uncut version, float it around, build support for an official one

I was going to try to dub my vhs tapes so your quality better than mine

Time for all is limited do best efforts is all we expect

Thanks!

Mike

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I would love to see this edit if you have completed it! Thank you! 🙏✨

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I just made an account for this, my god it would be SOOO FUCKING COOL to have a full version of Jacob’s Ladder with the infamous scene. I remember hearing about it, watching it in my room at night (at around 3:00 I know. Im a genius.) and almost crying because it was so fucked. I cannot wait for the edit! (Also where exactly do you post the fan Edits? I’m new to all of this and really wanna get into it. Maybe even start doing my own fan edits… ahh that would be so fun)

Thanks!

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Hey would I be able to get those cleaned up deleted scenes?

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Any news on this? I’m really looking forward to it. Maybe if this gets enough attention we can get support to ask for an official director’s cut.
Actually in an interview in 2022 Adrian Lyne said that he only cut only 6 minutes from the test screenings (including the cure scene), so maybe all the other cut scenes weren’t even considered(?

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Been waiting for this since I saw this in the theater. I was enamored with the complexity and psychology of the story. I had VHS raped the trailer and watched it to get a glimpse of those strange extras. I believe there were a lot of really cool stills that might make Great background and credit art, that appeared in Starlog magazine around that time. I remember a full page picture of the ‘demon’ standing full against the back of the subway window for instance.

For some sound effects that might help, check out the Alan Splet sound library. It’s available on CD. It is the source of a lot the sounds used by David Lynch I things like Eraserhead and some of his creepier shorts like Rabbits. Lots of steam and hiss and factory sounds, all told it sounds like a decaying old city. So long as the sounds aren’t overused, I can easily hear it adding the background ambience of Jacob’s ladder ratger than changing the feel. Though considering the scenes we are talking, they are some of the more hellish ones. There are several really good train sounds I think of specifically that could be of use in the subway station.

I fiddle a lot with sound, and I love Jacob’s ladder, so this really got my interest.

I really hope you carry on with this. I knie that hard positions where higher priorities force your hand and ask you to give up on so thing you love. The answer is easier than it seems. Just always look to make progress. You’ve planned the whole project well enough to have set the destination already, so STOP thinking about it. If you just keep moving toward the destination, you eventually get there, so focus on the little things you can do, and enjoy them. Every step feels like an accomplishment.

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 (Edited)

Well well well… here it is 2024 and I recently completed law school. I hate that I haven’t worked on this to make progress, and I want to address that. Actually, to some degree the delay has helped, because the AI tools available now
are more powerful than when I began. This will help a bit in cleaning up and upscaling the deleted scenes.

thejaff…how would you feel about assisting in the sound department? Maybe we can tackle this and make better progress together.

~ Peter

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Jacob’s Ladder is one of my favorite movies of all time. I would absolutely love to see how AI helps upscale the deleted scenes. No rush, take your time man and congrats on finishing law school!