I watched the documentary you made, very insightful. Do you think that the trimming of the flashback scenes is the reason that in the Director’s Cut there is that weird VHS insert just after the Kurgen impales McCleod (it transisions into a shot of McLeod’s eye in the 1985 present)? Was the original negative lost when it was cut? I have looked this up before, but all I see is others acknowledging the quality drop, but not the reason why. The drop exists on the Blu Ray edition and the most recent 4k UHD Blu Ray. Or is this scene/transition present in the Theatrical versions too, and if so, does it drop in quality, both in the HDTV and 35mm transfer?
That insert was always there even on the initial UK 35mm theatrical prints and VHS’s. The reason for this is the effects firm who did VFX work for that one shot could not achieve the “eye transition” via photochemical compositing means. They transferred the 35mm footage to 576i analog broadcast tape (at the incorrect frame rate conversion with 1 set of field blending), did the effect digitally at 25fps and finished the sequence on such analog broadcast tape, which was then transferred back to film (at the incorrect conversion back to 24fps which resulted in double frame blending) to edit on the answer print. Thats why it looks so ghastly.