The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) Original Theatrical Reconstruction (In progress) — Page 2

Actually, I’ll stick to the 4K footage. Don’t worry. I’ll still include the open matte scan as a bonus.

This is some awesome work Sambarker04, i’m still in awe at the Toy Story reconstruction, i’m thrilled you will include the open matte scan as a bonus, i love the open matte format.

jakeandelwooduk said:

This is some awesome work Sambarker04, i’m still in awe at the Toy Story reconstruction, i’m thrilled you will include the open matte scan as a bonus, i love the open matte format.

Thanks. ☺️

I can’t speak to how the movie looks on other 35mm prints, but Thunderbean’s open matte scan has only eight (yes, I counted) open matte shots in it. Hardly worth including the entire scan, even as a “bonus.” You’re better off either switching from the hard matte scenes to open matte in one transfer, or just compiling all of the open matte scenes together in one video, so people can at least see those scenes in the taller frame.

Here are those scenes:

Could the 4K and open matte be combined to make the ‘best’ possible version available?

MoviesGamesMusic said:

Could the 4K and open matte be combined to make the ‘best’ possible version available?

Not really. Thunderbean converted the framerate from the scanned 24fps to 23.976fps, and the color in the print is way too saturated and brightness limited to compare it to the 4K.

Ah well, the fact it will be included as a bonus is more than I expected.

UPDATE (18/10/2025): So I realised that the Dolby Stereo mix is a bit muffled when compared to the DTS track, and I can theorise that this is how Disney used to master audio digitally on their LDs back then, though the LD was released just a few months after their first THX LD with Aladdin, so it’s possible that THX was too late to find out what Disney was doing. So to fix this problem, I went ahead and equalised it using the raw optical audio from Thunderbean’s 35mm scan as a reference so you can get crystal clear sound, especially since I recall people claiming Aladdin’s 35mm audio is better than the LaserDisc, and apparently the same thing can be said for Nightmare, since the 35mm audio is way clearer than the LD. Also, as an added bonus, it will also include a Dolby Headphone track of the 1997 mix, since I feel like it, since I already did it with Toy Story.

Hey, I saw that Nightmare Before Christmas was released in Dolby Digital at the time of its original release.
https://file.garden/aBF0BwGECB9-W-tX/Screenshot from 2025-10-29 13-13-49.png

HAttackontheBun said:

Hey, I saw that Nightmare Before Christmas was released in Dolby Digital at the time of its original release.
https://file.garden/aBF0BwGECB9-W-tX/Screenshot from 2025-10-29 13-13-49.png

Interesting. From the 35mm cells I saw on eBay (https://www.ebay.com/itm/306451154000), it seems to be stuck in Dolby Stereo when it first came out, so maybe there was an error in the magazine, or maybe there were a series of premiere prints that use a Dolby Digital soundtrack. I don’t recall any first Disney/Touchstone/Hollywood/Miramax film to use Dolby Digital, especially since the rear channels in the 5.1 mix from the DD LD, DTS LD and the first two DVD releases were in fact stereo and not dual mono.

I think there was an innovatory of Dolby A, Dolby SR, and Dolby Digital prints for that movie? The DD prints are for theaters that upgraded to that sound format around Late 1992-1993 when Batman Returns became a success. The same can be said for The Lion King a half-year later since I recalled seeing a former projectionist’s video on the screening for this film (or the comments) stating that the Dolby A, Dolby SR, and SRD prints were struck at the time of King’s release.

Maybe at this point around 1994 or 95, Technicolor (Disney’s go-to), started making film reels that contain both the Dolby Digital and the analog backup tracks for the studio’s movies until 1997 when they started to add SDDS tracks.

By the next year, all three digital formats (Dolby Digital, DTS, SDDS) started to be added on to prints as the vast majority of Hollywood studios finally upgraded to these in the response to both the projectionists and the theater owners’ complaints about not getting the full sound experience in auditoriums that don’t have any competing digital sound format and having to resort to either using Dolby SR or running the raw, unfiltered optical track. Also, Dolby Digital was prevalent in overseas markets and it was much easier for Hollywood studios to reuse their domestic prints for English speaking countries like the UK and Australia. (unless the film had to be cut to comply with the censors’ demands). I think Sony Pictures might’ve been the last major studio to fully upgrade to tri-format prints around 1999 or 2000?

TonyWDA said:

Aladdin carried a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, with split stereo surrounds, on some of its original theatrical prints, and that was released the year prior. (In fact, it was Disney’s first feature animation title to be presented in that format.) If a local listing is advertising showtimes in Dolby Digital for The Nightmare Before Christmas, then Disney most certainly had a number of Dolby SR-D prints produced for the release, and it’s likely the same mix that ended up on the DTS LaserDisc.

I see.

TonyWDA said:

Aladdin carried a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, with split stereo surrounds, on some of its original theatrical prints, and that was released the year prior. (In fact, it was Disney’s first feature animation title to be presented in that format.) If a local listing is advertising showtimes in Dolby Digital for The Nightmare Before Christmas, then Disney most certainly had a number of Dolby SR-D prints produced for the release, and it’s likely the same mix that ended up on the DTS LaserDisc.

Speaking of Aladdin, I hope someone is able to find a genuine 1992 print of that film with the Dolby timecode and rip the audio from that…