Originally posted by: Doctor M
Now I'm no film genius, but doesn't that mean they had to build a new master negative for the S.E.? Someone had to cut by cut re-edit this movie and make a new master negative.

Yes and no. IIRC, the original cut negative was taken apart, but only where it was necessary for the SE additions/digitally composited scenes to be added. This means that the process of creating the SE negative also destroyed the OUT negative.

I don't know of an OUT print made at this time (other than from Zombie84) but I'm pretty sure that if there was such a print, then that's what would be being used for the new DVDs. However, in the absence of that print, it would be a monumental (and extremely expensive) task to reconstruct the OUT negative from the SE one.

On the other hand, there must be some interpositives and/or 1st gen prints in existence somewhere that could be digitally scanned in HD for high quality DVD and other, future releases. This is what would happen if the project were handed over to someone like Criterion.