Too bad the extended tv cut of Superman only exists as a 16mm pan and scan flat print.
I once saw the abc cut up on ebay it went for hundreds of dollars and the print was fairly faded.
I did not bid on the print since it was pan and scan and i would have had no way to get it transfered since it is a copywritten motion picture film.
The guy who bought it if he has a projector must be pretty pleased with his find.
Still even a faded 16mm dupe tv station print is better than a vhs tape recording of 1980s vintage.
Too bad Mitch does not have access to one.
Is saw some of the cleaned up Alex S footage on Capedwonder.
Looks almost like when it first aired on tv. I wonder if you can ever really get dvd quality from this source?
I myself am still looking for a recording of the supergirl broadcast with those scenes found in no other version of the film.
Years ago i bought my Sister the limited anchor bay 2 disc release. Which had the international version and directors cut. Though i would have liked to have given her the tv cut and the theatrical us version as well they are not on dvd.
I find it funny the first time i saw superman was the extended tv cut, it was the same with dune and star trek II. The dune cut made its way to dvd officially but Wrath of Khan and Superman tv cuts are still only fan preservations.
I was dissapointed when i first saw the extended donner cut on tcm thinking it was a cleaned up version of the salkind international tv cut or kcop/abc version and then i realised the music was different the sound effects were different and it was missing a ton of material.
Too this day this is the only cut available on Blu Ray. As I believe Richard Donner has come to see this as his finished cut similar to how Robert Wise viewed his own star trek dvd cut.
I don't know why they refused to restore the theatrical sound mix as it was released in six track mag and would have been awesome on dvd. Even the stereo dolby mix could have benefitted from going back to the master tapes. It is really a shame the best sound presentation for Superman the Movie was in 1978. The best it ever sounded on home video was on the Uncompressed PCM theatrical track on Japan Laserdisc. Which is nearly impossible to find now.
Unless of course you could get your hands on theatrical 35mm film prints and get someone to transfer the audio,lol. If i remember correctly Donner said the original mix elements were in too poor shape to be reused on the newly created mix. He obviously meant the original seperate discrete elements and not the master tape derived from them. Yeah that would have meant a generation loss but better than not having the audio mix people loved in 1978.
Even the super8mm digest version need to be preserved on dvd. I wonder what scenes are featured in the cutdowns?
I wish i was rich and could somehow Get a hold of a three strip dye technicolor print of Superman with the Six track mag, that and star wars,lol.