Have you checked the transfer yet, SilverWook?
We want you to be aware that we have no plans—now or in the future—to restore the earlier versions.
Sincerely, Lynne Hale publicity@lucasfilm.com
Initial impressions. It's the same print but might be a new transfer. The white fleck is still there. (Burned into the print source?) Color seems a bit more vivid in places. Will try a transfer and some A/B comparisons when the heatwave lets up.
In spite of what the LDDB has to say, there is no trailer on the disc.
msycamore, have you tinkered with with the old Warner/Kinney logo yet?
Where were you in '77?
SilverWook said:
Initial impressions. It's the same print but might be a new transfer. The white fleck is still there. (Burned into the print source?) Color seems a bit more vivid in places. Will try a transfer and some A/B comparisons when the heatwave lets up.
That damned white dirt. (probably burned in, if it's not something that comes from the telecine process? but this seems to be the only widescreen telecine made for this film.) It's good to hear it might be a better transfer though, looking forward to some comparisons.
SilverWook said:
In spite of what the LDDB has to say, there is no trailer on the disc.
msycamore, have you tinkered with with the old Warner/Kinney logo yet?
No, I haven't find any time to do that yet, I'm gonna ask about it in the how to section as I don't know any good way to do it. But we should definitely restore it imo. I got the trailer and short so it could also be included.
We want you to be aware that we have no plans—now or in the future—to restore the earlier versions.
Sincerely, Lynne Hale publicity@lucasfilm.com
If TCM was to show the DC anytime soon, that would be an easy way to get it degraded slightly to match the LD. I've seen a Betamax tape on Ebay released back before the classic shield logo was revived, but what logo is on there is anyone's guess.
I've also had a thought to ask the fellow who posted the Italian dub of the Warner cut to youtube about getting a copy of the whole thing. It's likely not NTSC though.
Where were you in '77?
There shouldn't be any real problem to degrade the logo and get it to match your video, I've gotten a few good suggestions on how to in the technical thread.
Not a bad idea, I never thought about it. I wonder if he got the whole movie.
We want you to be aware that we have no plans—now or in the future—to restore the earlier versions.
Sincerely, Lynne Hale publicity@lucasfilm.com
Yes, I saw the thread. Bumping it down to VHS is degrading a bit too much though. ;)
I'd try recording 4:3 output from composite on a DVD player, but I don't have anything that can cope with macrovision anymore.
I was also thinking recording the opening credit roll would be a good idea as well. Could it be de-colored to match the original look? I'm on the fence about it, as the scratchy original seems more in character of the original film.
Where were you in '77?
Sent a pm to the fellow who posted the Italian clip. From his comments on YT, I think he will be sympathetic to our cause. :)
Where were you in '77?
Wow, I didn't realize it was that different in its theatrical incarnation! I doubt we'd ever be able to get it 100% accurate without the original English narration, though.
The best we could hope for is subs using the translation provided I guess. Unless someone here speaks Italian! I wonder if Robert Duvall did the English narration, or a sound-alike was used?
IIRC, the DC extras don't really go into detail on what Warner's did in recutting the film, so this is as important a historical record as the "happy ending" cut of Blade Runner or Brazil.
Where were you in '77?
SilverWook said:
The best we could hope for is subs using the translation provided I guess. Unless someone here speaks Italian!
*raises hand* ahem...
I'd be glad to help, but I have never seen the movie, so I'm not sure how accurate my translation would be. The translation that "erriwan" provided on Youtube is pretty good IMHO, but of course who knows how near or how far we get re-translating it back to english. You know what I mean?
Well, I gave it a shot, and the translation came out roughly the same as the one already posted on Youtube, just as I expected. Here it is, along with the transcription from the video, and the other translation.
ITALIAN VOICE OVER
Devo fuggire. Devo fuggire!
Non so cosa troverò fuori, ma devo fuggire.
Forza, forza! Più forte!
Se non regge sono finito...
Il motore della macchina che doveva portarmi verso la libertà sta per lasciarmi. Prima che il mio corpo sia disintegrato dai miei inseguitori, voglio lasciare un messaggio telepatico, perché i miei posteri possano conoscere la mia vera storia.
La storia iniziò nel lontano luglio del 2002, duecento settanta secoli fa. Alcune radiazioni solari determinarono la deflagrazione contemporanea di tutti gli ordigni nucleari costruiti dall'uomo.
I pochi superstiti si rifugiarono in profonde caverne, unici luoghi non contaminati dalle radiazioni, e là iniziarono la ricostruzione del loro mondo. Uomini di tutte le razze giurarono solennemente che mai più ci sarebbe stata guerra, e si dedicarono alla costruzione di un mondo perfetto.
Ma la perfezione non è dell'Uomo. La perfezione è solo nella Macchina costruita dall'Uomo, perciò era la Macchina che doveva regolare la vita dell'Uomo, e l'Uomo costruì il Robot. L'Uomo costruì Robot sempre più perfetti, e il Robot fu tanto perfetto, che cominciò a costruire l'Uomo, e a controllarne ogni suo atto.
L'Uomo voleva un mondo dove fosse bandito il Male e l'Infelicità, e il Robot costruì un Uomo asettico, scevro dal Male e dall'Infelicità.
Ma l'eliminazione del Male è l'eliminazione del Bene, in quanto l'uno è la contrapposizione dell'altro. Già l'Essere Supremo aveva costruito un Paradiso Terrestre, nel quale l'Uomo visse, finché non sentì che solo avvicinandosi all'Albero del Bene e del Male, avrebbe trovato il Male, ma anche il Bene e la Felicità.
Non so perché questo sentire, in questo mondo sia toccato a me, perché ho dovuto cercare questa Felicità che sta portando il mio corpo alla disintegrazione. Forse il mio nome non è quello posto sulla provetta nella quale fui costruito, THX 1138. Forse il mio vero nome è Adamo.
ERRIWAN'S TRANSLATION
0.31 I have to make it, I have to escape!
0.33 I don't know what I will find out there but I must escape
0.39 Come on, come on! Faster!
If it (the car) doesn't hold up I'm finished
START OF THE OFF-SCREEN NARRATION
2.00 The engine of the car that was leading me to freedom is going to die soon. Before my body is disintegrated by my stalkers I want to leave a telepatic message so that posterity will know my real story.
2.19 - The story begun in the distant July of 2002, 270 centuries ago. Solar radiation determined the explosion of all nuclear heads all over the World. The few survivors took refuge in deep caves, the only uncontamined places... and there they started to rebuild their World. Men of all races sworn that never again was to be War and they dedicated their efforts to rebuild a perfect World. But Perfection doesn't belong to the Man. Perfection is only in the Machine created by the Man, therefore it was the Machine which was to regulate the life of the Man... so the Man created the Robot. He created it more and more perfect and the Robot was so perfect that started to create the Man and to control him in all his acts. The Man wanted a World were Evil and Unhappiness were banned and The Robot created an aseptic man, free from Evil and Unhappiness. But the elimination of Evil also means the elimination of the good, since one is the opposite of the other. Already once the Lord created an Eden where the Man lived until he felt that only approaching the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil" he would have found Evil but also Goodness and Happiness. I don't know why in this World it happened to be me and why it was me who had to look for the Happiness which will lead to my disintegration. Perhaps my name is not the one placed on my test-tube in which I was created, "THX-1138", perhaps my true name is Adam.
MY TRANSLATION
I have to escape. I have to escape. I don't know what I'll find out there, but I have to escape.
C'mon, c'mon, faster....
If this thing doesn't hold up I'm done for.
The engine of the car that was going to carry me towards freedom is going to fail soon. Before my body is disintegrated by my pursuers, I want to leave a telepathic message so that my posterity will know my real story.
The story begun in the distant July of 2002, two hundred and seventy centuries ago. Some solar radiations caused the simultaneous explosion of all nuclear warheads built by Man. The few survivors took refuge in deep caves, the only places uncontaminated by radiation, and there they began to rebuild their world. Men of all races solemnly swore that there would be no more wars, and dedicated themselves to building a perfect world. But perfection does not belong to Man. Perfection only belongs to the Machine built by Man. So the Machine had to regulate the life of Man, and Man built the Robot.
Man built more and more perfect Robots, and the Robot was so perfect, that it began to build Man and to control every action of his.
Man wanted a world were Evil and Unhappiness were to be banned, and the Robot built an aseptic Man, free from Evil and Unhappiness.
But the elimination of Evil is the elimination of Good, because one is the opposition of the other. Already the Supreme Being had built an Earthly Paradise, in which Man had lived, until he felt that only approaching the Tree of Good and Evil, he would find Evil, but also Good and Happiness.
I don't know why this feeling in this world had to get to me, and why I had to search for this Happiness that is leading my body to disintegration.
Maybe my name isn't the name that was on the test tube in which I was built, THX 1138. Maybe my real name is Adam.
msycamore said:
dark_jedi said:
If I had it I would cap it for you.
So, if I was able to get you a decent Laserdisc of THX 1138, would you cap it for me? Also... is American Graffiti a Laserdisc you actually own or have any interest to do a transfer of or do I have to get that for you. ;)
I would seriously try to get them if they could be preserved by someone, who have the proper equipment but I don't know what they commonly go for on e-bay or if they are susceptible to laser rot.
On these caps below you can see that they also changed the credits, not only the sky. The LD is also reported to have a quite different color-timing with warmer and much more vivid colors throughout.
Quick observation (because this is the first time I have noticed this as well), the sky is not the only thing that has changed in this shot. As you can see, the structures behind Mel's Diner has also been removed. FYI
cupanudles said:
Quick observation (because this is the first time I have noticed this as well), the sky is not the only thing that has changed in this shot. As you can see, the structures behind Mel's Diner has also been removed. FYI
Yeah, I forgot to mention that. But my point was more about the impossibility of restoring the original opening of the film with the help of just this still from the documentary when the opening credits have also been digitally replaced. Someone skillful enough could probably restore the background with the help of that footage but you still have the altered credits, also on top of different footage of Dreyfuss and Ron Howard etc. So the only way to go imo. is the Laserdisc. I also suspect that the opening "A LUCASFILM LTD/COPPOLA CO. PRODUCTION" in green is an alteration, at least a post-SW alteration made for this cut.
We want you to be aware that we have no plans—now or in the future—to restore the earlier versions.
Sincerely, Lynne Hale publicity@lucasfilm.com
SilverWook said:
I was also thinking recording the opening credit roll would be a good idea as well. Could it be de-colored to match the original look? I'm on the fence about it, as the scratchy original seems more in character of the original film.
I also thought about that, taking out the color in the letters should be easy but I don't know if it's worth it, you would still have to degrade it.
We want you to be aware that we have no plans—now or in the future—to restore the earlier versions.
Sincerely, Lynne Hale publicity@lucasfilm.com
I vote scratchy original. The new one is just too pristine for me, and wouldn't really match the original.
VADER!? WHERE THE HELL IS MY MOCHA LATTE? -Palpy on a very bad day.
“George didn’t think there was any future in dead Han toys.”-Harrison Ford
YT channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader
Scratchy original it is then. :)
And thank you very much, Leonardo, for taking a stab at translation. Someone is going to have to make subtitles eventually.
I've heard back from "erriwan" on Youtube. And he's happy to help out. I want to make sure he gets a copy of the final product in return.
He downloaded the whole film many years ago. What he actually has is an AVI file. But anything better than Youtube quality ought to work? I'm anxious to find out which logo is at the beginning.
Where were you in '77?
My pleasure, Silverwook :)
So the blu ray of THX is in DTS and the movie was never even released in DTS. The real version never was in Dolby as far as i know, but academy mono. So what if the directors cut dvd was in 5.1 that was not Walter Murch's awesome mix.
Not sure if a re-release ever came out after star wars 77 in Dolby. There is no info to confirm or deny. Though i bet the directors cut theatrical was in Dolby 5.1, or DTS.
American Graffiti's original mix is not on the DVD either, so Lucas has committed more alleged crimes against cinema than Star Wars.
“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.
I was communicating with SilverWook to arrange the file transfer when I thought, what the heck, I'll just join the forum!
Thank you all for your interest, I'm kinda glad I'm not the only one to notice the importance of a theorically unexisting version of THX. Apologies if it's only in Italian.
If I'm not mistaken, George Lucas, said in the interview on the Special Edition DVD that the studios wanted to re-edit the beginning in order to make the film more easily understood by the audiance. I guess this is what they had in mind but there is no indication anywhere that this was actually done. Apparently in Italy it was! And yet this version is so rare even here.
The channel it was recorded from is "Tele+" which unfortunately went belly up in 2003 but had its hey-day in the late 90s. I have no idea where their films went to. One of the main shareholders was Cecchi Gori (now bankrupt) but, I checked, his group does not own this title. Maybe it went to Berlusconi's company, Finivest, since Berlusconi was one of the Tele+ owners. I might try contacting someone to see if this version could be retrieved somehow... somewhere!
About the translation I admit it was done very very quickly and without too much attention but I can guarantee that a much better translation for subtitles will be sent to SilverWook, although Leonardo's version is very good already.
About the logo, there are no titles, no Warner Bros, nor American Zeotrope, although this is easily explained by the fact that it's a recording from TV so the beginning might have been missed (or not broadcasted for some reason).
Some changes I noticed in the film are:
1) some of the monitor screens were translated (for example when THX and the hologram are looking for LUH's location). These translations in Italian are a very unorthodox thing to do. I've never seen any film (especially in the 70's) were computer screens were translated from English to Italian. At most they were read aloud or subtitled.
2) officer in service count. In the scene near the end when an officer crashes with the bike, we see a count of officers in service going down one (this is a static shot). In the Italian version we see the camera moving from left to right and zoomed (I don't know if this technique is called panning)
Another curiosity, the beginning is in widescreen with black lines, then it switches to full screen during the titles scrolling (very weird indeed)
For now I haven't noticed other differences but I'm sure there are and yet I don't know whose responsable for it since Lucas never aknowledged the existence of any but his own version.
(from the "classic" version)
(from my Italian version)
Welcome aboard, erri_wan!
What you displayed from the version you have is good old fashioned bad pan and scan. It's interesting they didn't squeeze that shot to avoid chopping it up that way. In the old days, these things were often left up to whoever was transferring the film to videotape, often to the dismay of the director and cinematographer!
Where were you in '77?
Hmm. So is it possible that the 1971 US theatrical cut didn't have the narration at the beginning?
It's maddening that we don't have a proper, confirmed reference for this ...
I though there was a foreign dub of star wars 1977 that had a narrator reading the title scroll in that countries language. I think it was a Spain release.
“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.
Narrating the Star Wars scroll is one thing, they would have had to refilm it in dozens of languages otherwise.
The Italian THX narration is just the dumb it down sort of over explaining things that happened with the original release of Blade Runner. Lucas would never have signed off on it, nor reframe the entire film as a flashback.
Unless somebody has Robert Duvall's cell phone number, (provided WB didn't use a sound-alike) we may never know for sure. But we can make some educated guesses. Moving the big chase scene to the beginning smells of studio thinking.
Where were you in '77?
skyjedi2005 said:
So the blu ray of THX is in DTS and the movie was never even released in DTS. The real version never was in Dolby as far as i know, but academy mono. So what if the directors cut dvd was in 5.1 that was not Walter Murch's awesome mix.
Not sure if a re-release ever came out after star wars 77 in Dolby. There is no info to confirm or deny. Though i bet the directors cut theatrical was in Dolby 5.1, or DTS.
American Graffiti's original mix is not on the DVD either, so Lucas has committed more alleged crimes against cinema than Star Wars.
But why would they include the original audio mix when the original cut of the film isn't included?
As far as I know the audio mix on the American Graffiti DVD is the original Dolby mix for the 1978 theatrical re-release and that is the only cut of the film that's been released on home video so far, along with the additional tweaks done to the opening scene in the nineties.
We want you to be aware that we have no plans—now or in the future—to restore the earlier versions.
Sincerely, Lynne Hale publicity@lucasfilm.com
