THX 1138 "preservations" + the 'THX 1138 Italian Cut' project (Released) — Page 11

zombie84 said:

Well, it would be hard to say if it is a TV cut without another source to compare it with, and impossible to say unless there is some sort of commercial tape to compare it with. It is certainly possible that it was edited for both time and content so that it could run on television. I was going to say its a bit unlikely they would have spent the time and money doing all the foreign dubs for the 1978 re-issue, especially since re-issues are mainly on a territory by territory basis. However, the German version that is analyzed on a link posted on this page says that its less than a minute shorter than the UK version. I must assume that the UK VHS compared is based on the 1978 cut, since this is (reportedly, anyway) the only version ever released on home video until the DC.

So, either both the UK VHS and German TV versions are both the 1971 theatrical cut, which is not very likely, or the German version had the extra scenes added sometime in or after 1978. This is complicated by dubbing versus subtitles. It's not said whether the German version was dubbed or subtitled; if it was subtitled, it's no wonder the 1978 cut was ported, since it required extremely little work, unlike dubbing. The Italian version in discussion here is dubbed, so it would require more work on the part of Warners to port over the 1978 cut and thus slightly less likely.

Yes, that UK VHS is the 1978 cut, it was released two times on VHS in UK, both times the same cut. (I own the latest issue) According to IMDB the film didn't have its premiere in Germany until it was shown on TV in West Germany 30 December 1978, they don't state any theatrical debut, the same goes for Finland, in other countries it went directly to video, Japan or film festivals, Portugal. That info may be accurate as THX 1138 wasn't a big hit movie when released, a rather small art-film. So if I understand it correctly, this German cut is like a hybrid of the restored '78 cut and the Italian but is only 45 seconds shorter than the original.

So what we know so far is:

• 1971 US theatrical cut - approx. 81min
• original cut - approx. 86min
• Italian cut - approx. 81min
• German cut - approx. 86min

I think those times reflect your point of view pretty good, zombie.

Very exciting indeed! And at first glance, it seems to have a bit more picture area than the Laserdiscs do. It also appears to be anamorphic, or does Youtube resize images to 16:9 on the fly now?

msycamore, the grain/noise on #4 looks more analog and natural now. :)

SilverWook said: 

msycamore, the grain/noise on #4 looks more analog and natural now. :)

That's good, did you check my fifth sample, I edited my post on the last page, maybe you missed it, better or worse than #4? is the blur I added alright or does it look too soft/sharp?

So... do you think it will be possible to get a seamless blend with the LD footage, utilizing this method? I know, many questions. ;)

erri_wan said: 

I tried to look for old reviews and for some reason I stumbled upon the New York Magazine ( http://www.google.com/search?q=thx-1138&hl=it&safe=off&tbs=bks:1,bkms:1168684103302643781&ei=xJD6TP7RGIqZOr6b7NQK&start=20&sa=N ) which wasn't too kind on it. However I found a later issue (1987) that describe THX as 1h28min long, so 88 minutes. Isn't that 2 mins longer than the original cut?

http://books.google.com/books?id=IeUCAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA69&dq=thx-1138&hl=it&ei=05D6TMj4KIPpOZaO5NQK&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CDsQ6AEwBTgU#v=onepage&q=thx-1138&f=false

Yes, it's a little odd but these runtimes seems to be listed wrong all the time, at least we know for sure how long the original cut is and by knowing that we also know how long the 1971 theatrical cut is, more or less 4 min cut or round up to 5 min as in the DVD-doc etc. It's often that the lenght differ on video covers also, I don't know if they take commercials or trailers into acount when they list it or if they just type it wrong. The Italian home video covers I mentioned earlier could also have it wrong of course, but we don't know that for sure until we can check it for ourself. In the end I'm mostly excited to just have a watchable copy of the original cut preserved, though these alternatives are very interesting. :)

Edit: Another thing I thought was interesting, where the american studio removed some of Lucas' bizarre humour, the Italian added their own. ;)

erri_wan, can you compare it to the screencaps I posted a few pages back? If the white fleck is stuck on the left side of the frame, beginning where THX and hologram guy are alone in that creepy room full of blue jars, it's the LD master. If there is no fleck, then we have a whole new mystery transfer.

msycamore, I'll look at the new test in a bit. I don't think blending it in will be a problem.

SilverWook, the white fleck is there, I've already checked. The aspect ratio is actually wrong, it's squished/streched, probably an US/UK LD capture.

erri_wan said: 

I'm starting to get confused and lost with all these versions.

We've got:

1) a theatrical release the shortest existing that no one has ever seen but at the cinema (am I right?)

 

Correct, but this US '71 theatrical cut is more or less at the same length as your Italian version.

erri_wan said: 

2) the original cut (longer) that was made into laserdisc and VHS.

Correct, restored and released in Cinemas for a limited time in '77 or '78 and later on video in US, UK and Japan on LD and VHS, after Lucas enormous succes of Star Wars let him do it.

erri_wan said: 

3) an Italian (possibly European) release with a flashback sequence inserted at the beginning and an extended scene (SEN and the kids). Where does this extended scene fit into the story? Now that we have agreed this was perhaps an International cut made by Warner the question is, has this extended scene ever been seen by Americans?

It's impossible to know if that extended scene was in the US 1971 theatrical release version, it's not in either the restored cut or CGI-crap edition but it is in your broadcasted version and also in that German broadcast, which in itself is yet another cut of the film, only 45 seconds shorter than the restored original '78 cut, a sort of a hybrid of your version and that cut as it share the same weird editing choices (re-ordering of scenes), if those are leftovers from the US '71 theatrical we don't know, probably not but you never know, some of the cuts in your version probably is.

The only trustworthy info we have are Lucas' own statements in the '71 tv-documentary, "Maker of Films" and that info from "Skywalking", zombie provided, and that isn't so much unfortunately.

SilverWook said:

msycamore, I'll look at the new test in a bit. I don't think blending it in will be a problem.

Even if we succesfully blend it in with the rest of the footage, it could be a little tricky, I noticed that the original logo have a slightly shorter duration than the Laserdisc logo.

I think I like the levels on #4 better. Is there a way to sharpen the logo slightly without changing anything else?

And it that improvised Italian dub does appear to be from the PAL VHS, which is essentially the same master as the LD. I was sort of hoping some HD remaster of THX had somehow been done, before the DC was in the works and escaped onto European television.

Thanks for making the effort in getting a hold of that, erri_wan. It was worth a shot. :)

The extended SEN scene is really puzzling me. Given Lucas' long history of keeping "lost" footage to himself, I really can't see him making any extra footage available to the people who were about to take a hatchet to his baby.

SilverWook said:

I think I like the levels on #4 better. Is there a way to sharpen the logo slightly without changing anything else?

Of course, here you go:

sharper http://www.sendspace.com/file/d48ufe

sharpest http://www.sendspace.com/file/oehsal

Just let me know if you want it sharper or if you think I could improve anything, it takes basically longer to downloading them than it takes me encoding them. ;)

Haven't had the time to look into other avisynth-filters yet.

I'm hard pressed to tell the difference between these two. Maybe when I've gotten some sleep. I'm already seeing this logo with my eyes closed!

I found the DC in a bargain bin for six bucks, so I have it again for reference purposes. The time between the Buck Rogers clip fade out, and the AZ logo fading up is the same for the LD and DVD, about 14 seconds. I can see a tiny bit of weave on the LD at the AZ logo.

I also blew my ears out with that pesky THX thunderstorm logo on the DVD, as I couldn't find the amplifier remote in time, and you can't skip over it either! Darn you George! ;)

After a little A/B comparison, the opening credits on the DC does appear to be the original with a green tint.

SilverWook said:

I'm hard pressed to tell the difference between these two. Maybe when I've gotten some sleep. I'm already seeing this logo with my eyes closed!

Well, forget about those damn samples, we need to go 4:3 Letterbox of course! completely forgot about it, sorry. ;)

SilverWook said:

I found the DC in a bargain bin for six bucks, so I have it again for reference purposes. The time between the Buck Rogers clip fade out, and the AZ logo fading up is the same for the LD and DVD, about 14 seconds. I can see a tiny bit of weave on the LD at the AZ logo.

I also blew my ears out with that pesky THX thunderstorm logo on the DVD, as I couldn't find the amplifier remote in time, and you can't skip over it either! Darn you George! ;)

After a little A/B comparison, the opening credits on the DC does appear to be the original with a green tint.

Oh, I was wrong then, that's good. Careful with those ears SilverWook, or do Wookiees even have ears? ;)

I will post some new samples soon, including a tweaked opening credits so we can see if it will work or not.

Thank you so much, djsmokingjam! you sure know how to make things even more confusing than it already was. Seriously though, that is sure some interesting and great info you found, thanks!! :)

And I thought there was only two widescreen releases on UK VHS, what he says sounds sincere though, it just goes against all known information we have about the '71 release, so those 4-5 minutes cut by the studio was only an American thing?? an X-rated UK 95min long version with different opening titles, WTF?! if it is a UK tape and we take the PAL-speedup into consideration, the 92min comes to approx. 95min, am I right? I guess we need to get hold of this guy.

Ok, just so you know. I've registered on that board, and will contact him. Thanks again, djsmokingjam.

No worries on the anamorphic issue, msycamore. I was hoping the end result would be resizing the LD transfer to 16:9 eventually. I would experiment with recording the 4:3 analog video output of a DVD player, except macrovision would prevent it.

I am just amazed at how leads keep popping up on this.

I'm also intrigued that this Ebay seller mentions the Italian THX poster as being from 1976.

http://cgi.ebay.com/THX-1138-Italian-1p-76-George-Lucas-different-art-/350420271912?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5196ad0328

The IMDB has no info on when the movie opened in Italy though.

SilverWook said:

No worries on the anamorphic issue, msycamore. I was hoping the end result would be resizing the LD transfer to 16:9 eventually.

Ah, ok. Are you not going to need it in 4:3 format anyway, even if you're going to resize it? I really don't know the MO when it comes to this stuff, but if you're saying so then I'll go 16:9, I can always do both for you if you need it. Anyway, about resizing to 16:9, is that really the best way to go, I've recently heard that modern TV's and displays actually do the resizing with better results. I really am an amatuer when it comes to this so I'm just curious to hear your thoughts or anyone elses for that matter. Personally, I'm still a proud CRT-TV owner. ;)

I had a new look on your screen-caps on page 2, besides the edge-enhancement they look damn good! :) but I have beginning to wonder why the opening titles are so tinted, is it really just dirt that makes it look that way? If you check the rest of the transfer or just the opening scenes, it doesn't really look that green/yellow tinted. The flesh tones is a little yellow, but not that much as the opening titles suggests. Thoughts on this? was the letters gray/white originally or is the light tint an indication of washed out colors due to an old transfer or print. Even the specks of dirt in those two screen-caps doesn't have that dirty-green color. I'm definitely not trying to say it should have the '04-green colors here. ;) I really think it should be white, but why is there so much colors in there? I'm curious if you guys have any thoughts on this.

SilverWook said:

I would experiment with recording the 4:3 analog video output of a DVD player, except macrovision would prevent it.

Unfortunately that is not an option for me. :(

SilverWook said:

I am just amazed at how leads keep popping up on this.

I'm also intrigued that this Ebay seller mentions the Italian THX poster as being from 1976.

http://cgi.ebay.com/THX-1138-Italian-1p-76-George-Lucas-different-art-/350420271912?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5196ad0328

The IMDB has no info on when the movie opened in Italy though.

Well, IMDB doesn't have any info on the UK theatrical release either, but BBFC tell us about it in that case at least. It seems you have to do small detective work to find out any info about this film's history, I think I'll call Sherlock Holmes or even better, FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper. ;) It's all very exciting though, in all my life I always thought there was only two versions of this film, (not counting the '04 of course, even though it includes nice alternate takes of scenes) In my country Sweden, the film have always been broadcasted in the form of the US '78 original cut as long as I can remember, I don't think it was ever released in cinemas here, I've not even seen a swedish home-video release of it, except the new DVD. Just to discover after all these years, there's several cuts is really cool, just the extended SEN scene alone makes the Italian cut priceless IMO. :)

I am still not able to give that guy on cult movie forum a personal message, I really don't want to bump an six year old thread to just ask about this as my first post. ;) I don't know if there's any trouble with my registration, maybe someone else could try it out, otherwise I'll just have to wait for the promised notification from the site...

By the way, SilverWook, what is your avatar? I'm curious... it looks like a weird wookiee of some sort, that's why my earlier remark. ;)

I suspect it really depends on the model of tv. My current Samsung won't let me zoom in a 4:3 letterbox image through the HDMI inputs. I can do it on non-HD channels though. I need to try the component inputs on this though. My five year old Sony DVD player has a nice zoom mode, but the onscreen "zoom" icon won't go away.

What I miss from my older LCD is the ability to do picture in picture side by side from two video inputs. It would make comparing two different copies of the same movie a lot easier. The current set can only do PIP from the tuner. That's progress?

I think the green tint is a 2004 change. Lucas might have been trying to match the computer displays elsewhere in the film, most of which were redone.

As for my avatar, it comes from the July 1975 issue of Analog Magazine. More than a few people think it heavily influenced the design of Chewbacca.

http://binarybonsai.com/2010/09/18/george-lucas-stole-chewbacca-but-its-okay/

I suspect I saw that cover at some point in the 70's, as it seems to have subliminally influenced a character I created back in college!

SilverWook said:

As for my avatar, it comes from the July 1975 issue of Analog Magazine. More than a few people think it heavily influenced the design of Chewbacca.

http://binarybonsai.com/2010/09/18/george-lucas-stole-chewbacca-but-its-okay/

I suspect I saw that cover at some point in the 70's, as it seems to have subliminally influenced a character I created back in college!

Thanks for enlightening me. :) Didn't know about that interesting story, great article. Zombie, your name is spelled wrong in there. ;)