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The Muppet Movie Extended Edition (Released) — Page 2

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You're right...to the best of my memory, there was a brief Muppet Movie clip of Kermit on the bike...probably from the movie itself...where Jim referenced it to explain the more complicated bike segment from Caper.
“The tragedy of your times, my young friends, is that you may get exactly what you want.”
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Guys??? Anyone got any idea about this?

A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em

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I just finished tranferring my old Magnetic Home Video VHS tape of The Muppet Movie onto a DVD-R. It runs one hour, 34 minutes. I know that the video versions were supposedly cut down a bit from the theatrical versions (or the British theatrical version, anyhow) but does the DVD have any additional cuts?

I hadn't watched the tape in a long time, but I noticed that the film doesn't seem to suffer too badly from being full-screen. I'm wondering if it was shot in Super35? I haven't seen the widescreen DVD, so I don't have anything to compare it to (although I did see it theatrically in 1979).

I also noticed that when I popped the DVD-R into my computer to have a look at it, I noticed that at the very top of the screen on the left, there's some sort of lettering (from a control screen, I assume) that was cut off by TV overscan. You can just see the very bottom portion of the letters, they're static and they're there throughout the entire film. I thought it was odd, as I've transferred a bunch of VHS tapes onto DVD, and this is the first time I've noticed anything like that.

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Resurrecting an old thread here...

I looked into the two cuts of TMM a few years ago, and came up with the following:

The original 1979 cut of the movie, as passed by the BBFC, ran to approximately 97 minutes.  Barring a couple of UK home-video releases in the 80s (see next paragraph) I don't believe this has been seen since.

A second cut, running to about 94 minutes, appears to have been the 'standard' version of the film for the last 30 years.  It was used for all home-video releases that I'm aware of up to and including the DVDs except for two: a 1982 laserdisc from Precision Video (catalogue number LVITC0011) and a 1986 VHS from Virgin Video (catalogue JH1006), which was re-issued by Palace Video (HPV001) a few years later.

Both laserdisc and VHS versions of the 97-minute cut used the same transfer: an open-matte telecine of a 35mm print done to a pair of 2" Quad videotapes, with the tape-change occuring around the 54-minute mark.  The telecine was slightly zoomed-in, which is fairly common for transfers of that age.  Unfortunately it was also suppressed-field, so it's fairly low-resolution.  It was, however, stereo.

The print used was in poor condition, with numerous breaks and consequent loss of footage at each break ranging from a couple of frames up to several seconds.  All breaks were repaired on tape.  Fortunately almost all of the missing material exists in the 94-minute cut, with only a few frames completely lost.

Major differences include:

 - an extended sales-pitch from Doc Hopper as he tries to convince Kermit to sign on as his spokesfrog
 - an extended montage as Dr Teeth recaps the movie for the benefit of the band
 - extended chase between Doc Hopper and Max and the rainbow-coloured Studebaker
 - totally different musical arrangement of "Never Before, Never Again"
 - additional verse in "I Hope That Somethin' Better Comes Along"
 - additional shots of the giant Animal and during the scenery-collapse in the final scene
 - dialog from the Muppets during the closing credits
 
The 94-minute cut includes approximate 5 seconds of additional reaction shots during the scene with Lew Lord, but as the 97-minute print has a good deal of material missing throughout due to damage it's entirely possible that these shots were simply lost.

Using the laserdisc and the UK DVD release, I was able to reassemble the 97-minute cut in reasonable quality and produce an anamorphic DVD master - this is the one listed on MuppetDanny's site, mentioned in an earlier post in this thread.  Picture and sound were extensively restored (insofar as was possible - there's only so much that can be done with the poor-quality transfer used for the laserdisc).  I also located and had transferred a 35mm theatrical trailer from the film's original US release, a 16mm TV spot and the Super8 'home movie' version of the film, all of which are included as extras.

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You had an actual 35mm print transfered?

Forum Moderator
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No - the laserdisc/VHS releases came from a 35mm print ;-)

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 (Edited)

The Muppet Movie is one of my favourites from childhood, and every so often I pull out the soundtrack CD just reexperience it. After reading this thread I'll have to pull out the DVD and give it another watch.

To those more watchful than I: How does the DVD compare to the laserdisc? I'm excited by the thought of this extended edition, and I'm also curious how much of the missing material might have been reinstated.

“Before the Dark Times. Before the Prequels.”

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The differences are as detailed in my earlier post. The official DVD releases are of the 94-minute cut of the film; nothing from the 97-minute cut is available except for on the laserdisc and VHS releases I mentioned from the early 80s.

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Stang. That's what I expected, but thank you for clarity.

“Before the Dark Times. Before the Prequels.”

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Hi Alex,

I would love to get my hands on a copy. I'm up for trading or covering the costs of burning and shipping. Or, if you know of a place I can download it from, that would be cool too.

Thanks for any help you can offer!

Joshua Dlouhy

scenebyscene@yahoo.com

Webmaster of "Star Wars: Scene-By-Scene"

http://www.SceneByScene.net

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jdlouhy said:

Hi Alex,

I would love to get my hands on a copy. I'm up for trading or covering the costs of burning and shipping. Or, if you know of a place I can download it from, that would be cool too.

Thanks for any help you can offer!

I don't think anyone has transferred this yet.

If they have... I second this.  Love to get a copy.

Dr. M

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Please form an orderly queue in my Inbox :-)

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If anyone who gets a hold of these discs would like to share them on MySpleen, newsgroups or TehParadox, please PM me.

anatema is okay with it being posted as long as his name isn't associated with it.

FYI, I'm told there are 3 discs: one PAL, one NTSC, and one of extras (NTSC only).

Dr. M

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Question: is the disc that's put together 16x9?  It would be awesome to have the official DVD version with the laserdisc/vhs scenes cropped and inserted in.

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Can someone please post this... anywhere?  Seems kind of timely with the new film's release.

Dr. M

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i found the PAL version online, but does anybody know where to find the NTSC??

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swingbelly said:

i found the PAL version online, but does anybody know where to find the NTSC??

Good morning, I was wondering if you could send me that version, because I searched for that version by everyone and I almost always get NTSC

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Does anyone have a link to this extended edition? I’d love to check it out!