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Superman I-III extended TV cuts & Info - Where have the Preservations gone? (Released)

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Hello,

I was just thinking about the extended TV cuts of the first three Superman films. I used to have multi-gen VHS dupes back in the days of tape trading (which I stupidly got rid of at some point), and I’ve noticed that while fan edits are out there, I’ve had little to no luck finding preservations of the TV cuts themselves.

I know that BLAKSVN/ANGRYSVN did preservations of I, III, and the 93-minute cut of IV, but none of them are on MySpleen, and there haven’t been any Usenet uploads within the last 4 years or however far back the longest newsreader retention periods go.

The Superman II “Restored International Cut” preservation recently resurfaced on a certain public tracker. There’s an AVI version of the first film there too (presumably derived from the BLAKSVN release), but a recent commenter said it only times out to 173 minutes. Even when you multiply that by 1.04 to account for PAL speedup, it still comes up 8 minutes shy of the full 188-minute running time, so either it comes from an edited broadcast or the AVI conversion was botched (I’m guessing the latter). The actual BLAKSVN preservation is out there, but there are no seeders, so it’s stuck at 57.3%.

And as far as III and IV go, I’ve had no luck finding preservations of the longer cuts anywhere. With tracker and file locker shutdowns, deletions and link expirations on surviving lockers, old torrents going unseeded, and old Usenet uploads falling off the back end of retention periods, I’d hate to see preservations like these vanish into the mists of time.

So is there any way the BLAKSVN Superman preservations could be exhumed from obscurity and made available again?

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TServo2049 said:

Hello,

I was just thinking about the extended TV cuts of the first three Superman films. I used to have multi-gen VHS dupes back in the days of tape trading (which I stupidly got rid of at some point), and I've noticed that while fan edits are out there, I've had little to no luck finding preservations of the TV cuts themselves.

I know that BLAKSVN/ANGRYSVN did preservations of I, III, and the 93-minute cut of IV, but none of them are on MySpleen, and there haven't been any Usenet uploads within the last 4 years or however far back the longest newsreader retention periods go. 

The Superman II "Restored International Cut" preservation recently resurfaced on a certain public tracker. There's an AVI version of the first film there too (presumably derived from the BLAKSVN release), but a recent commenter said it only times out to 173 minutes. Even when you multiply that by 1.04 to account for PAL speedup, it still comes up 8 minutes shy of the full 188-minute running time, so either it comes from an edited broadcast or the AVI conversion was botched (I'm guessing the latter). The actual BLAKSVN preservation is out there, but there are no seeders, so it's stuck at 57.3%.

And as far as III and IV go, I've had no luck finding preservations of the longer cuts anywhere. With tracker and file locker shutdowns, deletions and link expirations on surviving lockers, old torrents going unseeded, and old Usenet uploads falling off the back end of retention periods, I'd hate to see preservations like these vanish into the mists of time.

So is there any way the BLAKSVN Superman preservations could be exhumed from obscurity and made available again?

I'd LOVE to see that "Restored International" Superman II preservation and the other extended releases.  For fans they are really great to have and it would be nice to see them resurface OR be redone to higher standards (if it's possible, of course) for everyone to enjoy.  I've never seen ANY of these yet so it would be cool.

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 (Edited)

Correction about that AVI version of BLAKSVN's preservation of the extended cut of the first film: The missing 15 minutes (173 min. vs. 188 min.) is not because it's missing any scenes, nor was it due to some screwup in the conversion. I had forgotten that it was missing the end credits. If you take 188 minutes, subtract almost 8 minutes of credits, and then factor in the 4% PAL speedup, you get about 173 minutes.

Still, I'd love to see the full-sized DVD preservation rather than just an AVI conversion.

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I have this DVD.  Ill see what I can do to share it.

aka nostromo777 on myspleen

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I found it.  Its spread across 2 discs, and is 146mins long.  Unfortunately, the 2nd DVD-R will no longer play.  I cant rip it to my hard drive.  Ive had this problem with alot of my old DVD-Rs.   Ill keep trying to get it to rip, but it may be a lost cause.

aka nostromo777 on myspleen

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^Methinks a BD burner would be the right tool for that task. Got one?
If not, send the disc to someone who has (not me.)

I got II-RIC on Japanese MAXELL/002 media, but it sounds like that one is already covered.
Don't recall if I ever got the first movie-- I'm not seeing it in the same box where I found II.

However, in practice you must take into account the “fuckwit factor”. Just talk to Darth Mallwalker…
-Moth3r

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tried ripping on my BD player.  same issue.

aka nostromo777 on myspleen

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Try IsoPuzzle. Some sectors may be readable on one drive but not the other, and vice versa. If you're lucky you may be able to recover the full disc image.

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i have them too found em before they were gone, thankfully. all burned to 2 dvd-r's each.

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Moth3r said:

Try IsoPuzzle. Some sectors may be readable on one drive but not the other, and vice versa. If you're lucky you may be able to recover the full disc image.

 

wow!  I think that worked.   Ill know for sure soon.

 

I know people were looking for the uncompressed DVD versions of this,  but because it based off vhs recording from TV, i dont think that compressing it with handbrake for easier sharing will hurt the quality visibly.

aka nostromo777 on myspleen

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mine are burned to dvd-r sky

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Which ones do you have, sky? Again, I found II already, still trying to find I and III (and the Japanese laserdisc rip of IV, if anybody has that one).

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a friend uploaded I isc in 2 dvd iso's that i had uploaded for him to rs but my account is now free and can't afford rapidpro. i also have III international cut. what's diff about the japanese laserdisc version of IV?

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It the two extra scenes that were not in the American cut, both of them during the Superman/Nuclear Man fight around the world. One of them is in Moscow, the other involves a tornado in Kansas.

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is it in english though? would u like to me PM u the links for superman the movie isc 2-dvd iso's to u?

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The Japanese laserdisc was in English with Japanese subtitles.

Sure, you can PM me the link.

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Echo3 said:

I found it.  Its spread across 2 discs, and is 146mins long.  Unfortunately, the 2nd DVD-R will no longer play.  I cant rip it to my hard drive.  Ive had this problem with alot of my old DVD-Rs.   Ill keep trying to get it to rip, but it may be a lost cause.

I have the same problem.

BTW have you seen this?

http://superman1978.com/restoration_news.php

www.Superman1978.com
www.SupermanII.com www.SupermanIII.com
www.SupermanIV.com www.SupergirlTheMovie.com

 

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the dvd-r's i have of the extended tv cuts for superman 1-3 play just fine for me but since they're PAL they won't play on my blu-ray player only my computers. if i could convert them to ntsc then they would play on there, but i haven't gotten around to it.

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alex s said:



Echo3 said:

I found it. Its spread across 2 discs, and is 146mins long. Unfortunately, the 2nd DVD-R will no longer play. I cant rip it to my hard drive. Ive had this problem with alot of my old DVD-Rs. Ill keep trying to get it to rip, but it may be a lost cause.


I have the same problem.
I've got RIC_II_DISC_2.ISO from 2005-08-26.
It's on Japanese MAXELL/002 media, still readable with the same sha1sum as the day I burned it.
alt.binaries.superman ?

However, in practice you must take into account the “fuckwit factor”. Just talk to Darth Mallwalker…
-Moth3r

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If there is someone out there who has any of the extended cuts of the Superman films, could they please upload them (preferably to MySpleen)?

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enjoyed your review. i’m also looking for the SUPERMAN II restored international cut. only if it’s the Richard Donner cut. i hated the R. Lester cut. he just ruined it. most of all i want the Superman - The Movie restored int’l cut along with SUPERMAN IV. originally if you heard in 2012 talks were planned to release the first Superman movie on DVD. now no word. it was supposed to be on Christopher Reeve’s 60th birthday.let’s hope that in 2018 warner brothers will re-release everrything again.

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I’m also searching for the Restored International Cuts of S1 and S2. Looks like they circulated during the last decade, but no more (that I can find). I have found someone selling so-called “Salkind Cuts” of the first two films, but not sure those are the same as the much-lauded RICs.

Any pointers/help would be appreciated. Thank you!