Spaced Ranger said:
The source is the question. George Lucas complained that his Star Wars original was falling apart (let's just play along with that claim for now) and Star Wars was years afterward. In what condition might the THX 1138 original be, as well?
Why would a director make a "director's cut" (aside from marketing to fill his coffers) and arbitrarily trim the frame throughout his otherwise non-problematic movie? Could it be the negative was gone (for whatever reason) and the choice for source was the U.S. edge-enhanced-DNR'ed(?)-mess master or the U.K. cropped-but-non-processed master?
The original negative wasn't gone, like I said they went back to the original negative for the "director's cut", all print anomalies seen in the US/JAP LD transfer are also present in the UK LD transfer, I'm 99.9% sure it's two different transfers made from the same print. The cropping on that shot posted on the last page doesn't even match the UK transfer anyway, it happen to be similarly cropped at the top of the frame but that's it, and like Harmy said it's completely irrelevant to what source they used for the DVD/BD.
The different cropping between releases is nothing unusual, quite the opposite, in this case it allowed me to take advantage of it where the UK was much better framed in one reel where the US was badly cropped - the infamous "coily" reel. My plan is to upload the full UK LD transfer as well as it have its benefits over the US transfer in some parts, less sharpening artifacts being one of them.
As to what condition the film is in today, ILM's Paul Hill: "Because of the Northridge quake, a lot of the original footage was water damaged. That’s why we knew when we went in that we were going to have to do some extensive restoration work." http://www.awn.com/articles/people/back-future-ithx-1138i/page/1%2C1
True story or just marketing speak, that's basically all we know. It's impossible for us to know what condition the material was in and if they had to utilize IP's or other source material for their so called restoration. With George Lucas' obsession to tailor his films according to his own daily fitness, it's hard to not get cynical when reading something like that, but ultimately as with Star Wars, water damaged or not, George Lucas doesn't want his original films out there, if he wanted them saved and to be seen it would happen.
poita said:
If anyone ever wants any 16mm or Super8 scanned to help with this, just let me know. I have a clawless flashscan type system, so worn sprocket holes are no problem.
That is awesome! now if only a scope print would show up for sale. If they even exist...