Spaced Ranger said:
SilverWook said:
The WB Tv logo at the end dates the print to pre 1984...
So, any release with the WB Kinney logo would have been mastered sometime 1970 through 1972.
However, with Lucas' Star Wars success (post 1977) and WB subsequently re-releasing THX 1138 (with the WB cuts restored), did WB simply put the excised footage back into the master and make new distribution prints (Lucas' restored original/1st edit) ... with the original logo also unchanged? Lucas probably wasn't even involved in that one (beyond demanding that it be done).
As the old WB Kinney logo is part of the film in this instance (in opening & end credits) a proper restoration should always contain it, films always gets its modern up to date distribution logo before the film starts anyway (before Buck Rogers in this instance) and after the end credits. In the early home video versions of THX they instead updated the in-film logo at the beginning with their current one. An ugly move, but not that uncommon, it happened on the P&S releases of Star Wars in the 80's or 90's as well. In short, all three theatrical releases of THX 1138 contained the old WB Kinney logo but the '78 re-release most likely had this one:
before the actual feature began and obviously this one in 2004:
There is of course a possibility they actually replaced the Kinney with the Communications Company logo for the '78 prints but I would be very surprised if that was actually done. Even SilverWook's 16mm print still had the original logo in place.
Spaced Ranger said:
From the WB re-release forward, a TV broadcast would be of Lucas' restored original/1st edit (excluding mangling by individual TV stations or networks).
Yes, I guess so. I wonder if THX ever got broadcasted between '71 and '78.
Spaced Ranger said:
So any broadcast that included those missing SEN shots would identify it as Lucas' original edit. -- Does this sound right?
IMO it doesn't sound right to identify it as such if it's a TV-edit of his restored film but I guess that was what it was advertised as at the time.
Speaking of TV-versions, have Spielberg's classic TV-movie Duel ever been re-broadcasted in later years? A case where only the theatrical version is available, would love to get my hands on the original US broadcast version. I guess we can only hope they include it on a new upcoming release, it's Spielberg's preferred cut after all.