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Superman IV International Cut (see Booshman's posts) (Released)

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 (Edited)

I remember seeing this when I was really young in the early 90’s on TV and VHS, but on DVD and Blu-ray the cut became noticeably shorter. Two scenes that I believe were taken out were the tornado scene and the scene where Superman stops a nuclear missile at the Kremlin.

I know that there was a fan edit of Superman IV a few years ago, which aimed to restore the whole film rather than just the original international cut. I also know that the Deluxe DVD and Blu-ray have the scenes that were cut in the form of Deleted scenes, but the optical effects for these are incomplete. The laserdisc on the other hand has these intact still with complete optical effects, as does the VHS, which would be two useful sources for the cut scenes, but the laserdisc would be my preference.

The reason for this whole thread is that I think it would be nice to finally have the International Cut of this preserved, even if it is considered one of the worst Superman films - I still get some enjoyment watching it, and I know that there are some others out there who also do as well.

Listed below are a few of ideas of how to possibly do this:

  • Preserve the film using the laserdisc
  • Preserve the film using the blu-ray and upscale the scenes from the laserdisc that were cut from the blu-ray
  • Preserve the film using the DVD with scenes from the laserdisc.

I know this seems quite an ambitious project, especially one for a film which many people dislike, but I’m not sure how people here feel about this. Currently I don’t have the means of capturing the laserdisc, and I’m looking into ways to do this. If anyone would like to help then that would be great. Really I just want to see if anyone here has any interest in this project happening or not.

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I'd only be interested if there was also some way to obtain the International cuts of the good Superman movies. (I-III)

 

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rockin said:

I remember seeing this when I was really young in the early 90's on TV and VHS, but on DVD and Blu-ray the cut became noticeably shorter. Two scenes that I believe were taken out were the tornado scene and the scene where Superman stops a nuclear missile at the Kremlin. 

I know that there was a fan edit of Superman IV a few years ago, which aimed to restore the whole film rather than just the original international cut. I also know that the Deluxe DVD and Blu-ray have the scenes that were cut in the form of Deleted scenes, but the optical effects for these are incomplete. The laserdisc on the other hand has these intact still with complete optical effects, as does the VHS, which would be two useful sources for the cut scenes, but the laserdisc would be my preference.

The reason for this whole thread is that I think it would be nice to finally have the International Cut of this preserved, even if it is considered one of the worst Superman films - I still get some enjoyment watching it, and I know that there are some others out there who also do as well. 

Listed below are a few of ideas of how to possibly do this:

  • Preserve the film using the laserdisc
  • Preserve the film using the blu-ray and upscale the scenes from the laserdisc that were cut from the blu-ray
  • Preserve the film using the DVD with scenes from the laserdisc.

 

I know this seems quite an ambitious project, especially one for a film which many people dislike, but I'm not sure how people here feel about this. Currently I don't have the means of capturing the laserdisc, and I'm looking into ways to do this. If anyone would like to help then that would be great. Really I just want to see if anyone here has any interest in this project happening or not. 

There's a tiny problem though: The laserdisc is 2:20:1. A full preservation would probably be the best.

I’m just here because I’m driving tonight.

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I agree that a straight preservation of the LD would be best. 

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stretch009 said:

I'd only be interested if there was also some way to obtain the International cuts of the good Superman movies. (I-III)

 

Sorry, I don't have any of the International Cuts of the first three movies. There is a International Cut of Superman II lurking around somewhere, but it is pan and scan VHS quality I'm afraid.

Tack said:

There's a tiny problem though: The laserdisc is 2:20:1. A full preservation would probably be the best.

 

Thanks! I wasn't aware of that. A full preservation will definitely be best.

I'll see how many people are interested before I decide to invest time into doing this and to see what the options are for capturing it.

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I think a preservation would be a great idea. There have been LD rips available before but a high quality preservation would be great.

I've thought about doing a bluray version with the footage spliced in but getting the colour timing to match and getting the LD footage to look decent enough to be worth including will be difficult. I've been recolouring the bluray on and off, as well as for Superman III, but they aren't finished yet.

Check out the colour difference here: https://plus.google.com/photos/113310799378452361657/albums/5726471774840830513?banner=pwa

If in the process of capturing the LD for a preservation, someone could get me the deleted footage in as high quality as possible, I could put together a bluray composite version. Then you would have all viewing options available.

 

The extended versions of 1-3 have all been online at one point or another, I've got them. They were only ever broadcast in 4:3, so no widescreen version has ever been seen, other than the few deleted scenes on the DVD's that is.

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I hope to capture it in the best way that I can, but I am a complete amateur on the whole process and I'm not anywhere near in the same league of knowledge on this compared to people here. Therefore, I have not decided on the best ways yet to do this.

I agree that getting the colour timing to match with the blu-ray would be a fantastic option, but the differences in resolution would be extremely noticeable. The best way that I can think of to attempt to solve this would be to down res the blu-ray to 480p to be of a similar resolution to the laserdisc, and re-colour time both sources (as both are not perfect).

What you suggest is perfectly reasonable and along the same mindset I have for this. I would be more than happy to provide you with the preserved deleted scenes if I am successful in capturing the laserdisc and achieving reasonable results in picture quality.

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I have the Japanese Laserdisc too, just for the additional scenes, which I refer to as the "International Cut", as this was also the version released in Europe. (On video cassette. Was there ever a PAL Laserdisc of Superman IV in any territory?)

I wonder, however, if the Full-Screen PAL VHS release will have superior resolution to the letterboxed Japan Laserdisc. The sides are cut off, of course, but perhaps one of you enterprising gents can line up the P&S footage with the LD Widescreen image and merge them for superior quality for at least the center part of the image. Not a simple feat, to be sure, but I've seen it done in at least one fan edit.

I suspect the "shrunken down" VHS PAL image within the letterbox frame will hold up quite well when bookended by, say, SD DVD footage.

Either way, in my opinion, due to the low resolution of the available sources for the International Cut, a SD DVD preservation will yield the most uniform results. The SD footage can be sourced from a downscale of the Blu-ray, and doesn't even have to come from the actual DVD. That way you preserve the colour timing of the Blu too.

 

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On the VHS/ LD combo, sounds like a decent idea if it will improve the quality. What other edit has that process been used on?

Personally, as well as a full LD preservation I would like a HD version with the LD (or LD/ VHS fotage spliced in). Since it's only 2 scenes that take up around 4 minutes of footage, I could live with a noticeable change in quality of image.

There was an SD composite version of the international cut done a few years ago, using the LD and DVD.  I think it was released by Blaksvn through the 'Spleen. If you were to go that route I would use the DVD as the source as the colour timing is much better than the DVD and a better match for the LD footage.

I think the worst thing to do would be to try to match the LD to the bluray as the colour timing is way off. Superman's suit is too green by far.

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 (Edited)

Thanks guys.

I just had a look at the fan edit "Superman IV: The Quest For Coherence" and in that is some laserdisc footage of the missing scenes involving the tornado and the kremlin. The way that it has been used has been quite masterfully done, as only select shots have been used from the laserdisc (shots with incomplete optical effects) while the rest of the scene plays out with footage taken from the DVD deleted scene footage. With this in mind, it might be possible to use the few laserdisc sourced shots with the blu-ray, as I believe the deleted scenes for Superman IV have been included on the blu-ray. If the deleted scenes were indeed in high defintion from the blu-ray disc (with only select shots in laserdisc) this could work out very well indeed.

One problem I am seeing with this after seeing the Quest For Coherence laserdisc footage, is that I seriously doubt that I could provide better quality footage than that has already been done, which changes things somewhat.

Here is a summary below of few new potential ways to do this: 

  • For a High-defintion/SD preservation: Use the laserdisc footage from the Quest For Coherence fan edit and use both the Blu-ray with the Blu-ray deleted scenes with an extensive colour-correction process.
  • For a Standard Defintion preservation: Use the laserdisc footage from the Quest For Coherence, use the DVD or the Blu-ray, along with the deleted scenes, with partial colour-correction process (as the DVD matches the laserdisc footage more than the Blu-ray).

 

Regarding VHS, I think it would be incredibly difficult to do. I'd also need to see whether the footage is decent enough over what is already available from Quest For Coherence to justify the use of it. 

I will try to obtain a copy of Superman IV on VHS to see whether the quality is decent or not.

 

 

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The deleted scenes on the DVD/ Bluray have incomplete effects which make them unusable. Don't know why they bothered with them in that state when it's clear form the International Cut that those scenes were finished.

I haven't watched QFC in a while as I can't locate my copy, but I think the LD footage was probably taken from the previously released composite version of the International Cut.

Did you get your copy of QFC recently or did you already have it? I tried to find it recently but had no luck.

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No I don't mean to use the incomplete effects shots (that is what the laserdisc footage is for). The deleted scenes will be for all other shots, since these are higher quality. So I am talking about splicing in the laserdisc footage with the deleted scene footage. To understand what I am referring to you need to see how it is done in the Quest For Coherence.

I obtained my copy of the Quest For Coherence fanedit a few years ago.

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Booshman said:

On the VHS/ LD combo, sounds like a decent idea if it will improve the quality. What other edit has that process been used on?

Mainly the Recobbled cut of Thief and the Cobbler, but Harmy has been doing something similar where he splices in parts of the image from different sources (the shadow under the Landspeeder for instance).

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Would be a good idea (superimposing the fullscreen on top of the widescreen) if the sources matched perfectly...otherwise it would be a lot of work.

...I know, I'm stating the obvious =|

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Asaki said:

Would be a good idea (superimposing the fullscreen on top of the widescreen) if the sources matched perfectly...otherwise it would be a lot of work.

...I know, I'm stating the obvious =|

Yeah, it's one of those things that sounds good in theory, but then you put the sources together and you notice telecine wobble all over the place, LOL!

Still, I think I'll go make DVD dubs of my PAL VHS and Japan LD now.

Visit my *NEW* Star Wars on Video Collection site:

http://www.swonvideo.com

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rockin said:

No I don't mean to use the incomplete effects shots (that is what the laserdisc footage is for). The deleted scenes will be for all other shots, since these are higher quality. So I am talking about splicing in the laserdisc footage with the deleted scene footage. To understand what I am referring to you need to see how it is done in the Quest For Coherence.

I just found my copy of QFC. I having looked at the tornado scene, I think it would be better to just use the LD footage. The DVD footage and has a tonne of dirt and looks pretty bad. If you were going for a full restoration to remove the dirt, then yeah, use the DVD, but to use straight from the source the LD will provide a cleaner image.

On a side note, the dirt on the deleted scenes from the DVD looks artificial to me. It's weird, but it looks like it was added intentionally.

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That's good to know as my internet has been terrible lately. My upload speed is half of what it would normally be, so I am glad you managed to find it!

I feel the somewhat the same about using the LD footage. It is a matter of getting the LD to look decent enough next to other footage which is the real challenge. I am not sure how well I can capture the LD footage, as I am a total newbie to it all and the results may be well below people's expectations I fear.

This project will probably take a while to get going properly as I don't want to rush it. I need to learn how to capture things decently enough in order to justify doing this. If the results are going to be really bad, then there is little point in me doing it. I will keep you all posted on any progress I have with this. Feel free to still discuss the project and offer suggestions.

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Where can I get a copy of the quest for coherence? Ive heard a lot about it and would like to see the entire cut for myself.

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techumseh said:

Where can I get a copy of the quest for coherence? Ive heard a lot about it and would like to see the entire cut for myself.

 Its only storage site was on Megaupload, which is now long gone.

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Sorry for lack of updates.

At the moment I am trying some colour-correction (or colour-retiming - whatever you want to call it) of the blu-ray. I am trying to remove some of the blue/green tint from the picture, and also fix the red in Superman's costume, which appears to be too rich at times. This is just some experimentation at the moment - I have no idea what the project will become yet.

I will post some screenshots at some point to show you some results when it is looking nearer to how I want it (I'm still learning a few things right now).

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I'd say just add some contrast to the DVD and that's how it should look. The image quality is better on Blu-Ray for sure, but coloring is another story. It's too teal.

I’m just here because I’m driving tonight.

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I'll be happy to capture the laserdisc with my X9, upscale the needed scenes to match (as it could be possible) the blu-ray, and use the whole capture as color reference for the blu-ray... rockin, where are you from?

Sadly my projects are lost due to an HDD crash… 😦 | [Fundamental Collection] thread | blog.spoRv.com | fan preservation forum: fanres.com

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_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

I'll be happy to capture the laserdisc with my X9, upscale the needed scenes to match (as it could be possible) the blu-ray, and use the whole capture as color reference for the blu-ray... rockin, where are you from?

 Would it be possible to use the LD for colour reference with avisynth? I think the japanese subs are hard coded and sometimes they cover the movie image. Luckily there are no subs that extend out of the black border during the 2 extra scenes. Wouldn't it be better to match bluray to the DVD?

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Booshman said:

 Would it be possible to use the LD for colour reference with avisynth?

Yes.

I think the japanese subs are hard coded and sometimes they cover the movie image. Luckily there are no subs that extend out of the black border during the 2 extra scenes.

Until subtitles are confined to black borders (and it should be the case, as AR is 2.35:1) there will be no problem... could you please post some examples of subs out of black borders?

Wouldn't it be better to match bluray to the DVD?

Maybe... following the thread, it seems that laserdisc has a better color grading, but I'm not the expert here...

Sadly my projects are lost due to an HDD crash… 😦 | [Fundamental Collection] thread | blog.spoRv.com | fan preservation forum: fanres.com