Pee-Wee's Big Adventure - Restored in HD (Released)

I have been working on a restored version of Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure for a little bit now and just now decided to inform everyone. As some of you may know… the official BD release had the original Warner Bros. intro removed and replaced with a modern one… which drives me up-the-wall! Especially because the intro has the movie’s music playing over it. Well, that crap is no more. I personally restored the original intro in HD and it looks fantastic! I was able to edit the intro perfectly because Buster D (fantastic guy) sent me a short video capture of the Japan LD and it contains the original intro. I got the original intro in HD from the National Lampoon’s European Vacation BD and just had to trim it slightly to make it exactly as intended. Shout out to DoomBot, who I have been in contact with through the whole project and is going to be the first to sample my work. Hell of a guy.

I have a few more small tweaks to make and it’ll be ready to go. It also contains the original theatrical stereo 2.0 track in PCM, Buster D also sent me that and I had to sync it to the BD myself. Upon my work on syncing the LD PCM to the BD, I found added stuff to the 5.1 BD remix that wasn’t supposed to be there. So having the original theatrical mix from the LD is a huge plus. I will be more than happy to share when it is ready, if anyone wants it, PM me. Thoughts on this project???

I hate that too. It's just as bad ass seeing "a Comcast company" underneath the universal logo. Very interested in this. Pm sent.

This is one of my favorites! I'm definitely interested.

Great to hear, it's a favorite of mine also

Warner has ruined "Falling Down" in the same way. It's supposed to start in total silence and gradually fade in the audio over a minute or two. On the Blu-ray they've plastered the new WB logo, complete with fanfare, over the top of the old one. Sigh.

Death to modern intros on classic films.

I know this is a minor thing, but it cheeses me off too. I'm a fan of the old logos (I'm actually one of the original members of that Closing Logo Group thing) and if you want the movie to be theatrically accurate, the original logo HAS to be there. No question.

Warner Bros. is one of the worst with this practice on movies; most studios will only replace logos on movies (as opposed to TV shows) if they re-release the movie in theaters and/or are doing some Special Edition, but WB has screwed with their movies since the dawn of video. So I was so happy to see the correct logo at the front of Pee-Wee when I saw it in 35mm. (Though even their repertory 35mm of Caddyshack has the later Orion logo - much as I love that logo and think it fits just as well with the Kenny Loggins music, someone should do an HD preservation with the PCM mono mix from laserdisc, and the correct Orion logo at the start...)

Actually, I just thought of something. Can you check with Buster D and see if the movie originally had the Distributed By Warner Bros. "worms" logo at the end after the Aspen logo? If we're going for theatrical accuracy, shouldn't the end also be accurate? (The Castro always closes the curtains and cuts the picture the end of the credits, so I didn't get to see any end logos on the 35mm.)

TServo2049 said:

Actually, I just thought of something. Can you check with Buster D and see if the movie originally had the Distributed By Warner Bros. "worms" logo at the end after the Aspen logo? If we're going for theatrical accuracy, shouldn't the end also be accurate? (The Castro always closes the curtains and cuts the picture the end of the credits, so I didn't get to see any end logos on the 35mm.)

 Yeah, I have been wanting to fix the end as well, but don't know how to at this point. Maybe someone would have to get a 35mm print to get the outro. Do you have any footage of it for reference? I don't.

Couldn't Buster check the end of the Japanese LD and see what's at the end? If it's the regular 70s/80s "Distributed By" logo on the red background, it'd just be a matter of finding a Blu-ray that keeps it. (But if they had it over black with the same color scheme as the end credits, it'd be harder if not impossible.)

TServo2049 said:

Couldn't Buster check the end of the Japanese LD and see what's at the end? If it's the regular 70s/80s "Distributed By" logo on the red background, it'd just be a matter of finding a Blu-ray that keeps it. (But if they had it over black with the same color scheme as the end credits, it'd be harder if not impossible.)

 I was going to ask him to capture the end as well, but figured it to be quite a bother for him. I will ask if it is ok with him to check it again. I do believe that it is simply a WB "Distributed By" though.

EDIT: I just contacted Buster D again, I should hear back from him later tonight. I do feel I have been bugging him too much lately though... haha

UPDATE: Buster D just gave me the video capture of the end of Pee Wee's Big Adventure from the LD and after the Aspen Film Society logo, there is not a WB "Distributed By" outro. There is nothing... Just black for a while. So this project is completely done. Thanks, Buster D!

Asaki said:

I've always loved the way Universal does it. They'll start off with their current logo (if it isn't a modern movie), and then right after it will show the original logo (or logos, for their anniversary stuff).

I think it's a pretty cool compromise.

 Yeah, I don't mind that too much. Way better than cutting the original out completely.

Excited for this! One of my favorite films!  

What was the aspect ratio of the original intro? And the new intro?

The modern intro they slapped on was 1.77:1 and the original that I restored was 1.78:1.

CatBus said:

I feel like a bad person for never noticing this before.

 Hahaha a bad person? Whatever for?

Any fans prefer the open-matte version barring the revealing gag scene that should have been re-framed for the open-matte version?

Been stuck at 89.1% for a few days now :(

TylerDurden389 said:

Been stuck at 89.1% for a few days now :(

 Hey, I'll see what I can do to help finish your download. I gotta see what's wrong.