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Idea & Info: 'The Rugrats Movie' - Original Theatrical Colors?

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 (Edited)

This entire idea was inspired from the thread for “The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie”; just thought I’d share that, because why not.

The Rugrats Movie is personally, one of my favorite movies. I first saw it at the young age of 3 on video, in 2003. I had already fallen in love with the show, but the movie really added a lot more, and it just felt… bigger. The movie is still a classic in my eyes, and I want to preserve it the way it was intended to be seen, hence why I am here. It seems that, somewhere along the way, Paramount may have meddled with the colors of the movie. I took some screencaps of the theatrical trailer, taken from the movie’s US DVD, and also taken screenshots of the same frame from a 1080p WEB-DL of the movie (the US DVD looked the same as the WEB-DL, to my eyes, outside of the trailer of course).

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/152212 (either a red tint was added to the final movie, or a blue tint was added to this shot in the trailer; this is one of the few instances where I think the WEB-DL has the correct colors)

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/152213 (no need to comment, color change is painfully obvious)

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/152214 (seems a reddish-blue tint was added to the WEB-DL)

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/152215 (Background was totally redone between the trailer and the DVD/WEB-DL; no clue if the background in the trailer was just a placeholder, or if it actually appeared theatrically)

I am curious about a few things; would a CAM Rip exist for a movie so old (doubt it), or would someone still have a bootleg DVD from when it came out? Or, does anyone remember what it looked like theatrically? Someone did post a old Nickelodeon broadcast from 2004 or 2005 on the web (the 2 deleted scenes are included but those weren’t included theatrically), which I’ll get around to checking soon. Any other info that I failed to mention is greatly appreciated!

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Well, I’ve found a HDTV cap in 1080i. I don’t know if it is any different from the WEB-DL, but it’s worth a shot. PM me for details.

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Sorry, my laptop bit the dust mid December… getting a new one really soon though, and I’ll still be doing this, as well as another project.

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Hm… seeing your comparisons, seems like the 1080p web version looks really horrible, it’s impressive how the trailer looks way better. Could it be the transfer is a direct version of the digital print of the original movie…? Or not. Whatever, looks to be seriously tinted and overdone.

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From what I remember, the DVD and VHS look like the WEB-DL… either the colors were changed from trailer to theatrical, or from theatrical to home video release. Sadly, I doubt any bootleg tapes of TRM exist anymore, and I didn’t see it theatrically (wasn’t even born yet). Gonna try and compare the trailer and any available TV spots (the colors were probably finalized by the time it was being promoted on TV. The trailer does indeed look better. I know the first SpongeBob movie had different coloring as it was released theatrically both on 16mm and digitally (where available)… perhaps TRM did this also?

The more I think about it, the VHS might not have been tinted… I’m oddly remembering the DVD and VHS were very different looking… anyone with the VHS and VCR wanna check for me? I have the tape but no VCR.

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Would love to try this again next year (finally picking up a replacement laptop in December)… the film also has a LASERDISC, which stuns me, honestly. Not sure how it fares in comparison to all other home video releases.

The movie is also apparently being added to Netflix at the start of September, and I’m seriously curious how that looks in comparison.