logo Sign In

Info: My Logo Preservation Project

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Hello. I am Charles Threepio, human-logo enthusiast relations.

I wish to bring up the topic of logo preservation. All too often, production and distribution logos are deleted from current prints of films (a phenomenon logo enthusiasts like to call “plastering”), resulting in the loss of such great logos as Carolco’s “Space Streaks” logo (found on early prints of “Rambo II” and “Angel Heart”), the Warner Bros. “Big W” logo from the '70s, and UA’s pre-1981 logos. Logos are works of art, too. I consider it a matter of great importance to the logo community that more old prints of more older films are found which preserve those old logos and others before it’s too late. Especially the sooner we find an original theatrical print of “Rambo II” or “Angel Heart” with the original Carolco logo, the better. And as mentioned earlier, that’s not the only one, either.

(Oh, and an original theatrical print of “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” as distributed by Paramount would be nice, too, as far as logo preservation is concerned.)

Thank you for listening to this summary of my defense of production and distribution logos. I know there’s more to the logo story than that, but I’d be here all night if I were to recount the whole thing.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Actually, it is more complex than that (sometimes). An original U.S. theatrical print of Rambo: First Blood Part II or Angel Heart wouldn’t have that Carolco logo, it would actually have the old TriStar Pictures logo - and I believe that’s what appears on the modern home releases, too.

To get that Carolco logo in higher quality, someone would have to find some European print. (And I don’t even know which countries would have had it at the beginning, and not replaced with the logo for that country’s distributor.)

Interesting topic, though. Most complete film prints I’ve seen of movies (at various theatrical revival screenings) keep the original logos. When the studios made new prints to rent out for screenings, they generally didn’t go to the trouble of replacing logos. If they didn’t make the print from an element which already had the logo replaced (I’ve seen a print of Caddyshack with the later Orion logo, just like the later video releases), they just left it. (Actual re-releases are a different story.)

Author
Time

Toy Story is one of those affected, and it bothers me a lot.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

I could definitely support something like this. Warner Bros., Paramount, and Disney are three studios that immediately pop to mind that frequently replace the original studio logo at the start of their films on rereleases, both theatrical and on home video. I never really understood why. As the one user above noted, losing the original Pixar version of the Disney castle at the start of Toy Story is definitely a loss. I miss the old Paramount logo and theme at the start of Grease and would definitely like to see Willy Wonka with the Paramount logo. There’s definitely other examples but those definitely spring to mind.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Warner Bros., Paramount, and Disney… So, three of four major film studio companies. That’s a bad sign.

Army of Darkness: The Medieval Deadit | The Terminator - Color Regrade | The Wrong Trousers - Audio Preservation
SONIC RACES THROUGH THE GREEN FIELDS.
THE SUN RACES THROUGH A BLUE SKY FILLED WITH WHITE CLOUDS.
THE WAYS OF HIS HEART ARE MUCH LIKE THE SUN. SONIC RUNS AND RESTS; THE SUN RISES AND SETS.
DON’T GIVE UP ON THE SUN. DON’T MAKE THE SUN LAUGH AT YOU.

Author
Time

The worst part is how so many people see no problem with it. Mentality seems to be “Well it’s just the logo. It’s not actually part of the movie.”

Author
Time

Darth Lucas said:

The worst part is how so many people see no problem with it. Mentality seems to be “Well it’s just the logo. It’s not actually part of the movie.”

Sad but true

Author
Time

Add Barry Lyndon to the list of affected films. BD release changed the WB logo so it no longer creates a segue into the opening.

Army of Darkness: The Medieval Deadit | The Terminator - Color Regrade | The Wrong Trousers - Audio Preservation
SONIC RACES THROUGH THE GREEN FIELDS.
THE SUN RACES THROUGH A BLUE SKY FILLED WITH WHITE CLOUDS.
THE WAYS OF HIS HEART ARE MUCH LIKE THE SUN. SONIC RUNS AND RESTS; THE SUN RISES AND SETS.
DON’T GIVE UP ON THE SUN. DON’T MAKE THE SUN LAUGH AT YOU.

Author
Time

Ugh, plastering.

"Right now the coffees are doing their final work." (Airi, Masked Rider Den-o episode 1)

Author
Time

Can anybody answer since I don’t have access to my blu rays at the moment to check: Is it just Toy Story that is affected by the changed logo or is it all of those early PIXAR films as well?

Author
Time

Darth Lucas said:

Can anybody answer since I don’t have access to my blu rays at the moment to check: Is it just Toy Story that is affected by the changed logo or is it all of those early PIXAR films as well?

As far as I know, the Toy Story logo plastering was done because the 3D version was a theatrical re-release so they had to add the new logo; also been told it’s because the original logo they did had no abilities to be put in 3D so they just decided to replace it.

Bug’s Life features the original logo; the 2009 Blu-ray; Ts2 was also re-released in 3D so I assume it has the new logo too. Monsters Inc, by myself I never kow if it had the new logo - probably the 2009 Blu-ray did had the old logo, but the 3D re-release may have the new. Finding Nemo is plastered (beacause it was also reworked in 3D and reissued to theatres), The Incredibles I think has the original logo, and Cars and Ratatouille, too.

Author
Time

Charles Threepio said:

Hello. I am Charles Threepio, human-logo enthusiast relations.

I wish to bring up the topic of logo preservation. All too often, production and distribution logos are deleted from current prints of films (a phenomenon logo enthusiasts like to call “plastering”), resulting in the loss of such great logos as Carolco’s “Space Streaks” logo (found on early prints of “Rambo II” and “Angel Heart”), the Warner Bros. “Big W” logo from the '70s, and UA’s pre-1981 logos. Logos are works of art, too. I consider it a matter of great importance to the logo community that more old prints of more older films are found which preserve those old logos and others before it’s too late. Especially the sooner we find an original theatrical print of “Rambo II” or “Angel Heart” with the original Carolco logo, the better. And as mentioned earlier, that’s not the only one, either.

(Oh, and an original theatrical print of “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” as distributed by Paramount would be nice, too, as far as logo preservation is concerned.)

Thank you for listening to this summary of my defense of production and distribution logos. I know there’s more to the logo story than that, but I’d be here all night if I were to recount the whole thing.

Question, are you ryanasaurus007 on CLG?

Anyways, yeah this bugs me too. But at least i’m not the only one who notices these things in groups outside of CLG.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

So far thre worst offender is the Mean Streets BD. It opens in blackness with the opening voiceover now on BD Marty’s voice is heard over the brand new CG studio logo. Argh!!!

VADER!? WHERE THE HELL IS MY MOCHA LATTE? -Palpy on a very bad day.
“George didn’t think there was any future in dead Han toys.”-Harrison Ford
YT channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader

Author
Time

The Toho Company Ltd. logos in the Godzilla series have fallen victim to this tendency pretty frequently in the US. In their initial American theatrical runs, the US distributor would substitute their logo for Toho’s, but for most of the films from 1966 on, the versions readily available in the US are ostensibly the International export versions commissioned by Toho with English dialogue and text provided by a company in Hong Kong or by Frontier Enterprises in Tokyo, depending on the film.

However, on US home video releases, the older films sometimes have the Toho logo that was used at the time plastered with a more recent version. Some of them also feature new video-generated title cards and credits, as well as trademark and registered trademark logos added to the monsters’ names in the titles. Some of the 1990s films, originally released by TriStar in 1998, remove the logo entirely, plastering it with the TriStar logo, which in the case of Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991) causes the opening music cue, which originally started as the Toho logo faded in, to start several seconds into the longer TriStar logo. These versions also often featured new video-generated credits and other text, as well as subtitling the elaborate Japanese title cards, as opposed to the International versions’ tendency to simply paste the English title in white lettering on top of the Japanese title. (They still used the International dubbed audio, however.) Not all of the currently available Blu-ray versions issued by Sony reflect this, however, since many use either new masters or straight transfers of the International prints.

The films from 2000 to 2004 are also straight scans of the International prints, with the TriStar logo sometimes added before the Toho logo. Godzilla 2000, released in 1999 in Japan, has actually had its International dub effectively replaced worldwide by TriStar’s theatrical version of the movie, which features a unique (and much livelier) dub as well as a number of edits that improve the pacing and continuity of some scenes. Notably, while this version does begin with the TriStar logo, a vintage Toho logo appears right after it, a conscious choice on the part of the American editors.

Author
Time

Speaking of Toho bumpers — oddly, the 9th Pokémon movie had a Toho logo when released in the US. (On all other movies, the bumper was removed.)

"Right now the coffees are doing their final work." (Airi, Masked Rider Den-o episode 1)

Author
Time

Logo plastering is something that has always bothered me, and the few projects I’ve done, I do my best to include the original logo in the best possible quality. For example, when I did National Lampoon’s Vacation, I included the original “Big W” WB logo from the 70’s/early 80’s. Also, Return of the Living Dead Part II has the Lorimar Motion Pictures logo (which was absolutely needed for the original score, as the music starts during the logo…the DVD with the changed score just has the modern WB intro with that music, and the new score starts after that).

I think there should definitely be more projects that restore the original opening logos, even if that’s all there is to it.

Author
Time

Logos are often not on prints. And when they are they’re often banged up and in poor condition. The norm, before DTS, was to cut the logo off of prints after their theatrical run and splice them onto new films.

[ Scanning stuff since 2015 ]

Author
Time

Ah, the old logo-plastering situation… Next to ‘blanket-tinting’ (aka: making classic movies look like a Listerine filter has been applied over the image) this would have to be the single most annoying thing about video presentations and rereleases of films. It seems to be a curious sort of problem, as some studios seem to be OK with original logos being left intact on their back-catalogue product (Paramount, Columbia, Universal,) while others feel a compulsion to update logos to reflect whatever corporate situation they may currently find themselves in (MGM, WB.) Also, changes of rights ownership can affect this situation. But there have been instances where the takeover of a movie’s rights from one entity to another still sees the original production logo(s) being left intact, ie: “Psycho.” In the case of both logo plastering and blanket-tinting (even soundtrack design alteration) what the powers-that-be seem to forget is that movies are a product and reflection of the time in which they were produced and released. Whilst the current advancements in technology have granted the benefit of preserving film history, it shouldn’t be used as a means of changing the artistic integrity of the original elements. Logos should and must fall into the same category of consideration. “If that’s how it originally was, that’s how it should stay.”

Author
Time

Ugh, I hate when they change the logos. MGM is missing from this thread it seems, it looks so stupid to watch a 50 year old film and have it start with a MGM.com logo.

And in the time of greatest despair, there shall come a savior, and he shall be known as the Son of the Suns.

Author
Time

LexX said:

Ugh, I hate when they change the logos. MGM is missing from this thread it seems, it looks so stupid to watch a 50 year old film and have it start with a MGM.com logo.

Couldn’t agree more! One problem I have with the 007 blu-rays… Weird seeing Connery films with the mgm.com thing. Even the Brosnan films had changes… removal of the the UA logos… The World Is Not Enough had the MGM 75th anniversary logo changed as well.

Author
Time

The MGM sourced version of Look Back in Anger, starts and ends noticeably abruptly because the credits and soundtrack have been slightly snipped, in order to remove the opening and closing Warner Bros logo. Whilst I understand that sometimes it is necessary to change or remove logos because an asset has changed hands in the corporate world, they’d rather mutilate the film than let the audience see that it was originally distributed by a different studio? Absolutely insane!

Another aspect of this Orwellian revisionism, is that the history of mass media, especially with regards to consolidation and vertical integration, has in turn, been erased from the audience’s awareness. For example, during the 80s, I remember watching programming by Columbia Pictures Television that featured the following as their end title logo:

CPT

At the time, as a child, it was interesting to see that Coca Cola owned a major media organisation but todays audience can’t make that casual observation because Sony have gone through much of the CPT back catalogue and retroactively altered the logos to this now very familiar sight:

SPT

“Logic is the battlefield of adulthood.”

  • Howard Berk
Author
Time

My take is that if the film itself incorporates the logo, the logo should never be removed. If the logo is in front of the film, I don’t really care. For instance, I love that old gritty 20th Century Fox fanfare before Star Wars from 1977, but when they did the SE, I wish they would have updated the sound to match the other two. I had no problem with the new visuals. However, as a huge Vangelis fan, I was very offended that when MGM got the rights to the 1984 film The Bounty that they stuck their leo logo on there with the roar… over the music. Sorry, but it should have been black with the logo before the movie started. There are quite a number of movies where the logo is integral to the film and there are movies that it doesn’t matter. I’d much rather see a new studio add their logo in front of the older logos and leave them be.

Author
Time

It seems that MGM are a persistent offender in this field. They’ve also excised the entire opening acapella from their distribution of Electric Dreams, because of the accompanying animated sequence featuring the Virgin logo.

yotsuya said:

I’d much rather see a new studio add their logo in front of the older logos and leave them be.

Paramount did exactly that with the Cannon library. That’s the best approach, in my view.

“Logic is the battlefield of adulthood.”

  • Howard Berk
Author
Time

This is partly why I hate the removal of the original Disney logo on Toy Story. The logo is MEANT to segue into the opening scene. Now we have the current Disney logo followed by the Pixar logo which then sugues into the opening scene. Not only was the original logo itself supposed to segue into the first scene but the music too. Here’s the original logos at the start of Toy Story 2.

https://youtu.be/1f9d0OMavaI

Now here’s the original logo for Toy Story.

https://youtu.be/2GZ5x1AmW4w

When you compare that to the first video you can tell that the last two notes of that Disney theme are actually the start of the music of the first scene in the second video. That segue is lost with the plastering.