The Terminator (1984) - Original Theatrical Mono Preservation (Released) — Page 6

Sorry to get off the subject of audio for a second but heres something Ive always found interesting. Heres two versions of the films trailer. The first was included on the Image Entertainment DVD while the second was on the MGM DVD. For the most part theyre identical including same narration. However youll notice that in some instances different scene clips are used in each. For example, the MGM trailer shows more of the Endoskeleton than the Image trailer. Also the shot of the motel goer backing up against the truck, the one hijacked by Kyle and Sarah towards the end of the film, is without the infrared effects in the Image trailer while it has them in the MGM trailer.

https://m.youtube.com/?#/watch?v=0ib7uYOoOs8

https://m.youtube.com/?#/watch?v=lHz95RYUbik

Ok a quick review pertaining to the sound mix and a few other points on the Hemdale DVD I bought thoroughly enjoyed watching it.

I noticed at various points the volume jumped up abnormally on certain scenes such as when kyle knees the guy in the police station to get the keys. There were a few other instances of this where I noticed that it happened. I’ll sight the need to rebalance the soundmix when this happens on those hand full of occasions.

When Arnie is pretending to be Sarahs mother “I love you too sweetheart” is badly out of synch with his lips

Great to hear the metallic sound back in the opening credits 😃

The Opening Shot of the Hunter Killer is repeated later in the movie when Kyle has a flashback. It’s ok but It would be great if that was a different shot on the second time round of a different shot of a Hunter Killer possibly from Battle across time. The repeat I feel Cheapens an already budget movie but used it’s budget extraordinarily well.

The picture I thought looked great I am going to check it against the Special edition DVD later on if I notice anything glaringly different I will point it out.

Coloring wise I think I like the Hemdale/Image DVD somewhat better than the MGM DVD. My big exception is the shot of Ginger’s bloody hand when shes crawling away from the Terminator. The blood looks unrealistically pink on the Image DVD while it looks red on the MGM DVD.

You guys maaaay wanna take a look at this…

http://pitchfork.com/news/63451-the-terminator-soundtrack-getting-vinyl-reissue/

“The soundtrack was remastered from the original tapes and sequenced for the first time in the order Fiedel originally intended.”

Would you all agree that they now have NO EXCUSE for not being able to give us a proper remastered original mono mix? Cuz if these are the original tapes, I see no reason why they can’t remaster it into a proper stero/DTS/5.1/17.1/whatever mix.

captainsolo said:

The old hemdale LD is print sourced and the remastered seems to be from an IP. The MGM disc should have had access to the master monk source wh would be without and compression and EQ for Dolby mono theatrical formatting.

This link suggests the Hemdale release is also sourced from an IP print

http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/01669/ID2940NSB/Terminator-The

Hey, I have a copy of The Terminator on Blu-ray, this version to be specific http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Terminator-Blu-ray/34798/. Would you be able to help me watch The Terminator with the picture quality of the Blu-ray copy that I have but with the original mono mix i.e. the original sound effects of guns and explosions etc.? I’m asking because I am curious as to what the original film-goers would have heard and also because I saw in another comment section that you said something along the lines about how you could help sync up the original mono track with a copy of the film that doesn’t have that original mono track as an option. P.S. If you can, please provide me with the remastered mono mix as shown in this video this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gya8-d9U4ws, I’d like the shotguns to sound like the original shotguns and not to sound like the original machine guns. Reply as soon as you can.

That’s not the mono track that was preserved here. The one that was preserved was the track from the Laserdisc as is. If you want the remastered mono you’d have to talk to the creator of that video.

TylerDurden389 said:

“The soundtrack was remastered from the original tapes and sequenced for the first time in the order Fiedel originally intended.”

Despite the undeniable coolness and haptic advantage, from a technical standpoint, it’s as stupid as it can get to release anything still on vinyl these days.

I’d prefer the original tapes simply recorded at 44.1 kHz / 16-Bit and that’s it. Good old audio-cd. No fancy remastering, no annoying dynamic range compression, no gimmicks, thanks.

TylerDurden389 said:

Would you all agree that they now have NO EXCUSE for not being able to give us a proper remastered original mono mix?

I’d say it’s virtually never the question of ability but stupidity. Of course they can, but often enough they don’t want, for whatever dull reason.

Best hope is the monos reinstated for a 40th anniversary reissue but really who would even care at that point??? Maybe they’ll do another Anthology set like a few years ago now that they’ve released Genysis. Sad that such a negatively viewed film would be clumped with the good films and Salvation but hey studios always want money.

Heres a quote from someone at blu-ray.com.

‘While I’d obviously love for the mono to return in an inevitable re-release, at the very least I’d settle for the soundtrack that was used theatrically last Summer. I kept expecting the newer, high-pitched gunshots when Arnold kills the first of the Sarah Connors, but instead it was the original gunshots. I was confused. As far as I can tell, it was some sort of hybrid between the original soundtrack and the remix. Definitely the lesser of two evils in that it’s better than the straight-up remix we’ve got on the Blu-ray.’

If this is true, perhaps we’re stepping in the right direction???

Dek Rollins said:

I believe the MGM SE DVD has an altered mono track.

If you mean a downmix then no. It’s the legit mono. All R1 DVDs of T1 have the mono.

Yes I noted a few posts back that there was some minor differences between the mono mix used on most pre-2001 releases and the MGM DVD but its still 99.8% the same mix.

Yep you can’t really lose either way. My personal opinion the Image Entertainment DVD sounds the best as far as the mono on DVD is concerned but the MGM mono isnt bad either. At least with the DVDs we have an option for the mono unlike the Blu-rays.

All I know off hand was there was a German DVD of T1 with the ratio 1:66:1 but other than that all DVD/BD releases of T1 and T2 have the theatrical aspect ratios as far as I know. I never actually checked on this.

I have that German DVD, it’s video-matted at around 1.55:1. However, the aspect ratio is not constant because the hard matting on the film varies from shot to shot. Sometimes you can see a bigger bar at the bottom, sometimes a bigger bar at the top, the size varies, and those bars are part of the print because they have gate weave, and the constant video-generated bars throughout the entire film don’t.

I’d love to see that German open-matte TV airing. Some parts of the film are true open-matte with the whole frame exposed (the Stan Winston animatronic FX shots, in particular), some parts have animation FX in 1.33 composited over live action hard-matted at about 1.66-1.75 (I know this because I have seen the trailer projected at 1.33), other parts are hard-matted. I’d love to see how much the aspect ratio varied from scene to scene.

First post, and I’m probably going to come off as a freeloader 😃, but where can I actually go to download the LaserDisc audio rip? I was particular bummed when I read that none of the blu ray releases of this movie include the original mono mix, which was by far the best version. Thanks!

Is this a sign??? This clip recently posted on the Terminator Facebook page uses the mono track instead of the surround track!!!

https://www.facebook.com/181221288646788/videos/797382157030695/