Help Wanted: 'An American Tail' (1986) Blu Ray (Original Theatrical Audio Restoration) (* unfinished project *)

An American Tail is out on Blu Ray today (3-4-14).  One of my childhood favorites, I was extremely excited this finally made it to Blu Ray.  Unfortunately,   the audio is sourced from the previous DVD release and has some pretty terrible dubbing during the orphan scene.

I’m looking for someone who would be interested in helping me with the Theatrical audio restoration sourced from the Laserdisc.  I don’t have a Laserdisc player, if anyone here is interested in collaborating on this, please reply here or message me.  Thanks, below is a link that compares the horrible dubbing effort.

<span style=“background-color: #e6ebf0; line-height: normal;”><span style=“color: #222222; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, ‘lucida grande’, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCgWnA2cprg</span></span>

I like this project. The 5.1 mix SUCKS.

HDTV broadcasts have had the original Dolby Stereo mix, but it wasn't bit-perfect PCM like the laserdisc.

TServo2049 said:

I like this project. The 5.1 mix SUCKS.

HDTV broadcasts have had the original Dolby Stereo mix, but it wasn't bit-perfect PCM like the laserdisc.

 Ideally the Laserdisc track would be ideal, I was under the impression the HDTV version had the new mix, good to know! Thanks!

Well, when HDNet Movies ran it, it had the original mix. There's also at least one MKV out there with the 2.0 mix - I know of an English+Hindi one.

I'd also prefer the laserdisc.

I'll order a Laserdisc copy today if someone would rip it, I don't need it back lol

Over on the blu-ray.com thread I think someone or someones pointed out that the adults dubbing WAS the original audio before the child actors were brought in. Guess they were placeholders until they hired some children to do the lines. Why they would bring them back though is anyone's guess.

TylerDurden389 said:

Over on the blu-ray.com thread I think someone or someones pointed out that the adults dubbing WAS the original audio before the child actors were brought in. Guess they were placeholders until they hired some children to do the lines. Why they would bring them back though is anyone's guess.

 Just by the way it sounds I have a hard time believing this is the truth, it sounds so out of place and definitely added in, IMO

As unbelievable as it may seem, I am 99.99999999% certain that the adult voices WERE the original tracks that the characters were animated to. AFAIK, I was the first person to notice this; before I did, nobody else online had ever brought it up.

Look at the one with the stocking cap who says "Forget it, you're one of us now!" in the original released mix. Then look at the remix, where he says "Forget it, you're junk, you're trash!" I watched the two versions side by side...and the adult voice in the remix was the one which matched the mouth movements.

My assumption is that there was a decision during post-production to redub the voices with actual kids (and change a couple lines), or that the adult voices were a temp track never intended to actually be heard in the final mix. (I also have a feeling that they were Bluth crew members - which would explain why their acting is on par with that of the laserdisc games.) I even wonder if the off-screen "Pitiful!" heard in the '86 mix was an ad-lib by the child actor.

The 5.1 remix was assembled using the original dialogue stems (including lines that were recorded, but dropped from the theatrical mix), and so it would seem that these adult voices were the ones on the stems. As timdiggerm has suggested, maybe the child voices couldn't be found, but I think it's more likely that the people who put together the remix didn't know the voices were changed for the final mix (or worse, didn't care).

Wow! That's interesting, I wore this VHS out as a kid and I'm used to that audio, looking like we will have a Laserdisc rip soon!  Only thing left will be to sync it up!

I use to have a VHS copy with no train effect during the chase in Russia nor the adult voices replacing the kids. And I honestly would too like to own a restored version of this film. Problem is I don’t know where exactly to buy it since I lost my old VHS copy years ago.

Any updates on this?