Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol - IMAX 16:9 Preservation (* unfinished project *)

(N.B. apologies if this has already been done - searched and couldn’t find any attempts so here goes)

Now that Adywan did such a fantastic job with The Force Awakens, this and Batman v Superman (see http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Batman-v-Superman-Dawn-of-Justice-IMAX-169-Preservation/id/51140) are the only two IMAX-footage films which we haven’t got an aspect-ratio shifting version for.

Principle is the same - as evidenced by the Netflix copy (as discussed in the Star Trek Into Darkness threads) - the TV broadcast version has the IMAX sequence in 1.78:1 .

Since it’s been a while since the film has been released I’m sure it had some HD broadcasts in 16:9, or there are VOD streams available…maybe we can get this to work?

Already have it in hand but a new source is always welcomed.

https://forum.fanres.com/thread-623.html

Actually, apart from the IMAX scene, many scenes are open matte as well, which weren’t shot with anamorphic lenses. Shots in the opening sequence, shots in the car park fight and others are open matte. So all the open matte scenes need to be included. I’ve seen pics of that, but don’t have it unfortunately. Those who have the broadcast version, can do a comparison with the Blu-ray.

Did you look at the link I posted? All those scenes are there.

PDB said:

Did you look at the link I posted? All those scenes are there.

Now I remember, I had a conversation with you regarding this, many months ago in spleen forums when you were just mulling over the idea. You said you were working on the project, but never heard from you till now. I see that you’ve already finished this project. That’s just great, from the pics I saw. Can you PM me a link, is that ok?

PDB said:

Already have it in hand but a new source is always welcomed.

https://forum.fanres.com/thread-623.html

Oh nice, had no idea you’d already done it, fantastic work! Would love a PM to what you’ve done so far.

Now we need to get BVS done…

Papai2013 said:

PDB said:

Did you look at the link I posted? All those scenes are there.

Now I remember, I had a conversation with you regarding this, many months ago in spleen forums when you were just mulling over the idea. You said you were working on the project, but never heard from you till now. I see that you’ve already finished this project. That’s just great, from the pics I saw. Can you PM me a link, is that ok?

Sorry that wasn’t me, I’m not on the the Spleen forums. The project is put together but still has to be rendered again but I’ll let you know more when I get back to it (its in line behind a few other projects)

antovolk said:

PDB said:

Already have it in hand but a new source is always welcomed.

https://forum.fanres.com/thread-623.html

Oh nice, had no idea you’d already done it, fantastic work! Would love a PM to what you’ve done so far.

Now we need to get BVS done…

as we know true IMAX asprct ratio is 1.43:1, so here’s some pics in 1.33:1 AR from russian channel
more image on top/bottom less on sides then 1.78:1 AR

These are incredible! It’s almost the entire IMAX frame. Little bit cut at the sides doesn’t bother me much as when projected on IMAX film, the film gate would crop a certain amount of information from the edges anyway. The Logo needs to be removed, and the resolution can be upsized to 1280*960 (4:3), as I think 1080p upsizing would be too much. This can be a very good separate project to the 1080p 16:9 version that’s in the works.

Also, be on the lookout for ‘MI: Rogue Nation’ as select scenes (The Water tank scene, The bike riding sequence, etc) were shot using the ARRI ALEXA 65mm camera which has a 16:9 aspect ratio. So, a broadcast sourced from the digital negative will likely be open matte in those scenes as well.

There’s a high probability that Nolan’s ‘Interstellar’ will be broadcast 4:3 open matte like this film as well. It’ll be very exciting to watch the original 15/70mm framing.

P.S: The Titanic open matte broadcast, in India, actually has a larger framing than the open matte blu-ray, because it’s an extract of the 1.72:1 (not 1.78) digital negative that was used for the 2.35 crop. The broadcast has the full width of the 2.35:1 Blu-ray (which the 3D BD doesn’t have), and includes almost the full height of the digital negative. I’m saying this because I saw the broadcast. Many of the ship scenes were cropped and pan-scanned for the IMAX presentation. That does not affect the open matte broadcast.

Papai2013 said:
There’s a high probability that Nolan’s ‘Interstellar’ will be broadcast 4:3 open matte like this film as well. It’ll be very exciting to watch the original 15/70mm framing.

Interstellar 4:3 open-matte?

When/where???

I said there’s a probability. Like, if it gets a 4:3 broadcast, they might use the larger 1.43:1 frame and do a slight crop to 1.33:1. That’d be worth having. As of now, I’m not aware if such a broadcast has happened. Keep your eyes open for it!

I know this is hard to find, but I recreated the IMAX version using the German Open Matte version. I was able to mask out all of the hard-coded German subtitles and recreate the aspect ratio opening up for the opening credits and the Burj scene. I think I’ve got it about as close as possible to a true IMAX version given the absence of the 1:43:1 footage. DM me if interested.

So since the release of Oppenheimer, I have been obsessed with finding 70mm film frames of IMAX movies with the 1.43 aspect ratio. It irks me that there is so little preservation or availability on home media of this expanded image. In the spirit of preservation and restoration, I’ve been doing some searching for these frames and talking to people on some other sites to gauge interest in obtaining and scanning these frames. Depending on how static the shot is, it’s possible someone could photoshop these scanned frame over the 4K disc image to recreate IMAX shots.

Someone on eBay has listed a set of 90 frames from this movie, and while asking $625 is an absurd amount for a few seconds of film, I do see “Make an offer” as an option. This user has a bunch of listing for individual frames and strips of consecutive frames from IMAX prints. I think this movie and Interstellar would be worth acquiring and scanning to aid in future projects, if not just for preservation.

My heart stopped when I saw those frames for sale on eBay then sunk when I saw the price. There goes that opportunity to see a true 4K fan edit of MI4…

I guess here’s to hoping one day Paramount will release the IMAX cut of MI4. IMAX is the big thing right now and with Dune 1 & 2 allegedly getting a IMAX disc release maybe maybe maybe …

Grandeur70 said:

I guess here’s to hoping one day Paramount will release the IMAX cut of MI4. IMAX is the big thing right now and with Dune 1 & 2 allegedly getting a IMAX disc release maybe maybe maybe …

Not as long as Brad Bird has his way.