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The Wizard (1989, Fred Savage) Enhanced version (* unfinished project *)

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What do you guys think of me doing a project similar to what I did with Backstroke of the West for this Nintendo commercial called the Wizard? Apparantly it has no extras or a scene selection. What if I were to make some menus w/ a scene selection and a couple of trailers and do it as a kit, just like I did Backstroke? Meaning, you have to buy the DVD to get the movie files to add in to it. What do you guys think of that? If we can find any other extras and stuff like that, that would be great too. I think a couple of downloadable trailers are at retrojunk.com.

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Originally posted by: marioxb
What do you guys think of me doing a project similar to what I did with Backstroke of the West for this Nintendo commercial called the Wizard? Apparantly it has no extras or a scene selection. What if I were to make some menus w/ a scene selection and a couple of trailers and do it as a kit, just like I did Backstroke? Meaning, you have to buy the DVD to get the movie files to add in to it. What do you guys think of that? If we can find any other extras and stuff like that, that would be great too. I think a couple of downloadable trailers are at retrojunk.com.


Sounds fun!

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Super Mario Bros. - The Wicked Star Story
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Sounds great. Overgrown Nintendo commercial or not, I enjoyed this movie in my youth!

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Jesus. Come on. The Wizard is anamorphic? Fecking Christ George, The Wizard is anamorphic.

FE<3OT

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Originally posted by: trickbaxter
Jesus. Come on. The Wizard is anamorphic? Fecking Christ George, The Wizard is anamorphic.


I know! I never thought we would have seen this movie in widescreen at all, much less animorphic! I have the LD and the German DVD and both of those are foolscreen.
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You might invite Fred Savage to do a commentary on a fan edition... He probably has nothing else to do, anyway.
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Good point! Hey, does anybody know of a way to get this or any other bonus features for the movie? TV spot that used to be up on RetroJunk.com. I do have the theatrical trailer as well as clip from a Power Glove help video and a clip from a CBS airing of the movie. Anything else would greatly be appreciated.

For the menus, I was thinking I'd have scene selections where you can actually jump to the appearance of a particualar NES game! How does that sound?

Maybe a screenshot of the game with a caption underneath, like "Zelda II" or "TMNT" or "Contra" "SMB3" etc, in addition to a normal scene seletion maybe.
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I just rented the DVD and here's my review:

In a nutshell, this DVD is really barebones. There are two menu screens: the static main menu which has two choices (Play movie / Languages). The languages menu title is misleading because the only option you have to choose from is English subtitles.

So in all there are 2 static menus, one video track, one stereo audio track and one subtitles track. They obviously did not put a lot of resources into this movie and quite frankly, I don't blame them. It's a small cult film, and to have it in anamorphic video on DVD is great and more than what George Lucas will give us.

On the plus side, the video quality is very nice for a budget release. The colors seem natural and the dirt and grain is minimal and non-obtrusive. The Dolby digital soundtrack is probably the same mix from the film's release and I don't have any issues with it. (can I be honest and say that 5.1 surround can be really distracting? I don't know why, but I prefer stereo mixes than surround sound mixes). Another good thing with this DVD is that it is single layer. While the compression might not be of 'superbit' quality - it makes it easier to create backups of this movie on cheap SL-DVD-Rs with no additional compression.

So there you go. If you can remember the days of VHS when all you got was the movie and you were satisfied, this release will please. If you wish for more features, i believe this forum can take care of that.

What’s the internal temperature of a TaunTaun? Luke warm.

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Alright. Thanks. Next paycheck I will pick up a copy of the movie and get to work. At least I finally finished my Street Fighter II disc so I can do this one.
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I have the LD and the German DVD and both of those are foolscreen.


Is the standard version pan n scan? IMDB lists the 4:3 laserdisc as being unmatted. It does seem lame to not have any extras at all. Was there anything at all besides trailers? Like any interviews.

Take back the trilogy. Execute Order '77

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I don't really know how to tell pan and scan from open matte. All I know is that it was widescreen in the theater, so at home it must be that way too for me. None of the releases have ANY extras. No trailers, no interviews, nothing! At least the German DVD had scene selections. I just got the US DVD so I can start this project soon.
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IMDb states that it was shot 1.85:1. Not that it sets it in stone of course. The only way to tell would be to compare the two versions.

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I'm just thinking that if the wizard was a thinly disguised Nintendo promotion, there had to be some things that aired on tv promoting it. You could also use documentaries about the NES for bonus features. I saw one of them online and it did mention the power glove, the game counselors who would talk on the phone about anything (for a price), and I think it did mention the movie.
If someone could design the menus to look like NES scenes with sprites and sounds that would be awesome. For example, the cursor that indicates which is selected could be a sprite. I would think emulation and game sites would be helpful for this.

Take back the trilogy. Execute Order '77

http://www.youtube.com/user/Knightmessenger

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anything happening with this?

FE<3OT

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I finally got my computer working again, and I will begin work on this very shortly.
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"You could also use documentaries about the NES for bonus features. I saw one of them online and it did mention the power glove, the game counselors who would talk on the phone about anything (for a price), and I think it did mention the movie."

Yeah, now that I think about it, there was a really good documentary about the early days of Nintendo. I think it was found on the website The Hylia. I recently rented the movie on vhs and seeing that documentary really helped me understand some of the things in the film like the power glove (it really was "so bad") and the game counselors who could talk about anything for a price. I liked the movie enough that I convinced the store owner to sell it to me for $9.99 which is what it would cost them to replace with the dvd. The picture on vhs is already pretty good, I didn't see the point of buying a dvd over vhs when it doesn't have any extras or even scene selection, something that is ridiculously easy for me to do with my home videos. And I'm pretty sure the movie was open matte as every thing seemed to fit fine between the sides. Some of the scenes looked like they had no room to chop off the top and bottom anyway. There really was no point to get a dvd that had no scene selection and gained nothing by being in widescreen, surely the laserdisc must have had chapter stops?

Take back the trilogy. Execute Order '77

http://www.youtube.com/user/Knightmessenger

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Originally posted by: marioxb
I finally got my computer working again, and I will begin work on this very shortly.




Any updates on this project. I would be willing to help find some materials that could be used as supplement/bonus material or help design a "new" DVD cover for the project

what do you all think

-Darth

P.S. i had an idea for a/the dvd cover: one based on the Mario 3 NES cover (since the main reason the movie was made was to promote Mario 3's release)
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One funny thing:
Retroware TV - Review of THE WIZARD - Episode 3 Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UIDBA30KLo

Retroware TV - Review of THE WIZARD - Episode 3 Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUZghBBEou8

Retroware TV - Review of THE WIZARD - Episode 3 Part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRcRx82RQwg
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http://www.aintitcool.com/node/35272

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