After careful consideration, I have decided that releasing this so soon probably isn’t the best idea, especially considering box office projections for Alita: Battle Angel. I still intend to work on it at some point, though.
Ah. So, it’s just the regular Transamerica T as seen on films from the late ‘60s and early-to-mid ‘70s. I wonder if pre-Transamerica Bond films as rereleased during that time had the regular Transamerica T logo as well…
Regarding the 35mm IB tech print you scanned… did the UA logo at the start fade to black, or did it cut to the opening gunbarrel sequence like the Bond films of the ‘70s?
While I do have laser videodisc, that’s about the only vintage videodisc system I’m capable of playing as of writing, unfortunately (plus, I don’t have a laser videodisc of the film itself at present). If I do get a CED player, and a CED disc, I’ll look at it, too.
I have a rental-only cassette myself and plan to check that sometime in the coming week.
I gotta check that out. BTW until I can get something definitive from the PolyGram Video release of The Basketball Diaries (which I don’t have yet), I can’t be truly sure whether to start my release of Battle Angel Alita with the PolyGram Filmed Entertainment “red line” logo (as seen on PolyGram releases until September 1997) or just an Island Pictures logo.
While performing my first render on Blender and Resolve for my main project, A Fistful of Dollars, over the past week, I discovered that due to a combination of space issues and not-exactly-high-end hardware, preparing the footage for assembly would take a whole lot longer than I had projected. So, while waiting patiently for the process to move along at the pace it itself appears to prefer with my current setup, I figured I may as well pass the time by doing a test of the Video Enhancer app which became free a couple of months or so ago, since I’ll inevitably use it on plenty of my larger projects in the future, and I figured, since Cameron/Rodriguez’s Alita: Battle Angel is coming to theatres next month, why not test it on the two-part OVA adaptation of the manga?
This small-scale project will use the Manga UK English dub, and also feature the original Japanese audio as well as Spanish, French, German, and Italian dubs. A 1080p version will be released initially, hopefully around the time Alita: Battle Angel is released theatrically next month, and I’ll also do a 4K UHD release for a later date, either to coincide with the home media release of Alita: Battle Angel or alongside my main project, A Fistful of Dollars. Battle Angel Alita will be presented at its original 4:3 aspect ratio and feature new titles by yours truly, to correspond with each language, plus the original Japanese titles.
More info will be available closer to release.
If there is a place to post casting calls for fandubs produced for projects, where would the appropriate place be to post them?
If you’re reading this, Richard Stamper, see if you can find high-definition French opening titles for this film. I don’t want to have to recreate them myself, in part because I don’t yet know what the zooming title looked like in French (there is a French-dubbed print online with French titles, but it starts during Marianne Koch’s credit).
I’m thinking of doing it as a project in the near future, maybe surprise you by releasing it right along with A Fistful of Dollars, my current major project.
After getting to study the Warner Bros. VHS colors more closely, I can safely conclude that the colors hew more closely to the Ripley’s print, but with less saturation. Edited NTSC-ified video to be uploaded to Thanos’s Italian Reddit Reject Forum sometime this week or next as proof (the only editing will be in terms of slowing down the WHV logo and the feature presentation to 24 FPS and putting the whole thing on a digital NTSC master).
And yet, I feel as though I could probably do one better on them. Probably.
And to the person who inquired about my taste for foreign dubs, yes, I am interested in them. I’d especially appreciate if someone on here has the Japanese Blu-ray releases of the Dollars Trilogy, so I can incorporate the Japanese dubs thereof when I work on them (I’m already working on A Fistful of Dollars at present).
Obviously, I won’t be restoring the TPE logo until at least the final 17 episodes of the second season, as I believe TPE wasn’t involved until 1997.
I hope to have an initial comparison ready with most sources sometime this month or next (I’ve just finished capturing my Warner Bros. VHS). As I don’t yet have every source I had planned to compare, the sources I will compare will be the Warner VHS, the CBS/Fox laserdisc, the MGM/UA 1988 VHS and 1990 laserdisc, the Dutch Afilm DVD, the Ripley’s Blu, the MGM Blu, the Tobis Blu, and the Kino Lorber Blu, plus a preliminary color correction based largely on the Fox print from the ‘80s.
I finally got a good look at the color of the Warner Bros. VHS, and it doesn’t look anywhere near as yellow as the Fox releases do. Needless to say, I’m still going to do all color correction based on the Fox print.
Yeah.
Add A Fistful of Dollars. I’m currently working on regrading it as Koopa Troopa Productions from the Ripley’s (somewhat accurate colors, but somewhat dull-looking) and the Kino Lorber (too yellow), based largely on the old Fox releases from the '80s. (For obvious reasons, I’m not using one frame of footage from the MGM, which apart from the cropping also looks rather muddy.)
I just gave my Warner Bros. VHS of AFOD a preview. Due to the way PAL output to my 3D TV works, I can’t speak for color accuracy yet, but I noticed a few things. First, the Warner Bros. release features a whole new pan-and-scan job, different than both the Fox and the MGM/UA, and it has its own quirks and screwjobs. Second, it uses the standard English-language opening sequence, instead of the one that credits Sergio Leone as Bob Robertson as seen on the Dutch DVD. Thirdly, the audio jump at the end of the opening sequence sounded similar to that on the MGM/UA, if it wasn’t exactly the same. Fourthly, the THE END title appears to have been made specifically for the Warner Bros. master, fading in in a more recognisable font instead of zooming in. And last, but far from least, certain of the cuts made to the UK theatrical version aren’t what I expected (for example, the torture scene is somewhat shorter, with Joe being roughed up for less time onscreen than in the Fox release by the Rojo thugs before Don Miguel advises him to talk so as to not prolong his suffering, an entire long shot of Joe crawling out of the storeroom after smashing Chico and another Rojo thug which was in the Fox release was removed—whereas that portion in the US theatrical version started with Joe crawling down the ramp after killing Chico and the other Rojo thug sent to guard him between torture shifts, here it begins from the point it begins in the uncut version, and continues until right before the aforementioned long shot—and a portion at the end of the scene where the Rojos torture Silvanito in his cantina was removed entirely, with the shot going from Ramón ramming the butt of his rifle into Silvanito’s chest immediately over to the shot of Piripero and Juan de Dios right after the scene).
Good grief, that doesn’t look like it’s going to go away any time soon… (defiantly checks the color of AFOD restoration against '80s Fox video print and notices the initial color check is nearly three-quarters finished)
Just go to my user page and click the “Start a Private Topic” button.
You’ll find out how definitive they are as I gradually start work on them. The current active project, for example, is a definitive edition for the Anglosphere, heavily based on an old video print from the ‘80s in terms of coloration (said ‘80s print appears to be the closest the film got to the intended colors on video).
The goal is to make definitive editions, really.
Unfortunately, that ship has already sailed (A Fistful of Dollars will be my first project, that’s already been settled), but if there’s a downloadable version of that source, I’d like to know via PM. Also, like any other respectable user, noob or veteran, I do not sell my projects. It is just unethical.
OK, I know I’m already working on one project, but in honor of this weekend’s Full Cold Moon, I am pleased to formally announce as a future project Sailor Moon.
Details are forthcoming, with the first details to come out sometime next spring, as I project myself to wrap things up on my current project. Stay tuned…