Conanne

accidental double post

Sorry for bumping a thread with no activity in months, but I figured I might share some extra context regarding the mixes of Akira (1988) some brought up earlier.

Akira had 2 mixes prepared for it’s theatrical release. A Dolby track for 35mm screenings and 6-track mix for 70mm screenings. Neither of which were ever released on home video, there are a few rare screener VHS copies that were probably based on the theatrical Dolby mix distributed to various employees within the industry, but that’s it.

Akira was also released practically unfinished as there were a lot of photography errors that had to be gradually fixed after the initial theatrical release. Along the way changes were also made to the film’s sound mix, the Electric Media dub released in the US by Streamline was based on this revised version too. So even the most early offical LD release is not 100% accurate to what the initial release was like (though it is the closest). The unfinished theatrical version has actually been screened in Japanese theatres at least a few times according to Twitter users who’ve attended those screenings. Some even said the initial version was going to be included on the 4K Blu Ray, but something happened to prevent it happening, I’d have to go looking for some of the posts though…

Some others I’ll add:

Thunderbirds (1965):
TV show was remastered in 5.1 surround in the early 2000s. Replaces sound effects such explosions, rocket engines, crashes and car engines. Only official releases with the mono tracks are of poor quality because they’re from inferior sources than what was used for the remasters. Some foreign dubs like the Swedish dub are based on the pre-remaster M&E tracks though. The 2 films were thankfully not affected by this because their copyrights are owned by different distributors IRRC.

Genma Taisen (1983):
5.1 track adds extra sounds into scenes with explosions and extra foley. Japanese BD has the theatrical track but I haven’t been able to find a copy of it myself. English dub is based on the pre-remaster M&E track though.