Yup, v2.0 is better. (And I do see improvement in the bus lifting.)
I think maybe it would be better if you cut the two words "the people" altogether. (Just leave "Don't do it.") Cutting away from it makes it feel rushed, keeping the video shows the smirk. I don't think you can win with it. Also (and maybe it's just me) his tone in delivering the line is still pretty poor. (Mind you, you can't edit by committee, do what you feel is right.)
Finished downloading. For those that want more info:
This is two single layer discs that need to be combined to make a dual layer. You will need to grab all of it. You can shrink it to DVD-5 or whatever later if you want.
There are NO extras on this version so if you want them you'll have to look elsewhere.
Don't think that the smirk is just something we jumped all over. I've noticed it before your edit and in fact that's not the only time he does it across the Sup movies.
EDIT: I noticed what looked like blended frames too, but I'm pretty sure it's from when they originally photographed the cells. You can see localized blurring, but sometimes what looks like shadows of a cell buckling and such. In the 2 seconds I worked with any blurring was present in both releases not just the new one. In fact the restoration fixes some rotation in the cells that is present in the original release.
It's not a matter that the new release is GOOD, it's a matter that the last release was so BAD.
I compared the two and there is no way I would prefer the picture of the old letterboxed, artifact ridden edition. I still hope for a better release in the future, but since this is what the restoration looks like, expect it to look this bad on Blu-Ray.
And yes, the knees were intact in the featurette, but I believe it was letterboxed (and possibly from the unrestored original release). Funny thing is I never checked before I did the edit. (I'm hoping it wasn't restored or I'll feel like an idiot.)
Edit:
Yes the featurette is letterboxed. But the color timing and framing (there was different cropping in the 2 versions) indicate it is from the restored source AND before they removed the knees. The downside is quality.
Featurette Screenshot:
Dr. M's Restored Theatrical Edition:
The manual correction might have been more work, but the quality difference was worth it. Even if it is literally 2 seconds of film.
Wow, this is one of those instances that shows that the editor is an important aspect of any film.
If I had just seen the Donner footage I would have said there was nothing wrong with it. And then the SoJ version has a real economy to it and makes it a much better action beat. Kudos.
I disagree with a lot of what Tweaker said. I don't see a problem with the pace or the lifting. I do agree that Reeves has a stupid grin on his face. It looks like you could fix that by cutting away from him sooner (keep the audio but put it over other footage).
Hey, I'm not saying I'm right, it's just a best guess scenario. I'm pleased because I couldn't figure out why the LD transfer I had ran short (and I believe it was from the Korean release). Since there was so much talk of a new official DVD release in the UK, perhaps this is the work that was done and they just decided to go to TV with it instead.
What makes us believe this is from a different source is that the runtime is actually correct for the movie and NOT sped up.
The filter used for cleanup is specifically designed to remove the merged fields that occur from an NTSC 29.97fps to 25fps PAL conversion and not the other way around.
The laserdisc transfer I have is indeed shorter than this new release. For whatever reason the source is obviously not a 24 frame film to 24 frame PAL telecine, hence the belief there was a 29.97 intermediate conversion.
What we need is someone fluent in both english/german to translate the subs correctly. The version I've seen around isn't so good, and my corrections are based on the theatrical subs and Google language tool.
As yet I have found no stills I like the look of for the main menu. I found a nice instrumental version of Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah that'll I'd use instead of the Splash Mountain music.
The menu is only planned to have 'About' and 'Play' so I'm actually considering scrapping the menu if I can't find a nice picture.
I'm not really not sure what the plan is at this point... but all I'd really like is someone to take the Trilogy version, slow it back down (I still say the music sounds terrible sped up 4%) and add an English subtitle track.
Before encoding I did a 5% encoding of quality based 1 pass VBR (Q=1) to test for an estimated average bitrate. The upshot is I had to come down several hundred kbps to fit the movie to the disc. I'd rather not go to dual layer or compromise the video anymore than necessary.
That being said, I see no problem with someone building a second DVD of extras as a companion since I know there is a lot of cool stuff floating around out there.
Edit: I just got your PM. Ok, maybe I'LL be building a second disc.
The post you're referring to might be mine about SongoftheSouth.com. I'm pretty sure it was a different page that specifically only sold bootlegs of the film (I believe from the Korean un-hardsubbed laserdisc). That site is gone, but I'll plow through the .net one for art.