Dr. Cooper

Donation received from asterisk8 - thanks again!

They told the same fairy tales in Germany before they finally released it again: The quality was too bad, there are copyright-problems blah, blah, blah. All nonsense and after various shitstorms they finally decided to put both dubbings on the Diamond Edition. And (what a miracle) the quality of the 1990-dubbing on that Blu-ray is fantastic.

The funny thing is: They celebrated it like they found a cure for cancer and everytime something about the film is announced they underline that it OF COURSE will be the original 1990-dubbing as if it was ever questioned. Actually they should be ashamed they didn’t already do that when the first DVD came out or at least when the 2006 Special Edition was released.

Another funfact: When the film was first aired on German free TV the station (RTL) also announced they’d be airing the 1990-dubbing. It was already strange they used the other voices in their trailers, but you should’ve seen their Facebook-page the minute after the film started with the 1998-dubbing. 😄
They didn’t really check that before and even listed the 1990-actors in their credits, but already corrected that for the rerun a few days later and didn’t loose another word about the dubbing. Since then it only aired on Disney Channel again and they didn’t dare to show anything else but the 1990-dubbing. Even Disney Cinemagic changed their airings from the 1998 to the 1990-version after that incident.

In Germany they did the same thing with many of the classics:

• Snow White: First dubbing made in 1938, but not released before 1950; second came out in 1966 and was used until the last theatrical release in 1992 and the third one (and the only one available officially) was made for the VHS-release in 1994.
• Pinocchio: First version is from 1951, the second one from 1973
• Dumbo: First dubbing made in 1952, second version in 1976
• Bambi: First released in 1950, the second dubbing is from 1973
• Cinderella: The original dubbing from 1951 is still used, but the introduction and the choirs were changed in 1980
• Lady and the Tramp: First version came out in 1956, the second dubbing is from 1975
• 101 Dalmatians: The first dubbing is from 1961, the second from 1980
• Winnie The Pooh: The three shorts (Honey Tree, Blustery Day, And Tigger Too) have been dubbed individually. Pooh’s voice in “The Honey Tree” has been changed in 1971 due to the death of the original voice-actor to have the same voice in all shorts. The combined “Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh” weren’t released before 1994 and got an entire redub with the same actors from the 90s TV-series.
• The Little Mermaid: The first version came out in 1990 and was released on VHS one year later. The new version has been made for the re-release in 1998 and people always hated it. After only releasing the 98-version for 15 years Disney finally had a heart (or Dollar-signs in their eyes) and put both versions on the Diamond Edition again. Today they also use the old version for TV-airings etc.
• Aladdin: Just like in the English version some dialogues were changed. This happened already before the 1993 theatrical-release, however they accidentially put the “uncensored” version on VHS and Laserdisc.

There are some VHS-bootlegs from the 80s and 35 mm-captures floating around with the old versions that haven’t been released officially by Disney. But other than for “The Little Mermaid” it doesn’t seem they’re interested in releasing the old versions again. They still have them (I guess they’ve still got the Danish versions in their vault as well), but as most people have no knowledge at all that those versions even exist they rather save the effort to release those old dubbings. The situation with TLM was different: Many people had the original version on VHS and also loved those voices from the TV-series and wanted back the version from their childhood, so the pressure was much higher than with the other films where even the “new” versions are already mostly more than 40 years old and not many people will remember the original dubbings anymore.

But they’re not even correcting the mistakes on the official Blu-rays (Mufasa-cloud in “The Lion King”, mixed-up sequence in “The Little Mermaid”, missing words in several other films) and just doing repacks over and over again while corrected versions have been released in other countries.

Got two more donations for the project - thanks guys! 😃

As I already said - I can’t say how faithful the print, the HDTV or the Blu-ray are to the intended look. I’m not the Director of Photography, all I can say is that the print looks different and has a more natural look than the other releases do. And as RU.08 already said: That’s how people saw it in cinemas and that’s why it’s worth preserving that look.

Donation received from jackjason - thanks again! 😃

Donors got access to a first release in November, but as already mentioned in the first post I can’t tell if and when a wider release is going to happen.

However, my project of “Mulan” still needs lots of fundings, so anyone who’s interested in helping on that one can of course also get access to “The Little Mermaid” right away: https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Mulan-1998-35-mm-Help-needed/id/64031

Thanks to freedomland for another donation - really appreciated it!

Here are also a few comparisons between the official BD, the grainy HDTV and a few sample-frames I got from the 35 mm:

BD:

HDTV:

35 mm:

Those 35 mm-samples are just “as scanned”, there’s nothing adjusted in them which is why they’re still looking a little grey/faded. But they’ll give you a feeling how different the 35 mm is going to look once this is done.

Interesting! Do you know if both prints come from the same release? I’ve seen changes in grading when there are prints from the same film but different releases, but two IB-prints from the same year also looked the same - at least for the examples I’ve seen so far. 😉

Received a donation from Aphroticus - thanks again for that! 😃

Well, before worrying about a possible abundance the existing costs must be funded first. 😄
Let’s get this done first and then we can still talk about what’s happening if someone just finds this thread afterwards and still wants to participate. Trust me - this is a long way to go…

And apart from that it’s not the first time someone does this. Just look at the other releases - donors are getting early previews, exclusive releases etc. and if there are newer projects they can also get access to the older stuff if they’re participating in the newer ones. Leave alone that I already covered a huge amount to even start this project (buying the print, hard drives etc.). So even if the 465,- € for scanning and shipping are funded and someone wants to participate afterwards there will be ways and I’m still not making any profit with it.

Exactly - those funds are just meant to cover the cost for scanning and shipping. Selling copies would mean that there’s a profit, but there really isn‘t.

We have the chance to get a 35 mm-print of Disney’s “Mulan” scanned. It’s in good condition with just a few splices (should be less than 5) and minor wear. The print itself is not in English, but the English Cinema DTS is also available for this project. The scan will be made at 4K-resolution.

The total cost for scanning and shipping is 465,- € (about $535,-) and everything can be done quickly once it’s funded. Anyone who’s interested in this just drop me a PM.

Just like “The Little Mermaid” this project will also be exclusively available to donors! A wider release on MySpleen or other platforms isn’t intended at this point.

Now you might be asking yourself: There is already a grainy HDTV-version of “Mulan” available - why do we need another 35 mm-scan? Well, even this HDTV-version has quite squeaky colors the print doesn’t have and the BD is even worse. The print has a totally different grading with more natural-looking color.

Photos from the print:

Donations so far:

205 / 465 €

Thanks to:

• Soupdrinker0
• Aphroticus
• freedomland
• jackjason
• MattMahdi
• Anonymous
• asterisk8

Also keep in mind that there have been several edits in „The Lion King“ since the theatrical release in 1994. The waterfalls are transparent now, the crocodiles got family-friendlier teeth and so on. 😉

The problem is that most of us are already used to that squeaky look for Disney-features. They already moved towards this with the first digital releases, but since the Lowry-restorations it got really bad. The Blu-ray of “The Little Mermaid” is at least not as bad as the 2006 DVD which had some more “digital improvments”, but it’s still not how the film looked in cinemas back in the days.

Here are a few comparisons between the Blu-ray and the 35 mm:

I’ve been trying to improve the grading again, here are a few new screenshots from all five reels:

A few more pics - this time from reel 2:

Reels 2-4 are a bit less detailed than reels 1 and 5 and the color is also a little different. The reason for this could be the changes in the credits that were necessary in 1998 wheras reels 2-4 stayed the same as in the initial release.

That seems to be just a trailer, not the full feature/short-film. 😉

Well, the cost for getting the print scanned and shipped have already been funded. But of course I’m happy for further donations that’ll help covering additional costs like hard drives etc. or I can use them to get prints for upcoming projects. So if you’re interested feel free to drop me a PM! 😃

Some first impression from my work on reel 1:

Just to let everyone know: I’m now having the drive with the files in hands so work can finally begin. 😃

Sounds great! 😃
Just because I’m curious: Is this one of the Russian prints that showed up more often lately or is it an English print?

The old German VHS of „Nightmare on Elm Street“ contained the Unrated Version with some extended footage of Tina‘s death (blood splashing when she falls from the ceiling and an additional shot of her body).

The German VHS of Hitchcock‘s „Psycho“ also had some alternate/additional material: A shot where Marion takes off her bra, alternate footage of Norman‘s bloody hands after he cleaned up the mess in the bathroom and Arbogast is stabbed three or four times instead of just once. It also has an alternate shot of Sam‘s letter to Marion where the text is written in German.
Unfortunately the shower scene is cut in these German tapes, only old TV-airings included the full uncut version.

Received some first samples today, and they look pretty good. Here are some screenshots, no proper color correction has been done yet:

Donors will also be getting a video-sample shortly. It’ll take a little while longer before I’ll have the actual scan here, but I’m really looking forward to working on this and I hope you guys like it as well.

A quick update: The print has been shipped and arrived safely at the scanner’s place yesterday. More updates will follow soon and maybe we already have some first impressions then. 😃

It’s done - the project is fully funded.
Thanks again to everyone who donated to make this happen! 😃

The print is currently being prepared and will be sent to the scanner later this month. Further updates will be provided here.