Polyester and Dolby Digital sounds like a re-issue and not an original 1989 print.

You mean this one?

Just like the rest of the film the Blu-ray is terribly over-saturated, but the left bird looks blue and the next one green to me in both versions:

EDIT: Just recognized what you meant: They’re switching places in the next shot. But that’s a goof, not a restoration error. 😉

Long story short: It’s hard to compare trailers to how the actual film looks. I’ve seen trailers of “The Little Mermaid” projected and they looked totally different to the actual film. The 1990-trailer looked very greyish and the 1998-trailer also had a low saturation, so Ariel’s hair looked even pink in some parts. But both look nothing like full prints from either release.

The problem that came with this 1998-print was that reels 1 and 5 seem to be made from a new master, because credits had to be changed while they just used the 1990-negatives for reels 2-4. Those look less detailed and also less saturated compared to the fist and last reel.

More saturation definitely wouldn’t have done any favor to the scan. I admit it has some weaknesses when it comes to red-tones (especially Ariel’s hair), but boosting the saturation wouldn’t have helped here. More saturation would’ve made the skin-tones look like sunburned. Hopefully that problem will be gone in future scans like “The Lion King” due to the scanner’s new light-source.

Here are screenshots of the scenes that I photographed for the first post and how they look on the release-version:

Just to let everyone know: The scanner got the print on Wednesday and will hopefully be able to scan it soon.

I’ll try to keep as much of the image as possible, but I don’t know yet if it’s going to be 1.66:1 as on „The Little Mermaid“ or something wider like the 1.75:1 on „Mulan“. 😉

The print is still here, but if everything goes to plan it‘ll be sent to the scanner next week.

ccateni said:

movies8414 said:

Is it too late to donate for a copy?

No, I think he will still accept them.
You have to pm him first though.

I already sent movies8414 a PM, but didn’t get an answer yet. 😉

ccateni said:

B.T.W. Will you do a color restore or correction on the 35mm restoration after you release the original restoration?

What exactly do you mean? Of course I’ll do a grading on the scan before it gets released. Otherwise it’ll look pale and grey or maybe it has a strange tint. 😉
Or did you mean previews from the raw scan when you said “original restoration”? Don’t know yet whether I’ll be creating previews or if donors will have to wait a little longer until the graded version is finished like I did with my previous projects. First it has to be scanned anyway. 😄

And after some more donations this is now officially fully funded.
Thanks again to everyone who helped! 😃

The print will be sent to the scanner later this month.

Received some more donations from several users - thanks again!
Only 16,- € more before the target is reached. 😃

And also thanks to qnorsten! 😉

Donation coming in from littlebono, thanks! 😃

Also received a donation from triadne. Thank you very much! 😃

Donation received from bslatky - thanks again! 😃

The title is in German. There’s also a small part in the credits where the voice-actors are listed, but the rest of the credits is in English.

Celebrating the theatrical release of Disney’s Live-action-remake I proudly announce my upcoming project: A 35 mm-print of “The Lion King” from the initial release in 1994 which will be scanned soon. The English theatrical mixes from the Laserdisc will of course also be added.

I’ve seen it projected a few weeks ago and it’s in fantastic condition. It’s really clean and I only recognized two splices while watching, but it seems like there were only 1 or 2 frames missing (if any). And since it’s a 1994-print it of course also includes the original waterfalls and crocodile-teeth, the “SEX / SFX”-scene and the collapsing Mufasa-cloud.

The plan is to get it scanned and also giving it a little cleaning with Isopropyl before it’s sent. The total cost for scanning and shipping is around 215,- €, the cost for storage and buying the print were already covered. Anyone who wants to help covering the cost to preserve this classic just send me a PM for further detail.

Target reached:

215 / 215,- € (fully funded)

List of generous donors:

• nirbateman
• RooBee
• bslatky
• triadne
• littlebono
• qnorsten
• Avatar_Emil_Borg
• Behodar
• ccateni
• MattMahdi
• pleasehello
• MrBrown

Photos from the projection:

“Older 1.33:1 master” meaning SD or is it already HD?

Received another donation, thanks!
Funds are now up to 333,- €, leaving us 132,- € more before the target is reached.

Donation received from StreetRat - thanks again! 😃

Received a donation from pleasehello - thanks!
And a small addition to the question what’s the point of this preservation - here’s a good example:

35 mm:

Blu-ray:

HDTV:

The 35 mm-print is the only version where the candle in Mulan’s hand “makes sense” since the background is dark and the candle is the only light-source in this scene. The Blu-ray and the HDTV look like there’s also more light and the candle is technically useless.

Donation received from Falcon - thanks again! 😃

A quick update: The film has been scanned even though the funding-goal is still not reached (actually we’re just a little over the half of it). Donors will be getting a v1-encode shortly, so keep an eye on your PMs. Thanks to everyone who’s donated so far!

For everyone else who wants to participate there’s still the opportunity to help funding the remaining amount.

Some screenshots from the film:

There was only one bigger splice where frames were missing, the rest is in sync with the official BD. There’s a bit of dirt left on the film and also a few thin lines on the very right (also some green lines in very few scenes) as can be seen on the screenshots above, but nothing to worry about.

Received another donation - thanks! 😉

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.