JayArgonaut

SilverWook said:

JayArgonaut said:

Kepling said:

So my question here is:

What movies, other than the OT Star Wars, have been "updated," then the original "lost?" Star Wars is probably the most famous example of this sort of thing happening, but are there other examples of this phenomenon?

The theatrical PT releases of AOTC and ROTS are "lost" because they have never been made (officially) available on home video, only the modified versions and those are the ones that are provided to broadcasters for TV airings.

Apart from a handful of early home video copies, The Devil's Advocate is unavailable in its original form: several scenes involving the sculpture were modified by WB because of litigation. On my UK DVD, HK VCD and during every TV broadcast that I've watched, the digital blurring is applied.

http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=4057

Iron Man was also altered for similar reasons but I wonder how many eagle-eyed people have ever noticed?

http://ironman.wikia.com/wiki/Iron_Man_(film)#Home_Media

http://collider.com/iron-man-censored/

If more come to mind, I'll add them.

 The Laserdisc is uncut.

http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/08173/15090/Devil's-Advocate-The

The only way you can identify an uncut Region 1 DVD is the disclaimer on the back of the case.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Devils-Advocate-Original-Unedited-DVD-Release-/262007914445?

 Thanks for the info. :)

thxita said:

so are you sure you didn't deduce that yourself and it became a memory in your head? 

For years, IMDB had a reference to it in the alternate versions category. Unfortunately it is no longer present. Perhaps I didn't elaborate properly. I never claimed to have heard the line - because I didn't catch LC during the theatrical run and instead saw it on home video.

There was a forum discussion that I can no longer locate where people confirmed hearing the dialogue when they saw it in the cinema, hence my request for confirmation that it exists or is an urban legend.

Here are some other links where it's mentioned:

http://www.theindyexperience.com/films/last_crusade_alternate_versions.php

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade

ray_afraid said:

The theatrical cut of Disney's Aladdin has never been released, has it?

I only learned about this one last night, after it was mentioned in a documentary.  Apparently it hasn't, although there are a few people claiming on YouTube that they have the original versions on VHS. If that's the case, they could be early releases or pirate copies produced during the theatrical run.

Other films...

Minority Report's theatrical release contained an English subtitle translation of Peter Stormare's Swedish dialogue where he demands that his assistant Greta, "get the hell out of there, wipe your ass, hurry up!" The translation was removed for the home video versions and TV broadcasts. 

Continuing with Spielberg, the theatrical version of Last Crusade allegedly had Julian Glover say, "Precious valuables, your highness. Donated by some of the finest Jewish families in all of Germany." All subsequent versions have omitted the Jewish reference. If anyone who saw LC during the theatrical run can confirm the veracity, I'd appreciate it because this has been disputed for years.

Kepling said:

So my question here is:

What movies, other than the OT Star Wars, have been "updated," then the original "lost?" Star Wars is probably the most famous example of this sort of thing happening, but are there other examples of this phenomenon?

The theatrical PT releases of AOTC and ROTS are "lost" because they have never been made (officially) available on home video, only the modified versions and those are the ones that are provided to broadcasters for TV airings.

Apart from a handful of early home video copies, The Devil's Advocate is unavailable in its original form: several scenes involving the sculpture were modified by WB because of litigation. On my UK DVD, HK VCD and during every TV broadcast that I've watched, the digital blurring is applied.

http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=4057

Iron Man was also altered for similar reasons but I wonder how many eagle-eyed people have ever noticed?

http://ironman.wikia.com/wiki/Iron_Man_(film)#Home_Media

http://collider.com/iron-man-censored/

If more come to mind, I'll add them.

Warbler said:

even without the "To Be continued...",  It still seems ripe for a sequel to me.  The movie ended with them going into the future and the Doc saying "somethings got to be done about your kids!"   The ending never says what needs to be done about the kids, it never says they succeeded in doing whatever needed to be done about the kids.  It just ends with them time traveling into the future.  Sure seems like a setup for a sequel to me.

The ending was meant as a joke, not to establish the possibility of a sequel. IIRC this is confirmed by Bob Gale and Niel Canton on the 2nd audio commentary track on my 25th anniversary Region 1 DVD. The pair explain that if a sequel had been in mind during the production of the first film, Claudia Wells would not have been in the Delorean at the end with Fox and Lloyd and this is why Elizabeth Shue spends most of Part II and III "asleep."

(redundant question posed)

I realised afterwards, sorry about that. I've added the link.

From a recent interview in a UK daily.

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/CLjlrUyWgAAKYFb.jpg:large

Nice work! Like most Brits who grew up during that era, I of course remember Thomas but yet I don't recall TUGS. Did ITV only broadcast it once?

I've got this version and to me, it seems more like a Telesync rather than a TC. I  watched it till an actual telecine came along and then kept it for historical curiosity.

It's been a while since I've viewed it but from memory, the audio suffers at one stage from what sounds like wow-and-flutter and at another point, from interference caused by a cellular phone. The framing isn't correct either and when compared with the telecine and retail DVD, it appears that portions of the image have been cropped.

SilverWook said:

What I saw looked like video transferred to film. There must have been quality control issues with some of the AOTC prints at least.

ROTS looked pretty good on 35mm, and I saw it in a couple different venues, so the odds are I was seeing different prints.

I also watched the 35mm release of AOTC in the cinema and the print appeared to be worn out and caked up with dirt. At least one scene didn't look that much better than an old, unrestored newsreel and on reflection, I really should've demanded a refund.

I've been using the JVC GR-D70EK PAL MiniDV camcorder as a pass-through capture device with my Mac and out of curiosity, I wanted to see how it would fare with the 97SE LD PAL set on my Pioneer CLD-D925 player.

As you can see by viewing the images in their full size version, there's a substantial amount of pixellation, particularly around the lightsaber and there's also a problem with the vertical frame. 

I suspected that the camcorder might be faulty so I tested it with several other devices that have composite outputs - a SNES, an N64, a Gamecube and a VCR. The SNES exhibited similar problems as the LD player during capturing but all the others were fine. 

There's something about the video signals generated by the SNES and the LD player that the camcorder is unable to handle properly. Has anyone else encountered a similar problem and if so, is there anyway to correct it, or is it just one of those things?

Also, all my MiniDV captures suffer from interlacing issues, I've done some reading up on the matter (http://www.100fps.com/video_resolution_vs_fluidity.htm) but I'm still confused.

What am I doing wrong here?

StarmanSkywalker said:

^This

That'd definitely be awesome along with AOTC. I think they only released ROTS on Widescreen VHS in the U.K.

I have the UK TPM VHS releases in P&S and also W/S. The (UK) AOTC VHS was only available in P&S. As far as I know, the ROTS VHS is also P&S only. I've never seen a W/S version.

dvdmike said:

It's on film 4 again in the UK tonight,  I will record and check as usual 

Was it a different version? I'm curious because Film4 often show the restored/director's cut of films

TServo2049 said:

Star Trek VI was shot in Super-35. I'm not sure if it was 3-perf, or 4-perf (a la James Cameron). Does anybody have a 4:3 copy handy to check how much vertical space is added?

I know that prior to the Blu-ray transfer, there was a 2:1 theatrical cut transfer that ran on HDTV.

At least it was opened up, unlike Vittorio Storaro going senile and cropping his own 2.35:1 compositions to fit his later preferred Univisium ratio. Thank Heaven Apocalypse Now finally got a 2.35 release (though he still was able to force Criterion to use 1.9:1 for The Last Emperor).

I don't have a 4:3 copy but I do have ST VI on widescreen VHS and the aspect ratio on that is 2:1, the first DVD release had 2.35:1 and the SE DVD was altered by Meyer to 1.85:1.

Film4 have recently shown the theatrical cut in 2.35:1 IIRC. Next time they show it, I'll confirm for certain. 

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/12/star-wars-stereotypes-not-force-201412172145780714.html

Can't quite work out what to make of this article. It's irritating alone for repeating the wildly inaccurate claim that the Jar Jar Binks character is offensive to Caribbean people. My parents and extended family are from the Caribbean and none of them sound even remotely close to Ahmed Best providing the voice talent for an alien species...  

Amazing, as a Brit I enjoyed watching Thomas the Tank Engine when I was younger and had no idea about the US versions. Good luck with the project. 

generalfrevious said:

There was never meant to be three movies anyways. So clearly George made up the other films and claimed his first draft was split into three movies for time constraints. He got lucky only once.

Everyone knows SW was never meant to be episode IV until after Empire came out, so the PT was never meant to exist until George decided to make them in the 90s. When he made them it was clear to everyone that he haven't seen the originals in years, hence the obvious contradictions.

The PT had been been on the cards for a long time. Back in 83/84, Peter Mayhew stated in an interview with British magazine, Look In that any subsequent SW films would probably take place in the past and cover events that occurred before many of the major characters were even born.

This tallies with what eventually transpired with the prequels. Also, according to a feature that I read in another UK mag during 85/86, after the success of "Ep IV", GL had wanted to make prequels that provided a backstory but Fox wasn't enthused by the idea and so instead he proceeded with TESB and ROTJ.

Unfortunately I was only a child at the time and had no idea how significant these articles might become in the future, otherwise I would've held onto them. 

Echo3 said:

Its common practice for TV.  The vast majority of 2.35:1 aspect ratio movies are cropped down to 1.78:1 (16x9) for TV broadcast.   They figure people will complain about black bars. Turner Classic Movies and MGM HD are one of the few stations that always show the films in the original aspect if possible.

Also a common practice in the UK where 2.35:1 films are routinely cropped to fill 16x9. Even major broadcasters like the BBC still perform this butchery and ITV, who've owned the Star Wars UK broadcast rights for decades, even now still don't show the films in their OAR. 

Croweyes1121 said:

JayArgonaut said:

Any chance of some screenshots?

 Sure, here you go!  As I said...a bit rough, but totally watchable.

http://111.imagebam.com/download/x3mxSYq2Dy01gwSnilfQaQ/36014/360136416/vlcsnap-2014-10-25-18h31m10s28.png

http://111.imagebam.com/download/Vfi4eN74MhRh8UR3iWmd1A/36014/360136418/vlcsnap-2014-10-25-18h32m07s97.png

http://109.imagebam.com/download/m72kox6IxRhMt8YWYyZzxw/36014/360136421/vlcsnap-2014-10-25-18h32m22s7.png

http://111.imagebam.com/download/iotviDnqThkuvXIHOgGjTg/36014/360136423/vlcsnap-2014-10-25-18h32m40s190.png

http://109.imagebam.com/download/u9ZJ9y3J2u7hwAjXWGQLfg/36014/360136429/vlcsnap-2014-10-25-18h32m57s111.png

http://110.imagebam.com/download/iJYVDLG5kGsby8eqlwf-JA/36014/360136432/vlcsnap-2014-10-25-18h33m17s13.png

 Thank you! Much appreciated. :)

Any chance of some screenshots?

Molly said:

SE was 1997.

USA did air the three movies together in a marathon run, I'm pretty sure they did so on Christmas of either 1993 or 1994 (based on where I was living at the time).  It was my first exposure to any of them.

Yes, it was December 1994 but not quite Xmas. Two decades on, I remember this vividly because I was in the Caribbean at the time and a friend of the family had the USA Network on their cable option.

Watching TESB and ROTJ was one of the highlights of the trip. :)

Edit: just had a flashback of the promo for the marathon, so I did a YouTube search with the term "Star Wars USA Network" and it appears the OT was shown on USA from summer 1993 through to 1995.

Here's one of the promos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zp0TaxwxZ8 

Croweyes1121 said:

Considering this was only ever aired on ABC, I don't think you're going to find this in 1080p.  Too bad they can't just release a nice special edition with the scenes as deleted extras.  Then it'd be pretty easy to make a fan edit that matches the ABC cut.

Ransom, another film by Ron Howard is in a similar situation. The director's cut is only available on Laserdisc. 

It was Meyer who constructed the version that was broadcast by ABC.

"I put that together" Meyer told Cinefantastique Magazine in 1992. "It's ironic as a director of a feature I may not have final cut, but as a director of the television version, no one cares. Places were I was overruled, rightly or wrongly, I get to have the last word. It's very dangerous just to put things back for the sake of putting them back. I am not persuaded that artists are the best judges of their own work."

http://theomegasector.com/index.php?/topic/19238-lost-scenes-from-the-wrath-of-khan-online-saavik-is-half-romulan/

MTV's VIVA channel are currently screening a season of the TOS films, beginning with TWOK and I was hoping they might have the extended TV versions of TWOK and TMP. No such luck, tonight's broadcast of TWOK was the theatrical release.

I'm betting that Paramount does have the video masters because in the past decade, the Special Longer Version of TMP was shown on BBC Three - and in widescreen, albeit cropped to 16:9.