So this is something that I and someone I know have been working on for a while. Our job was to revive the leaked 35mm scan to make it the ultimate presentation of the film as originally seen in cinemas back in 1995.
So for those who are unfamiliar with the revival, lemme give you the tragic backstory (seriously!).
Back in 2023, TristAndShout64 started a donation project for a 4K scan of an Australian 35mm print of the film, meaning it has the original English version and not from another language (i.e., from the German 35mm preservation of The Lion King and the open matte preservation of the West German print of Back to the Future.). However, during its near completion, along came the leaks and cyberbullying, so in June of '25, he cancelled the project.
However, help is on the way as someone came in to give me the link of the leak so I can go ahead and revive it. When I meant ‘revive’, I meant look frame complete, since even though Trist said there was a splice at the beginning of reel 3, there was also a splice at the end of reel 4, as well as regrading it with the LD footage since the color does look faded to me. In fact, this is how the film was originally going to look based on what the opening night bootleg looks like. Eventually, based on the review copy file I made, his Discord pals approved to let me do it. However, looking back at the review copy, I felt like something is wrong with it, especially with the color grade. I used VEGAS Pro’s Color Match plugin using the LD footage as source. This led to color bleeding with the footage, and it honestly felt very distracting, so I decided to make a LUT file for future cases and when I tested it, it looks way better.
Though I did do a better take, I’m honestly not a fan of the 4K file, since it has alot of rare blocky AVC artifacts, such as the Disney logo at the start, which isn’t the case in the 1080p version. Though I was able to get access to the 1080p version by him recently, which I knew is the exact same file that was leaked on 4chan (no im not joking).
And speaking of the files, let’s talk about the leaked ones. I’ve honestly hated them. Though it is cool it is in 4K, like I said, it uses presumably a variable AVC codec, since MediaInfo couldn’t figure out if it was constant or variable, and I think anyone who processed it went with the lowest average the software can allow with the max of 50mbps, resulting in…well, you already knew, but also:
- Despite the raw optical audio being cool to have, the Dolby Surround mix from the LD is from the Deluxe CAV release, meaning there was an audio edit to fit with the side transitions between sides 1 and 2. Also, you can still faintly hear the final seconds of the THX “Tex” trailer at the end.
- The DTS LD mix is only heard on the front channels, and just like the Dolby Surround LD mix, you can still hear the Deep Note fading out.
- The sound effects-only track has a mix-up with the audio. In any 5.1 format, every channel in order is supposed to be (L, R, C, LFE, Ls, Rs), but this audio stream has the ordering of (L, C, R, Ls, Rs, LFE), making it very uncomfortable for your 5.1 system.
- And finally, the commentary track, though firstly, the channels are correct, it’s weirdly in 5.1, meaning you can hear nothing except the front channels, and secondly, it’s the version used since the UTB DVD, meaning that references to LaserDisc were cut out.
So, even though I already did make my own reconstruction of the original theatrical mix (if you weren’t aware), I did my own takes on the other audio tracks for my digital theatrical reconstruction, and they were way better than the leaked files, including the Dolby Surround mix, where I used the standard CLV disc as the main source and added patches from the Deluxe CAV release and even used the original unedited 1996 commentary from the latter release, captured by noogai3. Oh, and for the SFX track, it was a direct copy from the UTB DVD, not a FLAC conversion by KBJ Comix.
So for this preservation, I was thinking of doing a much better version than what was officially put out, especially since, like I said, it was cancelled. Though, the first thing I need to do is to find the raw scans of it since they would’ve been processed from either FFV1, ProRes, or AVI uncompressed, meaning it would contain the best video possible, regrade it using the LUT I made, and sync it with the UTB DVD, along with patches from the LD footage I would record. Though since NC-17peter was responsible for the scanning, I don’t know if he still had those raw scans or not (possibly likely to stay away from the fate of the original preservation). Though, since his Discord pals approved this project, I don’t know if Trist and the OT mods are okay with that honestly, because of the drama, and access to replying to his original topic was locked by the mods. If so, I’ll start rolling. If not, I’m sorry.
Though, thankfully, since I’m the only one doing this project, hopefully there won’t be any leaks and drama this time. I will keep you updated as soon as I can, of course. I was thinking of having it be released at the same time as v2 as my digital theatrical reconstruction, since I still need to find a few more audio tracks from various foreign releases I can easily import to the UK. Right now I need to find (presumably) the Japanese voiceover of the commentary track from the Japanese Deluxe CAV LD release, the Egyptian Arabic dub from the French Anthologie DVD set, and various Chinese dubs and Asian subtitles from the bootleg releases (and it has to only be the ones that look like they were done by Disney themselves, not the bootleggers), so it will take a while though.
