TServo2049

The 1993 digital restoration was output to film because it was done for theatrical re-release, as was the case with the Star Wars SEs.

Even uncritical accounts say they used digital paintbox technology to clean up dirt, scratches, etc. I don't even know if the technology existed to directly convert a 2K DI to D-1 or D-2 or whatever the storage medium was at the time.

I know when Vault Disney was running the episode in the late 90s, it just spliced out the offending parts. 

A contact of mine passed this link on to me:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/LOT-OF-2600-DTS-DISC-HQ-THEATER-35mm-FILM-MOVIE-AUDIO-35-mm-FEATURE-HD-SOUND-/251307635587?pt=US_Movies_Other_Formats&hash=item3a831a3383

Doctor M said:

Bambi: Platinum edition may be the fleas/crawling fur edition.  I can find no references to it except in that thread (and it doesn't name the Platinum Edition).

I always thought the "crawling fur" version was the 1997 remaster, which was only released on VHS/LD.

And what is up with ImageShack?  They seem to be culling images lately.  I keeping bumping up against removed images.  Jerks.

I have no idea why that happens. I have an account and none of my images have been deleted/expired. Maybe it has to do with if they were uploaded without an account?

I'd also like to know if anybody saved the 26 minute excerpt - I have been busy and never got a chance to see it, and now I can't.

I am certain that AMC did not show the full extended cut. If they did, someone else would have mentioned it; everything talking about that marathon was about the fact that Superman II was the Donner cut. Nobody ever said anything of the first film being the KCOP cut.

My guess is that they showed the 151-minute extended restored version from 2001, which had a few of the additional scenes put back in. Thus, you'd remember things like Superman going through Luthor's gauntlet.

Most of the deleted scenes have never even been released as extras on DVD/Blu-ray, I just cannot believe it was the full 3-hour TV cut remastered. For one thing, it would have only had 22 minutes of commercials for a 3 1/2 hour timeslot. No way would they put in that few ads.

On the other hand, I would absolutely believe AMC running a 2 1/2 hour movie with an hour of commercials.

I don't remember it looking that green in theaters. I know that 3D glasses can have a slight yellow-green tint, but I saw it in 2D. It didn't look that obviously green-tinted (though I'm also not sure if it was as neutral as the regrading).

That said, I have seen a few instances where the home version seems to look darker/duller/have a more pronounced tint than the theatrical DCP. Jurassic Park 3D comes to mind, it looked beautifully bright (especially with glasses off) but the Blu-ray screenshots I've seen look dim and drab.

And I also don't remember noticing FOTR:EE's green tint in the 2011 Fathom screening. I was aware of the color timing changes, but not a blanket green tint. Doesn't mean it wasn't there. It could be due to how our eyes self-adjust white balance with no other reference, but I'm not sure.

General, count me in.

marvins posted the French LBX LD intro here: http://www.neskouik.com/perso/swfr/LD-FR-debut.mp4

I actually wonder if the "82 IP" was some kind of final-cut assembly version that was put together before the negative was conformed by the negative cutter. In other words, the disparate elements would have been printed to IP and then cut together. Would the light edges indicate that the glue was applied at a positive stage, or that the glue is printed in from a negative stage?

Either way, the fact that the glue is not on the versions with the burn marks could well indicate that the glued version predates the burn marks, and in fact any of the sources used to make the theatrical release prints. (The lack of subtitles could be another piece of evidence in favor of it being earlier.)

msycamore said:

The IP/IN used for home video from '82 up to '92 is edited together in both small and large chunks with mid-reel changes which results in many frames tossed, a real glue-party.

A weird thing - the 1991 UK LBX VHS used a very similar source (even converted from NTSC rather than being a 1:1 25fps native PAL transfer), but there aren't as many visible cement blobs, and far fewer of those weird dark spots in some of the Cantina/Falcon scenes. There are some, but they're less noticeable.

Actually, since the ratio shrinks at every reel change, it may just be the SWE transfer - I know I did a comparison where I claimed there were no glue marks at the reel change when it cuts from Ben and Vader to Han and Chewie in the doorway, but I looked at Russ' VHS capture with the gamma turned up, and they are there, they're just not AS visible, due to it being a lossy AVI conversion of a DVD recorder capture of a VHS tape, rather than a capture of a laserdisc.

And though ITV version doesn't have the "liquid blobs", it does have the glue marks too - but strangely enough, I don't see any at the shot where it cuts from Ben/Vader to Han/Chewie. Not sure why, maybe that frame was dropped? Were the IP reels cemented together into a platter at some point after the ITV version was made? I don't think the 1982 rental transfer has blobs at that point either, and that one also has the glue marks at all the other cuts during the lightsaber duel. Russ' 1989 UK PAL VHS has the glue marks at the reel change...we need to check all home transfers to see what the earliest one was to have glue marks at THAT particular cut.

And unfortunately, all bootlegs from the "cloudy" source are cropped on the top and bottom so you can't see if there are glue marks.

The presence of the original '77 flyover in the ITV leads me to believe that going back to the first 1982 transfer, the crawl, flyover and end credits were always from a different source than the rest of the film. (For those who don't know, the ITV version has a crossfade from the squeezed EpIV crawl to the cropped '77 pan-down.)

The IP/IN that was first seen used for the '92 NTSC Letterbox VHS / Technidisc SWE LD release and subsequent THX releases (GOUT) is most likely an theatrical IP or IN, battered from making countless of prints, contains the theatrical timing, albeit severely pink faded in many instances and further removed from it when it was tweaked in post to counteract it.

I'm still wondering if this was the same IP/IN used for the French LBX LD in 1989, or if that was just a similar IP. Andrea had told me that transfer didn't have the orange errors, but marvins' capture of the intro (posted in the French OT preservation thread) shows that they ARE there. And also remember, in the '92 transfer, it switches to the older transfer for the Greedo scene - there is also a source switch at the same point on the French LD. So both IP/INs (if they're not the same one) must have had the burned-in English subs.

I still have a theory that the unsubbed "first-gen" IP wasn't the main GOUT source, but was only used for the Greedo scene. Is there any visible evidence of a source change?

poita said:

I have seen a 1978 print that has the TOE in it along with the original Pre-ANH crawl.

AFAIK, every print that was intended to be projected had the TOE's, be it 35mm, 16mm or 8mm. Only transfers made for home video/TV came from a source which lacked them.

The questions are, which version of the Yavin takeoff shot is in it, and which version of the end credits?

The JSC does have the cloudy shot. Every NTSC transfer prior to 1993 did. The ONLY official transfer pre-THX I know to have the cloudless version was the 1989 French widescreen LD transfer. And that version DID have the burns.

The cloudy Yavin was not added with the credits fix. It could actually be the opposite - setting aside the official releases, every privately-owned print or bootleg tape I know of with the original end credit roll has the "cloudy" composite (your VHS, the "Moth3r" telecine, Puggo Grande), while the ones with the revised credit roll always have the cloudless version (the Spanish LPP print, the Treadwell/Starkiller/MeBeJedi full-frame bootleg, and possibly the British IB prints). I think the PuggoKrig Swedish 16mm print has the revised end credits - can someone check and see if it has the cloudless Yavin shot?

I think I said this before, but the reason the R2/3PO shot was "redone" for the SE was because the original violent shake was an optical effect similar to the ones right before the TIE battle. The operator did shake the camera on-set, but the end result was obviously judged to lack the necessary impact, so each frame was optically repositioned and smeared to give it that extra oomph.

During the SE restoration, that optical was either deemed to be too grainy due to the generation loss, or couldn't be used because the CRI stock had deteriorated. So they went back to the original camera negative - which only had the on-set camera shake.

The TOE-less transfers have the same optical shake, just not the burns.

And for the record, Ben Burtt said there was a jumpy spot when the Stormtroopers burst through the door - we on the forum were the ones who theorized that he was referring to the orange burn marks.

He also said that he damaged the color work print, and that at the time it was the only work print of the film. He wouldn't have been running the negative through a moviola. And the workprint would have been made from the negative, not vice-versa, so if Burtt damaged the workprint, it wouldn't affect the negative. He only said that "all the screenings from then on always had this jumpy spot right when the stormtroopers come bursting through the door of the Blockade Runner." He didn't clarify if that meant all screenings of that one workprint, or all screenings of the film, period. (We don't even know if this workprint contained the optically manipulated version of the scene, or the original production footage as seen in the SE.)

This is all very confusing because the literature at the time of the THX transfer said that Fox/LFL had to hunt down first-generation IPs because all the ones they had access to had subtitles:

"One small difference from the original films is that in letterbox transfers we prefer to put any subtitles in the black border beneath the actual picture area. Thus we didn't use the same interpositive as the theatrical one, because that one contains subtitling already. In tracking down the elements, we found that the only ones in the vault were ones with subtitles- these clearly weren't the first generation off the camera neg because they had to have the subtitles burned in. So a massive search was undertaken and the first generation IP's were found in a special vault having only opticals in Los Angeles."

But they already had access to subtitle-free IPs when they made the previous letterbox transfers in the 80s, and they are clearly not the same IPs that were transferred in 1993. The IP used in the old transfer had no TOE's and the cloudy composite - the IP used in the new transfer had the TOE's and the cloudless composite. I'm stumped...

Doctor M, your hypothesis about "thinned" lines not being some kind of digital artifact is interesting.

I can't find the site/forum, but I remember someone complaining that there was DVNR artifacting in the Vista Series DVD of Roger Rabbit. The lines indeed look thin and wispy, but the Blu-ray and the French HDTV broadcast seem to have the same line characteristics.

I'm betting that RR had hair-thin inking to begin with, so the characters would better blend into the live action - the cels I've seen seem to bear that out.

Also, does anybody else think the "Mystery in the Mist" transfer of The Great Mouse Detective looks a tad TOO warm? I won't argue that it's a better transfer than the old DVD, but there's an original 35mm print from 1986 on eBay, and the blues actually look blue. (Or is that just due to the white balance on the digital camera capturing the projection?)

An IP with the TOE, and without the extra clouds in the Yavin shot, was also used for the 1989 French widescreen LD (and subsequently reused on the 1993 German widescreen release).

However, the color looks a little wonky, so I'm not sure it's the SAME IP as Technidisc/GOUT. Also, the French opening crawl, subtitle-less Greedo scene, and French end credits are dropped in from a different, faded print or IP. (It's weird, because when the film was aired in widescreen on French TV, it was a different transfer of a different source where those scenes weren't faded like that...)

Wow, I'm surprised at how well the color held up on the print of the first film. Especially compared to ESB, which does look more faded.

Is there more edge code data besides "FUJIFILM-SAFETY"?

The Platinum Edition of The Little Mermaid supposedly has issues with ink lines being thinned (possibly by the degraining algorithm?)

This image is kind of compressed and badly resized, but look at the comparison.

But in other instances, more ink line detail shows up in the Platinum transfer. Lighting effects also seem to be more "blown out" in the old transfer, not sure whether or not that's theatrically accurate? We know from Pinocchio and BATB (and the lightsabers in the 2004 ESB/ROTJ) that high-contrast lighting effects are sometimes dulled or flattened in modern transfers.

Steve Worth claims that in the modern BD transfer of Alice in Wonderland, double exposures, ripple glass effects and other effects animation are digitally ruined or replaced. He also says optical fades were altered, characters were separated from and regraded separately from the backgrounds, and the backgrounds were digitally frozen in place and lack any film weave.

In fact, Mr. Worth insists that many modern transfers of classic Disney animation have radically altered colors and all sorts of Lucasian digital alterations, rather than just being scanned, regraded and degrained. He said the same thing about Bambi. (In that case, he says every release since 1997 has some kind of digital alterations - in which case, the 1990 VHS/laserdisc would be the only straight film transfer.)

The BD of Dumbo has a couple bizarre color changes:

Notice that the three guys on the right have absolutely no line detail. It looks like they just laid a solid color mask over their uniforms. I have no idea why this was done.

Also, I thought I still had Molly's Cinderella preservation on my external hard drive, but it turns out I deleted it after I burned my copy.

Well, the film stock is usually identified on the very edge of the film, outside of the sprocket holes. If it's a Kodak print, there's a date code and then the type of stock is identified. If it's LPP, it will say "LPP".

LPP (Lowfade Positive Print) was a very low fade stock introduced by Kodak in the early 80s. I've seen 30 year old LPP prints that still retain all their original color.

Nobody has ever proven that the phone number ever actually existed. The rumor was that it was on the CAV laserdisc - has anybody checked the scene frame by frame?

If the French HDTV airing has Betty Boop's nipples and those weren't even on the laserdisc which was previously assumed to be uncut, I'm thinking that it reflects the uncut theatrical version, and that the Eisner/Katzenberg/whoever phone number is total BS.

Those 16mm clips blew my away. They really seem to have the warm golden look that Mike Verta has said the film had in original release. (A little too gold, maybe - but that's could just be how the video camera picks up the projection.)

And I'm amazed at how it doesn't look faded at all! I assume that the first film is an LPP print? (Empire, on the other hand seems a little pinkish...)

I hope you get those prints...

No, the 2006 DVD had the 1977 crawl and flyover, presumably newly transferred. I didn't see any DVNR smearing.

It's hilariously sad that they were willing to do a brand new transfer of just that part, but not the rest of the movie.

Again, I have no idea. I don't know this guy at all, I only know OF him.

I don't care who scans it, as long as it gets done.

I see. I didn't realize you could do 4K now.

I still have no idea if this other guy would want to do it. I just brought him up because I knew he was capable of doing it.

FYI, the 16x9 version of the Digital Experience trailer that was used on DVD is slightly altered - the telecine zooms back as the DTS logo appears, because when the revised trailer was made, the new ending was framed too low relative to the Digital Experience part (and I swear I remember seeing theatrical presentations that chopped off part of the word "SOUND" because the projectionist centered the frame relative to the first half).

poita, I know you've been interested in handling this project, but I actually know of (just know OF, I haven't been in contact with him) a guy who DOES have 4K scanning capabilities, and lives in the U.S., and has done some scanning for another project I'm following.

Here are two examples of his scanning: A German trailer for The Thief and the Cobbler and the SDDS "pyramid" trailer.

I PMed mikeaz and told him about this guy, never heard back. Again, I know you wanted to do this project, but if it's cost-prohibitive for you to upgrade your setup to 4K + have the print shipped from the U.S. to Australia...

It is true that some early Technicolor films were timed to be somewhat less saturated. The Kino BD of A Star is Born was taken from an original IB and it looks quite muted.

That said, animation historian Thad Komorowski has seen an original print and posted an image on his blog. It's the Silly Song sequence, it has a golden cast over the entire scene. I don't know if that was the timing of the whole film, or just that scene.

Would the 40s/50s reissue trailer give any clues. It seems to be from an IB source, and it does date back to the 40s (the version officially available has the RKO credit scratched out, and so dates to when Buena Vista reissued it themselves in the 50s). I remember it looking gold-ish too.