The Decimator

The 2007 remix of Help! also has new, distracting sound effects in a few places. There’s a shot of a guy firing off a rifle early in the film, and the original sound effect is appropriately loud and threatening. In the remix, it’s replaced by a quieter, wimpier noise.

jay2chill1 said:

jolennon said:

The Toy Story change was made before the first DVD release. The original opening never made its way to digital home video, only laserdisc/vhs.

Did they reainmate the movie or restore it because it looks different from the Laserdisc

When they first released it on DVD, they did a fresh transfer from the original files. Most prints before that used the 35mm film print as seen in theaters (including the VHS that I have).

SpacemanDoug said:

PsyKovic said:

SpacemanDoug said:

The “best” is the US 2009 BD even though it’s slightly windowboxed for overscan, it doesn’t have the DNR issues though and has the original Japanese stereo mix (however it also has dub titles rather than proper translation subs)

The re-releases from FUNmation use the same master iirc but exclude the original mix, which is significant because the remix has many changes

The true Theatrical Mix Was Never Released On Home Media for what I’ve heard

If that’s true then idk how the current stereo track would be any different, seems original to me

The film underwent some extremely minor changes when it was first released on home video. Certain scenes were reanimated and a few tweaks were made to the soundtrack.

Baobab Archiver said:

The Decimator said:

MeTV has started airing The A-Team every weekday, and unfortunately the episodes are all missing their teasers.

I think, sadly, that’s the case with pretty much all broadcasts or streaming these days.

I’ve just completed reconstructing another two season 3 trailers. 16 down, 8 to go 😊

I hope I can keep up the enthusiasm to work through season 2!

On the bright side, though, the other night they left in Murdoch singing various Beach Boys songs!

MeTV has started airing The A-Team every weekday, and unfortunately the episodes are all missing their teasers.

“You catch on pretty quick.” - Our lord and savior Ric Olie, 1999

The original TMNT cartoon seems to have had some minor audio alterations on DVD. I’m not too sure what the episodes originally sounded like, because I wasn’t alive back then, but I known for a fact that some of the sound effects on the DVD did not exist yet when the episodes originally aired.

Has anyone else mentioned what the recent UHD releases of the Indiana Jones films have done to the special effects? They’ve been cleaning up all of the optical effects and matte lines.

https://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=596106

https://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=823965

https://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=247468

That cinematic classic “Riki-Oh” is on Blu-ray, but not Star Wars.

The Decimator said:

The Muppets came to Disney+ recently, and, wouldn’t you know it, they’ve been edited to hell and back! Not only is The Muppet Show edited to remove “copyright infringing” material, but there are two episodes missing entirely. Namely, the Brooke Shields one, and the one hosted by Chris Langham (for those of you that don’t live in Britain, he was a comedian who got arrested for looking up child porn on his computer).

As for their theatrical releases, they made it through mostly intact. The only exception is The Muppet Christmas Carol, probably one of the best adaptations of the story. What’s so offensive about this timeless classic? Well, they removed the character of Bobby Benson’s trademark cigarette in a scene that only lasts for about two seconds. Keep in mind that this scene appears intact on Blu-Ray releases. Also note that this character’s appearances in the TV show have not been edited at all, so why they erased it in this one scene baffles me.

I have been made aware of another egregious edit to The Muppet Christmas Carol. In several scenes, the characters’ arm rods have been digitally erased: https://mobile.twitter.com/sokdrawer/status/1468423317371633666

SpacemanDoug said:

The 5.1 mix on the new 4K of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly takes out the new sound effects and the mono track is a newly restored one taken from the 1990 laserdisc

Thank the lord! Now if we could only get a proper restoration of the Dirty Harry movies.

The Muppets came to Disney+ recently, and, wouldn’t you know it, they’ve been edited to hell and back! Not only is The Muppet Show edited to remove “copyright infringing” material, but there are two episodes missing entirely. Namely, the Brooke Shields one, and the one hosted by Chris Langham (for those of you that don’t live in Britain, he was a comedian who got arrested for looking up child porn on his computer).

As for their theatrical releases, they made it through mostly intact. The only exception is The Muppet Christmas Carol, probably one of the best adaptations of the story. What’s so offensive about this timeless classic? Well, they removed the character of Bobby Benson’s trademark cigarette in a scene that only lasts for about two seconds. Keep in mind that this scene appears intact on Blu-Ray releases. Also note that this character’s appearances in the TV show have not been edited at all, so why they erased it in this one scene baffles me.

I can confirm that Gunbuster is another anime that has a modified 5.1 surround track.

crissrudd4554 said:

crissrudd4554 said:

SpacemanDoug said:

crissrudd4554 said:

Blu Ray 1977 said:

crissrudd4554 said:

I believe Fast Times at Ridgemont High had some changes as well. Some home video releases had different songs due to licensing but I think this was resolved by the time the film made it to DVD. The surround mix first introduced on the 2005 DVD had some minor effects changes I believe. That DVD as well as the BD does not have the mono. The original DVD and the High School Reunion DVD as far as I know has the correct original mono!

It’s me Pete 1972! You remember when we commented on the Jaws videos? Looks like another film is getting the audio revisionism treatment. According to Digital Bits and some fans, Batman 89’s Dolby Atmos mix has a lot of changes with the sound effects. Gun shots have been altered and the starting up of the Batmobile is changed too. Also Digital Bits said that the Dolby 5.1 on the 4K is a downmix and not the 5.1 that was on the previous Blu Ray.

Figures. (Rolls eyes) Apparently the 4K release of Blade Runner also has audio revisions though I’m not sure off hand what they are.

And yes I do remember you. Nice to see ya again!

actually the audio revisions on Blade Runner date back to when the 2007 Blu-ray was released, and the revisions are only on the final cut, the other cuts have the original sound effects

No I’ve seen comments on bluray.com that apparently more revisions were made to the Final Cut mix for the UHD release.

Comparisons for Blade Runner.

US Theatrical/International Theatrical/Director’s Cut

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaR5wVL9x2I

Final Cut (2007 mix)

https://youtu.be/LwDdP88Dr54

Final Cut (2017 mix)

https://youtu.be/P1jXmJmmj3o

I had a feeling that something was up with Blade Runner’s audio. Nice to have confirmation from those clips.

I’ve come across some particularly heinous examples of audio alteration: apparently, in Japan, certain anime films have been “remastered” in stereo by having the original voice actors (or replacements if they’ve died since then) come in and re-record all of their dialogue, and annoying new sound effects are sprinkled on top. Films I know of that have had this treatment include The Wings of Honneamise (Gainax’s first theatrical release), some Gundam films, and the first two Patlabor films.

I should also mention the extensive post-production done to the Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise. For the series’ Platinum Edition release, the soundtrack was totally overhauled. They added in new background dialogue to provide important expository information that Hideaki Anno had always meant to put in before, but had no time due to the series’ demanding production schedule. Megumi Hayashibara was the only actress from the series to provide dialogue for this project. In addition, they also added in new, extremely unfitting sound effects.

Also, today I was watching an episode of Ultraman Taro on YouTube, via Tsuburaya Production’s official account. It seems that this series is another victim of 5.1 “remastering”. Go to 17:23 in the link below and you’ll see that they’ve added in some modern explosion and debris sounds.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CiXFRCnsDy0

Disney+ edits to movies/TV shows:

Adventures in Babysitting: Some lines from the TV edit have made their way into this streaming version; namely, the word “homo” is replaced by “weirdo”, and “fuck” is replaced by “fool”.

The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin: This is a somewhat obscure Western film starring Roddy McDowall. I’ve never seen it, but apparently, some racial slurs have been erased.

Free Solo: Another film I’ve never seen. The phrase “fucked up” is replaced by “messed up”. “Goddamn” is also taken out of a TV documentary in a later scene.

Gravity Falls: Season 1 episodes have mysteriously removed the symbol on Grunkle Stan’s fez. This was apparently an edit made for overseas countries that somehow made it onto our version of the streaming service.

Hannah Montana: For whatever reason, a Season 2 episode has a character’s name changed from “Isis” to “Ice”. Despite this, another character named “Isis” in an episode of Even Stevens has not been altered.

Splash: The most infamous of all the edits. All instances of nudity have been blurred out, cropped, or covered by CGI hair.

There are more examples I didn’t mention, and possibly more that nobody has discovered yet. Are any of you guys brave enough to look for more?

Apparently Black Christmas (1974) has suffered a lot in its 5.1 remaster. Not only are there added sounds and music, but the audio is also out of sync!

Bladez636 said:

Oldfan said:

Well I caved in and bought the new US blu-ray release in SD. Both the English and original Japanese episodes look pretty dreadful. I mean really bad. I’m not sure if it’s better or worse than the UK set, but they’re all bad. The motion on the new blu-ray is particularly problematic. I wouldn’t be shocked if I learned they transferred them from the PAL tapes. The motion is really odd, and the image is very blurred in general, with very bad aliasing. I think the French set is the only worthwhile set, but sadly of course it’s not in English, and rather pricey now I think.

I do like that the original Japanese episodes are included, and they do look different than the English episodes (slightly different aspect ratio and colors), but neither is particularly watchable.

I really expected nothing less tbh. I bought it too just for the sub aspect since I plan to do a separate remaster of the Japanese version.

The master Discotek used is the same as the UK DVD, except… worse. I think it’s an early version that Fabulous Films had initially done (The UK DVD was originally slated for a fall 2008 release before they delayed it to its February 2009 release; I speculate they weren’t satisfied and did further editing). The audio on all Episodes after the 9th are worse than the UK DVD (especially Episode 11), though they’re definitely the same audio masters - FF did some lowpass filter cleanup to them. The intro and end credits on the US DVD are taken from the 8th Episode (you can see the opening shot of X-Bomber through the interlacing on some episodes). The UK DVD similarly transplants the opening and ending from Episode 8 but with some color correction, plus the respective intro audio is left intact rather than transplanted like the US DVD.

Could be that Enoki or Fabulous Films accidentally, or purposely, sent them this inferior master. It’s pretty common for Japanese distributors to screw over American releases to curb reverse importing. FWIW I really don’t think Discotek did these edits, because I follow a lot of their video editors on twitter, and they’re pretty competent in what they do. Yet, I really don’t think Discotek sees this show as a particular “best seller” and didn’t put a whole lot of work into it; their releases of the show are pretty bare bones.

Of course, the PAL version is going to be better since PAL holds more resolution; but it’s still the same bad looking 3rd or 4th Generation 16mm master but minorly improved. Discotek really could only interlace the dub to 29fps in order for the disc to be playable on most American players (not all have PAL compatibility, region locked or not, which there’s 0 excuse for in this day and age). The Japanese version is slightly better, but it’s washed out with a cyan hue to all of the episodes; all I can really say is that it’s really more use to my project than the UK DVD. I think it’s a 2nd or 3rd generation print; it’s still fairly sharp unlike the US DVD. With some contrast upping and color correction, it looks presentable with the French footage, which is more than I can say about the UK DVD. Knowing Japan’s piss poor record of preservation; I’m in no way certain the original masters for the show even exist anymore.

The French DVD is by far, the best out there, but it’s missing some bits present in the English/Japanese versions; thus this Herculean pain in the ass project since the Japanese and UK DVD’s are my only other sources to fill in those gaps.

Toei, in particular, is notorious for the way it deals with western distributors. For example, they refused to lend the footage of some Transformers OVA to Madman Entertainment. Madman had to use a low-quality fan sub for the release. Pretty much the only company they get along with is Funimation, but that’s probably because Funimation’s CEO has an uncle who works at Toei.

We can add another film to this list. A classic anime film called “Patlabor: The Motion Picture” has had severe sound effect alterations and additions on Blu-Ray, with the result being that the film now sounds too loud. Its sequel from a few years later has the same problem, but on a much lesser scale.

Blu Ray 1977 said:

crissrudd4554 said:

I believe Fast Times at Ridgemont High had some changes as well. Some home video releases had different songs due to licensing but I think this was resolved by the time the film made it to DVD. The surround mix first introduced on the 2005 DVD had some minor effects changes I believe. That DVD as well as the BD does not have the mono. The original DVD and the High School Reunion DVD as far as I know has the correct original mono!

It’s me Pete 1972! You remember when we commented on the Jaws videos? Looks like another film is getting the audio revisionism treatment. According to Digital Bits and some fans, Batman 89’s Dolby Atmos mix has a lot of changes with the sound effects. Gun shots have been altered and the starting up of the Batmobile is changed too. Also Digital Bits said that the Dolby 5.1 on the 4K is a downmix and not the 5.1 that was on the previous Blu Ray.

Not Batman too!!! The film was made in Britain so it utilizes the Cinesound sound effects library, as heard in many classic British-made films and TV shows such as Alien and its first sequel, pretty much all of Gerry Anderson’s shows, the Christopher Reeve Superman films, the James Bond films, and many more. The Cinesound library has lots of powerful and unique sounds that can’t be found in any modern sound effects library (although some have managed to sneak through). It’s a shame that a lot of the films I just mentioned have had them replaced on
DVD and Blu-Ray with modern Hollywood Edge and Sound Ideas garbage that doesn’t fit the time period in which they were made.

SpacemanDoug said:

The Decimator said:

SpacemanDoug said:

SpacemanDoug said:

The Decimator said:

Some other examples of movies with altered sound effects:

The Godfather (I and II): The first two Godfather films have had several alterations in recent releases, such as ambient wind and birds.

H.B. Halicki’s entire filmography: The late director responsible for Gone in 60 Seconds, The Junkman, and Deadline Auto Theft, would have cried if he saw the numerous audio changes made to every single one of his movies. Not only have all the sound effects been altered, but Gone In 60 Seconds also has new, inferior music, along with several missing scenes (including most instances of profanity!). His widow is the one responsible for these changes, and she has outright refused all requests for an unaltered release.

Dirty Harry series: Among the most infamous stereo remixes in terms of changes made, all of the films in this series were butchered when released on DVD. Sadly, the Blu-Rays do not include their original soundtracks, so your best bet with these would be the Laserdiscs.

An American Werewolf in London: The film was remastered in stereo in 2001 for its 20th anniversary. Unfortunately, this meant that all of the sound effects were replaced, and the audio has also been slowed down for some strange reason. This is another film that didn’t get its original soundtrack on Blu-Ray, but its very first DVD release from 1997 does include it.

Smokey and the Bandit: Another film with altered sounds for its stereo remix, but luckily, the recent Blu-Ray features the mono.

1941: The “Director’s Cut” of this Spielberg bomb has a few slight sound additions.

Duel: Spielberg’s first film has also been ruined by its remastered version. I don’t know what sounds they added or changed, as I haven’t seen the movie. I’m guessing they changed the truck’s horn or something like that.

Halloween (1978): Apparently, modern thunder noises have been added. They also added tons of atmospheric insect sounds in the nighttime scenes. When Annie is inside of her car, you can still hear the insects even though she is supposed to be inside.

Mad Max: Severe alterations in the 5.1 mix, and there are even some original ones that have gone missing!

Psycho: Tons of added foley to scenes that are supposed to be silent. The worst thing is that this even includes the famous shower scene, where they added new water foley effects and squeaky faucets.

In The Heat of The Night: I have never seen this movie, but it apparently suffered a lot when remixed in stereo. This includes annoying ambience sounds (they added a distant train horn, for Christ’s sake!), and horribly reverbed audio (Ray Charles now sounds like he’s singing in a bathroom).

The Sound of Music: Not only are there modern thunder and rain sounds at one point, but some original sounds are absent!

Vertigo: One of the most infamous remixes of all time. The 5.0 remix on Blu-Ray removes most of the added foley (gunshots and footsteps), but there’s still some ambient wind sounds.

Rocky (the first film): Added foley and out-of-place reverb (why is there reverb in a parking lot?).

The French Connection: New car sounds and city ambience. Luckily, the Blu-Ray includes the mono track.

Evil Dead (the original): Several random sounds are missing in the stereo remix, possibly a side effect of the severe noise reduction applied. I’m not sure if the Blu-Ray features the mono or not.

The Conversation: Added foley, which has the result of making everything sound too busy. This one also has the mono track included on Blu-Ray.

Chinatown: Pretty much every time a gun is fired gets changed, as well as every scene of Jack Nicholson in a car. Another one where they have the mono included on Blu-Ray.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: Another awful mess of added foley and insect noises. Even when the characters are inside with closed windows, you can still hear the insects! Horse hoof noises are also replaced, as well as all the explosions. The mono is featured on this Blu-Ray, too, but only on the American release.

Barry Lyndon: More altered explosion sounds.

My Favorite Brunette: According to an irate Amazon customer, the Blu-Ray released by Kino has added modern foley effects such as doors opening and paper crinkling.

Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory: This anime classic received a 5.0 remix with different sound effects that are totally out of place for something that was originally released in the 80s.

Oh yeah two you left out were Animal House and Blues Brothers
Animal House had several small sound effects replaced and remixed the soundtrack. Blues Brothers despite being originally released in stereo still had several sound effects replaced, the songs remixed to sound more modern, and the score in at least a couple places was revised a bit.

I knew there was something up with the soundtrack of The Blues Brothers! Last summer, I was watching it on some movie channel with my father and some of the car sounds in the final chase scene sounded a little too “modern” for 1980. Does the Blu-ray have the mono track on it?

original mix was actually stereo, and sadly no it doesn’t include the original English stereo

Oh, that’s a shame. I guess I won’t be getting that on Blu-Ray anytime soon.

Speaking of films set in Chicago, it looks like we can add The Sting to the list of films with butchered soundtracks. According to the excellent “Bad Audio on Blu-Ray” website, there are several instances of replaced sound effects, such as guns, a cash register ringing, and cars. The concept of silence is also removed, as every scene is now accompanied by some sort of ambient sound in the background. Don’t expect to hear the original mono on Blu-Ray, cause you won’t find it. Luckily, there are two earlier DVD releases that include it.

SpacemanDoug said:

SpacemanDoug said:

The Decimator said:

Some other examples of movies with altered sound effects:

The Godfather (I and II): The first two Godfather films have had several alterations in recent releases, such as ambient wind and birds.

H.B. Halicki’s entire filmography: The late director responsible for Gone in 60 Seconds, The Junkman, and Deadline Auto Theft, would have cried if he saw the numerous audio changes made to every single one of his movies. Not only have all the sound effects been altered, but Gone In 60 Seconds also has new, inferior music, along with several missing scenes (including most instances of profanity!). His widow is the one responsible for these changes, and she has outright refused all requests for an unaltered release.

Dirty Harry series: Among the most infamous stereo remixes in terms of changes made, all of the films in this series were butchered when released on DVD. Sadly, the Blu-Rays do not include their original soundtracks, so your best bet with these would be the Laserdiscs.

An American Werewolf in London: The film was remastered in stereo in 2001 for its 20th anniversary. Unfortunately, this meant that all of the sound effects were replaced, and the audio has also been slowed down for some strange reason. This is another film that didn’t get its original soundtrack on Blu-Ray, but its very first DVD release from 1997 does include it.

Smokey and the Bandit: Another film with altered sounds for its stereo remix, but luckily, the recent Blu-Ray features the mono.

1941: The “Director’s Cut” of this Spielberg bomb has a few slight sound additions.

Duel: Spielberg’s first film has also been ruined by its remastered version. I don’t know what sounds they added or changed, as I haven’t seen the movie. I’m guessing they changed the truck’s horn or something like that.

Halloween (1978): Apparently, modern thunder noises have been added. They also added tons of atmospheric insect sounds in the nighttime scenes. When Annie is inside of her car, you can still hear the insects even though she is supposed to be inside.

Mad Max: Severe alterations in the 5.1 mix, and there are even some original ones that have gone missing!

Psycho: Tons of added foley to scenes that are supposed to be silent. The worst thing is that this even includes the famous shower scene, where they added new water foley effects and squeaky faucets.

In The Heat of The Night: I have never seen this movie, but it apparently suffered a lot when remixed in stereo. This includes annoying ambience sounds (they added a distant train horn, for Christ’s sake!), and horribly reverbed audio (Ray Charles now sounds like he’s singing in a bathroom).

The Sound of Music: Not only are there modern thunder and rain sounds at one point, but some original sounds are absent!

Vertigo: One of the most infamous remixes of all time. The 5.0 remix on Blu-Ray removes most of the added foley (gunshots and footsteps), but there’s still some ambient wind sounds.

Rocky (the first film): Added foley and out-of-place reverb (why is there reverb in a parking lot?).

The French Connection: New car sounds and city ambience. Luckily, the Blu-Ray includes the mono track.

Evil Dead (the original): Several random sounds are missing in the stereo remix, possibly a side effect of the severe noise reduction applied. I’m not sure if the Blu-Ray features the mono or not.

The Conversation: Added foley, which has the result of making everything sound too busy. This one also has the mono track included on Blu-Ray.

Chinatown: Pretty much every time a gun is fired gets changed, as well as every scene of Jack Nicholson in a car. Another one where they have the mono included on Blu-Ray.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: Another awful mess of added foley and insect noises. Even when the characters are inside with closed windows, you can still hear the insects! Horse hoof noises are also replaced, as well as all the explosions. The mono is featured on this Blu-Ray, too, but only on the American release.

Barry Lyndon: More altered explosion sounds.

My Favorite Brunette: According to an irate Amazon customer, the Blu-Ray released by Kino has added modern foley effects such as doors opening and paper crinkling.

Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory: This anime classic received a 5.0 remix with different sound effects that are totally out of place for something that was originally released in the 80s.

Oh yeah two you left out were Animal House and Blues Brothers
Animal House had several small sound effects replaced and remixed the soundtrack. Blues Brothers despite being originally released in stereo still had several sound effects replaced, the songs remixed to sound more modern, and the score in at least a couple places was revised a bit.

I knew there was something up with the soundtrack of The Blues Brothers! Last summer, I was watching it on some movie channel with my father and some of the car sounds in the final chase scene sounded a little too “modern” for 1980. Does the Blu-ray have the mono track on it?

The 1982 movie “Firefox” has apparently been altered audio-wise on modern home video releases. I’ve never seen the movie, so I couldn’t tell you what’s been changed.

ScottZill said:

The Decimator said:

crissrudd4554 said:

The Decimator said:

I’m watching Scarface on AMC right now, and it sounds like they’ve changed the sound effects for the guns.

Yes.

crissrudd4554 said:
There’s also been examples such as Grease and Scarface where although the original mixes were not mono they still were given 5.1 remixes later on that completely revised everything.

That’s what happens when I don’t pay attention to the rest of the thread😏

Back on topic, have any of you guys seen the classic anime film, AKIRA? Recently, I watched it for the first time, and something about the film’s sound design struck me as sounding too modern for 1988. Sure enough, I happened to find a post on Blu-Ray.com that says the film’s sound effects have been tampered with on Blu-Ray, so it would appear that not even Japan is safe from this kind of audio alteration. If you want to get an idea of how the film’s sound effects used to be, watch the original English dub by Streamline Pictures (the 2002 dub by Animaze also has a lot of added effects, which is a shame, because it’s the better of the two dubs).

Which Blu-Ray release?

Every Blu-Ray release has these changes, but they were actually introduced when the film was first remastered in 2001.

crissrudd4554 said:

The Decimator said:

I’m watching Scarface on AMC right now, and it sounds like they’ve changed the sound effects for the guns.

Yes.

crissrudd4554 said:
There’s also been examples such as Grease and Scarface where although the original mixes were not mono they still were given 5.1 remixes later on that completely revised everything.

That’s what happens when I don’t pay attention to the rest of the thread😏

Back on topic, have any of you guys seen the classic anime film, AKIRA? Recently, I watched it for the first time, and something about the film’s sound design struck me as sounding too modern for 1988. Sure enough, I happened to find a post on Blu-Ray.com that says the film’s sound effects have been tampered with on Blu-Ray, so it would appear that not even Japan is safe from this kind of audio alteration. If you want to get an idea of how the film’s sound effects used to be, watch the original English dub by Streamline Pictures (the 2002 dub by Animaze also has a lot of added effects, which is a shame, because it’s the better of the two dubs).

I’m watching Scarface on AMC right now, and it sounds like they’ve changed the sound effects for the guns.