thatguamguy

Keep in mind that Roddenberry was unhappy with every “Star Trek” movie because he wanted the Enterprise crew to go back in time and save JFK, and the studio consistently rejected the idea.

I have to assume Roddenberry would’ve wanted them to cut all references to Kirk hating Klingons, because Kirk can’t be a bigot, which would completely remove his whole character arc.

Any chance they’d be willing to share the Ullman show recordings somewhere? As you say, it’s a super-rare show, I’m sure people would be interested. I’ve always been unsatisfied with a lot of the Simpsons shorts that are circulating.

I found a few different rips floating around on Soulseek. The problem is, I’m not familiar with the DVDs, so I don’t know where to look to see which versions they are. I saw another post by you where you said the missing song in “Red Sees Red” is in the opening scene, and the version of that which I found had no song there, so presumably that one is useless, but there are a few sources from season 1 & 2, I don’t mind pre-checking them so as not to waste your time but I don’t know what I am looking for.

the Italian Blu-ray (which IMHO looks slightly better than the German Blu-ray in terms of picture quality from what I’ve read)

I heard about that after I’d already bought the German, and it sounded “slight” enough for my needs.

Anyway, that makes more sense now. Good luck!

[BTW: your initial post says “September 2018” where I think you mean 2019.]

With all of these posts, I’m not clear at all on what you’re specifically restoring. Why is this “restoration” going to be preferable to the German disc? I know that “For A Few Dollars More” and “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly”, you have to pick a release based on what compromise bothers you the least, but what’s being fixed here? It sounds as if it’s more than just the comprehensive bonus features (which sounds like a great package), just not sure what it is.

Here is the full list of differences from “Trilogy” as-aired in the two-hour slot and the syndicated edit which has been released on DVD and HD, which I will refer to as “Part 3”:

Obviously, Part 3 opens with a recap, which the two-parter didn’t need. (I guess they couldn’t cut enough out to make room for the Ziggy intro, though, because it’s missing that.) Part 3 ends the leap-in tease on the traditional “Oh boy”, followed by the credits. Then cuts back in on Sam’s “I have a bad feeling about this.” The two hour version (awkwardly) inserts a shot of Sam instead of the “Oh boy”, but the scene continues with no break for commercials. My intent, if I did it, was to retain “Trilogy Part 3” as a stand-alone episode, and keep the “Oh boy” (I wouldn’t know how to get the credits out cleanly, so better to just embrace it), but to add Ziggy’s intro and maybe trim back the recap because it’s too repetitious and has info that is not important in this episode.

Extra lines (about five seconds) from Marie the servant and Al, before lawyer’s wife is super-racist:
Al: “[The guy Sam has leapt into] never took Abigail’s case.”
Marie: “If he would just hear me out–”
Al: "I’ll give ya two to one Miss Ice-Ass there was the reason."
Wife: “I have told you a million times,” etc.

Extra voiceover intro (about fifteen seconds) before the “police tape” shot, at the beginning of Act Two.
Shots of Sam driving through town, to the crime scene
Sam: "Al was right, I was still in love with Abigail. And as each memory of her found its way back into my mind, it brought with it a history of death, from Leta to Bart and finally to Violet. Little Violet Aider had waited…"

Goof (un)Fixed
When Sammie Joe leaves with Marie, the door closing shot right before the commercial break is vertically flipped. Based on the direction that the door opens earlier in the scene, the two hour version is oriented correctly while the Part 3 version is wrong.

Extra half-scene: Entire prosecutor’s opening speech is cut from the “Part 3” edit. (Establishing shot remains) The scene is three minutes long, so I’m not gonna transcribe it all, he lays out his whole circumstantial case – basically, exactly how Sam describes it in his opening speech immediately afterward – Sam has objections, the judge explains that you can’t object during opening remarks, the prosecutor says that he’s going to seek the death penalty and everybody gasps and Marie shouts “Noooooo!”
Judge’s line “Would you care to address the jury?” is delivered off-screen over the establishing shot in the Part 3 version, is shown onscreen in the two hour version; from there, the scene continues the same in both.

The ending of the first courtroom scene, when Sam has some sort of heart trouble, is also a bit longer. Extra dialogue, but it’s incidental. Max Wright gets a little more screentime. (Sam might mutter something like “I’ll send out your letters,” which, if that’s what he is saying, is reinforcing a plotpoint for later… but not very well because the line is way too low and mumbled.) About twenty seconds or so.

Extra lines in the scene with Abigail’s mother Laura Fuller in the institution (about twenty seconds):
Al: You know Sam, I might be wrong, but I’ve just got a hunch if you get her into the courtroom and put her on the stand, where she can see Abigail and everybody, it’ll all just come out. And even if Denton Waters disqualifies the testimony, at least the jury will hear the testimony.
(as Al talks, Laura is seen retrieving the locket and bringing it over to Sam [in the “Part 3” cut, she just kinda has it all of a sudden, you can’t unsee the jump cut after you watch this])
Laura Fuller: It wasn’t Abigail’s fault, Clayton. You knew that.

Extra flashback during the last trial scene: (about thirty seconds)
Sam: “And then…” (Laura can’t say more, so he continues for her) "Laura went to the only person she could trust, her husband. And told him what happened…
(black and white flashback, showing Clayton sliding a board over the well in the rain)
Sam (continuing in voice over) "That night in the dark, in the rain, Clayton Fuller decided to keep Laura’s secret. Without looking back, he sealed Violet in the well."
(Back to courtoom/color) Prosecutor “You expect the court to believe that Violet’s death was an accident?”
Yes, the show built a three-part episode around a single mystery and then omitted the complete solution from the cut they distribute

Different insert shot:
When Sam is looking at the phone company bill, the insert which inspires his “Eureka” moment is different.

• two hour version: closer shot where you can’t read the return address on the envelope, and the bill itself has been put back in folded the wrong way because it has been opened, so it doesn’t show Abigail’s name, just some dates and times (and the shot is too short to really convey any information, I had to pause it and look back to explain any of this).
• Part 3 version: slightly wider so that you can see “Louisiana Telephone Company” as the return address, and Abigail’s name and address showing in the envelope window. But the envelope has clearly never been opened.
  I think this insert shot was replaced because the insert in the original doesn’t really work for the audience, but it makes Sam’s sudden realization about who killed Leta a bit more “complete shot in the dark by intuition”. The earlier version where the envelope has been opened (Sam is paying Abigail’s bills for her), combined with dialogue in this episode about Sam having a photographic memory, makes it a bit of a narrative leap for the audience to make but it makes sense if you think about it way too much. [I imagine that in a “perfect” version, the envelope would be opened but the telephone company logo would be visible.]

Different ending leap-in:

• two hour has the doctor soap opera (I think it’s a rerun of “Moments to Live”)
• part 3 has the bank robbery (the next new episode, “Promised Land”).

Also, fun fact, according to the commercials, the two part “Trilogy” aired sometime within a week prior to the first appearance of Jerry Orbach on “Law and Order”.

My understanding is that Universal says that these are all they have, the other stuff was destroyed in a fire. It doesn’t exactly make sense (somehow the LHO got expanded for the UK), but I think it’s fair to say that “Trilogy” won’t ever exist in proper HD.

I have an mpeg ripped from a VHS of “Trilogy” with all of the extra footage, I would gladly contribute that to somebody’s project. I wanted to do it myself, but I hit some technical problems with the DVD import and I don’t know how to do a “proper” upscale to cut VHS in with the Bluray footage. I would LOVE for somebody to take this project on, I actually think most of the extra footage is good, and one shot in the episode somehow got flipped for the syndicated cut so there’s a non-broadcast goof in the HD version. All that I would want in exchange for this copy is a digital copy of the completed restored version.

This sounds like a great project, I just wanted to add that the DVD version of season 1’s “Telltale Head” is cut by almost a minute compared to the broadcast version. It’s all in the final scene. I wanted to create at least a patchwork fix for myself, but the only copy I could find of the uncut footage was on Youtube, which was good for confirming the exact details of what is missing from the DVD, but such terrible quality that it could not be used. There are other small discrepancies here and there, such as the “Tourette’s Syndrome” joke, but I believe “Telltale Head” has the only significant omissions on any of the sets.

sithmastersidious said:

Are the blu rays missing any footage?

There were six episodes of the show which aired as two part episodes initially.
“Lee Harvey Oswald” was intact on DVD and UK Blu, but was the syndicated “split” cut on the US blu, missing a scene in the middle of the episode.
The second and third parts of “Trilogy” aired as a single unit, but all of the subsequent releases have been the syndicated “split” cuts; “Trilogy Part II” is unaffected, but “Trilogy Part III” is missing something like five minutes, almost all of it devoted to the mystery of the overall trilogy. By removing all of this footage, the syndicated cut is much more focused on the story of Sam’s daughter (which makes sense when prepared for a casual syndication audience, but is disappointing when they’re all together).
“Return of the Evil Leaper” and “Revenge of the Evil Leaper” aired as a two hour event as well. I’ve yet to be able to track down a copy of this, but I believe that the airing was padded out with behind the scenes footage from the upcoming Civil War episode rather than additional footage in the episode. (The behind the scenes Civil War stuff hasn’t been included anywhere.)

There’s also a few minutes in an episode where they messed up the framing, and one of the leap-outs is the wrong color for some reason. All of this, but nobody has spotted any music replacements on the Blu yet!

Apologies for bumping an old thread, but I saw it on the list for this show.

I was working on a project restoring the edits that were made for the DVD (there are music edits in every episode but one, and there are four examples of cut or alternate footage, in addition to censored shots).

Most of them I was able to get good sources for, but I’m looking for copies of the following:

• original broadcast of the premiere episode (the appropriate air date would apparently be 12/17/93); there’s a sketch about beer which was cut out after the early airings because of complaints. The sketch is on the DVD, but with music changes.
• episode 206 - of all the copies I obtained, the broadcast version of this was in the worst shape, so I would love a better source than the one I have.
• episode 312 - the end credits have a long conversation between Marino and Wain, which was re-recorded for the DVD with different music. The only source I have for this has an MTV announcer over part of the credits. This is a longshot, but maybe somebody has a copy without the announcer, or at least covering a different part.

103, 104, and 305 also have specific sketches which I’m not entirely satisfied with my source.

The theatrical cut of “Blood Simple” was released on VHS (I would assume it was on laser disc but not sure). There was a DVD in R2 which restored some of the cut footage, but not all.

Wes Craven’s (terrible) “Chiller” was released on a DVD which looked transferred from a VHS and was heavily cut. There was a German VHS release which was longer, though possibly still not uncut.

“Hearts of Darkness”, the documentary of the making of “Apocalypse Now”, supposedly had a few small cuts made before Coppola would allow it to be released on DVD. The only specific references I have seen are that one reference to Harvey Keitel was cut, and Coppola singing “Anything Goes”. I’m hoping other people know more about this one.

“Ishtar” might count – it’s only ever been officially released on DVD/Blu as a slightly shortened director’s cut, but technically the theatrical cut was pressed and a few copies trickled out even though the release was cancelled before the official release date.

“The Muppet Movie” had a longer theatrical cut in the UK, released on VHS and nowhere else.

William Friedkin’s “Rampage” has never been released on DVD in region 1; the European version has had a DVD release, but the US cut is significantly different – I don’t know the differences, but I’m sure there’s some extra footage to qualify for this list. It was released on VHS, not sure of the LD status.

Oliver Stone’s “Seizure” - DVD and Blu are the US PG cut, but there was a longer “R-rated” cut. There is a German VHS release, but according to movie-censorship.com it is very rare and might not be entirely uncut, though it seems like all they have to reference the what is missing.

The unrated cut of Spike Lee’s “She’s Gotta Have It” was only ever released on a Criterion laserdisc; supposedly, they’re working on a Bluray of it.

Also, the “German cut” of “Psycho” is now being released on Blu-ray in a German box set, and the unrated cut of “Candyman” is being released by Shout Factory and Arrow, so those can be removed.

Robert Altman’s “California Split” was cut for the DVD, but I’m not sure whether it was ever released in any format prior to that, so I don’t know if that would count.