thxita

Like most of my preservation efforts, I’m working on a release of this film for the Italian audience, however, I’m going to make use of seamless branching so this project will include both original and Italian versions of the intro titles. And since I’ll be fiddling with seamless branching it’s easy to add other alternative versions of the same segments, so I wanted to know if this film was ever released on home video in any other European country with localized title screens? Perhaps in the French or German Laserdiscs and/or VHS? Can anybody check it out for me? I would love to add more localized versions.

SilverWook said:

That you know of. George never makes only one change. 😉

“Harrison’s car never had enough exhaust pipes… We digitally added six extra ones because that’s how I originally intended”

I recall it being a very simple title card, no special font.

Italian cut is the same as the US theatrical cut apparently, that’s what Poita is working on. So a grindhouse of that will be the first to arrive, once the color alignment is sorted. Correct me if I’m wrong Poita.

As Poita is working for us, the first offspring of this project has already come to life as Mavimao made use of this material to whip up a quick&dirty English version for us enjoy now while we wait for the main course. Here’s the thread http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/THX-1138-1st-Directors-Cut-35mm-Grindhouse-Edition/id/49918/ go check it out.

Also, don’t forget about our angel Poita, if anyone still wants to help him out you can do so by donating a bit of your spare change.

It was. At the same time the old one is too long to easily navigate and this one also allows donators to keep track of the progress.

But I’m open to suggestions from everybody.

Poita, I hope that you and family can get well soon, my friend.

Recent update on the preservation project: second and final part has been scanned and will be shipped next week.

Did I forget your name? Sorry Colson, I’ll fix it when I’m home.

I finally watched the clip, Poita. It’s brilliant! For taking care of this, I love you nearly as much as I love the film! ;D

The second half of the film should be scanned soon (if it hasn’t been already). I’ve updated the list of benefactors with a new entry. Any newcomer that just found out about this project, please do consider donating something to cover for Poita’s expenses, he’s the one now making the magic happen.

Was that a San Francisco location? I never investigated

SilverWook said:

For those of you who haven’t seen the Rogue One trailer yet, there is something the movie has in common with THX. Can you guess what it is? 😉

The underground metro!

I think it’s actually both ahahah, but I can understand his point of view.

I think anybody can sympathize with Lucas in that situation but in retrospective it also shows a side of his persona that really degenerated in the late 90’s up to the point where now (now that he has successfully eliminated any sort of interference, with his prequels and his special editions) he’s down to blaming the fans.

George Lucas, whining and blaming others since '71

Mavimao, you know you just “won” the task of making a visual guide to all the known versions of THX? 😛
(once the whole scan is finished of course)
…oh by the way, second part of THX just reached the scanner. It will be scanned soon.

Makes more sense that it would be the distributor doing this. I’m curious to get the VHS tape but prices for this tape on eBay are not very friendly. I’m not spending 28 euro for it! Ahah

“So the scene of THX being messed with by the doctors and convulsing is not in the 35mm but is in the home releases?”

I’m sure it’s in the second part where he gets “jailed” for good. Check my TV broadcast version, they are probably in the same order. I remember subtitling that scene.

As for Lucas, all his THX story comes from the 2004 DVD. Enough said.

I chose wisely when I put you in charge of checking the differences.
I’ll make more hypothesis once I have the audio too. If what you said is true it will just add more questions! Ahah
Unfortunately we’ll have to wait utill the second part is scanned to have more clues, from the audio in particular.

Sorry for the typo on the subtitles. They were triple checked but some stuff still escapes.

Dendrites coming your way

You’ll see from Italian broadcast that the order of scenes is different in our version. Trial, arrest, testing etc are not in the same order as seen on LD. We listed differences back then in the 1000+ pages thread about THX but it has become too difficult to go through it… that’s why you have just been given the role of “differences checker”. May OMM be with you 😉

Mavimao said:

thxita said:

Mavimao said:

Fanstastic! I honestly can’t get over how pristine this print is, especially considering its age. I guess it helps that it wasn’t a popular film so it didn’t get shown over and over again.

Also: I can’t say 100%, but it does look like the US cut, but with no Buck Rodgers. The rabbit hole goes further…

It makes sense that they would remove Buck Rogers for the Italian release, the beginning of the film is already not the easiest thing to understand for a generic audience, Buck Rogers would have been even more confusing considering that in Italy we don’t (or didn’t) know who he was. It’s a pop culture moment that would have made no sense to us. They removed the track 29 joke from the train station sequence in Young Frankenstein for the same reason

I didn’t get that joke either and I’m American!

Right, so I played the LD along with the 16mm b/w sample up until THX leaves work at the beginning and they match up. So the 35mm print is yet another unique cut.

I’m trying to download the Italian TV broadcast to see how it and the 35 compare but there are only two seeders and it’s going to take a couple of days.

Well, if I’m not mistaken any home video release was altered in some way from the theatrical release (which until now was more or less a mystery open to speculation). Your head will explode once you see the Italian TV broadcast.

I’ll put the PC on to give you a hand 😉

Mavimao said:

Fanstastic! I honestly can’t get over how pristine this print is, especially considering its age. I guess it helps that it wasn’t a popular film so it didn’t get shown over and over again.

Also: I can’t say 100%, but it does look like the US cut, but with no Buck Rodgers. The rabbit hole goes further…

It makes sense that they would remove Buck Rogers for the Italian release, the beginning of the film is already not the easiest thing to understand for a generic audience, Buck Rogers would have been even more confusing considering that in Italy we don’t (or didn’t) know who he was. It’s a pop culture moment that would have made no sense to us. They removed the track 29 joke from the train station sequence in Young Frankenstein for the same reason

I just noticed, TV broadcast is also missing from 21’00" to 22’20". So far this 35mm contains more parts than the Italian TV broadcast, I expect it to be longer too overall.

On a side note, I don’t know if Poita already applied any correction but colors are pretty good regardless of the registration problems. Whites are really great, compared to what I expected.