alex.sp89 wrote:Did diabolik video guys restored the entire unrated print or just those small unrated frames in HD !
Or it is the same HD inserted (unrated shots) version released by Koch Media few years ago.
Diabolik is just a the online retailer, many US-based cinephiles use them to import international editions.
8-Films did that limited edition for a German convention licensing the Koch Media HD-restored uncut master. That master had been made using an old French 35mm print for the unrated shots and the R-rated master that Fox is providing to all the distributors.
To be honest I own that copy and I can say that those HD restored Unrated shots look muck better than the rest R rated restored version. Palette color , saturation in those shots are much, much, better... I wish the entire movie to be the same.
Having seen the movie in 35mm again last year, I can tell you the blu-ray is almost identical to how the movie looks on film. It was never a very saturated film, and so in comparison the uncut inserts may look richer but they do not conform to the film, too "green" and not from a pristine source print in my opinion.
I din't know who own the rights for The Punisher (1989) right now but it looks they use the same print (playing just a bit with color levels) and release it in different countries under different company names... Tricks and no new restoration at all... Is it so hard to scan it once again after 10-12 years from previous scanning and bring it to the right treat ?
Yeah, Fox owns the worldwide rights now, they sell their own master and from my understanding they can be nitpicking with what distributors do, maybe it's even in their contract they must use their master. Plus it's very expensive to produce a new HD scan, either their too small to afford it or they deem it's not a title they can allow that budget to. There also seems to be rarity of elements remaining to work from, some having either disappeared from the radars or being lost, destroyed over the years.
Or I don't know is it possible to restore the workprint in HD ? Goldblatt ows just a tape of this workprint or has a cinema footage workprint in his vaults ?
There's no film print left of the workprint (which is rarely the case being what it is, a "work print" thus a work in progress until it no longer is) which is likely how and why Goldblatt made sure to keep a record of it...
I noticed in the past few years some blu ray got wrong color saturation, black color look wash up (looks more grey). For example the same problem have MGM blu ray release of Double Impact from 2012. Recently MVD corrected that issue and it looks just brilliant...
Indeed some companies sometimes overkill some of their releases by tweaking the color grading of the films, Warner is infamous for that for instance if you look at their MAD MAX 1 & 2 or MOTU). There are conflicting approaches, one being to present the films as they were originally, the other being to hide their "age" by making them look more contemporary than they are. The latest controversy in that matter is in regards to the adding of new sound effects on the new BATMAN '89 4K edition because sound post on the film had been rushed to make the release date back then...