Steve shows us some laserdiscs of movies or versions of movies that are no longer available on authorized physical media, and in some cases, anywhere else! Steve's channel: / @crushersteve6658
For those interested in more videos on laserdisc, Steve it working on getting set up to upload his own videos and live stream with us. Stay tuned! His channel is: ru-vid.com/show-UCs1UQcX5-8-KIGHZAeqylkA
From what I understand, the AC-3 track on Alien is specifically based on an unused(?) Sensurround mix rather than the regular 6 channel 70mm release. For those of you who don't know, Sensurround was a short lived theatrical sound format for extremely low frequencies so the movies could be felt and not just heard, but it was extremely short lived because a lot of the older cinemas structurally could not handle it; I think at least one theater installed a net to catch the falling ceiling debris, that's how intense it was. I think only four films were ever released in Sensurround, and two of them were Earthquake and Midway, I can't remember what the other two were. I think at least one of the Battlestar Galactica movie compilations was released theatrically in Sensurround as well. All of which is probably why Alien's Sensurround mix went unused.
Also I think the fourth Sensurround title that actually did hit theaters was Rollercoaster. Which is funny because the Laserdisc connection continues; there was an unreleased interactive Laserdisc game using footage from that film!
A friend of mine told me that in the early 90s when he was in Italy, he viewed a copy at a friend's place (he can't remember if it was on Laserdisc or VHS tape) of 'Once Upon a Time in America' in its original 6 hour cut. Since DVD came out in 1997, this must have been on either a VHS Double Tape or even Double-Laserdisc. He told me that is was split into two parts and it was the greatest movie he had ever seen. We currently have the 4-hour cut, so imagine what's missing? Even the damn studio (The Ladd Company are to blame), don't have the original in its full length. One of the greatest movies ever made and they lost two hours from the original film!
Some of the LD exclusive titles still with me include the Thames TV Kevin Brownlow series “Hollywood:A Celebration of American Silent Film”, the AC-3 release of “Pink Floyd - The Wall” (w/Alan Parker commentary), “Mary Poppins” (AC-3 edition with isolated mono score on the remaining analog track), the complete “Golden Age of Looney Tunes” series (all Turner-owned WB color shorts less the Censored 11), Abel Gance’s Napoleon (Carmine Coppola score), the Star Wars Trilogy CAV box (first issue with ‘Empire’ error) and “The Nightmare Before Christmas” (CAV, Touchstone logos).
I have my eye on that Hollywood set but looks like I need to save up. I am on a silent kick at the moment and watched some of it here on YT just the other day, great series. There was a sequel of sorts in 1995, it is called "Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood" waiting on the delivery of the DVD now.
My holy grail is Dead Poets Society. Probably because I saw that in my teenage years and it was absolutely transformative for me, it left an incredibly deep impression. When I found out many years later there was an extended cut on LaserDisc, I actually bought the disc plus an LD player just for that. The 14 extra minutes really add to the movie and I love that extended version.
Absolutely loved this video. You could have gone through every single laser disc on them shelves and I’d have sat hear all day listening. Thanks Paul great vid glad your back
True lies is also on dvd and dvhs the same Star Wars transfers from the definitive laserdiscs boxset are on the bonus disc dvds that was marketed as the “original version”. Not all copies of Star Wars widescreen have the aspect ratio issues. If you buy the made in USA copies you get a new transfer that is better than the definitive collection and has the proper ratio. The alien LD also has a special encoding for the stereo audio that has a lower frequency bass than the ac3. So both tracks are worth a listen
Thanks for the video, Paul. I happened to see some CED's in Steve's collection. Growing up we had an RCA CED player before we had a VCR. My earliest memories of films I watched on CED. I think a video on CED would be awesome. Maybe some rare horror releases. Glad you are making videos again. Keep up the great work!
Yeah, I was a big collector of laserdisc in the beginning. alot of my friends would laugh at the thought of those big disc but once they watched them on my setup they were blown away! I have them all in my garage but my format is 4k now!~
I’ve heard talks of a 4K version of The Abyss being released back in 2019, and I’m looking forward to the 4K of True Lies. I also own True Lies on laserdisc.
My parents had The Compleat Beatles on VHS in England. It’s a great documentary, concise and very matter-of-fact. McDowell gives a stern, icy vocal delivery.
Great video, thanks for posting. I have "The Golden Age of Looney Tunes" Laser Discs (except for that last volume) and I have these complete from all the sets transferred to DVD and I have confirmed they do contain some hard-to-find rare shorts, but they do not contain any of the infamous "censored 11" banned shorts, I have a bootleg DVD of those as well. There was supposed to have been an official release, but it was shelved due to low sales of previous DVD sets.
Song Of The South also has a Hong Kong (or it might have been Taiwanese?) laserdisc release. It was actually filmed in 4:3, there's no "widescreen" version, there's been an HD bootleg taken from a 35mm negative available for a while Another good one is the uncut version of Nightmare On Elm Street 5, which I think is also on VHS, but never released on DVD or any other modern format
Hmm.. How would anyone have access to the Song of the South negative to make a bootleg? Its probably from a theater print. Ah, yes, the infamous Nightmare on Elm Street 5 uncut. That is a good one. Thanks for the info!
I also have that “Song Of The South”, but it would not be the source of bootlegs, as it had burned in subtitles. It definitely had to come from a higher quality film scan.
@@vhscollector It wasn't from the negative. It was from a theatrical print from the final US reissue. Whoever did the transfer boosted the colors too much, but it's absolutely the highest-quality version available. The animated segments are great, though the live action is a little dull and Bobby Driscoll's character needed a good swat on the behind.
That is correct in regards to Song of the South is not Pan & Scan as widescreen films were not a thing until around 1957 w/ VistaVision. SOTS came out in 1946 so it’s 4:3 ratio which is correct for the LD and bootleg releases.
Two that weren’t mentioned here that I’d like to bring up are the 1997 laserdisc of Scream, which to this day is the on out way to watch the uncut version of the film. Also the 1994 Criterion laserdisc of Halloween, which was the last version to have the true original mono audio track (which sounds much better than any of the DVD/Blu-Ray tracks).
Very good video! I have the Nightmare on Elm Street collectors edition on LD and it has some great deleted scenes that I had always wish Wes Craven would have released a director’s cut of the film with some of those deleted scenes put back in the movie. The most important scene was Marge telling Nancy that she wasn’t always an only child.
Always good to see love for the Laserdisc format. The Keep has an Australian Dvd from a couple of years ago. Better than that, some amazing fan restored a theatrical print and released a 1080p version and I think 4K version. Looks beautiful.
I love ST TMP! It's MY fave ST flick as well. And I think those who call that movie "booring" or "slow" are nothing but drongos who can't get enough guns, car chases, and explosions in movies.
I bought my first Laserdisc player years before I purchased a VHS machine. Still have 2 L D players and hundreds of discs. Love them! Thanks for the video!
Cameron is probably busy scrubbing all the film grain away and changing color temp. I'm guessing The Abyss will be extra blue. True Lies probably teal and green. Neither will look like they originally did.
stuff cameron and his avatar . colour on , the abyss is video technical faulty that appears on lot of transfers of movies . blue and white often don't mix well and colour turns into blue green white a sheer mess . i doubt he would even get it right so it looks like actual film , but on video if you see my meaning ?
I hate when things are out of print but it feels good to own out of print(or nearly out of print) media. There are a lot of media that needs at a bare minimum HD release, though ideally 4K HDR is the gold.
Very nice retro! However, the Piranha 2 director's cut is not the Japanese LD, it's the original US LD. The Japanese version is just the producer's version with some extra gore bits.
Awesome history! The criterion of Akira would be rad and one that still amazes me is Final Approach. It’s the first movie of all time to be filmed completely using digital sound and only got a VHS and laser disk release
AKIRA Special Edition is phenomenal, a triple gatefold. Hard to find now. Finding it for a decent price is not possible if you want a good copy. I had it and it was stolen by someone who borrowed it, been trying to replace it ever since. Just not willing to spend 50-100 dollars to get another one, when the Blu-ray with the original dub is like 25 dollars.
I've got that Star Trek The Motion Picture LD! With the 12 extra minutes. Unfortunately, it's pan and scan. It's my favorite Star Trek movie. I thought I was the only one!
I bought Song of the South as part of a 24 movies DVD set on eBay, it was also on Amazon, it has all the right logos was mass-produced, and if it were a bootleg, it certainly doesn't look like it. One would think, if it wasn't at least officially sanctioned, Disney would've taken legal action.
Most of these are now available on Blu-ray. Even Star Wars you'd be better off tracking down the 2006 DVDs on eBay which have the original Theatrical Cuts on Disc 2. They're even sourced from Laserdisc so same quality as the Laserdiscs.
I had a CAV Laserdisc of John Woo's 'The Killer' it was packaged in a Box (not an insert like most Laserdiscs), but I sold it years ago! So stupid, because I haven't seen that anywhere now. It had a whole encyclopedia of information and you could (with your remote's Jog-Dial) flick through each page of information (on pause) and view lots of interesting stuff. It was amazing. I wish I still had it, but when the DVD format came out, I sold a lot of them!
Your Song of the South (1946) laserdisc is not pan-and-scan. The film was originally shot and exhibited in the standard aspect of 1.33:1. Later theatrical re-releases were cropped to fit academy flat cinema screens, but 1.33:1 is original and unaltered.
Also look out for the original version of Toy Story. The film master that was shown in theaters was only used for the VHS and Laserdisc releases. Further releases tinkered with the film more and changed the original color timing
The T2 SP Ed and the Definite Star Wars boxset were the crown jewels of LD. The only problem was the price of them. I remember paying £40 for Die Hard in 1993!?
The Godfather Trilogy you mentioned isn't quite the same version as the mini series that aired on NBC. The TV version is called : "The Godfather : A Complete Novel for Television" - and it's slightly edited for violence(as being on broadcast TV) and split into 4 episodes(just showing the first two films; it does include some extra footage as mentioned. It was shown on NBC for the first time in 1977(only including the storyline of the first two films of the time). The "Trilogy" that you have is based on "The Godfather : The Complete Epic" - which is unedited for violence, and also includes extra footage from the first two films - but interesting, it doesn't feature all of the footage from the TV mini series - there's scenes missing from both versions. Both the TV mini series and the "Saga" have been screened recently on US cable TV(AMC showed the TV mini series - aka "The Complete Novel for Television" back in 2012 and HBO showed the "Complete Epic" back in 2016 - but they only showed the storyline from the first two films, not the third one. They were both shown in HD as well). I think you might see "The Complete Novel" pop up on the Mubi streaming platform every once in awhile. Amazon US apparently hosts "The Complete Epic" for streaming. As mentioned, both of these releases never got a physical media release other than VHS and laserdisc(only The Complete Epic though) - which is really sad as I think it's a really novel way of watching the story of The Godfather, and I have to say the extra scenes really do add something - which is not the case with a lot of director's cut versions of films. Apparently, there's a fan project to combine the extra footage of both the TV mini series and the Complete Epic into one - which would be really interesting.
The Novel version that we saw on TV also had language dubbed by other actors to take out bad words. That was the only cringe part. It was so obvious it was not James Caan cussing.
Speaking of Sleepaway Camp, the Scream Factory releases of parts 2-3 are OOP and the prices are ridiculous! Glad I got them when I did. I'd like to get all the laserdisc/VHS releases as well.
Nice & impressive collection. Here's some more I can think of off the top of my head... "Wavelength"--1983 "Scream"--director's cut "Yellow Submarine"--U.S. version "Magical Mystery Tour"--with original audio opening "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"--DiscoVision version with original audio ending "Terminator 2"--pan/scan James Cameron's "Titanic"--pan/scan. I don't think the U.S. version of "Yellow Submarine" has been officially released on DVD/Blu-ray. Let me know if I'm wrong.
I don't have a copy myself but I know the Laserdiscs of The Killer and Hard Boiled were interesting, they featured different versions as optional extras and alternate soundtracks. I believe there was a commentary recorded for Hard Boiled as well. If there's one criticism I have of Blu Ray re-issues of old school Hong Kong movies, it's the lack of alternate scenes featured in them. I know that often this is attributable to rights issues but it'd be intriguing to see the different scenes. For example, I believe the Taiwanese version of Jackie Chan's Police Story sees him sent off to the Police station as a criminal etc.
So noticed reply from Steve. Crusher Steve you really, really need to do RU-vid videos on your channel. You're really informative and LD collectors are BEGGIN' for a decent LD channel.
There is a Star Trek box set with Blu-ray and 4K discs and they said they have the special longer version but I don't know if it's the same one on the LaserDisc or not.
Pr0n on LD?! That's WILD to me...could you imagine flipping thru em at a store? Picking something out like, "Major Melons XXX: Private Recruit" (Idk if that's even a title, but it should be if it isn't 😆)
I own over 300 LD's which I do not longer have a way to play them. I used to have two players, the last I owned was a Pioneer which played both sides but sadly it is no longer working. I guess I will need to sell the whole collection sometime in the future as all lf the movies are in pristine condition.
I don't get it editing old Disney movies they're already g-rated and it's a movie and movies they can show someone getting killed but they can't show someone wearing blackface ?
Circa 1990, I bought a Laserdisc player because of better title selection in niche genres such as silent and foreign films. I have several which never got a DVD. BRD or 4K release
So glad you mentioned the sound on laserdisc. It's like they decided in the 90s any movie released on LD needed more BOOM! That Star Wars box set (you should have mentioned the GREAT book) is the only way I watch those movies. Cartoon and animated work especially well on LD. I own an awesome Mickey Mouse the black and white shorts disc. My favourite all time disc is a japanese box set of Wings of Honneamise / Royal Space Force. It's a beautiful CAV with a great making of book. The reason it beats even the blu ray? The extras disc includes the full Ryuichi Sakamoto (who following this release would win the Oscar for 'The Last Emperor) soundtrack which has art stills from the movie play with the music. It's beautiful.
Wasn't True Lies also released on Digital VHS? Yes. Good luck finding a copy and a player. LaserDisc database is the go-to for LD and a few other other drowned formats.
The DVD is actually better of the Star Wars bonus disc than the laserdisc. The audio is lossy though so its a toss up. And the fact its non anamorphic is a deal breaker. My issue is with the 1993 audio mix i hate it. I hate the breaking glass in the cell block shootout when they shoot out the cameras.
Let it be was actually shot on 16 mm (Blown up to 35mm) and in 4:3 so it’s more close to the original that way. I recommend getting that doomsday transferred.
