Journey to the Beginning of Time

[TravelSteveR]

I haven't see anything written about this title yet. It was a favorite of mine as a teen when I used to borrow a 16mm copy from the Houston Public Library.


Monsters in Motion is taking pre-orders for $29.99 for a $34.99 retail. There is nothing on Amazon.com yet. The listing shows that it's a 4K restoration, and the disc has both the original (longer) Czech version and the shorter US version. It's a region-free disc. Here are the features listed:


BRAND NEW 4K RESTORATION OF THE FILM
The alternative English-dubbed version: a feature-length reconstruction of the US release cut with different opening and end sequences
A new filmed appreciation by John Stevenson, director of Kung-Fu Panda and Sherlock Gnomes
The Making of Journey to the Beginning of Time
Restoring the World of Fantasy featurette
Image gallery
Trailers
Booklet featuring new writing on the film by film historian Michael Brooke
REGION-FREE Blu-ray

https://www.secondrundvd.com/comingsoon.html

[Jobla]

It's up for preorder on Amazon.UK. The disc is British, but will be playable in region A as well as B.

This is a new 4K restoration, and I'm looking forward to it.

The US version dubbed into English will be on the disc as an extra. It probably won't be 4K, but it is described as "complete."

[Smegma]

This is the third Karel Zeman film that Second Run are releasing on Blu. Hopefully they'll do The Stolen Airship next.

[Johnzilla2179]

Very excited to hear about this. I grew up with the Goodtimes VHS of the American version, replete with out-of-sync audio. I was making due with a bootleg DVD copy of both cuts, so this will be a nice upgrade.

[RossyG]

Apparently they'll be releasing more Zeman.

I'm hoping for Sinbad, which I saw as a young boy on TV (with a Paul Jones voice-over) and it left a strong impression on me.

[Gerby]

I thought this & the other 2 already released were the only Zeman films that have been restored.
If there is more coming, my most wanted is definitely Krabat: The Sorcerer's Apprentice followed by The Stolen Airship & then A Jester's Tale.

[thisis2]

..i think Zeman directed another movie adapted from a Jules Verne novel , 'On the Comet' in 1970 , which would be nice to see on blu-ray..

[CrockettandTubbs]

Review here:

http://www.dvdcompare.net/review.php?rid=6023

[Gerby]

Mine shipped this morning from HMV.

[scallenger]

Here is a video about "Journey" I made that some of you may like.

Journey To The Beginning Of Time: The Best Prehistoric Film EVER? - YouTube

[ravenus]

Got my copy and saw the movie today. It's a fine boys' adventure with a slant towards edutainment in its lessons of evolution. For me personally, it's the least of the Zeman films I've seen on Second Run's catalog - it's definitely geared towards a younger audience. There's some very good creature design and stop-motion animation, and the use of perspective tricks. While the herbivorous dinos look great, the T-rex suffers from a bucolic expression and doesn't quite exude the menace of the dinos in The Lost World or King Kong.
The color is muted and earthy in the film. I would have ideally liked a more vivid appearance, but I have no idea what was technically viable or financially feasible for the project. This is on the whole a relaxing watch, and will be more interesting to young kids (although kids these days are, I suppose, exposed to a lot more sophisticated stuff on the internet and all the cool museums they get to visit)

[All Darc]

Looks like the restoration team, despite be a 4K restoration project, had some difficul times to try recover colors from a faded negative.

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film6/blu-r...me_blu-ray.htm

But I could manage better colors using some filters on photoshop. I will publish a comparisom.
It's not the firt time I recover colors from a screen capture from a modern digitaly restored film.

[ravenus]

^The example you have pasted above seems to show a lot of blotches in the sky, which are not seen in the original (before) image. I would have liked to see a more vividly colorful image but not at the expense of stability / fidelity to the filmic appearance.

[babybreese]

cough

It is supposed to look like that according to this review

The delicate color scheme of the film has been thoughtfully maintained here, with an interesting earthy look that resembles old photographs rather than the vibrant Technicolor look you might normally expect.

http://mondo-digital.com/journeytime.html

[All Darc]

Well... when working with a spatial and temporal compression (blu ray encoding) that went to screen capture and then JPEG compression, many details, even in chroma, tends to get this way after we try to recover colors. And I need to remamber that the chroma information on Blu Rays and DVDs, video in general, are at least 1/2 of the resolution (in lines) of the B7W luminance values.
This is very different than working with uncompresed sources with true uncompressed chroma.
This plus the fact I worked with simple photoshop tools.

My point, with this and other color recover I with screen captures of some restored Cinerama films, it's just to show that there are problaably more things to do to help recver color for such films.

Originally Posted by ravenus

^The example you have pasted above seems to show a lot of blotches in the sky, which are not seen in the original (before) image. I would have liked to see a more vividly colorful image but not at the expense of stability / fidelity to the filmic appearance.

[ravenus]

Originally Posted by babybreese

cough

It is supposed to look like that according to this review

The delicate color scheme of the film has been thoughtfully maintained here, with an interesting earthy look that resembles old photographs rather than the vibrant Technicolor look you might normally expect.

http://mondo-digital.com/journeytime.html

There is nothing to suggest that the Mondo reviewer has any specific historical knowledge or insider info about what the film is supposed to look like. Maybe it's true, but that source is not perceived in the statement.

[Mr. Thomsen]

For what it is worth, I watched this film a number of times as a kid, and I have distinct memories of it looking faded and old, more like the top picture than the bottom.

Now, this isn't proof of anything, I know, as the 16mm print shown on our local town library may very well have been exactly that - faded and old. So take it with a grain of salt.

Also, my memory may play tricks on me, because I seem to recall the colors were a tad more vibrant before the kids walked into the cave, which act as a transition to prehistoric times, and then they became more muted.

I haven't seen it since the 1980s, so I am looking forward to get this release.

[Si Parallel Universe]

Going to look in HMV for this tomorrow

[billyearle]

Originally Posted by Mr. Thomsen

For what it is worth, I watched this film a number of times as a kid, and I have distinct memories of it looking faded and old, more like the top picture than the bottom.

Now, this isn't proof of anything, I know, as the 16mm print shown on our local town library may very well have been exactly that - faded and old. So take it with a grain of salt.

Also, my memory may play tricks on me, because I seem to recall the colors were a tad more vibrant before the kids walked into the cave, which act as a transition to prehistoric times, and then they became more muted.

I haven't seen it since the 1980s, so I am looking forward to get this release.

It's funny, I watched this syndicated on a kids tv show in the 70s in segments and it made a huge impression on me. I imagine it having a more subdued look like the top image, but also realize we had a black and white TV then!
Was about to upgrade from the Czech collection to the UK BD, and see Criterion just announced. CC definitely has better cover art. Hopefully the presentation of the US version will be the same as the UK disc, and not straight SD.

[fred25_Ca]

Anybody know if Second run is planning any other Zeman blu ray? Hopefully this wasn't it and we get more, i'm very intrigued by his other movies.