Twilight Time Discussion Thread

[stephenwilson04]

Originally Posted by Davidian

How'd you get that one stephen?

A gift from Twilight Time.

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by stephenwilson04

A gift from Twilight Time.

A lot of gifts.

[cakefactory]

Originally Posted by Aclea

Can't find the link at the moment, but the disappointing DVD sales of the Harryhausen films were mentioned in an interview with a Sony video bigwig explaining why they had no plans to release any more of his films on Blu-ray after the boxed set (the BDs of Jason and 7th Voyage were never even released in many international territories), with First Men singled out as the surprise (relative) bestseller without doing particularly well. It's one of those "Really?" moments that stuck out because there's such a wide discrepancy between what you expect and what the distributor was saying - especially since the Sinbad films not only had the higher profile but outgrossed it theatrically. Certainly the sales rankings on sites like Amazon.fr and Amazon.co.uk seem to bear it out.

Ah, interesting. I never would have guessed that either.

[Widescreenfilmguy]

I'm very interested to see what the next signed promo will be. Does anyone have any guesses?

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

Do y'all think the 4K restoration Blu-ray of Journey to the Center of the Earth will really be that drastic of an improvement over the existing disc?

I do not own the existing Twilight Time disc, but I own the region-free Australian Blu-ray that has an identical transfer.

I'm happy with my current disc, but I grew up watching this movie, and, as such, I'm intrigued by the notion of a vastly improved presentation if there is one.

Right now, I'm set on pre-ordering the new disc, along with First Men in the Moon, but I'm also loath to venture too far down that rabbit hole of replacing perfectly good Blu-rays on my shelf with newer restorations.

No one can say for sure but in my experience a new 4k scan makes a HUGE difference on blu ray.

[RalphoR]

Originally Posted by cakefactory

I broke down and did the Vudu upgrade DVD to HD thing for 5 bucks on Mysterious Island (it's available on a few of his other movies that aren't currently available on bluray, too, like Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Mighty Joe Young, 3 Worlds of Gulliver and Valley of Gwangi). I hope they re-release it someday.

That's very cool. Let me know what you think. I'd love to get Beast and Gwangi. Can you burn the digital version onto a disc or is it stored on your computer/in the cloud? I'm not familiar with the process.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by Widescreenfilmguy

I'm very interested to see what the next signed promo will be. Does anyone have any guesses?

Without a Facebook posting from TT with a photo of some notable doing a signing, there's not enough data to even make a guess. About the best we can do in general is guess what it won't, based on which of their movies have virtually no living contributors to do a signing. And we can also leave out titles that have sold out.

[cakefactory]

Originally Posted by RalphoR

That's very cool. Let me know what you think. I'd love to get Beast and Gwangi. Can you burn the digital version onto a disc or is it stored on your computer/in the cloud? I'm not familiar with the process.

With some Vudu movies you can download an HD file, but many others you can only stream the HD one through non-computer devices. I'm not sure what process they use for determining whether to allow PC streaming/downloading in HD, the basic trend with the movies I have is that anything that's available on bluray in this country can be streamed/downloaded in HD and anything that's not can't (ex, these Harryhausen movies, McCabe and Mrs Miller, May, Dragonslayer, Akira Kurosawa's Dreams, etc). There are some exceptions, ex Mr Smith Goes to Washington also can't be even though it has a new bluray, and Captain Kronos can be even though it has no bluray release in any country that I'm aware of.

The HD version just streams through non-computer devices. I use it through my panasonic bluray player, which is a few years old now, so it must be available on virtually all devices with any streaming capabilities. The quality's about on par with Netflix, like, it won't compete with a well-encoded blu-ray, but it looks a lot better than an upscaled DVD. I haven't watched the Harryhausen flicks yet, but I did watch the HD version of Black Scorpion and it definitely did look a LOT better than the DVD (especially mine, since I had the fullscreen version).

[baheidstu]

Originally Posted by jayembee

Without a Facebook posting from TT with a photo of some notable doing a signing, there's not enough data to even make a guess. About the best we can do in general is guess what it won't, based on which of their movies have virtually no living contributors to do a signing. And we can also leave out titles that have sold out.

It's usually something that has been released recently, and it's usually not a "huge" star (Malcolm McDowell and Oliver Stone are the two biggest). I think it's fun just to guess who it might be with no actual proof at all, how about Valerie Perrine and Lenny?

[dommie]

[QUOTE=jayembee;10452012]Twilight Time said that they were going to be re-issuing four of their sold-out titles in 2015. One's out (Fright Night), one's imminent (Journey to the Center of the Earth), and one's confirmed but won't actually be out until next year (Christine).

Has there been any update regarding dates (pre-order and/or actual release date) for Journey to the Center of the Earth?

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by dommie

Has there been any update regarding dates (pre-order and/or actual release date) for Journey to the Center of the Earth?

Both are listed in the OP.

[Rory]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

Do y'all think the 4K restoration Blu-ray of Journey to the Center of the Earth will really be that drastic of an improvement over the existing disc?

It should have less grain, greater detail and better color accuracy than the first edition. The transfer on the current TT JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH Blu-ray is a photochemical interpositive created from the YCM (meaning Yellow, Cyan and Magenta) black & white separation negatives. That makes the transfer three generations away from the original camera negatives. The 4K restoration transfer about to be released is made from a scan of the original camera negatives (which, among other problems such as tears and shrinkage, is, according to Fox, too faded in probably the yellow layer to yeild photochemically a properly color-balanced interpositive) and that means it should look better in HD video than a first generation interpositive made photochemically from the fresh camera negative back in 1959.

But look at it this way, the current transfer, and the same one released in Australia, was deemed by those at Fox to be so inadequate for Blu-ray that the studio wouldn't release it under their own label. Now, Fox has done what is most probably -- in fact, I'm sure it is -- a very expensive digital restoration of this title. They wouldn't do it if it wasn't deemed necessary, and, of course, if they didn't think they could earn some money from that restoration. Nick Redman must also agree with them and I'm hoping he says something about all this in the commentary track.

For me, who did buy the first edition because it's a favorite film, this is a "must have."

[jshaide]

[quote=dommie;10454614]

Originally Posted by jayembee

Twilight Time said that they were going to be re-issuing four of their sold-out titles in 2015. One's out (Fright Night), one's imminent (Journey to the Center of the Earth), and one's confirmed but won't actually be out until next year (Christine).

Has there been any update regarding dates (pre-order and/or actual release date) for Journey to the Center of the Earth?

I'm hoping the third will be The Big Heat.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by jshaide

I'm hoping the third will be The Big Heat.

I'm not. I finally caved and got a copy from an Amazon seller for $60. If a reissue had an improved picture and more extras, I'd double-dip, but as it stands...

My preference for the other reissue is The Egyptian, as I don't have a copy of it in any format. But I'm not holding my breath.

[dommie]

Originally Posted by rdodolak

Both are listed in the OP.

Thank you. I suppose I should have checked the OP first. Oops!

[krasnoludek]

Originally Posted by Widescreenfilmguy

I'm very interested to see what the next signed promo will be. Does anyone have any guesses?

I'm guessing an Oliver Stone-signed copy of U-Turn might come up. Maybe not this promotion, but one or two down the line. I'd certainly look forward to that.

[CraigThom]

Originally Posted by cakefactory

I broke down and did the Vudu upgrade DVD to HD thing for 5 bucks on Mysterious Island (it's available on a few of his other movies that aren't currently available on bluray, too, like Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Mighty Joe Young, 3 Worlds of Gulliver and Valley of Gwangi). I hope they re-release it someday.

Have you watched Mighty Joe Young? I recorded it from TCM the other day. I think it was in HD, and parts of it looked great, but other parts had scratches and lower contrast and what looked like loose-perf shaking. I haven't seen the DVD restoration, but this looks as if it was put together with two or more sources, and one of them was crappy.

[cakefactory]

Originally Posted by CraigThom

Have you watched Mighty Joe Young? I recorded it from TCM the other day. I think it was in HD, and parts of it looked great, but other parts had scratches and lower contrast and what looked like loose-perf shaking. I haven't seen the DVD restoration, but this looks as if it was put together with two or more sources, and one of them was crappy.

Haven't watched it yet, I'll check it out this week.

[Midnight Rambler]

If they're re-issuing anything I'd like to see 'Rollerball' available again ...

[Ben_R]

Originally Posted by Midnight Rambler

If they're re-issuing anything I'd like to see 'Rollerball' available again ...

There is always the Arrow release available towards the end of next month