Who Framed Roger Rabbit 4K UHD (1988)

[nick4Knight]

Originally Posted by Adam4Rizzel

I also live in NYC and don't have much room to store a million discs, so I stream 95% of everything I watch. I only buy 4K discs when the definitive version of the film is presented. (It's really exciting that I will be able to own a copy of Citizen Kane that is the definitive copy/restoration of the film, has DV, lossless audio, etc.). When a Roger Rabbit comes out on disc without DV, when it was mastered in DV, it isn't a definitive copy. Neither is the streaming version, because of its compression. However...

So what you're saying is your bias reveals why you'd want to push a narrative that HDR10 is inferior in all instances? Cool. Gotcha.

Most of us use DTM of HDR10 content and it's some of the best discs on the format. I would say out of the top 20 grades on 4K UHD there is 15 that are 'standard' HDR base. It's what your TV does to it that also factors.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Scottishguy

Big statement



And it's cat nip for forum kitty.

Meh, let him get on with it.

[Laservampire]

Originally Posted by BNex99

The only other one I know of for sure is the brief frame or two of Betty Boop nudity that didn't even make it to the first VHS and laserdisc releases.

Supposedly, there was someone's real phone number on the bathroom wall right before Eddie falls from the top of the building in Toontown, and that's never showed up on any video version, either. I've seen the movie multiple times in 35mm over the years, but I can't remember if I saw it or not

Originally Posted by captainsolo

More things were rumored to have been snuck in to the original release but without seeing a print up close on a Steenbeck in person they remain rumors. (The bit about a phone number as graffiti in the background being Michael Eisner's number is so good I really hope it's true)

The Betty Boop nip slip is only a single frame. For the Laserdisc they just repeated the previous frame I believe.


A friend of mine managed to get an open matte film scan of an original theatrical print, and I got him to check for the censorship changes:

As far as I know there are only three:

- Baby Herman's finger
- Betty Boop's nipples
- Jessica's underwear (which appear white not flesh colored like some sources say)


No evidence of the phone number I'm afraid! Probably just an urban legend.

[captainsolo]

Originally Posted by Laservampire

The Betty Boop nip slip is only a single frame. For the Laserdisc they just repeated the previous frame I believe.


A friend of mine managed to get an open matte film scan of an original theatrical print, and I got him to check for the censorship changes:

As far as I know there are only three:

- Baby Herman's finger
- Betty Boop's nipples
- Jessica's underwear (which appear white not flesh colored like some sources say)


No evidence of the phone number I'm afraid! Probably just an urban legend.

Thanks for this!!
The Betty one is definitely not there on the LD. The finger is present as is the shot of Jessica without the dress covering. Both seem to have been first changed for the 1998 Ac3 reissue.
The phone number one if real was probably removed before the theatrical release.

[Farerb]

Who Censored Roger Rabbit?

[bokes]

I had the CAV laser disc and it was a whole lotta hype for a whole lotta no big deal.

[Farerb]

Originally Posted by bokes

I had the CAV laser disc and it was a whole lotta hype for a whole lotta no big deal.

Having a millisecond of Jessica Rabbit's panties that no one could notice unless they paused the film is a big deal for SOME PEOPLE.

[caztia]

So happy to have this confirmed. Can't wait!!

[ZANTHERA]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

You know that's not gonna happen. It'd be akin to post-producing almost the entire movie from scratch. But as the VFX were done on VistaVision there shouldn't even be that much degradation, there's always some with an optical composite but it doesn't deserve being smacked with DNR as in this case it means that most of the movie will be a wax fest. *le sigh*

I suppose so but if any film deserved to be restored from all the source materials it's this one.

That's interesting I've not heard about VistaVision helping with there being less degradation, how does it do that? Is that why the Back To The Future films were not recomposited?

Hopefully too the DNR done for Disney+ was simply to allow for it to stream better and it won't be nearly as heavy for the physical release or maybe not have it at all but I sadly doubt that. The least we can hope for is they don't just turn it into a smeary mess every time a toon appears.

As for people talking about the uncensored version, there's a French PAL HDTV version that is not censored so is probably the highest quality version know to not be altered, it looks to have likely come from a cinema print.

Earlier this year I compiled a list of all the times I noticed the audio quality drastically changed and it was due to lines being replaced, they were never heard in any version so were likely the first censorings done, here's what I found. It goes film version then lip read.

11:44 "Put the poor guy on two weeks notice" was originally "Put the poor bastard on two weeks notice"

27:57 "Gee wiz Eddie if you needed money so bad why didn't you come to me" was originally "Jesus Eddie if you needed money so bad why didn't you come to me"

37:15 "No kidding, just talking to you could get me a wrap for aiding and abetting" was originally "No shit, just talking to you could get me a wrap for aiding and abetting"

1:05:39 "You've got a lot of brass coming up here by yourself" was originally "You've got a lot of balls coming up here by yourself.

There's also some dialogue that was changed for Benny the cab, at 1:17:51 after Roger drives up to him in Eddie's destroyed car asking what happened the line that Benny speaks doesn't at all match up to what his mouth is saying, I've not been able to work it out, it's something similar to what is spoken but not the same.

Funnily enough all this language has become a bit less controversial in recent years so probably could be restored but who knows if they still have the raw scene audio tapes those original lines would be on.

[Scottishguy]

Originally Posted by captainsolo

Thanks for this!!
The Betty one is definitely not there on the LD. The finger is present as is the shot of Jessica without the dress covering. Both seem to have been first changed for the 1998 Ac3 reissue.
The phone number one if real was probably removed before the theatrical release.

This must be really getting to you now not having UHD.

[Drooch]

Had no idea they’d censored the dialogue, interesting.

[ZANTHERA]

Originally Posted by Drooch

Had no idea they’d censored the dialogue, interesting.

Yeah I was surprised too, I've always been one to notice changes with audio and in a lot of older films when they needed to rerecord dialogue they'd of course do it in a studio so the audio ends up sounding far more crisp compared to the audio recorded on set.

Smokey and the Bandit is one for this happening a few times, when Bandit first picks up Frog a lot of the audio is rerecorded and you can instantly tell as the quality jumps up quite considerably.

There is one other time in Who Framed Roger Rabbit where I'm not sure if it was a line that was rerecorded due to a bad take or if the audio contained something deemed inappropriate which I doubt.

It's at 12:50 where Eddie says "Yeah that was a long time ago, have to do that again some time"

Reading his lips there with the audio muted it does appear that he says that same line but the rerecord doesn't match up with his mouth movements so it's hard to know why it happened. There is a lot of noise from the trolley in the background right after this line so perhaps whatever was used to make the shake was audible for his line but okay for Dolores' line. It might have been a case of one mic being used to record both of them and Eddie's line just didn't pick up well as it was closer to Dolores.

[Geoff D]

Dialogue is looped all the time in movies. I don’t doubt you re: the overdubs for language in this case (I do that lip reading thing as well when dialogue doesn’t seem to match up ) but sometimes a take would’ve been replaced for more prosaic reasons too.

[Dsneybuf]

Originally Posted by farerb

Disney's catalog stats:

DISNEY:
2021: 1

Two if you also count Touchstone's Unbreakable.

[ZANTHERA]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Dialogue is looped all the time in movies. I don’t doubt you re: the overdubs for language in this case (I do that lip reading thing as well when dialogue doesn’t seem to match up ) but sometimes a take would’ve been replaced for more prosaic reasons too.

Yeah I suppose that could be it for that last one that doesn't seem to be different with the wording, the others are definitely censors.

Could you explain what I asked in the first half of my long reply please? about how VistaVision made it so there was little degradation.

[TheHutt]

Originally Posted by Bolo Seagull

So just how censored is this movie at this point? Does Baby Hermann still smoke and smack women's bums? Have they made Jessica's a B cup? I'd heard about them toning this movie down over the years, but haven't kept up with it. I still just have my old standard def DVD from back in the day.

Interestingly, the fully uncensored version did air in HD on French TV.

[d3nt0n]

Originally Posted by TheHutt

Interestingly, the fully uncensored version did air in HD on French TV.

Did we ever find out just how this happened? How did some random french TV station get a hold of an uncensored HD master and end up airing it?

[Scottishguy]

Originally Posted by d3nt0n

Did we ever find out just how this happened? How did some random french TV station get a hold of an uncensored HD master and end up airing it?

I'd assume because it's an international version made for the French market. And there wasn't much policing of versions outside of the standard English language release.

[TheHutt]

Originally Posted by BNex99

The only other one I know of for sure is the brief frame or two of Betty Boop nudity that didn't even make it to the first VHS and laserdisc releases.

The Betty Boop bit is in fact in that French HDTV version.
I have it.

However, it doesn't look like a scan of a French print. That would have had the title and credits in French.

This one has English title / credits, and has just the translation of the title added digitally.

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by ZANTHERA

That's interesting I've not heard about VistaVision helping with there being less degradation, how does it do that?

VistaVision is 35mm filmed with an image size about 19x35mm as opposed to the normal widescreen 35mm sound print image which is 11x21mm, so you get a better starting image quality for the SFX work, same principle as using 70mm for Star Trek: TMP, CE3K, Blade Runner, etc SFXs, but with more common 35mm gauge stock instead of 65mm gauge stock.