A*P*E 3D Blu-ray (1976) [Region A Locked]

[cinerama]

Originally Posted by GKintz

... the opening credits still retain their status as being some of the most ..umm.. "unique" in 3-D film history. If one is able to view A*P*E in 3-D, you already know.

OK. I watched the opening credits a while ago and don't remember anything unique about them. What am I missing?

[Smaugone]

Originally Posted by cinerama

OK. I watched the opening credits a while ago and don't remember anything unique about them. What am I missing?

I think Bob F. mentioned they were "blinkies", just visible to one eye.

[T. Warren Scollan]

Originally Posted by T. Warren Scollan

OK, a lot of you are going to hate me for this one:

I thought it was horrible. Absolutely horrible. And not fun horrible or campy horrible, say like Ed Wood's movies. In addition to being so poorly done, it was long and boring, full of a lot of "fill time" shots where nothing was happening or they would just repeat a shot of the same thing happening over and over again. A lot of Cr*p very Cr*ppily produced. At least most of the 3D was pretty good, but that wasn't nearly enough to save it. I don't regret buying it, but I do regret having to buy it. I do that for all classic 3D restorations, trying to encourage the continued release of this kind of stuff, hopefully in the future something that will be 3D AND good! In the meantime I will add it to "The Stewardesses" in my list of 3D movies I will never f**king watch again!

After reading the favorable reviews posted since that last rant of mine, while I'll stick with what I said, I will agree that the 3D work is really well done. Lots of great pop outs, and excellent framing and composition to constantly show off the depth. We can credit that to the late D. Symmes. And the restoration and 3D mastering is first rate as it always is with the 3D Film Archive crew. But I still think the movie itself was a t*rd in a punchbowl!

[Zivouhr]

Originally Posted by T. Warren Scollan

After reading the favorable reviews posted since that last rant of mine, while I'll stick with what I said, I will agree that the 3D work is really well done. Lots of great pop outs, and excellent framing and composition to constantly show off the depth. We can credit that to the late D. Symmes. And the restoration and 3D mastering is first rate as it always is with the 3D Film Archive crew. But I still think the movie itself was a t*rd in a punchbowl!

Yes, the 3D was top notch, agreed. Glad you enjoyed the 3D.

Originally Posted by GKintz

I'm glad you enjoyed the feature, Zivouhr! It will certainly never be mistaken for being the Citizen Kane of 3-D, but still has some redeeming qualities. Being shot in Space-Vision was the primary plus, with A*P*E suffering from none of the chromatic issues or softness that plagued many of the 80s 3-D features. Colonel Bernier knew his optics when it came to Space-Vision, although a variable I/A option really would have come in handy showing what should be a gigantic A*P*E at proper scale. But then again, that too is now part of the film's charm. Without a doubt, A*P*E is just as much a 3-B (3 beers) movie as it is a 3-D movie.

Along with going through the feature shot by shot to ensure an eyestrain free 3-D feature, we addressed drastically faded and mistimed color and absolutely horrible splices. (Bob jokingly commented "Did they use an axe to cut this??") So we addressed 99% of the left eye top splice lines, as they really were awful. We also cleaned up dozens of frames, just to find and tackle more with repeated viewings. Likewise with frames of black.. which have been present in all elements. Some films we've dealt with have had a few frames total in a typical 90 minute feature. This one was easily seconds worth. All now addressed (knocking on wood).

And in the end, while looking better than ever after clean up, it's still the original A*P*E in all of it's 3-Dimensional (shooting on a shoe string budget) glory. Case in point - Bob was always on the same page when I said "We HAVE to keep the opening credits as-is", as besides some much needed color correction, the opening credits still retain their status as being some of the most ..umm.. "unique" in 3-D film history. If one is able to view A*P*E in 3-D, you already know.

Here are some "before" samples that are after preliminary color correction, but before final grading and clean-up.

Greg, thanks a lot for all of the details on the process. I appreciate it. The black screens if I understand right, were you able to duplicate a good frame to fill its place or was it okay with that frame missing? Yes, I was keeping in mind the shots with the Colonel (Kernel) in his phone room, and how much work had to be done to clean that up, among other shots no doubt. Awesome work as usual restoring the 3D presentation of Ape 3D, Greg. Thanks to you and Bob of course.

That's true, the opening APE credits are a neat trick, where the viewer can choose to just look at the scenery, or chose to watch it with credits at the same time. It looks weird but I see what they were going for.

Even cooler, the timing of APE 3D on blu ray 3D couldn't be better, with Kong Skull Island in theaters this weekend.

Originally Posted by Joe D.

Hi G,

You guys did a great job. Talking about horrible splices, am I right that in one instance we heard the director yell "cut"? My reaction, however, was this was not due solely to poor editing as to the director prematurely calling to stop filming while the scene still had a few seconds to finish up. Of course, the audio could have snuffed that out. But goofs aside, the movie still had professional values to it and not to be laughed at but enjoyed.

I caught that too, right as they're leaving the room, I heard "Cut-". The film's original editor probably had to piece it together in a hurry and overlooked that split second.

There are plenty of amusing scenes in Ape 3D, and definitely a good reason to watch for fans of low budget cinema. The thing that makes APE work well in my opinion is that it has its own intentional sense of humor (the Colonel making a few funny lines) in addition to the unintentional humor.

[bavanut]

Have a look at these screen grabs. There's more to A*P*E than first meets the eye!

Figures 1 and 2. There must have been more than one over-and-under 3-D lens employed on A*P*E. The camera used by the martial arts filmmakers has a SpaceVision lens attached. The distinctive "outrigger" matte box is especially visible in Figure 2.

Figure 3. Note the soft focus in the right eye, localized to this one sign. The rest of the image is in reasonably sharp focus in both eyes. One does not expect to see this kind of aberration in SpaceVision cinematography. I have a possible explanation, but I am waiting for corroborating information before I lay out my theory-- er, hunch would be more like it.

Figure 4. A nice in-joke: The giant gorilla attacks a business named after the director and his children.



APE_Figure1.jpg

APE_Figure2.jpg

APE_Figure3.jpg

APE_Figure4.jpg

[Zivouhr]

Good observations, Mike, thanks for the pics to point them out also.

-----------
So many great 3D shots in Ape 3D. I'm thinking of the shots where there are tree branches framed in the foreground, then people running in the midground, then more trees, a diminishing road leading into the background as one example.

And of course that last pic Mike (Bavanut) highlighted above where Ape is busting through the city buildings at the end. They showed that scene for a nice length of time and it's one of the best 3D shots in the film with the nice framing of the strong 3D layers/dimensions.

The 3D tree snake against the blue sky, crawling on that bulky tree, that was another awesome 3D shot. Great thing is, most of the movie has strong 3D. A few medium 3D shots here and there.

[Damon1281]

Well I was going to watch this tonight since USPS tracking said they left it in my mailbox at 3 pm. Unfortunately, it's not there.

[Interdimensional]

same boat here. According to Amazon, my copy should've arrived earlier today. Still waiting.

I never thought I'd feel this way about such a movie, but the anticipation is killing me! I've been parallel-viewing the screenshots Mike posted just to get a taste of the 3D.

[Damon1281]

Originally Posted by Interdimensional

same boat here. According to Amazon, my copy should've arrived earlier today. Still waiting.

I never thought I'd feel this way about such a movie, but the anticipation is killing me! I've been parallel-viewing the screenshots Mike posted just to get a taste of the 3D.

I'm not sure I can blame Amazon, the post office has to update that info for Amazon to pass on. They have been as specific as to say "the package was physically handed to the customer" on occasion.

But yeah, it's killing me too, even though it's Mystery Science Theater type of material.

[Zivouhr]

The commentary, but Chris Alexander as an old Editor for Fangoria magazine was interesting and informative though later on, his started to run out of things to talk about. He said he was watching an old, muddy version and didn't have the blu ray 3D version. He mentioned Bob's name and Kino Lorber. He swears quite a bit later on. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Alexander_(editor)

[GKintz]

Originally Posted by Interdimensional

same boat here. According to Amazon, my copy should've arrived earlier today. Still waiting.

I never thought I'd feel this way about such a movie, but the anticipation is killing me! I've been parallel-viewing the screenshots Mike posted just to get a taste of the 3D.

A*P*E feels your pain!!

[Louis Saphire]

Fantastic. Always loved the weird dialog the Kernel spits out, the red tennis shoes the ape wears, and learning that Korea has a wired PA system in open fields, you know so the government can warn the rural peasants that a giant ape is attacking. The restoration is spot on and incredible to look at. Trust me on this, 'cause I had originally seen this baby when it first opened in New York in the Seventies and it didn't look nearly this good. Any chance we could see The 13 Golden Nuns (aka Revenge of the Shogun Women) (1977), The Magnificent Bodyguards (1978), North And South Chivalry (1977), or Dynasty (1976) restored? Make one hell of a box set but a hell of a headache to restore from what I hear - the elements are scattered all over the globe with varies running times and drastically edited versions. But considering how much China loves 3-D and these films are from their neck of the woods, maybe someone who owns these properties would be open to allowing the restoration to occur.

[the13thman]

Originally Posted by Louis Saphire

Any chance we could see The 13 Golden Nuns (aka Revenge of the Shogun Women) (1977)...or Dynasty (1976) restored?

These were the first 3D movies I ever watched and cemented my love of strong 3D for life, I would pay top dollar to see them restored.

As for A*P*E, it's hands down my favourite 3D blu ray movie of 2017, I can't remember the last 3D movie I enjoyed so much. The 3D is so good that it shames modern efforts - yes, it's better than Avatar!

[Zivouhr]

Originally Posted by the13thman

These were the first 3D movies I ever watched and cemented my love of strong 3D for life, I would pay top dollar to see them restored.

As for A*P*E, it's hands down my favourite 3D blu ray movie of 2017, I can't remember the last 3D movie I enjoyed so much. The 3D is so good that it shames modern efforts - yes, it's better than Avatar!

The movie was as entertaining as I was hoping it would be and I'm still hearing Joanna Kerns screaming in my head as the Ape tries to grab her from the cave he placed her into. I agree, a great 3D presentation in Ape 3D with plenty of strong 3D layering and a real effort by the film team to make most shots count for the 3D, with plenty of pop outs and great 3D framing of each shot.

[JetJagga]

This sounds really cool and I'm glad the film is finally available in 2.39:1 and 3D, but bad splices, mistimings, "black" frames, 3D misalignment, etc. were always part of the film and should always be there. I don't see the point in enhancing a film when conservatively restoring it would be faster, cheaper, and more honest to the film, its history, and the source artifact itself. In the world of film archiving, which I am extremely happy to have finally entered, we have a simple expression: "Do no harm."

How does the 3D Film Archive preserve its films? Do they strike new film elements? Do they put their restorations on LTO tape? Is relatively short term access their objective more so than long term preservation?

[the13thman]

Originally Posted by JetJagga

This sounds really cool and I'm glad the film is finally available in 2.39:1 and 3D, but bad splices, mistimings, "black" frames, 3D misalignment, etc. were always part of the film and should always be there.

I salute your hardcore attitude but respectfully disagree. Errors such as these were never the intention of the filmmakers so fixing them means their art is represented to the viewer more closely to how it was envisaged.

And nobody but you prefers misaligned 3D to correctly aligned images.

[bavanut]

Originally Posted by JetJagga

This sounds really cool and I'm glad the film is finally available in 2.39:1 and 3D, but bad splices, mistimings, "black" frames, 3D misalignment, etc. were always part of the film and should always be there. I don't see the point in enhancing a film when conservatively restoring it would be faster, cheaper, and more honest to the film, its history, and the source artifact itself. In the world of film archiving, which I am extremely happy to have finally entered, we have a simple expression: "Do no harm."

How does the 3D Film Archive preserve its films? Do they strike new film elements? Do they put their restorations on LTO tape? Is access their objective more so than preservation?

I would not ordinarily presume to speak for Bob and Greg, but I do feel I can assure you that these films are being both preserved and restored. Original, untouched scans do exist for future study.

Today's consumer will not quietly abide stereo aberrations, so problems must be fixed to ensure the best commercial chances for a given vintage title on Blu-Ray. If the film purist will not complain about high-sheen upgrades of classic titles like Spartacus or My Fair Lady (both very worthy of preservation and restoration, don't get me wrong), then surely we can have no beef with the 3-D Film Archive for its sterling efforts.

[Damon1281]

The post office fixed their error and delivered my copy today which I almost immediately popped in and watched. Bad movie? Yes! 3D? Absolutely terrific. I do wish they would make modern movies this way (not the bad part). As mentioned before, fantastic depth, pop-outs, it's all there. Kudos to the team at 3d Film Archive and thanks to the folks at Kino Lorber for providing this monstrous gem!

[Zivouhr]

Glad you finally got to see the 3D, Damon.

[Interdimensional]

Originally Posted by GKintz

A*P*E feels your pain!!

thanks, hopefully tomorrow. Thought it came today, but instead I got something in the mail I'd completely forgotten about. Old Viewmaster slides from the Di Laurentiis King Kong!

I'm going through a bit of a phase at the moment with apesuit 3D mayhem.

Originally Posted by JetJagga

This sounds really cool and I'm glad the film is finally available in 2.39:1 and 3D, but bad splices, mistimings, "black" frames, 3D misalignment, etc. were always part of the film and should always be there. I don't see the point in enhancing a film when conservatively restoring it would be faster, cheaper, and more honest to the film, its history, and the source artifact itself. In the world of film archiving, which I am extremely happy to have finally entered, we have a simple expression: "Do no harm."

Look at the complaints about discs like Jaws 3D, Metalstorm and Comin At Ya if you think misalignment shouldn't be dealt with. People can be very sensitive to the resulting eyestrain.

In a lot of cases a very effective 3D shot just doesn't work at all due to misalignment. Fixing vertical alignment is an absolute must. Horizontal alignment can be questionable, as this may be altering the original intent.