The Hitcher (Second Sight)

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Marv Inc.

The overblown whites were the worst thing for me in the German transfer. Alot of John Seals beautiful cinematography was just lost.

The print is the print though, the available dynamic range is naturally going to be severely curtailed vs pre-print elements. So keep those expectations in check.

[Yami]

Originally Posted by grahams76

Hopefully, it'll include China Lake.

Indeed...maybe there are elements available to restore that? Eric Red's Gunmen's Blues and Telephone would also make very nice inclusions.

[Jay H.]

Originally Posted by Marv Inc.

The overblown whites were the worst thing for me in the German transfer. Alot of John Seals beautiful cinematography was just lost.

I definitely understand your disappointment. Thing is, I've traveled through the southwest where there is a whole lotta nothing, and it truly looks like that. When the sun doesn't have anything to reflect off of but road and dirt, everything around you (including the sky) is bright white. It may not be how the movie was filmed, but it's accurate to reality.

[Cvalda]

Saw a 35mm print of this back in 2019 at the Egyptian in tribute to Rutger Hauer after his passing. I think the presenters said they had to have it flown out from a personal collection in New Jersey or something. Aside from the usual wear and tear it looked pretty good (and pretty similar to the German Blu color wise, at least from memory). I guess whoever owns that print doesn't want to loan it out for a scan? Had never seen the film before and it was one of the best first viewings of a movie I've ever had. People in the audience gasped and shrieked at the panning reveal of Rutger in the motel room.

[Yami]

Second Sight have said that prints exist, but presumably they've decided that they're unlikely to yield anything better than the existing scan. It's pre-print materials that they would have been searching for

[Scottishguy]

Originally Posted by Yami

Second Sight have said that prints exist, but presumably they've decided that they're unlikely to yield anything better than the existing scan. It's pre-print materials that they would have been searching for

I know they've done a exhaustive search for elements. But there's enough people around this forum with connections who'd know who to tweet, ask ect. That might yield something SecondSight couldn't get to.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Yami

Second Sight have said that prints exist, but presumably they've decided that they're unlikely to yield anything better than the existing scan. It's pre-print materials that they would have been searching for

Another print was located but in much worse condition than the one on ze German edition, sadly it was unusable.

[chip75]

It's shocking (well, not that shocking) how things go missing in such a short period of time, but once these leave studio hands and go to producers/owners (like The Beastmaster) all bets seem to be off.

Excited to get a UK release, but it's a bitter excitement of what could have been.

[Nick Michalak]

Originally Posted by Cvalda

Saw a 35mm print of this back in 2019 at the Egyptian in tribute to Rutger Hauer after his passing. I think the presenters said they had to have it flown out from a personal collection in New Jersey or something. Aside from the usual wear and tear it looked pretty good (and pretty similar to the German Blu color wise, at least from memory). I guess whoever owns that print doesn't want to loan it out for a scan? Had never seen the film before and it was one of the best first viewings of a movie I've ever had. People in the audience gasped and shrieked at the panning reveal of Rutger in the motel room.

It's really just a matter of who they asked and where they knew to look. If no one clued them in on this screening they wouldn't know. They only just made it publicly known that they are doing a restoration. Maybe some leads could come to their attention now that they're not going through private channels.

[Marv Inc.]

I've sent them some suggestions for where else they could look.

[Graphic_Delusions]

So Arrow and Scream/Shout Factory have both tried and failed to get The Hitcher, but here comes Second Sight for the win. Do you think the success/profits of their Dawn Of The Dead release has helped get this going?

[Marv Inc.]

The lack of elements other than 35mm prints could have put other labels off taking on the licence.

[SpaceBlackKnight]

Have Second Sight checked Warner and Sony's archives in the US? Surely one of them would have the OCN, a dupe neg, or at least an IP or CRI/interneg? Strange for a film with ties to big distributors to have all it's original elements missing and have it hard to find a 35mm print. Funny that I thought the German Blu used a 35mm Cannon print as that was presumably all they could afford and get, but....

[Cragworth]

Brilliant! Now can we start a campaign for a Blu ray release of the underrated Sean Bean remake please?

[SpaceBlackKnight]

Originally Posted by Marv Inc.

The lack of elements other than 35mm prints could have put other labels off taking on the licence.

AFAIK, Warner/HBO owns video and TV/streaming rights in the US, while Sony held US theatrical distribution rights. I think Shout tried to obtain this one in their Warner package, but Warner weren't licencing out any HBO owned titles.

Warner probably has an IP or interneg (the sources used for the old HBO DVD release), and Sony should have some sort of pre-print elements within their archives they may not know about (Shout found the Theatrical Cut OCN for Silent Night, Deadly Night through them and Synapse located the Popcorn OCN and sound elements within Sony's storage warehouses).

[levcore]

Originally Posted by Cragworth

Brilliant! Now can we start a campaign for a Blu ray release of the underrated Sean Bean remake please?

The German release is good.

[Scottishguy]

Originally Posted by Cragworth

Brilliant! Now can we start a campaign for a Blu ray release of the underrated Sean Bean remake please?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BODS...ature=youtu.be

[jstxanothrxstory]

Originally Posted by Jackie Scanlon

I'm not sure if the top menu trick works with the locked ones or not.

It did with their RotLD steelbook, at least.

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by SpaceBlackKnight

Have Second Sight checked Warner and Sony's archives in the US? Surely one of them would have the OCN, a dupe neg, or at least an IP or CRI/interneg? Strange for a film with ties to big distributors to have all it's original elements missing and have it hard to find a 35mm print. Funny that I thought the German Blu used a 35mm Cannon print as that was presumably all they could afford and get, but....

Stuff gets lost or misfiled: the deleted scenes from Enter the Dragon were found undocumented in a building that was scheduled to be demolished; the original tracks for Jerry Goldsmith's score for The Blue Max were apparently lost for years because they'd been labelled as The Blue Knight; even a fairly recent success like Dog Soldiers saw its negative go AWOL for years. With big studios moving negatives from territory to territory or state to state, especially when there are multiple owners, all it takes is for the paperwork for one stage of its many journeys to not get filed or lost and it disappears (I spent ages tracking down the missing ending from The Exorcist because the papertrail had a gap in it after it was shipped from New York in 1973: Warners still had it, they just had no reliable record of where even though the other deleted scenes, outtakes and rejected Lalo Schifrin score were well documented and easily located) - or, with no-one paying for storage or taking proper care of it, ends up needing prohibitively costly restoration. And it's something that still happens even with successful films.

[Marv Inc.]

The Donner footage from Superman II turned up in the Technicolour vaults in London and was then shipped back to Warner Bros in the US so they could do the new cut.


There all lots of film vaults around the world that hold negatives for the film Studios.