The Little Mermaid 4K UHD (1989) (30th Anniversary Edition)

[WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW]

Looking things over more, the 35mm bits I have actually can't be from an original 1989 US release print, certainly not all of it.

I noticed one bit had some text overlayed talking about it having won two academy awards. So at least some of the bits of film have to be from a trailer and it can't be a 1989 trailer.

I'm not sure if they would have made a second trailer in the US for it right after the award wins? Can't recall if it was still in theaters and even if it was, would they bother to make a new trailer and re-advertize in theater like that? I suppose it is possible, but perhaps not so likely.

I did note that outside of the US it often got released MUCH later. In the UK it didn't get released until late 1990! Perhaps some, most, all of what I have are from a trailer for the UK? By then the academy awards would have been won.

Of course, I suppose it could be a trailer for the 1997(/1998) re-releases. In which case, it would already be somewhat altered from the original 1989 release since they digitized and computer touched up stuff and who knows if the 1997 theatrical release ended up with the same colors as the 1989. I guess part of it comes down to whether or not all 1997(/1998) trailers/release prints had digital audio on them or whether they made some trailers/prints with only 2 channel analog as my 35mm stuff only has as to whether it would be possible for it to actually be 1997 or so film or not. Also I guess it might depend upon what sort of stock was used when. Mine seems to be on some sort of Eastman Kodak stock.

Even if it ended up being 1997 or so re-release, it would still be of note that the colors don't match the home release to go along with that theatrical re-release.

[Hardback247]

Originally Posted by Dubstar

my personal preference is the Dolby Vision streaming version, the colors have more of a pop, when compared to the UHD which looks a smidgen drab.

Sadly, my TV is a Samsung, so it doesn't have Dolby Vision. My Sony 4K Blu-Ray player has a Dolby Vision setting, though.

[WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW]

Originally Posted by Agent Kay

1989
1989:

that looks like the initial test scan from the 1998 German print (of a seemingly unusual print type too)

i'm not sure that image has the right color space applied either

looks almost like wide gamut image labelled sRGB and then looking dull and yellowed

[WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW]

Originally Posted by rick_8

2013


2019


Hi! Check this comparison. The first cap comes from the 2013 BluRay release and you can tell the true Ariel fin's teal colour, which is something important since thar colour was specially developed for her. Comparing with the 2019 BluRay cap, the teal colour has turn into undoubtely green.

maybe, but I think more likely maybe not

my first tentative look (hard to compare film at the same time pics on screen, need to really digitize the film first and then compare) hints that her fin color is:
1. too green in the 2006 DVD
2. too blue in the 2013 blu
3. closer to the film in 2019 blu

OTOH her shells color and darkness seems more often truer on 2013 blu to what I see on my film

my film does have deep darks to many scenes and really gets lots of near black stuff so if some say the new looks darker and deeper, than might be more accurate

[IndyMLVC]

Originally Posted by WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW

Looking things over more, the 35mm bits I have actually can't be from an original 1989 US release print, certainly not all of it.

I noticed one bit had some text overlayed talking about it having won two academy awards. So at least some of the bits of film have to be from a trailer and it can't be a 1989 trailer.

I'm not sure if they would have made a second trailer in the US for it right after the award wins? Can't recall if it was still in theaters and even if it was, would they bother to make a new trailer and re-advertize in theater like that? I suppose it is possible, but perhaps not so likely.

I did note that outside of the US it often got released MUCH later. In the UK it didn't get released until late 1990! Perhaps some, most, all of what I have are from a trailer for the UK? By then the academy awards would have been won.

Of course, I suppose it could be a trailer for the 1997(/1998) re-releases. In which case, it would already be somewhat altered from the original 1989 release since they digitized and computer touched up stuff and who knows if the 1997 theatrical release ended up with the same colors as the 1989. I guess part of it comes down to whether or not all 1997(/1998) trailers/release prints had digital audio on them or whether they made some trailers/prints with only 2 channel analog as my 35mm stuff only has as to whether it would be possible for it to actually be 1997 or so film or not. Also I guess it might depend upon what sort of stock was used when. Mine seems to be on some sort of Eastman Kodak stock.

Even if it ended up being 1997 or so re-release, it would still be of note that the colors don't match the home release to go along with that theatrical re-release.

People online rip apart trailers and sell the cells. That's what you have. You can't judge anything by that

[WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW]

Originally Posted by IndyMLVC

People online rip apart trailers and sell the cells. That's what you have. You can't judge anything by that

in this case, likely is from a trailer (they also rip apart full film reels too though as some stuff I see is definitely not from a trailer, rarely, sell intact reels too, those are much harder to get though, but can be done now and then)

why can't one tell anything from trailer bits?

a few trailers use less care for color and are not final, but many look just like the final release (and that would especially be the case if this was a 1990 UK trailer, no reason it wouldn't be based directly off of final theatrical release, everything would be totally done and locked by then)

it also remains that the OriginalTrilogy sample scan bits shown look utterly unnatural, there is no way in the world that is what it looked like in theaters, no way it should look so yellow-green, utterly pale and robbed of all saturation, 35mm film was often very rich looking and could contain beyond sRGB colors, that OT thing looks like maybe it reaches 80% sRGB, if not even far less.

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW

Looking things over more, the 35mm bits I have actually can't be from an original 1989 US release print, certainly not all of it.

I noticed one bit had some text overlayed talking about it having won two academy awards. So at least some of the bits of film have to be from a trailer and it can't be a 1989 trailer.

I'm not sure if they would have made a second trailer in the US for it right after the award wins? Can't recall if it was still in theaters and even if it was, would they bother to make a new trailer and re-advertize in theater like that? I suppose it is possible, but perhaps not so likely.

I did note that outside of the US it often got released MUCH later. In the UK it didn't get released until late 1990! Perhaps some, most, all of what I have are from a trailer for the UK? By then the academy awards would have been won.

Of course, I suppose it could be a trailer for the 1997(/1998) re-releases. In which case, it would already be somewhat altered from the original 1989 release since they digitized and computer touched up stuff and who knows if the 1997 theatrical release ended up with the same colors as the 1989. I guess part of it comes down to whether or not all 1997(/1998) trailers/release prints had digital audio on them or whether they made some trailers/prints with only 2 channel analog as my 35mm stuff only has as to whether it would be possible for it to actually be 1997 or so film or not. Also I guess it might depend upon what sort of stock was used when. Mine seems to be on some sort of Eastman Kodak stock.

Even if it ended up being 1997 or so re-release, it would still be of note that the colors don't match the home release to go along with that theatrical re-release.

Sounds like the 1997 re-release trailer to me -- Eisner put Mermaid back in theaters to put the hurt on the opening weekend of Fox's Anastasia.

[WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW]

Originally Posted by Ernest Rister

Sounds like the 1997 re-release trailer to me -- Eisner put Mermaid back in theaters to put the hurt on the opening weekend of Fox's Anastasia.

maybe, but why no digital audio on it? I've seen three known 1997 trailers pictured on the internet and I could see that all three had digital audio (not that a sample size of three counts for much).

do you know if they also made some alternate trailer versions where they left off the digital audio formats too? seems like a waste to bother making two versions, but maybe it somehow does add some cost in extra QC or something and they also made some regular stereo analog audio ones too?

[WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW]

One thing is it is really hard to get back to figuring out what original color is. Most people don't have any xenon bulbs. And screen shade can alter things a touch too. For now all I could do it try to use a "daylight" bulb and hope that was sort of close to xenon and that the slide sorter coloration wasn't too far off.

As per scanning, unless it's some uber pro thing, you might need a calibration file printed onto the exact same film stock to set a truly accurate LUT (even then, it's not a match for some custom pro uber LUT build). I haven't scanned in quite some time. I forget, maybe even for a base accuracy I'd even need to give it a stock LUT film type, not sure if anything will match. I do recall scanning some Star Wars stuff some years ago and forget what I had to do, maybe I picked something that sounded like it might be similar. I wasn't really caring about perfect color for judgement in that case, but I think the colors seemed pretty good though with whatever I did.

What I can say though, is I feel like the OriginalTrilogy projects for TLM (and Mulan) are not getting the original look that they think they are. I wonder what format they got their scan in. Was it provided with a profile to match the scanner/film? etc. Was it already pre-converted but then stored in some wide gamut format that they then treated as REC709 by accident?? It just looks, for sure, utterly wrong. So faded out in color and even the brightness ramp seems probably off a bit.

[WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW]

Originally Posted by Ernest Rister

Sounds like the 1997 re-release trailer to me -- Eisner put Mermaid back in theaters to put the hurt on the opening weekend of Fox's Anastasia.

I think that is much less likely now that I deciphered the film date code on what I have and it says 1990.

Interestingly I managed to find the date code on my film bits and the date code says 1990!

So it would seem likely now that my TLM 35mm bits are probably from a something or other 1990 release (since, AFAIK, it only had releases for trailers or full movie in 1989/1990 and 1997/1998 and 1997 would seem sort of a long time for them to have left film stock sitting around, although maybe for trailers they would use really old stock??? seems not so likely though).

It would also seem that it is probably more likely a trailer than the actual film due to the overlayed mention of having won two academy awards, unless it's a mix of trailer and actual release print (since it does seem to cover rather a lot of different scenes).

Since it got a late 1990 theatrical release in the UK and it has some overlayed text about having won two academy awards and the text is in English and I got these from someone in Europe and the film it was printed on was manufactured in 1990 and it has only analog stereo soundtrack of black ink not cyan ink type I'm thinking maybe this is from either entirely a trailer or a mix of trailer and release print from 1990 UK theatrical trailer(/release print?????) although perhaps it could be some late US trailer that they re-did after it won awards and decided to show again before other movies as part of some post Oscars re-release or pehaps still continuing release from the Nov 1989 initial release.

[WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW]

Originally Posted by Agent Kay

1989 [MY EDIT although this is actually from a scan of a 1998 print]:

I'm not sure if the above had even been graded and processed so it may not have even been meant for comparison, but whatever the case, I feel super secure saying that the image above is NOT at all what it looked like in the original theatrical release and that just about any home release is more accurate than what is scene in that pic above.

[PrueFever]

Hello

I am the creator of that Forum Post

http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/walt-dis...ection-blu-ray

I have just recieved the 1998 Laserdics and I'm having it converted to Blu-ray next month. I also have the 1998 VHS version on Blu-ray. I will redo the images as I have a better, more colorful 1990 VHS version than the danish one I have uploaded from now. But for now I will be waiting for the 1998 Laserdisc to be converted and then I'll redo the captures. Mermaid being my favorite Disney movie, I gotta say it is fun for me to make all of these screencaptures form various releases. I try to make the screencaps the exact same frame, sometimes it works, other times I miss it by a frame or two. I haven't been able to take screencaps from my 4K version yet, sadly.

[Brian81]

Originally Posted by PrueFever

Hello

I am the creator of that Forum Post

http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/walt-dis...ection-blu-ray

I have just received the 1998 Laserdics and I'm having it converted to Blu-ray next month. I also have the 1998 VHS version on Blu-ray. I will redo the images as I have a better, more colorful 1990 VHS version than the danish one I have uploaded from now. But for now I will be waiting for the 1998 Laserdisc to be converted and then I'll redo the captures. Mermaid being my favorite Disney movie, I gotta say it is fun for me to make all of these screencaptures form various releases. I try to make the screencaps the exact same frame, sometimes it works, other times I miss it by a frame or two. I haven't been able to take screencaps from my 4K version yet, sadly.

Hi there, a couple years back I found various Disney comparison pages linked off of OriginalTrilogy or some other website. Comparisons of all sorts of Disney titles, including multiple VHS versions of Peter Pan and Bambi on LD. Did you do these? If so, thanks for the help you have provided to me.

[PrueFever]

Originally Posted by Brian81

Hi there, a couple years back I found various Disney comparison pages linked off of OriginalTrilogy or some other website. Comparisons of all sorts of Disney titles, including multiple VHS versions of Peter Pan and Bambi on LD. Did you do these? If so, thanks for the help you have provided to me.

No, I can't say that was me sadly. But I am working on other Disney releases as well. The next ones I am working on are Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King.

[WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW]

Just noticed that the bit I had where it mentioned Oscars is actually from a different batch, that one actually is 1997/1998 and has cyan backing for analog audio, digital, etc.

So that opens up the possibility that all my other strips, the 1990 ones, could even be from a release print (either a late one in the US or a UK one). It could still be from trailers, although mine seems richer than the way someone described a 1989/1990 trailer as being grayish and under-saturated. FWIW, my stuff has scenes not show in the 1989 trailer on youtube (although likely there was more than just one 1989 trailer, who knows what the others showed). My stuff does seem to cover snippets from a huge swatch of the movie though, maybe even more than you'd expect trailers to. But then what happened to all the rest of the film? All I have it like selected bits totaling maybe 3 minutes playing time out of a film over an hour long.

[WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW]

OK, found out how to decode even more, turns out my 1990 TLM stuff was Eastman stock manufactured in France so this is actually probably from the original 1990 French release of the TLM, either trailer or release print, perhaps release print bits.

Also turns out the bits of Labrynth I got from same source have the codes on the film stating that it is Eastman France 1986 film, so probably from a trailer/release print from the original 1986 release of Labrynth in France.

[Farerb]

Did anyone else notice that Ariel's hair is brighter/more orange than it is in the Signature Collection Blu-ray?

[fighthefutureofhd]

No. Can't say that I have. I'll make a point to look for it next time I watch and let you know. Any particular scenes I should be keeping an eye out for?

[Farerb]

Originally Posted by fighthefutureofhd

No. Can't say that I have. I'll make a point to look for it next time I watch and let you know. Any particular scenes I should be keeping an eye out for?

The scene where she's at the beach after she got her new legs. And the scene where Scuttle wakes her up congratulating her on the prince's wedding.

[Farerb]

Also the scene where she's on the docks where Scuttle informs her that the watch was watching the mirror.