The Exorcist: The Complete Anthology (1973-2005)

[peterw5]

So does anybody know if they cleaned up the bad unfinished CGI in Dominion? I really doubt they did, but I still thought I'd ask.

[GuruAskew]

It wasn't unfinished, it was just extremely poor. Regardless of what you think of the admittedly-awful CGI Warner still said "good enough" and released it that way theatrically.

[peterw5]

I was under the impression that the film was shelved and never really got finished in post production. After Exorcist: The Beginning flopped Morgan Creek and Warner decided to cut their losses and release Dominion in its unfinished form. It was certainly not the filmmaker's intent for the CGI to look so bad.

[RBBrittain]

Originally Posted by ACID81

Can anyone confirm if all discs are region free and will play in uk player?

All are Warner Bros. releases. I've never known WB to region-lock in any country other than France, and then only on indie titles released by WB only in France -- which this certainly ain't. (The original was confirmed region-free in its prior releases; the others were just released stand-alone with this set.) I'm 99% certain this set is completely region-free, and virtually 100% certain the original is region-free.

[hatter76]

Originally Posted by GuruAskew

It wasn't unfinished, it was just extremely poor. Regardless of what you think of the admittedly-awful CGI Warner still said "good enough" and released it that way theatrically.

It was unfinished!

Warner Brothers were not who made the ultimate decision, Morgan Creek chose to do that.

when Morgan Creek made the decision to Release Schrader's film, they only spent enough money to get it edited together for a DVD release, they had no intention at all of given it the limited theatrical release that it got.

When it was well received at the Brussels film festival, they decided to give it a very limited theatrical release, in a few states for a few weeks in the US, it was highly regarded enough that it played theatrically in the Netherlands, but was not finished with the intent of it being seen on the big screen.

the Movie was finished in the ssense that it was deemed releasable, but not by traditional standards.

Most of the unfinished CGI was still unfinished because the plug had initially been pulled on this version, a good example of unfinished was the Digital Bull, the first shot of the digital Bull still looks fake, but it would have fit in if it had been placed in various different movies of that time, the final shot of the Bull when it collapses is of completely different quality, the digital model of the Bull is in a different stage of refinement, the texturing is nothing like it was in the first shot.

[BluPat]

The seller BUY on ebay has the Exorcist Anthology on Blu for Buy-It-Now $29.05 + Free Shipping in case anyone wanted to know.

[UNCMT9]

Saw this at Wal Mart and was impressed with the sleekness of the case. It's a nice looking set. I think I'll order with Amazon gift cards.

[GxyExpress999]

[TwelveVacancies]

Originally Posted by hatter76

It was unfinished!

Warner Brothers were not who made the ultimate decision, Morgan Creek chose to do that.

when Morgan Creek made the decision to Release Schrader's film, they only spent enough money to get it edited together for a DVD release, they had no intention at all of given it the limited theatrical release that it got.

When it was well received at the Brussels film festival, they decided to give it a very limited theatrical release, in a few states for a few weeks in the US, it was highly regarded enough that it played theatrically in the Netherlands, but was not finished with the intent of it being seen on the big screen.

the Movie was finished in the ssense that it was deemed releasable, but not by traditional standards.

Most of the unfinished CGI was still unfinished because the plug had initially been pulled on this version, a good example of unfinished was the Digital Bull, the first shot of the digital Bull still looks fake, but it would have fit in if it had been placed in various different movies of that time, the final shot of the Bull when it collapses is of completely different quality, the digital model of the Bull is in a different stage of refinement, the texturing is nothing like it was in the first shot.

[Show spoiler]

All the animals in the first shot are actually real live animals, filmed separately and then added together in post. The only CGI is the wound on the sleeping hyena.



As for the second shot, you're totally right. It's unfinished test footage. The final product was never delivered due to the film being scrapped.



But the great thing about Dominion is that most of the fx in the film are practical. There's a bit of CGI here and there which was a necessary evil in order to deliver a "completed" film but it's in no way as gratuitous as in The Beginning.

[crutzulee]

Am I correct that no one has received their set from amazon.ca yet?

[zeze]

Originally Posted by crutzulee

Am I correct that no one has received their set from amazon.ca yet?

Did you order the import or the regular version for Amazon.ca?

I ordered the import version and it has yet to ship.

[sarah_wentworth]

Originally Posted by Tybo28

Id like to know why George Scott received a worst actor Razzie nomination for III. I just watched it again...and I mean, I guess it's subjective, but I have an acting degree and I don't get what is so terrible about his performance? I bought it. Maybe a few of his outbursts/banter seem unnatural, but there is no way in hell his performance would warrant a Razzie. Rant over.

because the Razzis are stupid and a joke

[sarah_wentworth]

Originally Posted by DoubleDs

is it bad i've never watched a single one of these movies?

kinda yeah

Originally Posted by nvadr

Was it the nurse in the hallway scene? That made me jump!

lol yes. i really only watch horror and not much scares me but that scene scared me. i still talk about it with my sister. and i love how the camera stays in one place for minutes. unique and scary

Originally Posted by BLUgrass

my set just arrived. I think I'm going to hold off till October to start watching

me to. close to Halloween

[AllOuttaBubbleGum]

Originally Posted by ditcin

My heart sank when I first saw the screen caps someone posted here for THE HERETIC, but when I checked out my copy it was slightly better. The overall tone is more or less right, but too dark.
The film shouldn't be as soft either. Yes parts of it were film with a defused gauze effect but not as bad as this.
Also, the sound seems to be weak. My original Beta had more bass! There seems to be a high end cut off as well cutting off higher frequencies too.
WB is disgusting.

Any way to tell whether Warner actually used the same HD master utilized for their original, 2002 DVD release for the Blu-ray? A few of the comparisons I was looking at were so close, I was pretty sure they'd just done the pass for color timing and re-framing--as if to disguise the source--and crunched the data for the BD25 encode/bitrate, etc.

Glad to hear the disc looks a little better in person, in motion on the flat screen. Beyond the frustration of not seeing this eccentric cult classic look its best, I miss another chance to see what the best scanning and restoration efforts can do with even problemmatic elements, as with Cameron's Aliens, which I understand suffered from a coarse film stock. And yet, the Blu-ray--which I mostly bought on technical grounds (more of an ALIEN fan here), looks amazing. So even with The Heretic's softer look, I'm betting they could have wrung a lot more detail out of the original elements.

Originally Posted by ditcin

When I was reviewing DVD way back I was sent the original HARRY POTTER and noticed that the trailer had better color than the actual film. I noticed the bit rate during the film was almost constant, and low. While the bitrate was higher and fluctuated during the trailer. This allowed a wider color palette and brighter picture.
When I was a consulting for A&E for the I.T.C. catalog I sat in on meetings for each release, sometimes with the digital authoring people. I learned that there were actually different "packages" in terms of authoring for companies. This was for DVDs at the time. It broke down into how many menus, sub-menus, options on each menu screen and how much was accessed in terms of features and so forth. Variable bitrate cost more since it would take more time to produce and dictate what size disc t use and how it was encoded.
In my review for HARRY POTTER I posted screen grabs comparing how the movie compared to the same scenes in the trailer along with the bitrate and why it looked the way it did. Well, WB didn't like it since I had called them out and exposed what they had done. I was asked to take down the caps and edited my review. I didn't - so they took me off their list and stopped receiving review copies.

Really depressing to see how budgets--financial and bit--are hobbling quality in an age when movies on Blu-ray could reach cinema grade. I hope scanning and compression technology improves to a point where quality is no object; some of these catalog titles' last hurrah on physical media could be a momentous occasion. But you're probably always going to need someone with a sharp eye to guide the mastering, and that's always going to take time (and money), so we can probably file this under pipe dream.

Is your Potter review still up anywhere? Sounds like you really stirred 'em up at Warner Bros., what with their giving you the full-on Lucasfilm cold shoulder!

[newginafets]

Has it ever occured that your pre-order suddenly disappears? Its not in my order list anymore I was waiting for my set to arrive but it never did. And when I check my Amazon my order is not even there.

[Bumblefeet]

Dominion suffers from having minimal special effects and music score simply because there was no budget to complete this, which does take the movie down a notch (at least for me), but even so it's still a more coherent "Exorcist" movie than Harlin's overproduced morbidly CGI obese Exorcist Beginning. It's ever so fascinating to watch both versions of the same movie and to my knowledge a unicum in film history.

[ditcin]

Originally Posted by AllOuttaBubbleGum

Any way to tell whether Warner actually used the same HD master utilized for their original, 2002 DVD release for the Blu-ray? A few of the comparisons I was looking at were so close, I was pretty sure they'd just done the pass for color timing and re-framing--as if to disguise the source--and crunched the data for the BD25 encode/bitrate, etc.

Glad to hear the disc looks a little better in person, in motion on the flat screen. Beyond the frustration of not seeing this eccentric cult classic look its best, I miss another chance to see what the best scanning and restoration efforts can do with even problemmatic elements, as with Cameron's Aliens, which I understand suffered from a coarse film stock. And yet, the Blu-ray--which I mostly bought on technical grounds (more of an ALIEN fan here), looks amazing. So even with The Heretic's softer look, I'm betting they could have wrung a lot more detail out of the original elements.





Really depressing to see how budgets--financial and bit--are hobbling quality in an age when movies on Blu-ray could reach cinema grade. I hope scanning and compression technology improves to a point where quality is no object; some of these catalog titles' last hurrah on physical media could be a momentous occasion. But you're probably always going to need someone with a sharp eye to guide the mastering, and that's always going to take time (and money), so we can probably file this under pipe dream.

Is your Potter review still up anywhere? Sounds like you really stirred 'em up at Warner Bros., what with their giving you the full-on Lucasfilm cold shoulder!

When you mention that the advances in digital authoring and transference of film from physical to digital media I have to say the advancements have been available to an incredible degree for at least almost 15 years.
I am still amazed by the results of the 16mm film transfers used for the DVD release of the series SPACE: 1999 Yr 2 via A&E.
The show was produced in 35mm and for years only 16mm transfers were used. When it came time for a DVD release I looked at what was available and saw horrible masters that were struck from film that had turned green and encoded to tape! A&E didn't want to spend any money for a re-transfer but luckily during my working as a consultant I had dealings with the parent company Granada who own the rights to the I.T.C. catalog which A&E had singed with.
In that company there was an incredibly talented and smart woman who was also technically savvy. She was my link to the archives in Europe where the original film elements were stored. She pulled every master she could find made of the Year II series (Space: 1999) we were working on. She found several masters of each episode (24 episodes per season). It was amazing how these masters had been mislabeled, misplaced and or never recorded. More had been ordered though the years resulting in a mass of poor masters for each episode and each done from poor elements..... BTW, the masters were done in both PAL and NTSC. The waste of money through the years was incredible.
With my friend being in L.A. and I being in N.Y. she had tapes sent to me from her region as well as Europe. I chose the best then she gathered them and forwarded them to an authoring facility in L.A.
The masters were then re-telecined on HD equipment but still in standard format. The controls and options on these machines were of such high caliber the masters were cleaned up, color corrected, contrast fixed , detail, everything. The final results were and are incredible. One would never guess that these tapes were from green film source materials. So much so A&E was able to put on their packaging "Remastered from Original 35mm Film Elements".
Were there problems with the transfers? Yes, with the sound - it seems that years ago when those certain episodes were mastered for tape someone pulled elements for mastering that had incomplete sound mixes. (Dopes).
Otherwise, visually however Yr 2 of that show still looks incredible on DVD.
The amazing thing is that my friend pulled strings and did all 24 episodes for me FOR FREE. She had a worker do them all, around the clock one weekend so they could meet the deadline and be delivered to NY from LA. Was A&E thankful... NO.
On the plus side my work on that series and through my friend got my proposal through Granada for a total restoration of the series and HD transfers along with new 5.1 mixes for a MONO show.
BTW - the woman I write of was also responsible for the first HD transfer of HALLOWEEN for ANCHOR BAY.

The point of all this is that companies spend money, lose track of what is done and spoil their own profits due to lack of interest. People come and go within the companies and one doesn't know anything from the person who was there last. Worst, not many at all truly know the product and history of the films they are working on. Elements get misplaced, mastered get misplaced and or mislabeled and mixed up. (I've even known masters to be taped over!)
I know for a fact there is more than one HD master for THE HERETIC. Just a few months back I watched it on a digital download service and it looked better. The BD should be better for other reasons, in terms of signal, but the PQ was better, sharper on the download.
Even if a master is delivered in great condition all you need is one dope who likes to play with buttons and think they can tweak the contrast, saturation, sharpness or brightness; or, God forbid - add digital smoothing, and suddenly a good master has gone bad. It's happened.
I don't know what the case might be with THE HERETIC or EXORCIST III but I can say someone didn't oversee properly.

In terms of DOMINION personally, I think the film looks beautiful. The color is gorgeous. I think it puts to shame all the others visually in terms of quality. ...which is ironic considering how it was poorly mistreated by both MORGAN CREEK and WB. Although THE BEGINNING would be fine if it wasn't decided to use that awful green photoshop tint.

Whether people like THE HERETIC or not it was and is technically an artfully looking film with really nice production and lighting. Much of the techniques used are lost to today's filmmakers which is sad. It should look better.
The same is true for EXORCIST III - the sound design has been ruined and that is a disrespect to those who worked on it and a discredit to the studio who puts it out.

[#Darren]

I'm dissappointed with the reports on this set, but I'll pick it up at bargain basement prices and hope for something better down the line.

[Dylan34]

Originally Posted by ditcin

When you mention that the advances in digital authoring and transference of film from physical to digital media I have to say the advancements have been available to an incredible degree for at least almost 15 years.
I am still amazed by the results of the 16mm film transfers used for the DVD release of the series SPACE: 1999 Yr 2 via A&E.
The show was produced in 35mm and for years only 16mm transfers were used. When it came time for a DVD release I looked at what was available and saw horrible masters that were struck from film that had turned green and encoded to tape! A&E didn't want to spend any money for a re-transfer but luckily during my working as a consultant I had dealings with the parent company Granada who own the rights to the I.T.C. catalog which A&E had singed with.
In that company there was an incredibly talented and smart woman who was also technically savvy. She was my link to the archives in Europe where the original film elements were stored. She pulled every master she could find made of the Year II series (Space: 1999) we were working on. She found several masters of each episode (24 episodes per season). It was amazing how these masters had been mislabeled, misplaced and or never recorded. More had been ordered though the years resulting in a mass of poor masters for each episode and each done from poor elements..... BTW, the masters were done in both PAL and NTSC. The waste of money through the years was incredible.
With my friend being in L.A. and I being in N.Y. she had tapes sent to me from her region as well as Europe. I chose the best then she gathered them and forwarded them to an authoring facility in L.A.
The masters were then re-telecined on HD equipment but still in standard format. The controls and options on these machines were of such high caliber the masters were cleaned up, color corrected, contrast fixed , detail, everything. The final results were and are incredible. One would never guess that these tapes were from green film source materials. So much so A&E was able to put on their packaging "Remastered from Original 35mm Film Elements".
Were there problems with the transfers? Yes, with the sound - it seems that years ago when those certain episodes were mastered for tape someone pulled elements for mastering that had incomplete sound mixes. (Dopes).
Otherwise, visually however Yr 2 of that show still looks incredible on DVD.
The amazing thing is that my friend pulled strings and did all 24 episodes for me FOR FREE. She had a worker do them all, around the clock one weekend so they could meet the deadline and be delivered to NY from LA. Was A&E thankful... NO.
On the plus side my work on that series and through my friend got my proposal through Granada for a total restoration of the series and HD transfers along with new 5.1 mixes for a MONO show.
BTW - the woman I write of was also responsible for the first HD transfer of HALLOWEEN for ANCHOR BAY.

The point of all this is that companies spend money, lose track of what is done and spoil their own profits due to lack of interest. People come and go within the companies and one doesn't know anything from the person who was there last. Worst, not many at all truly know the product and history of the films they are working on. Elements get misplaced, mastered get misplaced and or mislabeled and mixed up. (I've even known masters to be taped over!)
I know for a fact there is more than one HD master for THE HERETIC. Just a few months back I watched it on a digital download service and it looked better. The BD should be better for other reasons, in terms of signal, but the PQ was better, sharper on the download.
Even if a master is delivered in great condition all you need is one dope who likes to play with buttons and think they can tweak the contrast, saturation, sharpness or brightness; or, God forbid - add digital smoothing, and suddenly a good master has gone bad. It's happened.
I don't know what the case might be with THE HERETIC or EXORCIST III but I can say someone didn't oversee properly.

In terms of DOMINION personally, I think the film looks beautiful. The color is gorgeous. I think it puts to shame all the others visually in terms of quality. ...which is ironic considering how it was poorly mistreated by both MORGAN CREEK and WB. Although THE BEGINNING would be fine if it wasn't decided to use that awful green photoshop tint.

Whether people like THE HERETIC or not it was and is technically an artfully looking film with really nice production and lighting. Much of the techniques used are lost to today's filmmakers which is sad. It should look better.
The same is true for EXORCIST III - the sound design has been ruined and that is a disrespect to those who worked on it and a discredit to the studio who puts it out.

Why didn't Warner's use the better of the 2 masters for the blu-ray if they already had it available? It wouldn't have cost them anymore money right since they already had another master struck? Warner's is usually good about their transfers with catalog titles. Like I said a couple pages back, they made enough money on The Exorcist that they could have dumped some into this anthology set and made it pretty special.

[hatter76]

Originally Posted by TwelveVacancies

All the animals in the first shot are actually real live animals, filmed separately and then added together in post. The only CGI is the wound on the sleeping hyena.



As for the second shot, you're totally right. It's unfinished test footage. The final product was never delivered due to the film being scrapped.



But the great thing about Dominion is that most of the fx in the film are practical. There's a bit of CGI here and there which was a necessary evil in order to deliver a "completed" film but it's in no way as gratuitous as in The Beginning.

that first shot you posted is rather interesting