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Folks: I was not involved in this new release at all and I have not seen it. Not sure if I can even view a UK Blu-ray on my end. But I rely on your eyes and ears here on the HTF to tell me what's on it or what's NOT on it... ;-) And if there's no original mono track included, then I sure...

Folks: I was working on special features, and not on the remaster, so I'm afraid I can't tell you if this is a new transfer/remaster or not. My understanding is that Lightstorm was doing a full 4K scan of the film negative with Lowry Digital as a remastering source, but as I have not been...

In answer to Malcolm's earlier question, as far as I understand it back in the day, no releases of any of JC's films can be contractually released without using a JC-approved transfer master and audio mix. This means that any new transfers that are used will have been sent up the approval chain...

Folks: unfortunately I still have no news on T1 for you; I have not been approached to restart the project, though this does not mean they have not moved ahead with someone else. If that's the case it may be entirely possible that the new releases have a new transfer, but I'm not aware of any...

Norbert and friends: I don't have any more current info on the status of the T1 disc; I can only say I'm still on hold in my work on the title and have been so for literally years now. I surmise that it's not only Jim Cameron who will need to find the time to put some attention to it, but...

Mike, the commentary that Lance is referring to was actually recorded in early 2009, before we got put on hold. It's only part of a packed audio commentary track I was working on... and I reckon I would have heard about it if they recorded a new one without me, since I've been working with both...

Alisdair, I reckon it's probably the old Blu in new packaging, since I'm still on hold on T1 and have been since 2009; then again, it's entirely possible that they went ahead and had someone else do it. In this business, you never know. Hope this helps, V

Marlon, the hope is that Terminator will get back on track soon... I was put on hold back in 2009 because many of the desired key participants were a bit busy doing stuff like environmentalism, picking up awards and trying to run California; if we're lucky, there might be a chance of a new...

Folks:   I had several conversations with Drew about the footage and was straight up with him about it. I asked him if he had the raw dailies tapes; he said he thinks they are in a storage facility he has down there in Florida, and he hinted that there might be a "longer cut" of the...

Fritz, Johnny: the guy is no dummy. He knows that right now, MGM is in no position to challenge him legally because they have bigger problems to deal with than a guy with a gray area. So I reckon this may be the only way fans are going to see that material on disc.   If someone on the...

Actually, we've been working on a Stan Winston tribute piece for over a year now... the biggest hurdle is that no studio is willing to license images of anything from their movies to go on another studio's disc... or even to go on a disc from the same studio! It's pretty ridiculous. And on...

Dave and Oscar, I think the existing Blu-ray of T1 was made using the 2001 film-to-video HD transfer. If I'm not mistaken, Lightstorm has been working on a restoration with Lowry Digital using 2K scans of the original cut negative. So the question is how much better can the latter be than the...

David and Jeff: as almost all movies have been transferred to HD since the advent of DVD in the late 1990s, there likely was an HD transfer of True Lies since I worked on the SD transfer with JC in 1994... but chances are it was done in the late 90's or very early 00's (I was not involved at...

Troy, Nick: glad to know SOMEONE actually played the Scavenger Hunt game, much less enjoyed it! It would be a cheat to just tell you where those things are, but here are some clues: 1) the 1185 E is in a pivotal scene about the woman who would later be a President in a different(?) universe...

Can't really say anything about the A/V assets, Geoff. To be honest, no one has approached me at all about "The Abyss". But I do know that any anamorphic transfer or remix that may be out there now would not be official. V

Johnny, the issue of payment to participants is a big concern to all of the studios and as a rule they simply will not do it because if they pay one person they are setting a precedent for having to pay everybody. A little bit of history here: In the time of the Old Republic, there really was...

I really don't have any news on any of this, and frankly what the studio or Lightstorm does, I don't know unless they tell me. But maybe now that Kathryn Bigelow's latest film The Hurt Locker has gotten a lot of great critical praise, Fox will try to capitalize on Strange Days and give it some...

Fritz, it's great to finally hear from someone who actually appreciates still galleries! ;-) I fought with MGM back in 2000-2001 just for them to allow me to include any still galleries at all... their exec David Bishop told me it was a waste, were a pain to author and no one gave a damn about...

David, Ben, Joel: as I recall, the "Definitive Edition" remixed soundtrack CD you referred to was done without Brad Fiedel's permission or participation, and he told me that he was not happy with that release when I interviewed him back in 2000. He does not have the original multi-track masters...

John, the new T1 re-release I've been working on has been postponed until sometime in 2010 because Jim Cameron is too busy making Avatar to participate. As for the name of the release, that will be up to the marketing folks at the studio, and they'll probably run it by Lightstorm. I certainly...

Thanks for the feedback, Peter. The challenge is dealing with the fact that there is a wide gap between the capabilities of low-end players versus high-end players, so the same disc has to play in both types. The simplest solution is to minimize the menus and graphics, which will probably be...

Ray, are there parts of your posts that you recommend I skip? ;-) V

Thanks for the feedback, Ray... reckon I best step aside on this stuff from here on out and let others get it right! Hope you're not in the path of the fires burning up there in Santa Cruz, V

Oops... quick revision: T1 was shot hardmatted to at least 1.66 if not 1.85. V

Luis, I agree with you about packaging... it can be an artform in itself and adds to the collectible value of a disc, not to mention how it can be one of the things that keeps digital downloads from completely taking over the market sooner than it already will. I still believe in packaged media...

Fritz, it all comes down to what serves the storytelling the best in a given format, and what tools do you have to make it work. When working in a medium like NTSC video, we'd want the ability to sacrifice scope for intimacy to allow for artistic/narrative reframing of the image. JC's argument...

Mike, the irony is that the legal restrictions are all due to the studios and the fact that the stuff is on a commercial disc that's to be sold; if it were being compiled on the internet and was available for free, there wouldn't be as much of a problem. When there's revenue involved, the...

Luis, I'll try to touch on the VFX for the new T1 disc (now pretty much moved to next year), but stop motion really is alive and well and did NOT end with Clash of the Titans... there was stopmo work in everything from Robocop in 1987 to The Abyss in 1989. And of course, as a stylistic artform...

Mike, I'm not sure if this 4-movie set is a real thing or if it's one of Amazon's usual vaporware projections. I doubt it's a real item, if only because I know that all of the films are owned by different studios and how impossible it's been to get them to agree on any kind of shared product...

Fritz, I don't recall ever doing "open-matte" transfers on either of those films... that implies that we just left the composing matte off and allowed the rest of the frame to be seen as a default. This was never the case. JC did shoot in the Super-35 format to allow for better compositional...