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A Few Words About A few words about... The Searchers -- in SD (Some potential bad news See Post #139) (1 Viewer)

DeeF

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Put me down as somebody who likes the new version. It may not be perfect for color (and it may not ever be perfect), but it looks and plays terrific. It's everyone's best work, John Ford's, John Wayne's, Jeffrey Hunter's, even Max Steiner's. And I will happily buy and treasure the HD version, when it arrives.

P.S. If the color palette is too golden on this DVD, this is what I think about all the big Warners DVDs of the last couple of years, The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, Ben-Hur -- all too yellow.
 

ScottR

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The Wizard of Oz is not too yellow...if it leaned toward another spectrum any more, the yellow brick road would be orange. It looks just right to me, as does Gone With the Wind and Ben-Hur. I haven't seen the new Searchers disc, but I hope they fix what ever color issues there are.
 

Robert Harris

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Any difference or loss of image from 4:3 to 1.37 or 1.33 doesn't matter.

It would all be additionally cropped in projection.

These are only numbers, and aspect ratios hardly matter, as long as the image is correct. Actual aspect ratios are more misleading than helpful to the public, that more often than not, sees a theatrical image cropped into a
trapazoid, which appears to be a projected rectangle, but is not.

RAH
 

Adam_S

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the new color is definitely off but the framing is much better and the quality of hte transfer a huge improvement. Take a look at the snow comparison on DVD beaver to really see the problem. Color Correcting snow is bitch, I know from experience, but it shouldn't look like a solid white brick leaning about two points into yellow.
 

Stephen_J_H

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Robert, you're absolutely right. I started working as a projectionist shortly after reading your first column on this issue in The Digital Bits, and that was when it finally clicked for me. That was a fun two years; I really learned to appreciate how difficult it is for filmmakers to create a product that wouldn't be horribly mangled by slapdash handling in the local googolplex.
Hope this doesn't come across as arrogant, but over those two years, I discovered that people would show up on the nights I was working more frequently, because I cared to make the projection look as good as possible within those limitations while I was working. Alas, the law was calling, and it pays better.
 

Sten F

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What is the difference between The Searchers 2-Disc Special Edition and the Ultimate Edition?

Is it just the packaging? Keepcase vs. Digipak?
 

John Hodson

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From the press release on the The Searchers SE/UE :

Disc 1:
Newly remastered and restored from original VistaVision film elements
Introduction by Patrick Wayne (John’s son)
Commentary by Director Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show, What’s Up, Doc?)
Theatrical trailer

Disc 2:
The Searchers: An Appreciation
A Turning of the Earth: John Ford, John Wayne and The Searchers
Behind the Cameras:
Meet Jeffrey Hunter
Monument Valley
Meet Natalie Wood
Setting Up Production

...The Searchers: Ultimate Collector’s Edition which includes a Two-Disc Special Edition DVD with extensive all-new bonus features, plus a full color 36-page press book, a 36-page reproduction of the original Dell comic book, filmmaker memos and correspondence, several behind-the-scenes photos and a mail-in theatrical poster.
 

Sten F

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Thanks, for the info.

For Collectors/Fan of the movie it´s the UE... For the rest of us it´s the SE.
 

Sten F

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Is there any word if it´s possible to exchange the new released SE/UE with the coming color corrected version, which Warner are working on?

Perhaps, Mr. Harris has any info on this.
 

John Hodson

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I can wait; I've just about stopped grinning from seeing this last night. As said, apart from the colour issue - and you're only going to notice this if you're really intimate with the film (and even then it hardly spoils this fabulous, fabulous movie) - this is a superb release, properly framed at long last, wonderfully crisp.

Monument Valley never looked so stunning.
 

DeeF

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Just a question for anybody that knows. How long is the "search"? Laurie mentions "one letter in 5 years," but it has always seemed to me that the search was longer than that, closer to 10 years.
 

Robert Crawford

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In the book, the search was ten years long. In the movie, I think it's more like 8-9 years.
 

Robert Crawford

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I thought she was 10 years old and was 16 or 17, the first time they came across her with Scar?
 

John Hodson

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Natalie Woods is always described as having played 'the 16-years-old Debbie' in the film, and Frank Nugent's Revised Final Screenplay (though interesting to note the changes wrought on set - and thanks to hitch_fan for that link) says she was 11 at the start of the film.
 

Haggai

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I'm pretty sure the movie itself never states her actual age, though I guess the screenplay does. When they first return to the Jorgensens' home, Laurie says that she's been waiting two years for Martin. Their second return, after they've seen Debbie and just as Laurie and Charlie are about to get married, is when Laurie says the "one letter in five years" line to Martin. I had thought she meant five years since the search began, but as Dee pointed out elsewhere, she might have meant that it had been five years since she had last seen him, with the letter being their only contact throughout that whole time. That interpretation would make the entire search period between 7-8 years in the movie.
 

DeeF

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Which also works with Debbie going from 11-16 -- 7 years.

EDIT: I never was good at math. That would be only 5 years. But Lana Wood was only 9, and Natalie 17, which is 8 years difference -- perhaps this is my perception.

A number of analyses I've been reading have repeated that the search is only 5 years. But thanks for tip about the book, Robert -- I remembered something about 10 years, and that must be it (what I remembered, was from the book).
 

Robert Crawford

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That's more of a timeline I'm thinking. It definitely was more than five years from the time she was captured to the time that Ethan brings her back to the ranch.




Crawdaddy
 

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