All 4 "Airport" Films From Universal -- Coming February 10th (1 Viewer)

[Mike LoMonaco]

Well that may be, Jeff; I just seemed to remember that Earthquake was released as a Special Edition...

 

[Harry-N]

EARTHQUAKE was released to DVD back in 2006. It was around the same time as POSEIDON ADVENTURE and TOWERING INFERNO, but it was a barebones release. Just the movie, mastered nicely to disc - but nothing else.

Harry

 

[ahollis]

I understand that some of the problem with the added scenes for TV broadcast is that they were pan-scan from cuts or filmed especially for the TV version (Earthquake - LAX scenes) and were not filmed in the same aspect ratio as the film. To go back and add them to the film would be a lot of trouble. It has only been in the last couple of years that directors cuts are the rage and thankfully they kept the cuts from some older films such as The Big Red One.

 

[ahollis]

Fox will be releasing Towering Inferon in Blu-ray in July.

 

[Michael Rogers]

This is quite true for Earthquake! The airplane scenes were filmed for TV (and employed stock footage from the original Airport to show the plane flying). Those scenes appear to be composed for 4:3.

Two Minute Warning's additional scenes were done especially for TV as well. But the odd thing is that they were appear to be shot in widescreen, like the original movie. There are telltale pans, scans and cutting back and forth on the additional scenes. I thought that was weird but maybe it was the rationalle to make the new scenes in the same ratio so they will be panned and scanned just like the actual movie scenes and subliminally fit in better.

 

[Mike LoMonaco]

Thanks for the info, 'Hollis!

For this film, I think I may just stick with the standard definition two disc Special Edition; I was VERY happy with the transfer Fox gave Poseidon Adventure for the SE -- a wonderfully clean look for that film.