Miniseries possibilities for Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

The Saga version was aired in HD on HBO within the past few years.

I know that too, it's just lacking on DVD.

~Ben

 

[Ethan Riley]

It was put out as originally aired and when I went through both miniseries four years ago I was struck by how the narrative gaps stood out in Part 2 of "War and Remembrance." All that due to the fact that ratings for Part 1 were not spectacular and Curtis got desperate.

Yeah, as far as I've ever been able to figure out, they cut out about 3 hours of material for those last airings. I think they were forced to make it shorter because ABC didn't want it to run another 2 nights or whatever and therefore lose money. There is a dearth of information on the subject--hard to research this one. I have no idea if that footage even still exists in the Curtis vaults (if Dark Shadows is any indication, he was a good archivist at least). These hours of cuts, plus the fact that somebody screwed up the stereo sound on the first half, forcing Curtis to hastily re-mix the last hours in mono out of necessity, make me really wish some benefactor would give this show the release it really deserves.

 

[Jack P]

In its shorter length it seemed like Curtis was determined to cut everything that would let him avoid having to make cuts to depicting the Holocaust in its full squalor. In the process I felt he threw the narrative tone way off because there were whole subplots that came to a dead stop (at one point Byron is on the verge of starting a relationship with his widowed sister-in-law Janice and then she just disappears completely; the whole explanation for why Slote is now parachuting in on D-Day never makes sense; there was also clearly a long subplot involving Los Alamos that was cut to just one scene showing the test. The actor who plays Oppenheimer isn't even credited, I suspect, because his role was pruned!).

 

[DVBRD]

I would also like to see Stephen King's "Rose Red" and "The Stand" but I believe all of these were edited on videotape therefore problematic to remaster for blu.

I could see The Stand getting reconstructed in HD, but I don't know if the rights-holder (CBS, I think) believe it's worth the effort.

As far as The Godfather Saga is concerned, I think Coppola has said he doesn't want to revisit that, which means that we might never see a Blu of that, nor will we see The Godfather Trilogy: 1901-1980, which was released on VHS in 1992, without his blessing. Paramount could release both versions themselves, but I think they're just as content releasing the Godfather trilogy separately.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

With Paramount seeming to shift their energies towards digital distribution, a release of the already existing HD version of the Saga version being made available for purchase on a service like iTunes might not be out of the question.