Terminator 1 & 2

Nah, but a few days ago the house was surrounded in a slightly smoky haze cause it drifted over from the Santa Cruz Mountains. It smelled like someone was having a huge barbecue when I woke up. Strange it cleared up the next day but I still smelled the smoke. I'm also closer to Downtown Santa Cruz compared to way up in the mountains.
For some reason I'm strangely holding off on buying a T2 release until 2011. I mean a domestic one. Being that it'd be the 20th Anniversary and perhaps a 2-Disc set in a fancy Steelbook with T2 embossed onnit. I'm still kicking myself in the ass for selling the 2-Disc Ultimate Edition. More for the DTS-ES (right?) and the disc full of the LAZORDEESC extras. I do have the Extreme Edition and thought the WMVHD version of T2 was kick ass on it. I would import the Geneon 2-Disc Blu-ray but I'm so damn hesitant about it cause it's way expensive.
For THE TERMINATOR, I use the Dolby Pro Logic IIx thingy for the original mono track for the Special Edition DVD with the shiny cover.
By the way, do you ever import any digital media discs? I'm also wondering if the studios give you a copy of a particular title/release you worked on. I own an Oppo DVD player and it's great. Out of my HDDVD's I only have imported is one of my all time favourites, funny how I use the "ou" spelling, from the UK is Brotherhood of the Wolf. Hell, I'll still be keeping both of the two DVD releases AND the HDDVD when the Blu-ray of the film is eventually released.
Next time you work on a title for Blu-ray, I'd enjoy it if it contained a booklet. The booklet for THE ABYSS was great and I liked the anecdotes.
For TRUE LIES, I'm just going to download the DTheater rip, burn it to a DVD to play it on my Blu-ray player as an "interim" until the Blu-ray is released. Obviously supervised by Jim.
Another title I'm eager to import which Jim produced is STRANGE DAYS. It's the German Kinowelt 2-Disc. As the comparison screencaptures attest, this release is vastly superior to the Region 1. (Some of the grabs are NSFW.) http://www.caps-a-holic.com/vergleich.php?vergleichID=330
Also another thing, I never quite got around to seeing T2 3D: Battle Across Time at Universal Studios Hollywood because last time I went there the show wasn't there. But I've seen the behind the scenes on it!
Do you actually read all I write for my posts?

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

V

It's just I type out looooooooooong-arse posts.

Tomorrow's Judgement Day Aug 29th. Who's gonna be watching T2 and punching the 1st person who says "T3 next?".
I kinda started this tradition 15 years ago. I spent the whole day thinking. "Aug 29th? What the hell is today. I'm I forgetting someone's birthday or something?" As soon as I clued in I made some popcorn and popped in a Pan & Scan VHS that I payed $50 for in 1992.

Happy b-day, Judgment day! (That would be JudgEment day, on this side of the Atlantic)

This'll be as good a time as any to fire up the Pan & Scan Laserdisc I bought for $17.50 last month. Looking forward to seeing what Van and Cameron did with the framing on that.

...and come on, T3 isn't THAT bad :-)

Hi! I've never posted here before.
Sorry I came in late. I'd like to have the original Mono soundtrack on The Terminator (T1), and the previous DVD features on T1 and T2 if possible. Plus 3 versions of the movie for T2 (TC, SE and Extended Sp. Ed), the SE is my favourite.

 I think I know which part of Ray's post is recommended skipping ;)

To answer the OP's original question: what I'd like in the new Terminator BD, when it inevitably comes, is 1) preserve the original theatrical soundtrack! One of the greatest musical scores of all time, butchered and redone by its one composer. Shocking when an HTF member alerted me of this. And other than that, don't rush the restoration. Was definitely in need of one considering the qualtty of theimage on the 2006 blu ray.

 What do you mean butchered ? Brad Fiedel wasn't in charge of the 5.1 remix on DVD, he just gave his original multi-tracks for them to use.

 I think he's referring to a couple small changes to the opening credits. One: the main theme was cut in a little later in the mono mix; and two: it had the sounds of scraping metal (which wasn't there on Fiedel's tapes to begin with as heard in the 1994 Definitive Edition soundtrack release).

Also unless one has EX decoding switched on, the future war theme is burried within the mix in the opening pre-credits sequence and even then you have to strain to hear it. Its much more prominent in the original mono.

Otherwise, I have no idea what Ben is talking about

 Oh I get it, yes the main theme sounds lesser in the 5.1 remix, in fact, as written here and elsewhere, the 5.1 remix was missing many sounds and music bits that are present and clear in the original mono mix.

I sincerely hope that many of these are fixed in the upcoming blu-ray remaster. I mean, it's not uncommon to correct mistakes in transferts (remember Arnie wearing sport shoes instead of boots in the hotel corridor in the R2 DVD version ? haha !), and to do silent fixes in 5.1 mixes for reissues, so I'm sure people would be happy hearing the 5.1 remix improved, so that all the things we like about the mono and are missing are back (there aren't that many).

I was informed that the composer had physically rerecorded the entire musical score for that release; and that he had forgotten to do certain cues, and that's why they're missing. since I  read that, I tried watching Terminator (its only Terminator 1 we're talking about, you realise) and the score just souds different, in a bad way. It just doesn't have that same crunch and viciousness that it used to have. I think its in the way its played; but its remotely possible that what I've heard is wrong, and that it only sounds different because its some kind of 5.1 bump that's ruined the sound of it. Sorry I can't remember who told me this, but it was a HTF member on another thread, so perhaps a search might reveal the answer.

 Why would Brad Fiedel rescore ? He still have the multi-tracks, as evidenced by the release of the remixed soundtrack over 15 years ago. Hmmm, or maybe, did he re-record the whole lot using the same instruments, back then ?

Van,

What are they calling this new T1 re-release for MGM?  I remember seeing somewhere on the net they were going to call this The Terminator : Skynet Edition to match with the new T2 SE.  But someone told me that Lionsgate has the exclusive rights to that name.  Is there anything you can tell us?  Is it up to James Cameron what edition/cut he calls this or is it MGM?  Just curious.

Also, I would like to see new interviews with not only the major cast players, Arnold, Linda, and Michael, but the other actors in the movie, like the punks, Bess Motta, Paul Winfield, Lance Henriksen, the other Sarah's, Rick Rossovich, future soldiers and future survivors.  I would like to hear their stories about making the film, and what they thought about it. 

This along with the making of the Terminator documentry that talks about Stan Winston making Terminators and has 1984 interviews with Linda and Michael with some behind the scenes footage of Jim Cameron directing Linda and Michael and some other material.  Here's a link to the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGn0l8F6JMg   Part I


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBFbL6cfUIY&feature=related  Part II

This is very hard to find and has rarely been seen.  They need to purchase this from the owner for the new blu ray release.

Thanks Mr. Ling

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 doubt they'll call it the Skynet Edition, though.

You're in luck; I have in fact already interviewed many of people you listed, although some have elected not to participate and others have chosen not to reminisce unless they are paid, which the studio simply will not do due to the precedent it sets.  Also note that the very talented Paul Winfield (who played Lt. Traxler) passed away in 2004.

As for the behind-the-scenes footage and 1984 interviews, I have been pursuing that material for literally 15 years and it's probably not going to happen.  The person who purportedly "owns" the material wants six figures (basically, a large percentage of what the studio is spending on the entire disc) for the use of just the edited 20-minute "Making of" piece they did for TV syndication in 1984, and claims not to have any of the original raw footage any more.  He will not allow us to review the footage before paying him (I had to find an old commercial VHS copy of the edited piece on eBay), and he and the studio have been in a longstanding dispute over the material: he claims that he owns it outright, while the studio claims they do, and will not pay him for something they feel they already own.  The fact that his original deal was with the produciton company Hemdale, which was bought out by MGM a decade ago and no longer exists, only complicates things.  It's a real shame, since he really can't commercially use or post the footage because it's of the studio's intellectual property and technically contains footage from the final film, and we can't use it because actual material may in fact be owned by him and he'll sue over its use (again) even though he has no rights over the IP content itself.  It's a big mess, and sadly, will likely not get resolved.  The amount of money he wants for it is way over what it's worth to the studio (they know that apart from a few fans, no one is going to pay extra for the disc just to see this material), and if he doesn't have the original tape footage (rather than the already-edited material), there is even less incentive to meet his price.

Monetization of historical material sucks, but there we are.

V

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 (if they exist at all any more -- I heard they were destroyed in the process of making that last soundtrack CD) and never owned them anyway, since it was a low-budget film and the recorded elements went to the studio.  Also, in terms of what he might have on old floppy discs or something, the music was done on synth in layers using equipment circa 1984, and none of the current equipment can sequence the old music files without a serious retrofit.  He did supervise the music for the 5.1 remix for the 2001 release, and I was under the impression that it was done from the mono DM&E (a three-track mag reel containing the final discrete mono tracks for Dialog, Music and Sound Effects). 

I've asked that the mixes be reviewed and things fixed, but I have no clout on this; only Lightstorm can make the studio do it.  I'm having enough trouble just trying to convince them to include the original mono track on the disc like we did on the DVD.

V

Van, I really enjoy still galleries of promotional artwork, abandoned poster concepts, foreign posters, stuff like that. Some of the foreign posters for Terminator are wild! The stuff on the T2 laserdisc was very comprehensive in this regard. Could such a feature be included with The Terminator?

One thing always bothered me about still galleries on LD, DVD and now BD. The images are nearly always too small, usually because the designers have framed them in themed borders that take up half the screen resolution. Still images should always fill the screen as much as possible (protected for overscan, of course, and aspect-ratio of the images naturally). And the interface for galleries is particularily important. Browsing with the arrow keys is a must. No jumping back and forth to a thumbnail menu, please!

Brad Fiedel's contribution to the Terminator films cannot be overstated. I'd like to see some in-depth coverage of his work in future supplements. The last two Terminators were sorely missing his Terminator theme (yes, I know they were in there, but you know what I mean). A music-only track, perhaps with the composer's commentary interspersed, would be a godsend.

Let's see, anything else? As for a suitable label for the release -how about "Kitchen sink edition". I wish.

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 them but me.  But we really don't have much on the first Terminator film, and everything I could get my hands on I included on that DVD release.  T2 was much more well-documented, since it was in a more media-savvy age and I was there to packrat it myself.

When I do still galleries, I always try to maximize the image size and in the case of certain vertical posters, I may do a full shot and then do two tighter detail shots of the upper and lower halves, like I did with many of the Star Wars discs.  One other innovation I tried with the SW production still galleries was to have two versions: one with the image maximized, no text; and one with a caption and the image reduced to make room for the text.  Arrow keys are a must, I agree.

As I understand it, Brad is basically retired from fulltime composing, and I need to find out more about what he's been up to lately.  Doing music-only tracks are difficult because they can conflict with the rights of the license-holder of the soundtrack album, plus if you include the music out of context with the film, they sometimes have to pay extra royalties, etc.  Legal is a bitch in this business.

I was thinking maybe the "Unstoppable Edition", but I don't know what they might do... I keep hearing that MGM may be selling off its assets now and go under, and I don't know how that will affect any of this.

V

Looks like you'll have to go for "The Lawyer's cut" moniker, like the recent Monty Python disc :-)

And the whole MGM situation worries me also.... How is job security for freelance DVD producers these days?

I loved that approach.  I wish more would do their still galleries the same way.

Yep, I loved those SW galleries too. As Fritz said above, too many stills galleries present the subject so bloody small that they're barely worth bothering with. The caption/full-screen approach even allows for some replay value, too.

Van, please keep fighting for the mono audio on Terminator. The 5.1 track just doesn't sound like the movie I know. It'd break my heart to have a stunning Lowry remaster allied to that 5.1 mix.

He has no problems posting it on his website. He also claims he has invented the Making of genre
http://www.drewcummings.com/Documentary/documentary.htm