Terminator 1 & 2 - Page 21

Hi there, I'm new to this particular forum.

I found my way here after (re)searching for a "The Terminator" Blu Ray. I heard that a new restoration was underway and would be out soon, and was pointed to this forum :)

@Van Ling

Hi there,

Is there any news on how close the T1 Blu Ray is to release? Especially as in the UK there is currently no T1 blu ray available :(

Bad news

http://www.jamescamerononline.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&p=21955#p21955

Van Ling: « I’ve kind of been put on hold on working on the « Terminator » Blu-ray for over a year now, and as far as I can tell, « Terminator » will [remain] in limbo for the foreseeable future, most likely due to the fact that MGM (which owns the rights to « The Terminator ») has been sorting out its financial/corporate issues… as you may know, they have been dealing with bankruptcy and this has affected the James Bond and The Hobbit films as well. »

thanks for the update.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Van Ling 


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. 

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.

...speaking of which:

He's selling them on Amazon as we speak. (http://www.amazon.com/Making-Terminator-Arnold-Schwarzenegger/dp/B003NE6662/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1282130291&sr=8-2)

According to Van Ling's quote above, he shouldn't be doing that.  Is there someplace with the story behind all this?

I noticed there's not even one user comment on the film and the discs are burned on demand.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fritz Nilsen 

 

 

...speaking of which:

 

He's selling them on Amazon as we speak.

Hi Van.

Ha ha, the back of the disc says (c)1983 - 2010 Cummings Entertainment Group. There's even a headshot of the guy on the back!

I grabbed Making of Terminator (and Making of Robocop) immediately, knowing they may be recalled due to rights violations at any moment.

The Terminator disc features only the 22 minute program (21:47 to be exact), probably identical to the original broadcasts. The disc is DVD-R and features no menu or any supplements whatsoever.

For some reason the image is squeezed horizontally, with pillarboxing inside the 4:3 frame.

The VOBs are dated may 2010

Van.

If it's any consolation, and if you weren't already aware, I believe it was Paul Sammon who had the same difficulty getting access to his Robocop material for the Criterion LD back in the day.

He's also issued a Making of Nightmare on Elm Street DVD over on Amazon.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fritz Nilsen 

Van.

 

If it's any consolation, and if you weren't already aware, I believe it was Paul Sammon who had the same difficulty getting access to his Robocop material for the Criterion LD back in the day.

 

He's also issued a Making of Nightmare on Elm Street DVD over on Amazon.

So this same guy has Robocop, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Terminator material?  And he won't license it out to anybody?  Surely he'd make more from a license fee than the piddling amount he's likely to make from the Amazon sale.

Fritz, what's the quality of the Making Of that you bought?  Good, mediocre, better than a sharp stick in the eye?

And I'd still be interested in the story behind this fellow.
 

At least he could master his beta tape correctly on DVDR, he doesn't even do that. Do not buy from this guy. (I don't care as I own the VHS and transfered it to DV years ago to archive it).

Johnny.

The quality is what you'd expect from a standard-def, analog source. The image appears heavily noise reduced and soft. The colours are nice and rich, though. There are no tape related dropouts or streaking as I could detect. No compression related blocking either, but bear in mind I wasn't actively looking for any such defects. They may still be present.

My theory regarding the image squeeze is that the 4x3 image was supposed to be pillarboxed in an anamorphic 16:9 frame. Then someone just forgot to add the anamorphic flag at the mastering stage. Your TV should be able to compensate.

I'm happy to add this disc to my collection, but at $15 it's not exactly a bargain. I suppose the price may go down eventually, but I wasn't going to risk the disc being recalled due to rights issues.

The sad thing is, it's actually a good piece on the making of Terminator. Pity the guy hasn't preserved all the raw footage and made it available to Van at a reasonable price.

Thanks, Fritz.  I think I'll hold off getting this one.

Drew Cummings, inventor of the behind-the-scenes footage concept, and a perfectly sane individual, responded to the one review on Amazon with this:

"Drew Cummings says:

That was my review he commented on over on Amazon. I'll grant him this; there is no dispute as such, he is indeed the single rights-holder to this Making of.. What IS disputable is wether he's allowed to release it when it includes quite a bit of in-movie footage.

...and he neglected to comment on the technical shortcomings of the disc.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Will_B 

 

...Not stated in his reply is that he probably told 60 Minutes to pay him one million dollars.

 

 

He may hold the rights, but that seems to be all he's doing, holding them.  It seems to me he'd make more money by quoting reasonable licensing fees and having his offer accepted, than being exorbitant and getting nothing.  I've got a feeling he's not making much money off the Amazon disc.  And I do understand the million is an exaggeration.

I have a terrible feeling it will simply get put in a dumpster by the storage facility once he dies and the storage facility's bill goes unpaid. ...But I see he has a website, and hopefully that may mean he has at least 1 employee who will outlive him.

I watched the 60 Minutes segment on Avatar, and there was indeed a clip of behind-the-scenes footage from The Terminator -- approximately 3 seconds. It had a "Drew Cummings" credit on it, and showed a 1:1 torso-and-head Terminator model being "walked" by a crew. I imagine he got a thousand bucks for those 3 seconds, which must be how he calculates that 20 minutes would be worth six figures. A better calculation would be how few DVD-Rs he's sold on Amazon. His website has photos of him standing next to celebrities; read into that what you may about his personality.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Van Ling 



When I do still galleries, I always try to maximize the image size ....
 

Case in point: Here's a screencap I found of the still galleries on James and the Giant Peach Blu-Ray (Haven't seen the disc myself). Clearly an example of How Not To...

Has there been any further news on the Terminator 1 Blu Ray?

Also for audio tracks, I know everyone wants a the original 1.0 mono track, but would it be possible to have it as a 1.1 track? I ask because I recently bought the ost and listening to it through my music system, the bass is so awesome (& epic).

DTS HD MA 1.1

DTS HD MA 5.1 (without the new effects though)

Quote:

Originally Posted by supersonic395 

... but would it be possible to have it as a 1.1 track? ...

The original track should be the original track without ANY modifications such as bass enhancement. A DTS-MA 1.0 channel is fully capable of the full frequency response including powerful bass. If your center channel isn't capable of reproducing the bass in the center channel then you should have your receiver's bass management directing those frequencies to your subwoofer.

Drew Cummings, producer of the behind-the-scenes footage during the shooting of The Terminator, replied to that Amazon thread again.

(Nothing new was said, so I'd encourage everyone to resist the urge to join in. I myself am unable to shut up. But, bear in mind that Cummings sued American Idol -- or at least made headlines that he was going to sue them -- when he was denied the opportunity to sing for the judges at an open-call. If he's that easily riled, speaking to him should be done more carefully than it is done with other people.) Here's what he wrote on Amazon today:

"From 1983 to 1989 I produced and own the “Making Of:” series, which includes Robocop, Terminator and roughly 40 other films. I was not hired by the studios and I funded the entire production myself at a time when the studios and directors were reluctant to give away hollywood special effects and stunt secrets on how films were made. I financed the entire series (52 half-hour) episodes, and that is why I own the footage and copyrights on the behind-the-scenes footage. Today, the studios own all of the behind-the-scenes footage from their films in part because I showed them that there was a value for such material.

"I have no aversion to selling or licensing my footage, or for that matter selling the masters and copyrights to the right buyer. I just want a reasonable fee. So far, no studio has made a reasonable offer. The Biography channel just did a two hour “Nightmare On Elm Street” retrospective that was highlighted by talking heads and still photos. It would have been so much more entertaining and interesting to the viewer if it contained actual behind-the-scenes footage of the makeup, special FX, and stunts I own. I didn’t even receive a call from the producers, and MGM is aware of my one hour Nightmare special, as was Warner Bros. who will be releasing the current Nightmare film from 2010. As for the price of the Terminator DVD on Amazon, it is selling quite well, and building every month, as does Robocop, and Nightmare On Elm Street. I am sorry if anyone views the price as too high.

"I plan on releasing more episodes from the series in the next few months. From time to time I will license or even GIVE footage to shows like 60 Minutes if they are paying a tribute to the directors or actors for their scope of work, but I am not prepared to give unique and valuable footage to the studios to add onto their DVD’s without a fair fee. I took the risk of funding the production of the behind-the-scenes footage for my series, and the shows aired the same week the film was released in the theatres, so the studios received nationwide coverage for zero dollars. In some most cases some of the films we covered were so bad we couldn’t even make a licensing deal in the VHS market.

"“The Making Of:” weekly half hour series I started in the 1983 defined a whole new genre called docu-tainment. Subsequently, the studios realized the value of the behind-the-scenes long format shows and specials that I pioneered, and started producing and owning them themselves. All I know is that I am very blessed and have had the opportunity to work with hundreds of actors, directors, FX wizards, and filmmakers on locations around the world, on a weekly series that defined a new form of documentary filmmaking that can be found on every DVD released today."

[deleted]

The man owns an IP of value, if he wants to release it on his terms he's right to do so.

It's when people or companies own an IP and refuse to release it EVER (Song of the South, Fantastic Four, Halloween 666) that is immoral and should be discouraged.

It's unfortunate that his Docu-shorts are so poorly sourced and authored, he should take more pride in his work.

But then again Documentaries on DVD are usually treated as little more than things purchased in mass for teaching uses, "Super Size" me was not even 16x9 enhanced.

It's a shame MGM wont sell their recent classics to Criterion again, a Terminator BD in their hands would possibly be of similar quality to the Geneon edition of T2.

I suppose that has been true, FanboyZ, that extras haven't been treated well on DVD. Extras on DVD were usually the most compressed, sometimes looking like UHF channel tuned in poorly. Seems like that trend is ending with BluRay though, for the large part.

Hi Van Ling,

Has there been any news on the Terminator 1 remaster getting released? It seems MGM have sorted out their problems.

Will Terminator 1 be getting a 4k scan and will T2 have the same treatment?

Kind regards,

Hi Van Ling,

Many thanks for your reply.

Ah well, fingers crossed for a release this year for T1 (+ the original mono track in lossless audio). Thanks again for the latest on the situation.

Kind regards