"South Pacific" Disc of the year?

Re: "South Pacific" Disc of the year?

The disc may win accolades but I cannot see any prizes for the cover art.

Re: "South Pacific" Disc of the year?

Jeez, those captures really do look absolutely gorgeous!

This isn't one I was planning to upgrade from my DVD copy. I suppose I should just go ahead and sell my R&H boxset now.

I promised myself I wasn't gonna do this...

Re: "South Pacific" Disc of the year?

Agreed. The great irony how such a beautiful disc (even the one color-filtered shot looks pretty good) can have such a mind-numbingly ugly cover that must have been designed as a Photoshop Tutorial project.

One thing they don't show is how the previously deleted "roadshow" scenes look. I'm wondering if there's any improvement in color, seeing how problematic the source for these scenes (a faded, original 1958 70mm print) was.

Bring on its R&H siblings! Imagine how great the Todd-AO Oklahoma! and (especially) The Sound of Music could look.

Re: "South Pacific" Disc of the year?

Snagged a copy today - and I don't recall having ever watched the film in it's entirety so I will definitely view the longer version first. I only hope that Fox will reduce their bd prices, but then again if they continue to release stellar hd transfers than I would pay a bit more. Still, 10.00 over what I paid for either An American In Paris and Gigi it is difficult to understand the disparity. Sure am glad I bought a 1080 projector. I could not imagine taking in productions as lavish as this on anything under 120". See what happens when you get spoiled?

Re: "South Pacific" Disc of the year?

roughly, what percentage of the film has colour filtered shots...

Re: "South Pacific" Disc of the year?

I know next to nothing about the film - but the filtered shots are during the musical numbers apparently. I will keep you posted. I started to look at the extended version and decided to check the feature version on the first disc - quite a difference! I thought I was looking at a very decent SD dvd on the extended, I was wondering what all the praise was about. The missing footage I saw was also quite faded of color - expected of course. The theatrical version on disc one is without a doubt superior in every respect, the DTS HD 5.1 soundtrack a definite improvement in comparison to the 5.1 Dolby Digital on the "extended' version, of which I only watched 15 minutes. I will close by saying it looks simply fantastic - gorgeous in fact! This is at 128" so if you like this film your going to love it on blu ray! I sure hope more great musicals are on the way in the next year or so. Fox has set a very high level on this release. I think we are finally getting somewhat spoiled. I'm impressed Fox.

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Woohoo! That all sounds very exciting.

While I hate crappy cover art, it's never going to stop me from a presentation that sounds as exciting as this does!

Those DVD Beaver captures look incredible!

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EDIT** Too funny. I just realized the cover art is the same that I was complaining about a long time ago. Brazzi looks like he was fixed up by an undertaker in that "stylized photo." He doesn't even look real. It is just awful...but those screen caps are too much! And I'm really excited to hear what the DTS-HD MA track sounds like...

Re: "South Pacific" Disc of the year?

With Patton it was the other way around with the cover art and the disc quality, guess what I prefer ?

Re: "South Pacific" Disc of the year?

cheers Brent

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I really doubt this is going to be the "dvd of the year." Yikes. First of all--it sounds like a total port-over from the current SD release. Big deal. So we get to hear the spazzy, fanboy commentary from Richard Barrios over again. Yay. There's few new extras--and they didn't try to clean up the washed-out Roadshow footage. So again--big deal. It's just the same thing as before, but in HD. While the screencaps look great and I would like to have this in BluRay, it's uncrucial and unexciting.

Re: "South Pacific" Disc of the year?

How do you know that, did you see screencaps or the Blu-Ray itself ?
And even if you did how would you know that they didn't try ?

Most users are very happy with a Blu-Ray version that offers at least the same extras as the SD version and reference picture quality.
I am so easy to please that I would even buy Ben Hur and Lawrence of Arabia if they were released that way

Re: "South Pacific" Disc of the year?

You are easy to please, Oliver!

Then again, I guess I would be, too.

Re: "South Pacific" Disc of the year?

I know because I read Brent Avery's post above. And I know they didn't try because how hard is it, really, to colorize an old movie? Hollywood's been doing it for 20 years. All they had to do was separate it into B&W, and colorize. The colors would match the palette from the unaltered footage. Now this is very painstaking and expensive to do. I conclude that they didn't try because they didn't want to spend that kind of money. No, I do not know for sure. But the bottom line is--they didn't do it, and the old dvd looks crummy because of it. The difference in the footage is jarring to say the least. The extended Roadshow print is historically significant, and a great curiosity piece, but it's not that much fun to sit and watch in terms of relaxing entertainment.

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It is not as easy as you said. If that is the case, old Eastman Kodak color movies like "The Alamo" would be very easy to restore and reconstruct. You should read some interesting articles written by Robert A. Harris to understand more about this. You can't just separate the fade film elements into B&W and "colorize" it.

Re: "South Pacific" Disc of the year?

I'm not complaining about the lack of re-colorization. I just passively stated that they didn't do it. I didn't particularly expect them to colorize. My point being--if this disc is so great then why is it little better than the old one? They didn't upgrade the picture image--they just ported the previous restoration over to BD and added a few extras. That's all. That's why I have a problem with people labeling it the "BluRay of the Year" or whatever. They didn't do enough work on it to earn that title. The restoration work was done several years ago. It's basically a reissue. The fact that the sound and image is so wonderful is a testament to the original filmmakers--not the BluRay engineers who packaged this movie.

Re: "South Pacific" Disc of the year?

I guess they should leave future restoration work to you How hard can it be? Very hard!

What happened is probably more like this: The resolution of whatever Fox had at hand for the added bits of the roadshow version would always have stuck out like a sore thumb from the fantastic looking rest of the picture as it can be seen on disc one so they decided to leave it out of the main movie.




That isn't all. You are making even more assumptions now. From what is posted on DVDBeaver South Pacific has been completely redone with an 8k scan that wasn't even possible when the DVD was released and therefore is coming from a completely different source.

I guess the bottom line is this: The picture and sound quality that is seen in the shorter version of the movie on disc one is a stellar achievement and if that is not enough for you fine, but please do not try to downplay the achievement of bringing South Pacific to Blu-Ray looking like this. There have been about half a dozen other large format films released to Blu-Ray and judging by the screencaps none of them looks as good as South Pacific, not Baraka, not 2001 and certainly not Patton

Re: "South Pacific" Disc of the year?

And Patton did even get a new 4k scan and still ended up looking like it does

What is nice to see is that those of us who predicted Patton and TLD to be an isolated incident with Fox were fortunately right - all other classic titles from them looked much better and it seems like South Pacific is their most stunningly looking title so far but I will reserve judgement until I can see it in motion and not just a few screencaps.

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Unfortunately Gigi reveals the limitations of Metrocolor's printing. Yet it's still better than the DVD. It will never look as good as a 70mm source.

Re: "South Pacific" Disc of the year?

GIGI for red push of the year award !

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“GiGi” is a problematic film that will need extensive restoration. It’s not the limitation of Metrocolor printing but a common color fading issue that is a big problem of Eastman Kodak color motion picture film of that era. The available source materials for the latest video incarnation are not in very good condition but they did as good as they could (and as their budget allows) with the latest blu-ray & DVD edition.

Re: "South Pacific" Disc of the year?

Why does everyone make it sound like I'm pissed off at this release? I simply implied that considering the fact that the short version already looked stunning on the old dvd that it probably wasn't that big of a leap to make it look great on BR. I wasn't talking about the miracle of 8K scanning or the technology of 2009. I was talking about the fact that it already looked good. Then I said that if they really wanted to get my attention they'd have to be innovative so far as to try and re-colorize the ghastly deleted footage from the Roadshow version. I didn't say it would be a snap; I know very well that it would be a lot of work and very expensive. Don't make me a villain--when I hate a dvd, I certainly have no qualms about making my feelings heard.

Now the real test for them is Oklahoma. That show looked crummy (both versions) on the latest dvds. I have those and the original dvd from circa 2000. Upconverting just seems to worsen the problem. Now if they can make both Oklahomas look good on BR then we're in business.

Re: "South Pacific" Disc of the year?

Ethan, you are passionate and I can understand that. Now, let me tell you this, the reason why the theatrical version of South Pacific now looks stunning is because it got a full restoration some years ago. The original 65mm elements including a set of 65mm YCM color separation masters made right after the film was developed back in 1958 survived so in this case, the film is rather lucky. However, the roadshow version’s original elements did not survive because they all had been destroyed and discarded once the film was cut and trimmed down to its theatrical (shorter) version. The only known surviving materials of the roadshow version is a severely fade Eastman print of the film belong to a film collector and that's the source and basis of the roadshow version that you can see on DVD. At this point there is no known technology to revive this badly fade roadshow print but who knows it may be possible in the future. By the way, you can read the article regarding the restoration of theatrical version of South Pacific at the following link: "South Pacific"

Re: "South Pacific" Disc of the year?

Don't think anybody answered this yet...

If memory serves there are only two or three numbers that have the color filtering. Not every number has it. So, it's not a big percentage (10%, maybe?).

I've heard a lot of people trashing the use of it, but I like it. I think it adds to the appeal in a kooky way.

Re: "South Pacific" Disc of the year?

The roadshow version is all we have of how the film was on opening day, barring some miraculous discovery in a vault. My reservations about it (from what I know) are that they couldn't present the soundtrack lossless here, too. (Dumping the Barrios commentary that no one liked may have freed up enough space...) I saw the 70mm roadshow print and you could see pale swooshes where the movement of filters used to be. Fox did their best, but you cannot restore color info that does not exist. The tragedy of 70mm prints is that no dye-transfer printing process for this format was ever made. If a properly timed 35mm IB Tech print was a Mercedes, a good 70mm IB, had they ever been made, would have been a Rolls-Royce.


South Pacific has been restored (and it came first on BD because of its 50th anniversary last year and the current Broadway revival, unusual as most R&H movie reissues since 1990 have been tied to the latest Sound of Music multiple-of-five anniversary), but Oklahoma! needs to be restored (at least the Todd-AO version, anyway), but I imagine they wanted it out for its 50th anniversary (along with the 40th of Sound of Music and 60th of State Fair 1945). I saw this film twice in 70mm; they were 1983 LPP reprints, and except for a small portion of "Many a New Day" they looked yellowish throughout. I imagine this film will get the attention it needs and deserves. Fox and the R&H Organization would not let a landmark film perish, not even in this economy.

Re: "South Pacific" Disc of the year?

The FotoKen article says the roadshow came frp, am archive in England.

Not true. It came from a private collector who had bought up random cuts from the filmover the year and inserted the scenes inhis no-roadshow 70mm print. thus, there are scenes from the preview version in this print. Still missing from the Roadshow version is the reprise of BaliHai sung byJohn Kerr as he takes a boat to Bali Hai. Richard Barrios, in his commentary, says it was never filmed. That is one of many incorrect things in his commnetary track.
If yu have the dvd - Rodgers and hammerstein, teh Sound of Movies - remastered edition, it has trailers from all of the R and H films and there is an originl trailer from south Pacific (Not the one on the current dvd) and in the trailer you can HEAR the reprise of Bali Hai on the soundtrack).
BTW, Fox spent well over a year working on the print of the Roadshow version. IN the opening scenes with the seabees and Bloody Mary, the print was nothing but Pink. thats not the case with the dvd version.
Luckily, when the scens with the color filters enter, they made the restored footage all of the same color.

My big question - I do not have bluray and I am told there is a feature length doc on the making of the film - what does it show?