Terminator 1 & 2 (1 Viewer)

[DVDvision]

Same old same old, this time with a DVD on the other side. They are going to re-release this one forever until the new, definitive one comes along I guess.

 

[Geoff_D]

Mike, that's simply one of MGM/Fox's DVD + BD combos. (Look at the image of the packaging.) They're re-releasing a whole bunch of 'em, which you can see on playusa. Got the combo pack of Commando on the way. /img/vbsmilies/htf/biggrin.gif

 

[Mike Wadkins]

Thought so, just wanted to check

 

[supersonic395]

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

 

[Jerome]

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. »

 

[oscar_merkx]

thanks for the update.

 

[Fritz Nilsen]

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)

 

[Johnny Angell]

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.
 

Originally Posted by Fritz Nilsen
 
 
...speaking of which:
 
He's selling them on Amazon as we speak.

 

[Van Ling]

Fritz, Johnny: the guy is no dummy. He knows that right now, MGM is in no position to challenge him legally because they have bigger problems to deal with than a guy with a gray area. So I reckon this may be the only way fans are going to see that material on disc.
 
If someone on the forum has gotten it, I would be interested to know if there is any material on it other than the original 22-minute edited "Making of" piece itself... he first claimed he had hours of raw material, then said he only had the final edited master (on Beta) when I asked him to show me the material.
 
V

 

[Fritz Nilsen]

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

 

[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.

 

[Johnny Angell]

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.
 

 

[DVDvision]

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).

 

[Fritz Nilsen]

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.

 

[Johnny Angell]

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

 

[Will_B]

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:

There is no dipsute with Orion, Mgm, or Hemdale. Drew Cummings is the producer and copyright holder and has been since its production. When 60 Minutes produced a segment profiling James Cameron for his release of Avatar, MGM and Cameron told them to contact Drew Cummings for the licensing to behind-the-scenes of The Making of: Terminator footage."

 

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

 

Anyone know if he has any kids? Or if his Will specifies that all his VHS tapes are to be burnt on a funeral pyre along with his body?

 

[Fritz Nilsen]

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.

 

[Johnny Angell]

 
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.

 

[Van Ling]

Folks:
 
I had several conversations with Drew about the footage and was straight up with him about it. I asked him if he had the raw dailies tapes; he said he thinks they are in a storage facility he has down there in Florida, and he hinted that there might be a "longer cut" of the making-of doc. I asked him if he would please locate the material and make watermarked copies for me to review in order for the studio to make an assessment on how much they might be willing to pay as a "library fee" to pull the material (MGM still maintains they own the content, but might be willing to pay a "pull" fee, which is SOP). Whatever you want to call it, and I specifically said for him to watermark it so that he could feel assured we weren't going to just take it and use it without making a deal with him. He said he would work on that, and that he didn't want to license anything but to sell the rights outright and walk away... AND felt any offer of less than six figures for the material would be "insulting". I think he also wanted a producer credit on the BD, and no changes could be made to his making-of piece without his permission. I said we'll see about all of that once we could review what footage he had.
 
I then didn't hear from him for weeks (this was back in earlyr 2009). I write him email reminders, keeping it friendly and respectful. He finally sends me a reply saying essentially, "so do you want this or not?" I point out in my reply that he had mentioned a longer cut and raw footage, etc., and I get a reply saying "Let me be clear: I only have the edited 1" master and that's it." This is of relatively no use to us without raw material to cut with, and the studio is NOT going to pay six figures for what amounts to only about 15 minutes of premixed and edited footage he already has been releasing as what the studio considers a bootleg for years.
 
So that's my side of it, anyway. I'm sure he probably "remembers" it differently. It's a shame, as he did have some vintage footage from Robocop, LifeForce, Elm Street 4, and other (mostly B-list) shows, and I can only hope that it all doesn't get lost to history.
 
V

 

[Will_B]

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.