- Joined
- Feb 8, 1999
- Messages
- 18,312
- Real Name
- Robert Harris
I was fortunate enough to be able to spend some quality time with actress Margaret Hamilton in 1989 at the Telluride Film Festival, and since then I've always had difficulty equating that sweet lady with the green-faced witch in The Wizard of Oz.
Viewing the film on Blu-ray this evening, I realized that neither Ms. Hamilton, nor Ms. Garland, nor any of the other members of the cast and crew had ever had the experience that you are about to have -- viewing The Wizard of Oz via WB's new Blu-ray. I made some comments a few days ago over at Blu-ray.com answering a query in regard to whether certain "restorations" were actually restorations. My basic premise being that if a clean negative or set of negatives (for Technicolor) survive, then what is being created is more in line with a supervised lab order.
This is not the case here, where 4k scanning has been performed upon the original negatives of reels 2A - the end of the film, and like scanning of a surviving fine grain master of reels 1A and 1B, which make up the black & white sequences. The original negative of the black & white units was lost to fire some years ago. When a film is as beloved (and used) as The Wizard of Oz, there's going to be quite bit of housekeeping to be performed.
But let's go back a few years. The original elements of The Wizard of Oz were scanned in 2k for the creation of a standard definition DVD release which forms the basis, as far as extras are concerned, of what is about to be released in Blu-ray.
Many home video and asset management groups would be happy enough to sit on their laurels.
Not Warner Bros.
The surviving elements were once again shipped from their home in Rochester, NY, deep in nitrate vaults coddled over by George Eastman House, back to Burbank, where they once again had images harvested.
Only this time never falling below the 4k level, or film resolution.
All work was performed in by MPI, WB's crack digital unit, hidden away on the back lot.
What you'll see on the Blu-ray of The Wizard of Oz is the sharpest, most highly resolved and most visually perfect representation of the film...
Ever!
And then we move to audio, which used the same mixes prepared for the earlier version, original cleaned-up mono, as well as a 5.1 stereo mix derived from a myriad of surviving elements. Only now in Dolby True HD uncompressed.
Allow me to be quite honest. I've never seen a 1939 print of The Wizard of Oz, so I have no idea what it looked like. My earliest point of reference is 1954, the initial safety release. I have on GWTW, but that may well have been a totally different artistic animal. I mention this because I'm unable to tell you whether this replicates the original experience. But that really isn't the point with this film.
Going directly to the bottom line, you're about to see something that audiences in 1939 never saw. Sharper, perfectly registered, and more consistently colored than anything that has ever existed.
Buy it. Enjoy it. Support film restoration by doing so. And after you screen your new acquisition bend slowly toward Burbank and bow deeply, thanking Jeff Baker, George Feltenstein, Ned Price and the gang at MPI for the gift that they have created for you.
Seriously. How often are you going to find a studio that goes back to square one and re-performs an entire visual restoration because they feel they can eek just a tiny bit more out of the original elements to preserve the film again, and create a Blu-ray that can not be bettered!
This is a cinephiliac's nirvana.
Extremely Highly Recommended!
RAH
Viewing the film on Blu-ray this evening, I realized that neither Ms. Hamilton, nor Ms. Garland, nor any of the other members of the cast and crew had ever had the experience that you are about to have -- viewing The Wizard of Oz via WB's new Blu-ray. I made some comments a few days ago over at Blu-ray.com answering a query in regard to whether certain "restorations" were actually restorations. My basic premise being that if a clean negative or set of negatives (for Technicolor) survive, then what is being created is more in line with a supervised lab order.
This is not the case here, where 4k scanning has been performed upon the original negatives of reels 2A - the end of the film, and like scanning of a surviving fine grain master of reels 1A and 1B, which make up the black & white sequences. The original negative of the black & white units was lost to fire some years ago. When a film is as beloved (and used) as The Wizard of Oz, there's going to be quite bit of housekeeping to be performed.
But let's go back a few years. The original elements of The Wizard of Oz were scanned in 2k for the creation of a standard definition DVD release which forms the basis, as far as extras are concerned, of what is about to be released in Blu-ray.
Many home video and asset management groups would be happy enough to sit on their laurels.
Not Warner Bros.
The surviving elements were once again shipped from their home in Rochester, NY, deep in nitrate vaults coddled over by George Eastman House, back to Burbank, where they once again had images harvested.
Only this time never falling below the 4k level, or film resolution.
All work was performed in by MPI, WB's crack digital unit, hidden away on the back lot.
What you'll see on the Blu-ray of The Wizard of Oz is the sharpest, most highly resolved and most visually perfect representation of the film...
Ever!
And then we move to audio, which used the same mixes prepared for the earlier version, original cleaned-up mono, as well as a 5.1 stereo mix derived from a myriad of surviving elements. Only now in Dolby True HD uncompressed.
Allow me to be quite honest. I've never seen a 1939 print of The Wizard of Oz, so I have no idea what it looked like. My earliest point of reference is 1954, the initial safety release. I have on GWTW, but that may well have been a totally different artistic animal. I mention this because I'm unable to tell you whether this replicates the original experience. But that really isn't the point with this film.
Going directly to the bottom line, you're about to see something that audiences in 1939 never saw. Sharper, perfectly registered, and more consistently colored than anything that has ever existed.
Buy it. Enjoy it. Support film restoration by doing so. And after you screen your new acquisition bend slowly toward Burbank and bow deeply, thanking Jeff Baker, George Feltenstein, Ned Price and the gang at MPI for the gift that they have created for you.
Seriously. How often are you going to find a studio that goes back to square one and re-performs an entire visual restoration because they feel they can eek just a tiny bit more out of the original elements to preserve the film again, and create a Blu-ray that can not be bettered!
This is a cinephiliac's nirvana.
Extremely Highly Recommended!
RAH