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Fox- Please give DOCTOR DOLITTLE and STAR! to Twilight Time! (1 Viewer)

trajan

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I received an e-mail from James Finn that they had no plans at this time to release these films in the next year or two. TT told me that would love to have them and asked but were turned down. Fox, if you are not going to release these films any time soon, how about giving them to Twilight Time?
 

OliverK

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trajan said:
I received an e-mail from James Finn that they had no plans at this time to release these films in the next year or two. TT told me that would love to have them and asked but were turned down. Fox, if you are not going to release these films any time soon, how about giving them to Twilight Time?
As you know with regard to the masters Twilight Time only takes what the studios give them.What Fox has for both Star! and Dr. Dolittle doesn't really cut it and if they redo both movies they will want to release them, too.If you are really in desperate need to watch it again I would suggest to import the German Blu-ray of Dr. Dolittle. It is a rather bad looking disc though so I suggest to pass on it and wait for Fox to redo it properly.
 

Konstantinos

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OliverK said:
As you know with regard to the masters Twilight Time only takes what the studios give them.What Fox has for both Star! and Dr. Dolittle doesn't really cut it and if they redo both movies they will want to release them, too.If you are really in desperate need to watch it again I would suggest to import the German Blu-ray of Dr. Dolittle. It is a rather bad looking disc though so I suggest to pass on it and wait for Fox to redo it properly.

Well, the German Bluray of Doctor Dolittle looks quite good to me:
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film3/blu-ray_reviews55/doctor_dolittle_blu-ray.htm

I mean if I was someone that would like to have the film, I'd prefer it over nothing.
 

haineshisway

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Konstantinos Zacharopoulos said:
Well, the German Bluray of Doctor Dolittle looks quite good to me:
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film3/blu-ray_reviews55/doctor_dolittle_blu-ray.htm

I mean if I was someone that would like to have the film, I'd prefer it over nothing.
Well, I feel I must comment on this, because the German Blu-ray is perhaps the single worst transfer of a large format film in history, topping even Greatest Story Ever Told. The color is faded and ugly brown, and the film just looks terrible, IMO.
 

classicmovieguy

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"Dolittle" is also available from Australia through I suspect its the same transfer that the German edition used. Good disc but could use some additional work - colours do sadly lean to the tawny side.
 

Doug Bull

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haineshisway said:
Well, I feel I must comment on this, because the German Blu-ray is perhaps the single worst transfer of a large format film in history, topping even Greatest Story Ever Told. The color is faded and ugly brown, and the film just looks terrible, IMO.
I agree it's a truly awful looking disc.
Picture quality wise, the German and Australian discs are identical.

Sadly, the dvdbeaver scans do not show all of the inherent problems associated with this poor quality presentation.

Unless you are really desperate I suggest you wait until something better comes along.

Doug.
 

haineshisway

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Doug Bull said:
I agree it's a truly awful looking disc.
Picture quality wise, the German and Australian discs are identical.

Sadly, the dvdbeaver scans do not show all of the inherent problems associated with this poor quality presentation.

Unless you are really desperate I suggest you wait until something better comes along.

Doug.
I couldn't even finish watching it - it was horrifying in every way. The only chance a movie like Doctor Dolittle has is to look and sound amazing.
 

OliverK

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haineshisway said:
Well, I feel I must comment on this, because the German Blu-ray is perhaps the single worst transfer of a large format film in history, topping even Greatest Story Ever Told. The color is faded and ugly brown, and the film just looks terrible, IMO.
You probably have missed the German Blu-ray of El Cid that I think due to its orangish skintones and complete absence of detail is even more disappointing but I agree that Dr. Dolittle is up there with the worst. And of course the Blu-ray that is out for One Eyed Jacks is in a completely different league - it is so hideous that it does not even count as a Blu-ray :D
 

OliverK

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haineshisway said:
I couldn't even finish watching it - it was horrifying in every way. The only chance a movie like Doctor Dolittle has is to look and sound amazing.
For me the same goes for The Greatest Story Ever Told - the both look so dull and nasty that they may as well not have been released at all as far as I am concerned.
 

Douglas R

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haineshisway said:
Well, I feel I must comment on this, because the German Blu-ray is perhaps the single worst transfer of a large format film in history, topping even Greatest Story Ever Told. The color is faded and ugly brown, and the film just looks terrible, IMO.
That seems to be the same transfer of Dolittle that Sky TV in the UK have been showing in HD which certainly looks faded. It's 2.35:1 and the titles have no Todd-AO credit so it obviously doesn't come from a 70mm source. Surely not worse than TGSET though!
 

ROclockCK

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haineshisway said:
I couldn't even finish watching it - it was horrifying in every way. The only chance a movie like Doctor Dolittle has is to look and sound amazing.
Last I heard (way back in 2012), Doctor Dolittle was given precisely that leg-up via new high-rez scan off the original Todd-AO 65mm negative. In fact, at one point FotoKem's site carried the following self-promotion:
"65mm classics handled by FotoKem include: Dr.Dolittle, West Side Story, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, South Pacific, Khartoum, Can-Can, The Sound of Music, Baraka, Oklahoma!, The Bible, Cleopatra and Star!"
And lookee there...Star! too.

It seems as if Fox has been redoing their large format titles for quite awhile. So if they're backing off from that product line now, it might only be temporary.
 

Matt Hough

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I can still get an enjoyable fix for Doctor Dolittle from the DVD. For Star!, I have to go back to the laserdisc for comfort. The DVD was such a brown, ugly mess.

Naturally, I would like to see both of these Todd-AO shot musicals on Blu-ray, but as Bruce said, they need to look and sound spectacular to give them a fighting chance to reel in new viewers.
 

John Maher_289910

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Yes, if Fox is to ever do STAR!, lets hope they employ someone who doesn't think the film is beige, like whoever did the DVD! I can live out what's left of my life without DR. DOOLITTLE, although I'd most-likely buy it if they did a decent transfer.
 

DP 70

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The UK DVD of Doctor Dolittle is 2.20:1 and USA DVD is 2.35:1.
 

haineshisway

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John Maher_289910 said:
Yes, if Fox is to ever do STAR!, lets hope they employ someone who doesn't think the film is beige, like whoever did the DVD! I can live out what's left of my life without DR. DOOLITTLE, although I'd most-likely buy it if they did a decent transfer.
But if they don't do it beige then the "blue" police will show up and tell everyone how the film never had any blue in it :) But it did, Blanche, it did.
 

SFMike

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I reallly would like Dr. Doolittle blu-ray but after the way Fox botched up The King And I the prospects don't look good. We might get an orange and teal version of Dr. Doolittle or a grainless plasticized looking version. I've lost faith in them.
 

Powell&Pressburger

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It is funny, I just recently bought a sealed Laserdisc of Star! special edition several weeks ago. I haven't watched it yet... And toyed with the idea of buying the DVD copy to have also... I didn't realize the DVD transfer was bad :-( I bought the LD S.E. Because I always liked the artwork that was used for the cover. And I got it for a mere 15.00 sealed :) The first time I ever heard of Star! Was probably 16-18 yrs ago flipping the channels at about 3am and coming across it on eithe AMC (commerical free days) or TCM and thinking what is this! It seemed insane. (In a good way)I will watch the Lasedisc soon since it doesn't sound like we would be getting a BLU in the near future :-( Id hope for FOX to issue an outstanding restoration for the film even thru TT.
 

John Maher_289910

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STAR! played at Philadelphia's Cinerama theater, The Boyd. I saw it, many times, in beautiful 70mm Todd-AO.

Star!.jpg
 

OliverK

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John Maher_289910 said:
Yes, if Fox is to ever do STAR!, lets hope they employ someone who doesn't think the film is beige, like whoever did the DVD! I can live out what's left of my life without DR. DOOLITTLE, although I'd most-likely buy it if they did a decent transfer.
The last print that I saw of Star! was a newly struck 70mm print and it leaned towards a more brownish/yellowish color palette and it was also rather dark.
 

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