Disney Muppet Movie SE 2005? (1 Viewer)

[Matt M]

There are rumors over at Muppetcentral.com that Disney is releasing a Muppet Movie SE in late 2005. If true they better keep it widescreen and while they are at it they might as well release Muppet Christmas Carol and Treasure Island in WIDESCREEN. Disney has been better lately of releasing movies in widesceen but they need to go back and correct past mistakes with the Muppet movies and other like Heavyweights and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

I hope this happens, and I also hope they do the Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppet Treasure Island the right way.

 

[Patrick Soucy]

I'll get the "Muppet Christmas Carol" if it's in Widescreen! Maybe a little late, but it's better than never.

 

[WillG]

Even though Disney has some faults, I do think that they really do get the concept of the Special Edition. If the Muppet Movie is truly going to have the Special Edition banner, I am optimisitc that it will be pretty good and that they will do it in Widescreen.

 

[Andrew Radke]

I'd like to see special editions of all of the Muppet films. I recently purchased "The Muppet Movie", "The Great Muppet Caper" and "The Muppets Take Manhattan" all at excellent prices. These of course are the Columbia/Tri-Star releases.

I also agree that "Muppet Treasure Island" and "A Muppet Christmas Carol should be released OAR. Hopefully we'll see the latter by next Christmas.

 

[MatthewA]

Muppets Take Manhattan would presumably still be owned by Columbia, as TriStar released it originally.

But for this release, I'd like to see:
—Audio commentary by the Henson family (and maybe some characters)
—Theatrical trailer
—Deleted scenes (if existent, including the complete version of "I Hope that Something Better Comes Along")
—Music-only track
—Anything else they can dig out of the vault

 

[Brian Kidd]

This is a film that is badly in need of some work. I have yet to see a nice clean print of it. It's one of my all-time favorites and still funny after all these years.

 

[Mark Bendiksen]

The Muppet Movie seriously needs to be redone. The transfer is sub-par and don't even get me started about the sound quality on the 5.1 track. Yuck!

Link Removed

 

[Bryan Tuck]

So, does Disney have the rights to all the old movies again? I thought they had just purchased the rights to the characters, and that the rights to the older movies would remain with Columbia Tristar (or Sony Pictures or whatever its called now).

 

[MatthewA]

If I'm not mistaken the following is true:

Disney will own the rights to:
—The Muppet Movie (formerly Henson owned)
—The Great Muppet Caper (formerly Henson owned)
—The Muppet Christmas Carol (produced by Disney)
—Muppet Treasure Island (produced by Disney)

and Columbia/Sony will continue to own:
—The Muppets Take Manhattan (produced by TriStar)
—Muppets From Space (produced by Columbia)

 

[MatthewA]

I don't know what can be done about the 5.1 track. If there are separate music, dialogue, and effects tracks a new 5.1 track could theoretically be made (it's been done before), but this was an early Dolby A film, so the sound wasn't that great to begin with.

The Muppet Movie was screened at the Brooklyn Arts Museum's Jim Henson tribute a couple weeks ago in 35mm; I wasn't there; did anyone see the film there and, if so, how was the print? Must be beet red by now, as low fade print stock didn't come out until 1983 (the print I saw of Muppets Take Manhattan at a local movie theater's kids show [supplied by Columbia Pictures Repertory] was excellent, BTW).

 

[DaViD Boulet]

If Disney does to widescreen versions of these films (two of which they only released P/S so far), the next issue will be getting them to do a proper 1.85:1 16x9 transfer as opposed to a 1.66:1 16x9 cropped transfer...

-dave

 

[Mark Bendiksen]

Well, that's true. However, certainly at least the musical numbers themselves could sound much better. The songs in the current release just sound...well...weird. (How's that for a technical description?)

 

[Bryan Tuck]

Disney's been pretty good lately about proper ratios when they do widescreen, so hopefully that won't be too much of a problem.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

not on the new Mary Poppins (a cropped 1.66:1 image of a hard-matte 1.85:1 film...)

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

The 2.0 stereo foreign language tracks sound superior in many ways, particularly in musical fidelity, to the 5.1 track on the current release. If they can't make a proper 5.1 track or even a pro-logic remix, they should at least include the original soundtrack from as good a source as exists for it.

Regards,

 

[MatthewA]

Columbia is a little odd in that respect. The OOP widescreen DVD of "Annie" has a French (Quebeçois, I supect) track with far better fidelity than the English 2.0.