Does anybody want Henson to revisit the first three Muppet movies? (1 Viewer)

[Jeffrey Gray]

You know, I have been reading reviews for the DVDs of the three Muppet movies made during Jim Henson's life, and all the reviews say the picture, sound, and extras all leave much to be desired. Now, I wonder...since we're petitioning the Jim Henson Company to get Disney to do OAR DVDs of the post-Henson Muppet movies, and to get their own home entertainment division to release Fraggle Rock to DVD, why don't we try to get them to do new DVDs (SEs, even) of the first 3 Muppet movies? I would love SEs with documentaries, behind-the-scenes footage, and commentary by Frank Oz, Dave Goelz, Jerry Nelson, and the other surviving classic Muppeteers. Wouldn't everybody else?

 

[Jeff Kleist]

From what I hear, Columbia spent a LOT of time cleaning them up for DVD, and that Columbia wasn't wiling to pony up for more extras than are on there. Plus the problem of it having to be a DVD-5 really limited things

 

[Jeffrey Gray]

Columbia doesn't have to get involved. The Jim Henson Co. has its own home entertainment division; why can't they produce the disc themselves?

 

[David Lambert]

Let's not give Henson & Co. too much more to think about right now than the issues on the table. They don't need to feel "beat up upon"; then they'll start ignoring the whole entire mess. Let's just concentrate on a couple of key areas. OAR and Fraggle Rock seem to be good places to start.
I for one am happy enough with the discs I already have. I just want to be able to purchase the new ones, from Follow That Bird on!

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Because Columbia has distribution rights. Henson does not do their own home video production, they just approve it before it ships

I HAVE used my contacts to make them aware of the Disney widescreen issue. But by the time it trickles down the disc will be out

 

[JohnS]

Yes, I agree with David.

Give them time to concentrate on much more needed titles like Muppet TI, Muppet X-mas, Follow that Bird all in 16x9

and Fraggle Rock live action and animated full seasons on DVD.

They can ALWAYS go back to the other Muppet Movies and improve of them if they need to.

Plus I hear that they are busy with anoher Dark Crystal/Labyrinth type of fantasy movie

 

[DaViD Boulet]

I HAVE used my contacts to make them aware of the Disney widescreen issue. But by the time it trickles down the disc will be out.

Just as long as Disney gets the point and re-releases a widescreen OAR version we'll be ok. Also, it's always possible that Disney could delay the MTI release.

(sigh on)yes, here comes my usual plug to any of you who haven't already contact Disney and asked that they releas Muppet Treasure Island in 16x9 WS.(/sigh off)

As far as the original muppet movies, yeah, Columbia really is holding that bag and did a decent job given the source materials they had. I agree that for the moment we need to limit our "campaigning" of Henson to getting MTI and Christmas Carol in 16x9 WS and to getting Fraggle Rock on DVD...the entire series.

Jeff...please tell your contacts that in addition to getting the whole Fraggle Series IN ORDER on DVD...a welcome extra would be "music only" tracks in PCM stereo of the studio mixes of the "featured" songs from the episodes.

Our Melody come and sing it with me....

p.s. maybe down the road we can revisit the notion of diging up some better film/sound elements for the original muppet movies if they can be found for a new hi-def transfer.

-dave

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

I was most disappointed with the first "Muppet Movie". The 5.1 remix really left a lot to be desired. The stereo foreign language tracks featured better musical fidelity than the remix of the original English track. I suppose it is possible that they did not have an isolated dialog track from which to work, but it is still disappointing.

Regards,

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

I think any and all "disappoiontments" with the original DVDs stem not from a lack of effort, but simply from a lack of materials. The Muppet Movie specifically was a low budget affair, and the film certainly shows it. It is very grainy (which, despite the popular reviewer opinion is not a fault of the "transfer")- and looks pretty low budget.

Also, with music, I get the feeling source materials were simply not available. The music is a bit low-fi at times, but no more so than any other similar budget film from the same era.

I think as much as we love these movies, I think we have to realize that at the time they were kind of the bastard step child releases which got little attention even as they were being filmed.

I certainly wouldn't mind commentaries from the cast- but I think the sales of the current discs show that there might not be much of an audience to make the effort worthwhile.

If only everyone in the world bought the movies I like, then I could get gret SE's of everything. Heck, I'm ready to move to LA and offer to produce DVD supplements for free, just to see them happen.

-Vince

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Also, with music, I get the feeling source materials were simply not available. The music is a bit low-fi at times, but no more so than any other similar budget film from the same era.

What's odd is that the audio sounds pretty good on the P/S laserdiscs (pcm). The rock scene in the church with the band is particularly good sounding on laserdisc.
Since the stereo elements exist for all the music...would have been neat (like with Rocky Horror) if they had remixed these musical squences to sound better in the film.
All in all I'm happy to have the Muppet movies in 16x9 WS OAR!
Hopefully we'll get our 16x9 WS Treasure Island
BTW, totally agree with you on how many reviewers attribute "grain" to being a bad transfer. Ugh.
Talking about how bad some reviewers can be about things like this...I actually heard one reviewer criticize the audio mix on the Sound of Music because it had "odd directional dialogue effects when actors moved to the edge of the screen" and that he thought all the talking should come out of his center channel.
Here Fox had done an admirable non-Warner job of *preserving* the original multi-channel audio mix...directional dialogue in tact and all...and he didn't understand the historical context of this mixing technique for the big-screen and was criticizing the DVD for it :frowning:

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Vince is correct. It's the available materials. I think all they have is the final mixdown for The Muppet Movie, so they'd be faking 5.1 from that. I could swear there's a 2.0 track on there as well

Agreed. The discs we have now are great, AFTER we get the other stuff maybe come back to them

I have mentioned Fraggle Rock many times, they don't have a distributor yet. Last I heard, HBO is waffling on first right of refusal.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

I have mentioned Fraggle Rock many times, they don't have a distributor yet. Last I heard, HBO is waffling on first right of refusal.

As far as a DVD release is concerned, I know that Time Life is considering it. The next step in my mind if talks go well between Henson and Time Life is for the fans to write Time Life and let them know what WE think a good DVD release would be like (the entire series in order).

The general quality of the Muppet Shows on Time Life DVD are excellent...they're just not in order and in best-of collections. I hope Fraggle Rock gets better treatment!

-dave

 

[Henry Gale]

This looks like a good thread for me to work in the title..DREAMCHILD.
An excellent film and the first project of Jim Henson's Creature Shop.
Jim
It's available on pan & scat video tape.