Will EL CID, THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, and 55 DAYS AT PEKING ever get a proper restoration and h (1 Viewer)

[john a hunter]

indeed!!!
The UK version I thought had a wee bit better colour but otherwise it's the same poor version we know and love(sorry hate!!)

 

[Douglas R]

I seem to have been waiting most of my life for a perfect home video version of EL CID and FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. I’ve bought every new version on every format - VHS onward.

 

[OliverK]

Have you seen the restored and remastered UK bluray of EL CID ?It's superb and comes with lots of extras.

I think that most of us who have seen it were very unimpressed and I am not quite sure if you wrote this with a straight face as El Cid has to rank among the worst looking large format releases on Blu-ray.

 

[OliverK]

I seem to have been waiting most of my life for a perfect home video version of EL CID and FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. I’ve bought every new version on every format - VHS onward.

For the standards at the time both movies looked at least acceptable if not good on LD and DVD but fell behind dramatically on Blu-ray.

I am sure that we would by now have at least reasonably good releases of both if somehow Fox had acquired them and at least a nice Blu-ray of El Cid if Weinstein had NOT gotten the rights.

 

[RICK BOND]

I had El Cid on Laserdisc in the 90's from Criterion ! I wish Criterion owned both Cid and Fall, Damn it ! : ( ? What is this Weinstein company going to do just sit on these movies forever ? Sell them to a Big name company with Big money $ ! Idiots !

 

[Stephen PI]

I had El Cid on Laserdisc in the 90's from Criterion ! I wish Criterion owned both Cid and Fall, Damn it !

The transfer that was used for the Criterion laserdisc was from a low con print, the reason it has that contrasty inferior look. This film has never got the treatment it deserves.
Just for the record, Criterion had the good sense to go by my suggestion and access the discrete 4-track stereo master from England, rather than use the inferior 2-track mixed-down track that was used for the restoration back in the mid-nineties. By the time the dvd was released, the 4-track, by that time, may well not have been playable. The same Dolby Digital 5.1 (made from the 4-track) has been used on all releases since then.
Also, at the time the laserdisc was produced, the 4-track stereo music and effects track was also accessed from England but unfortunately proved to be completely unplayable.

 

[OliverK]

The transfer that was used for the Criterion laserdisc was from a low con print, the reason it has that contrasty inferior look. This film has never got the treatment it deserves.
Just for the record, Criterion had the good sense to go by my suggestion and access the discrete 4-track stereo master from England, rather than use the inferior 2-track mixed-down track that was used for the restoration back in the mid-nineties. By the time the dvd was released, the 4-track, by that time, may well not have been playable. The same Dolby Digital 5.1 (made from the 4-track) has been used on all releases since then.
Also, at the time the laserdisc was produced, the 4-track stereo music and effects track was also accessed from England but unfortunately proved to be completely unplayable.

Good job on the soundtrack and back in the days even the picture quality was more than OK for the LD era. To think that almost 2 decades later Weinstein still returned to the same old low-con prints is really disappointing but even with them they could have done a better job.

 

[OliverK]

I had El Cid on Laserdisc in the 90's from Criterion ! I wish Criterion owned both Cid and Fall, Damn it ! : ( ? What is this Weinstein company going to do just sit on these movies forever ? Sell them to a Big name company with Big money $ ! Idiots !

It is not that easy, Weinstein probably only holds North American distribution rights and that is it. All the rights for the rest of the world are very widely spread with currently for example 5 different companies relasing El Cid in each of the 5 biggest Western European countries. If you think that this is a complicated situation there is also the question of ownership which again is an entirely different matter.

Bottom line: Whoever is going to foot the bill for revisiting the OCN will have to be very careful to get a return on his investment by interesting the many stakeholders in sharing at least some of the costs.

 

[Lord Dalek]

The transfer that was used for the Criterion laserdisc was from a low con print, the reason it has that contrasty inferior look. This film has never got the treatment it deserves.
Just for the record, Criterion had the good sense to go by my suggestion and access the discrete 4-track stereo master from England, rather than use the inferior 2-track mixed-down track that was used for the restoration back in the mid-nineties. By the time the dvd was released, the 4-track, by that time, may well not have been playable. The same Dolby Digital 5.1 (made from the 4-track) has been used on all releases since then.
Also, at the time the laserdisc was produced, the 4-track stereo music and effects track was also accessed from England but unfortunately proved to be completely unplayable.

The JP Tohokushinsha dvd was released only a couple years before the Weinstein one and that had a discrete Dolby 4.0 soundtrack apparently. No idea where they sourced it from though.

 

[Angelo Colombus]

Just looked at my dvr recording of Fall of the Roman Empire from the TCM broadcast last night. Terrible looking print and worse looking than my dvd. It did have the Paramount logo at the beginning so I guess they supplied TCM with a bad copy to broadcast? I was hoping for a better looking print to look at but not this time.

 

[Jim*Tod]

I recorded it too. Hadn't had to a chance to look at it. I have the dvd. Wish this could get a proper blu ray release but I think the odds are somewhat against it.

 

[Angelo Colombus]

Did notice the Overture title card was different on the TCM broadcast.

 

[RolandL]

The Blu-ray looks just a little better than the DVD.

 

[PatrickDA]

What were the deleted scenes from "FOTRE"? How were they found? Condition? 35 MM? @Robert Harris I think I recall they were found in England (maybe BFI?), but not soon enough to include on the DVD set.

 

[OliverK]

What were the deleted scenes from "FOTRE"? How were they found? Condition? 35 MM? @Robert Harris I think I recall they were found in England (maybe BFI?), but not soon enough to include on the DVD set.

At the time it was said they were from some kind of 16mm element, can't remember what it was.

 

[Garysb]

Does Lantern Entertainment, which bought the assets of the Weinstein company, have the US distribution rights to "Roman Empire" ? Were the rights sold to Paramount or was this a split work where broadcast rights are held by a different company than home video and/or theatrical distribution rights. Similar to Samuel Goldwyn library where broadcast rights are with Miramar and home video with Warner Bros (if that deal is still in current.)

 

[richardburton84]

Does Lantern Entertainment, which bought the assets of the Weinstein company, have the US distribution rights to "Roman Empire" ? Were the rights sold to Paramount or was this a split work where broadcast rights are held by a different company than home video and/or theatrical distribution rights. Similar to Samuel Goldwyn library where broadcast rights are with Miramar and home video with Warner Bros (if that deal is still in current.)

I think there might possibly have been a split on the rights to Fall as I’ve been seeing payable downloads of the film on iTunes and YouTube and both are listed as belonging to Paramount.

 

[DVBRD]

I think there might possibly have been a split on the rights to Fall as I’ve been seeing payable downloads of the film on iTunes and YouTube and both are listed as belonging to Paramount.

I could be wrong, but I recall hearing somewhere that the Weinstein license started in 2007 and was intended to last 10 years. I wonder if those rights were ever renewed?

 

[OliverK]

Martin Scorsese will hopefully watch the Blu-rays of El Cid and Fall of the Roman Empire and talk to Steven Spielberg about it or vice versa.

They may decide to do something about the sorry state of the presentation of these two movies, like they did with One Eyed Jacks:



He starts talking about how Spielberg called him about One-Eyed Jacks at 7:19 but I suggest to listen to the whole introduction, makes me want to watch One-Eyed Jacks again.

And yes I saw that German disc he talks about, it was horrible.

 

[JPCinema]

The iTunes version is the uncut version in stereo....in not so good SD and it is only for rent.