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What lost media most interests you?


mbd39

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1 minute ago, themisfit138 said:

Does the theatrical release of Star Wars count as lost media? If so that is my choice. There are fan releases, but nothing official besides the laser disc, and terrible transfers of as a special feature on the old dvd releases. 

I think film reels in general count as lost media. Remember this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Universal_Studios_fire Tens of thousands of archival film reels were lost. Over 100,000 master tapes. 

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4 minutes ago, themisfit138 said:

Does the theatrical release of Star Wars count as lost media? If so that is my choice. There are fan releases, but nothing official besides the laser disc, and terrible transfers of as a special feature on the old dvd releases. 

Yeah that's my choice too. I know people have pieced together and edited the best footage available, but I know Lucas or Disney has the film feels rotting in some warehouse. Hopefully they're saving it as a nerd panic button. If we need money, just release the 4K restoration of theatrical Star Wars.

I never even saw it in theaters or anything, I'm not old enough. It's more that so much keeps changing every time they release the OT, they add unnecessary CG nonsense which just makes me want to see it all stripped away.

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I saw an old ski video on OLN (Outdoor Life Network in Canada) when I was about 13 or 14 which would have been near the turn of the millennium that I've never been able to find again. It was just a one-off showing during a dead time slot late at night. I tuned in the week after but it was another random film that was completely unrelated. Even though it aired during that time it was probably filmed in the early to mid 80s I'd guess. I thought it could have been a Warren Miller film but went through a ton of those old movies as well as hundreds of clips on YT and never found it. I contacted OLN a few years ago and they said they didn't have information from that far back about programming. At this point I almost feel like I dreamed it but I know it has to be out there. The only piece of old media I've personally searched for and have never been able to find. I think I remember in the credit it saying something about 'Vintage Extreme Skiiing' and the last scene in the movie was this guy doing an absolutely insane free-fall jump. I really hope I can find it some day.

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22 minutes ago, MiamiSlice said:

I think film reels in general count as lost media. Remember this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Universal_Studios_fire Tens of thousands of archival film reels were lost. Over 100,000 master tapes. 

Similarly, there was a Universal Records archive fire that lost tons of unreleased albums not that long back. Such a bummer.

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2 hours ago, themisfit138 said:

Does the theatrical release of Star Wars count as lost media? If so that is my choice. There are fan releases, but nothing official besides the laser disc, and terrible transfers of as a special feature on the old dvd releases. 

The like 30gb fan remaster of Star Wars I saw was legit. I thought they did a great job. Han shot first.

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18 hours ago, mbd39 said:

It's not exactly lost, but I'm so curious to see the two existing episodes of Turn-On from 1969... the sketch comedy show that caused so much outrage that stations were yanking it off the air during the first episode

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn-On

 

Wow. I’d like to see that too. Similar to the story of Jackie Gleason’s You’re In The Picture. A sort of game show that was pulled after one episode. Also only at the Paley Center. Turn-On sounds more interesting, though. 

There was a great Sandy Becker blooper reel on youtube last year, but it’s gone now. I don’t understand why they delete whole accounts and all their content, instead of just locking them and leaving non-infringing videos up.

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5 hours ago, MiamiSlice said:

Laser discs are at the age where they are all succumbing to disc rot. Apparently they are pretty susceptible too from what I have read. Maybe you won't have to invest much!

Laser rot was most likely due to impurities in the glue that held the two sides together - something that was not understood for several years after their release - Pioneer never did explain the cause.  Virtually all of the discovision (the discs made by 3M - most of which were pressed in Japan since for quite awhile they had the only plants to make them) discs suffered from it - and some scattered releases (for example the widescreen edition of of Willow was prone to it) after Pioneer took the format over.   I have a large collection and only have seen it on a handful of those discs.      

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4 hours ago, themisfit138 said:

Does the theatrical release of Star Wars count as lost media? If so that is my choice. There are fan releases, but nothing official besides the laser disc, and terrible transfers of as a special feature on the old dvd releases. 

There were a ton of laserdisc versions released though - probably more than any other movies (think of it as the Tetris of laserdiscs).

https://www.lddb.com/search.php?search=star+wars&sort=title,asc

I doubt it could be lost forever  - if you hunt for a bit you can usually find a cheap player and most of the laserdisc versions are dirty cheap.

My favorite version is this one:

The trilogy was also available on the CED fromat (mentioned elsewhere in this thread) - that was a very problematic format for many reasons.

Edited by Wandering Tellurian
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IIRC people like the Japanese LDs better than the US ones but hell if I remember why anymore. I also remember something about movies being played too fast (like 1% faster) to meet Laserdisc space requirements sometimes, although I can't remember if that affects Star Wars. That set is sweet though. I got one for next to nothing and can't give it up.

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19 minutes ago, DefaultGen said:

IIRC people like the Japanese LDs better than the US ones but hell if I remember why anymore. I also remember something about movies being played too fast (like 1% faster) to meet Laserdisc space requirements sometimes, although I can't remember if that affects Star Wars. That set is sweet though. I got one for next to nothing and can't give it up.

I think part of the fascination with Japanese laserdiscs was that there were a lot of things released (especially in the early days) that weren't released over here*. There were also a fair number of things released in Hong Kong and Taiwan (and some from Singapore)  that were never released over here - usually these were unauthorized releases.   Far more important than where something was made was how good a master was used.  One of the more desirable Japan and Hong Kong releases was Song of the  South - whatever was used to master it (probably a 16mm print from what I can see on my copy of it) is very washed out with lots of grain and scratches.

*I have a Japanese disc of a really obscure movie called "The Ravagers" which as far as I can tell only saw light of day on Japanese laserdisc and British VHS/Beta.

 

  

Edited by Wandering Tellurian
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2 hours ago, Ferris Bueller said:

The like 30gb fan remaster of Star Wars I saw was legit. I thought they did a great job. Han shot first.

I have the Despecialized and Project 4K77 Versions of the film. They are both well done. The 4K is a remaster of an original 35mm theater print. The other is pieced together from different sources, but it also has lot of audio options and a few special features. 

0CEDC5B5-FD24-46FF-A42B-4B9C0D75D81B.thumb.jpeg.36aed208e27827894e190a01be8a90d9.jpeg

 

@Wandering Tellurian I have most versions of Star Wars packed away somewhere. Even have my original VHS copy.

FB67AC59-6B27-4EAC-B756-E8876ABEBB02.thumb.jpeg.5f24d4b13f0ea292d99ba4c37f317586.jpeg

 

Edited by themisfit138
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1 hour ago, Wandering Tellurian said:

Far more important than where something was made was how good a master was used.  One of the more desirable Japan and Hong Kong releases was Song of the  South - whatever was used to master it (probably a 16mm print from what I can see on my copy of it) is very washed out with lots of grain and scratches.

I don’t understand; why is this desired?

and speaking of Song of the South, have you seen Coonskin? aka Street Fight... it would be a good double feature with SotS

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1 minute ago, Link said:

I don’t understand; why is this desired?

and speaking of Song of the South, have you seen Coonskin? aka Street Fight... it would be a good double feature with SotS

It was only briefly released on VHS if I undertand correctly.  And because of PC objections I don't think Disney has any plans to rerelease it.  There was never a US laserdisc release of it.  So the import laserdiscs are desireable.

I also have Street Fight on laserdisc:

 

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Isn't Metropolis incomplete? I know it's one of the most iconic films of the silent era but if memory serves me correct, the versions people watch now are only mostly-complete and were pieced together from various source reals. I guess that'd be a cool piece of cinema to have recovered and fully restored.

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23 minutes ago, RH said:

Isn't Metropolis incomplete? I know it's one of the most iconic films of the silent era but if memory serves me correct, the versions people watch now are only mostly-complete and were pieced together from various source reals. I guess that'd be a cool piece of cinema to have recovered and fully restored.

In 2008  a full print was discovered in Buenos Aires  -  much of it was in very poor condition and some of it could not be salvaged.  I think the restored version released in 2010 is about 97% complete.

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Metropolis-Alfred-Abel/dp/B0040QYROA/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=metropolis&qid=1581035723&s=movies-tv&sr=1-2

Edited by Wandering Tellurian
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Another classic film that has some lost footage is the 1937 "Lost Horizon" - in some of the restored versions have about 6 minutes of missing footage with the original dialogue (which still exists) inserted along with avaiable stills inserted in their proper place in the film.

If anyone hasn't' seen it I can't recommend it enough.   

Edited by Wandering Tellurian
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I'm interested in several lost show pilots and things. In particular a recent pilot that was lost to the ether was Marvel's Most Wanted

I'm a huge superhero/MCU fanboy and was real disappointed that the pilot never saw the light of day unfortunately... I'm quite surprised that it was never released as a bonus feature to like Agent's of SHIELD DVD or something... maybe in the future.

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You guys remember the Hellraiser game that was supposed to be an NES "super cartridge" meant to make the game look/play someone like a 16-bit sort of game?  I think all we ever saw was a picture of the title screen.  I'm very curious to see what that would've been like...the only true super cartridge I can think of was the Genesis Virtua Racing; it had to be almost double the size, and nearly double the price from what I gather.  Still for it and Doom on the SNES to even be able to run on their respective consoles was a frickin' miracle.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Honestly, I'm fascinated by films from ~100 years ago. Conservative estimate about 90% of films from the late late 19th Century and early 20th Century are lost forever. The films that remain from that time period today are beyond interesting to me, if you look at them knowing what the technology was like at the time some pieces made were quite innovative for the time and are the reason films are where they are now. 

Just horror films alone have countless lost media from that time. Whether that's the films themselves, production images or promotional material, most of it is gone and that's really unfortunate. 

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Sorry for the flagrant self-promotion, but I have a YouTube channel all about media history, and made a video on this very subject! Thought you guys might like it 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxfjnhLF-ts

(If anyone is confused as to why I refer to myself as Silence, it is because that is my gamertag on Discord and social media! 😉)

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2 hours ago, KokiriChild said:

Sorry for the flagrant self-promotion, but I have a YouTube channel all about media history, and made a video on this very subject! Thought you guys might like it 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxfjnhLF-ts

(If anyone is confused as to why I refer to myself as Silence, it is because that is my gamertag on Discord and social media! 😉)

Sorry?  What are you sorry for? 😛 

 

 

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On 2/17/2020 at 9:17 PM, KokiriChild said:

Sorry for the flagrant self-promotion, but I have a YouTube channel all about media history, and made a video on this very subject! Thought you guys might like it 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxfjnhLF-ts

(If anyone is confused as to why I refer to myself as Silence, it is because that is my gamertag on Discord and social media! 😉)

Far from flagrant, I enjoyed every minute of your video! 

I hope you do more on lost media. Really entertaining stuff. 

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1 hour ago, NZCollector said:

Far from flagrant, I enjoyed every minute of your video! 

I hope you do more on lost media. Really entertaining stuff. 

Thank you! That means a lot 🙂

I've been experimenting with different subjects in the realm of media history throughout my other videos, but I plan to return to lost media after my next video (which is already recorded and in the editing bay) as it is by far my most successful video so far.

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