Babylon 5 - DVD Movie Collection thread

[Milkman]

Originally posted by Joseph DeMartino
Unlikely. CH's initial run of TG tapes was based on a master of the original version, but they sold out almost immediately. Demand was so much higher than they expected that their B5 Collection went on back-order for several months. By the time they started filling orders again Warner Bros. had supplied them with a master tape for the 1998 re-edit. (Probably because JMS insisted.)

As Andrew indicated (or tried to) some of the R2 DVDs that are dubbed (not subtitled) in the local language may be the original cut. (Because the TNT re-edit never aired in most non-English-speaking countries and therefore was never translated into them. The first German DVD was the original cut, but I've heard that later editions are the re-edit with an Enligsh soundtrack and German subtitles.)

Regards,

Joe

This may have been mentioned before, but what im getting out of this is the first B5 DVD(in the US), with "The Gathering" and "In The Beginning", is the same cut of "The Gathering" that is in the movie box set?

If so, i guess i need to dig in my tapes and see if i still have the pilot...

OH.. and i learned something in the directors commentary about delen being a male character? Is there anymore info about that "out there" on that besides what is mentioned in the commentary?

[OmahaStar]

Originally posted by Milkman
This may have been mentioned before, but what im getting out of this is the first B5 DVD(in the US), with "The Gathering" and "In The Beginning", is the same cut of "The Gathering" that is in the movie box set?

Yes, it's the same version, remastered and all that kinda good stuff ... and not a damned flipper disc!

OH.. and i learned something in the directors commentary about delen being a male character? Is there anymore info about that "out there" on that besides what is mentioned in the commentary?

Delenn was originally intended to be a male character; this would have changed the transformation in early season 2 dramatically ... "he" would have come out as a "she" ... all played by Mira Furlan. They weren't able to get the voice right, and at a convention where he screened TG, the audience said they liked it the way it was ... that's why now, we have male *and* female Minbari.

I'm sure JDM will be along any minute to give ya more info though.

[Dr Maturin]

Delenn: John...I have something to tell you.

John: What is it, Delenn?

Delenn: I've kept it from you for TWO years.

John: What? We already put the Anna business behind us.

Delenn: It's not that. I...used to be a man.

John: ...so how's about them Bears?

[DGTWoodward]

Re: Possible heresey...

Originally posted by jcbatz
Is there any way that I could get my hands on the original version of The Gathering?

The commentary about the restored scenes and original critical comments have intruiged me.

I'm interested in seeing the original.

Any help out there?

You know, it is funny that you mention this. I have the original version of THE GATHERING on VHS. Now tape being what it is and time (not to mention repeated viewings) also being a factor, I decided to transfer this analogue version on a DVD via my VCR's A/V out then into my Phillips DVD recording deck. It worked really well. This means that I can watch it endlessly with no further damage to my old tape. Not the perfect solution as you'll agree, but I don't have a laserdisc player and even if I did I probably couldn't find the title anymore anyway...it represents a compromise that works quite well. The picture really isn't that bad considering.

[Dr Maturin]

I must do this sometime soon with my pre-Special Edition Star Wars movies. Letterbox format, too. It's sad that those original films are going to die.

[DGTWoodward]

It is spreading.......!

I know that this is going to sound pretty pathetic, but I a REALLY glad to be a B5 fan.

Thanks to the net (and Japan being in the region 2 DVD area) I have all 5 seasons of the series as well as the COMPLETE Movie Box Set and the original two-sided, twin movie disk. From these and the resultant re-viewing of the episodes, I realise once again what a SUPERB piece of work B5 was on all fronts. So well written, acted, visualised, scored...it really was a winner.

This evening, I have just watched THE GATHERING (from the movie box) with my father-in-law and he thought it was very good indeed. And what shall we watch next week? We shall go straight into the series episodes on a weekly basis, 2 of 3 episodes per week, right through from 'Midnight' through to 'Light'.

I also got my sister and mother in B5 too.

And my girlfriend.

I know that this is not strictly about the Movie Box Set per se, but it is certainly responsible (at least in part - being my most recent aquisition) for the enthusiasm I have for all things B5. Next, I must try to track down the 3 recent book trilogies. They do sound good!

[DGTWoodward]

Originally posted by Z'ha'dumDweller
I must do this sometime soon with my pre-Special Edition Star Wars movies. Letterbox format, too. It's sad that those original films are going to die.

Now that you mention it ZHD, I too have the very same tapes. Back when they were from the "20th Century Fox WIDESCREEN COLLECTION" and a CG Jabba and Han firing first were mere twinkles in GL's eyes. I will indeed try the same trick with them as I have done with TG.

Thanks for the reminder

LS

[Joseph DeMartino]

Not the perfect solution as you'll agree, but I don't have a laserdisc player and even if I did I probably couldn't find the title anymore anyway...it represents a compromise that works quite well. The picture really isn't that bad considering.

The only laserdisc release of the original cut of The Gathering is an extremely rare Japanese version with burned-in Japanese subtitles. These turn up on eBay from time to time and command fairly high prices. The U.S. laserdisc from Image Entertainment, like the Warner Bros.-produced VHS tapes and the Columbia House tapes after the first production, is the 1998 re-edit. So is every DVD release except, as noted, a few in European countries that never had the film dubbed into the dominant local language and even in those countries I've heard that later pressings are the "producer's cut" with an English soundtrack and subtitles.

And I'm seriously thinking of unearthing my old laserdisc player and using it to transfer my THX laserdiscs of the original (Han shoots first) Star Wars trilogy to DVD so that I have a 100% digital copy of the originals in a more convenient form for my own personal use. A shame that Lucas seems determined not to make these films available to the general public in their original form. I'm less ticked off with JMS, since the original cut of TG was very much more what the network and the director wanted than his own idea, whereas Lucas made his films as well as time, money and technology allowed and then went back not to improve them but to gild the lily.

I'm interested in the original SW trilogy because I think it a genuine cultural treasure in as it was first released. It is those movies that changed the face of film science fiction, not the repackaged versions. TG, OTOH, was less of a ground-breaker. (The series was a different story. But a lot of fans discovered the series during S1 and S2 who had never seen the pilot film - and even many who had hardly rememberd it by the time the series arrived a year later. Many who did remember it avoided the series because they thought the pilot so bad.) I'm interested in the original TG as a curiosity, not a cultural icon.

So I think it is perfectly reasonable that those who can should make backup copies of the rare material they have paid for so that they can continue enjoying it in another format. But it would, of course, not be so reasonable for those who have one or the other but not both to exchage private messages or e-mails with a view towards trading that which they have for that which they lack. That would be wrong. So no one should do that.

<whistling innocently>



Regards,

Joe

[DGTWoodward]

I think it is perfectly reasonable that those who can should make backup copies of the rare material they have paid for so that they can continue enjoying it in another format. But it would, of course, not be so reasonable for those who have one or the other but not both to exchage private messages or e-mails with a view towards trading that which they have for that which they lack. That would be wrong. So no one should do that.

<whistling innocently>



Regards,

Joe

Why Joseph, I would not even consider such a terrible thing, shame on you!

(Not)

[DGTWoodward]

Originally posted by LightStorm
Now that you mention it ZHD, I too have the very same tapes. Back when they were from the "20th Century Fox WIDESCREEN COLLECTION" and a CG Jabba and Han firing first were mere twinkles in GL's eyes. I will indeed try the same trick with them as I have done with TG.

Thanks for the reminder

LS

Sorry, I meant Greedo of course!

[Dr Maturin]

Originally posted by LightStorm
Now that you mention it ZHD, I too have the very same tapes. Back when they were from the "20th Century Fox WIDESCREEN COLLECTION" and a CG Jabba and Han firing first were mere twinkles in GL's eyes. I will indeed try the same trick with them as I have done with TG.

Thanks for the reminder

LS

I have this big navy blue box with a "hologram" label on it of the old movie poster of a buff Luke and Leia showing some leg. It came with the three films, "From Star Wars to Jedi" documentary, and a book called "Creative Impluse" about Lucas. I got it off of QVC when Hamill was a guest in like 1990. I wanted the letterbox format to see all the stuff you couldn't see in the full screen format.

Creative Impluse. More like Recreative Compulsion.

So does anyone know how much I can get the laserdisc versions for, so I can take JDM's route? He made a good point about the digital thing. VHS wouldn't be so great transferred to DVD.