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Post by Shark on Feb 26, 2016 15:20:07 GMT -5
USPS delivered my copy of volume XXXV this afternoon and I assume others have started to get their copies, so I wanted to start this thread. I'm settling down to watch the episodes right now and will let you know some thoughts, but just wanted to show you guys the copyright info first: *Note the new LLC.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Feb 26, 2016 16:41:29 GMT -5
For the first time in a while I've sprung for early delivery from Shout, so I got mine today too! Four more episodes to retire from my DVD-R shelf and it feels AMAZING!
I've been home sick so this will be a pleasant distraction.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Feb 26, 2016 18:16:38 GMT -5
First thing I noticed in examining the new set is that the back cover texts makes claim to a "new sexy MST3K," so Shout is wasting no time in advertising the reboot. Here's hoping Volume XXXVI has a sneak preview on it!
Finished the extras on this set. Pretty solid overall, though all the documentaries on the set round out to about 40 minutes total. However there are quite a bit of info tidbits to chew on, so it's cool with me.
Teenage Caveman is up first, which gives us probably the juiciest making of documentary on the set (at least, the only one that interviewed more than one person). Roger Corman and various film historians (with our narrator also reading quotes from Robert Vaughn) talk up the movie, playing up it's virtues as a nuclear holocaust warning tale. One interviewee points out that the movie was made before Pierre Boulle's novel Planet of the Apes, though I feel like countering that the original Planet of the Apes novel had nothing to do with a nuclear holocaust (it was a play on evolution and man's treatment of both animals and other races), and the pop culture "DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL" ending that he seems to be alluding to was actually the product of Twilight Zone scribe Rod Serling, who had written it especially for the feature film version of the book.
Being from Another Planet kicks off with the unedited movie itself, Time Walker. Didn't watch the whole movie, though it's definitely in better shape than Pumaman was. It's in animorphic widescreen and picture is standard definition at it's fullest. I got a laugh at seeing that in the theatrical version it ends with the phrase "To be continued..." I can't help but think Shout should have done more unriffed features, like Rhino did at the beginning. There are quite a few of these movies that I'd love to have unriffed copies of. Time Walker wasn't really one of them, but I'm happy I have it. The only other special feature is a quick interview with composer Richard Band. For context, Band also composed Re-Animator, Puppetmaster, and Troll, as well as wacky 90's family cheapies Prehisteria and Dragonworld, and is also the composer for MST favorite Laserblast. Band talks about scoring movies like this and his insistence on using an orchestra. It's a nice interview, and in skimming through the unaltered movie I noted that Band's score does really stand out in this particular movie. Too bad the opening and closing themes were replaced in the MST version.
12 to the Moon is up next. My favorite episode on this set features an interview with filmmaker Jeff Burr, director of Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, Pumpkinhead 2, and other crappy horror sequels that nobody liked. He goes in great detail on the director of the piece, David Bradly, and mostly talks of how he went from decently received independent features like Peer Gynt and Julius Caesar to mishaps like 12 to the Moon and Madmen of Mandoras (AKA They Saved Hitler's Brain).
Closing the set is Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell, which has an interview with bad guy actor Thom Christopher. He makes no apologies for the movie, nor does he defend it. Mostly he just says it was a lot of laughs. Unfortunately there is little info on the making of the movie, or the Deathstalker series in general. I would have loved a word or two from Roger Corman on this, but alas.
Will dig into the episodes ASAP. The one thing I'll say for certain is that Mike owns this set. The Joel episodes aren't very strong, meanwhile 12 to the Moon is a genuine classic and Deathstalker is another in the line of seventh season winners. But before I say any more I just want to say...CLAYTON!
CLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!
(in the early days of this board I would have been tore a new one for that)
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Feb 29, 2016 13:16:02 GMT -5
Finished days ago, but in my feverish stupor I didn't post about the video transfers. Teenage Caveman and Deathstalker both had solid prints. 12 to the Moon and Being from Another Planet both had slight video flaws that are blink and you'll miss them.
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Post by Diet Kolos on Mar 14, 2016 21:04:43 GMT -5
Got mine.
Watching Being From Another Planet, and WOW! A clean transfer! I shouldn't be surprised, but this is the first time this episode has been seen in such clarity, at least by me. Every copy I ever encountered has been terribly murky and fuzzy. The Tragic Moments figurines look amazing!
It's especially surprising since some of the other older episodes have been starting to degrade pretty badly on recent releases, and this looks pristine! Almost as good as the Rhino VHS tapes!
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Post by Shark on Mar 15, 2016 5:16:58 GMT -5
Got mine. Watching Being From Another Planet, and WOW! A clean transfer! I shouldn't be surprised, but this is the first time this episode has been seen in such clarity, at least by me. Every copy I ever encountered has been terribly murky and fuzzy. Yes - this! I remember BFAP as being one of the worst tapes I had back in the 90s. No matter how much trading I did, it always looked terrible. It's so much fun to be able to watch it this way!
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Post by Diet Kolos on Mar 15, 2016 6:39:34 GMT -5
Got mine. Watching Being From Another Planet, and WOW! A clean transfer! I shouldn't be surprised, but this is the first time this episode has been seen in such clarity, at least by me. Every copy I ever encountered has been terribly murky and fuzzy. Yes - this! I remember BFAP as being one of the worst tapes I had back in the 90s. No matter how much trading I did, it always looked terrible. It's so much fun to be able to watch it this way! I know! It's a stupid thing to be excited about, but that's the most pristine anyone's seen of that episode since its last airing on April 1996! I did a quick look at Teenage Caveman, it's got some major fuzziness going on, which is a shame. But it's a fairly old tape, so I shouldn't have expected much. Which is why Being From Another Planet's quality os such a pleasant surprise.
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Post by geminiman112 on Sept 18, 2016 19:26:08 GMT -5
I hate to bump the thread, but is it just my DVD player or is Deathstalker interlaced?
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Post by Treadwell on Sept 20, 2016 0:16:11 GMT -5
They are all interlaced. It's a 29.97i standard def NTSC show.
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Post by majorjoe23 on Sept 22, 2020 11:06:31 GMT -5
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Post by stingerreel1 on Jan 26, 2021 7:22:37 GMT -5
Apologies for bumping this thread, but I had some time (emphasis on some) to check out some of Teenage Caveman. Is it just me or does it look very washed out? When comparing it to the VHS rips that others have posted on YouTube, it feels like the contrast on the SOL segments is low. The ones in Deep 13 look okay. There is a tap hit during the door sequence after the Movie Sign. Aquatic Wizards looks okay, but I didn't have much time to actually have a proper look at it. Catching Trouble looked really pixelated at one point during when Ross was in his canoe. Is that just me who sees that?
Also, the special feature was rather nice, though I noticed a certain clip of a certain movie on there that Shout! is yet to acquire. Let's just hope She Who Must Not Be Named doesn't find out.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2021 10:41:54 GMT -5
315 was pretty significantly cropped, which may explain the inferior picture quality. The cropping is most noticeable in Catching Trouble's credits. Shorts, Vol. 3: Vol. 35:
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Post by stingerreel1 on Jan 26, 2021 22:48:03 GMT -5
That's incredibly strange. This isn't the first time either, as I recall someone talking about how one of the Master Ninja episodes was cropped slightly from the bottom. My guess is that Shout! saw the black line at the side of the episode (that's on the Shorts Vol. 3) and decided to zoom the image in a bit to get rid of it. It's odd, because other releases have that black line on the side, even from Shout! Factory themselves. I'll try and see if the other episodes have this issue.
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Post by stingerreel1 on Jan 27, 2021 6:51:46 GMT -5
Had some time to check Deathstalker. Some blips, but nothing huge. Some could have been edited out as well. It would have been easy and unnoticeable. The film quality is really not that great, but I'm unsure if that could have been fixed. Some of the characters are blurred occasionally. It looks like the colour of this episode, both host segments and movie, bleed outside where they aren't supposed to. It looked like the colour slightly shifted outside of Mike's face in the opening. Don't know what that is about. Outside of that, it's probably the best video quality episode on the set. The extra was also lovely, nice little interview.
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Post by jocksinclair on Jan 29, 2021 10:29:56 GMT -5
That's incredibly strange. This isn't the first time either, as I recall someone talking about how one of the Master Ninja episodes was cropped slightly from the bottom. My guess is that Shout! saw the black line at the side of the episode (that's on the Shorts Vol. 3) and decided to zoom the image in a bit to get rid of it. It's odd, because other releases have that black line on the side, even from Shout! Factory themselves. I'll try and see if the other episodes have this issue. Yeah, I think that Shout is trying to crop the edges where the frame ends. There are episodes where you can clearly see that the "seats" cut out does not extend to the edge of the frame. But there are also a few episodes where they misframed it even worse than the screenshot here; I don't remember which, but you can see about an inch or two of extra black at the bottom of the frame, resulting in the shadows being higher in frame than they ought to be.
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