This is going to be my next project, taking the HD Theatrical Version and inserting upscaled extended parts from the DVD. I've got the German and Japanese blu rays and I've decided to use the Japanese video due to the slightly higher bitrate and the fact that it was encoded by Sony. 

Reasonably straight forward, just not sure what to do about the audio. The Extended Version seems to have only been released as 2.0 AC3. The German disc has all sorts of Atmos and Aura tracks for the theatrical but I'm assuming they are in house remix jobs. The Japanese disc has 5.1 TrueHD. 

Is there a reliable way to remix the 2.0 from just the extended parts to 5.1? So they can be combined with the 5.1 theatrical from the Japanese Blu Ray? Or is that just going to sound off and I'm better just keeping the whole thing as 2.0 AC3?

Also looks like there was a Japanese LD of the Extended Cut, can't find it for sale but I imagine it's very expensive. Don't suppose anyone has that? 

Thanks

The Japanese LD should be very expensive indeed; apart the PCM track that must sounds better than AC3 2.0, I don't know if the video has different color grading or something else; bear in mind that it has Japanese hard subs!

About extended audio track: the 2.0 should be Dolby Surround, so I'd upmix it with a good Dolby Pro-Logic decoder, and use the 5.1 TrueHD; in this way it should/could/may be similar in quality to Theatrical cut.

There are no copies on lddb marketplace or ebay ATM but the last copy to sell on a certain well known Japanese LD webstore sold for $15 with OBI, another may pop up in the future so it's just a case of how long you're prepared to wait. It's probably best to stick with the DVD audio for the whole feature.

I keep meaning to watch this film, somehow I have avoided it all these years. By all accounts a B&W version played at a festival this year, supervised by the director (who also says the extended JP version is not a director's cut but a version with extra Takeshi Kitano)

$15 with OBI?!? WOW!!!

I guess it's not that rare (or valuable) in Japan

Thanks both - I did have the Japanese VCD at one point but never had the laserdisc. In terms of color the extended version certainly seems brighter. Just not 100% about which to use for the color, the blu or the DVD.

In terms of audio I'll include the untouched DVD 2.0 for sure but I'll have a play around with the 5.1 as well. spoRv what would you recommend for a Dolby Pro-Logic decoder? Is that software or hardware?

Zoidberg thanks for the link, be interesting if that gets a release officially. It's not an amazing film by any means and it suffers from Ice T, but it's got some interesting ideas and visuals. I imagine this is one of the first movies that had an alternate version to engage another country then, before Iron Man 3 and Looper etc.

Here is the untouched Blu Ray shot:



Here is the upscaled and denoised DVD shot:



And the DVD shot color matched to the blu with some grain added:

Hardware wise, the "classic" (in this forum) Dolby SDU4 is a nice option, but not so easy to find nowaday; a viable option is to use Foobar2000 with one of its plugins, like Freesurround or the real Dolby Pro-Logic II, that gives you 5.1 instead 4.0

Personally I'd "slap" the BD onto DVD to get bigger frame (DVD) and better resolution (BD) using AutoOverlay, if you can/want to use it. If not, I'd use DVD as color reference.

A thing about this movie always bothers me. When they are hacking his drive at the end, the director's cut re-orders events and it seems to make less sense than the theatrical version.
I haven't read the script in years (which got an actually printing) so I can't compare what was intended.

Honestly, I wouldn't mind seeing a hybrid cut restoring the theatrical version of that scene.

There is no director's cut. There is an extended Japanese cut with extra Takeshi Kitano scenes

I appreciate it’s not the directors cut and it shouldn’t be referred to as that, but the Japanese version is about 9 minutes longer and the Kitano scenes are only 3-4 minutes.

One of the longest scenes is of Dolph Lundgren as the street preacher giving a sermon to his church about technology. The rest is mainly small extensions as opposed to lengthy scenes but there is extra violence, more Ice T, more Keanu etc. A lot of shots are reordered as well so this project might end up being a nightmare!

Just seems odd to read about the director dismissing it as only Kitano footage. Whilst there is some Kitano there is still a lot of footage that doesn’t feature him at all and I guess he’d know that as he shot it.

I’ve also just remembered the entire score is different as well, so the 5.1 hybrid track wouldn’t actually work. Best option is to try and find one of those Japanese LDs.

Zoidberg - which marketplace did you see that previously sold LD on?

Thanks