As some may know, this version was a butchered English export version of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind released in 1985. This version has been seen theatrically in English speaking markets and on home video prior to the 2003 DVDs.

How hard would it be to reconstruct this version using the Nausicaä HD masters, outside of somebuddy obtaining and scanning one of those elusive 35mm prints?

I know it was edited down and all, but were there any added or reanimated scenes? Maybe stuff slowed down or redone optically? I think the only visual changes I saw were the opening credits superimposed into the first scene and new ending credits.

I think links to threads on other sites talking about such things are allowed here? If not, my apologies.

This person (link) did a lot of work on this, might have what you're talking about. Here is is last thread, but he had others prior, including for the WotW trailer he recreated IIRC.  If you do a search for the movie title at the top in this reddit thread you'll get his related threads, but start with the latest one here...

https://www.reddit.com/r/fanedits/commen...storation/

Given this was done by the US distributor with no involvement at all by Miyazaki, I'm going to go out on a limb and say I doubt there's any major manipulation beyond re-editing, dubbing and adding localised titles/credits. The easiest way to be sure would be to capture a copy of the VHS and compare it

There was a reconstruction on MySpleen of this. Interesting watch!

I made my own CC'd 1080p version that sources the English and textless visuals from the U.S. and UK VHSes and pillar/windowboxes them to match the available image area with the HD version (the best widescreen source for these visuals outside of a release print would come from one of the French SECAM VHSes).

I performed duties for undertaking an English SDH track, with some terminology used in the dub clarified by the Animage Nausicaä English Conversation Book (e.g. "Crazycrow"):
https://archive.org/details/Animage-1985...a-English/

You can read a transcript of the dub or its timed captions here:
https://humanreceptacles.neocities.org/w...script.txt
https://humanreceptacles.neocities.org/w...mp_eng.txt

My version also includes the German, French and Castilian Spanish dubs. I also have the first Latin American Spanish dub synced and ready to go but I agreed not release it without the collector's blessing. There are chapters that correspond to the physical segment and reel structure as well.

Video is 20mbps, audio is all FLAC encodes of audio from various lossy and lossless sources.

DM me for this version if you're interested.

(sorry for doublepost, did not mean to reply to the prior post)
Last year, a 35mm print of Warriors of the Wind was sold on eBay (no screenshots. I only have a close friend's word to go on), so despite the very limited theatrical run in Florida, the northeast and some provinces of Canada, there are still release prints out there. This version is historically significant, but it is reviled by the copyright holder and fanbase alike, putting in it a precarious, endangered position that must be approached with an impartial mind.

This was the work of Manson International (who had purchased overseas rights from Tokuma Shoten) and New World has US distro rights until Manson/Orion's rights expired. There are 35mm prints but because of their rarity they're ether absurdly priced or was priced cheap (because of the seller not knowing what exactly it is) and sold quickly to scalpers and film cutters.

No doubt Lakeshore and MGM (who owns the catalogs of New World and Manson International respectively) had preprints of this version at some point, but had returned them to Ghilbi and were likely destroyed under company orders.

I've just seen these fan reconstructions and compared a rip of some VHS. It seems the opening and closing credits are the only real noticeable changes as everything else is hacked down.

Supposedly, some WEB and Blu-Rays of Nausicaa use ether the old HD master or the 4k one that have textless credits and/or digitally recomped titles in different spots than the originals. Those might be useful for doing a proper reconstruction for titles and stuff if a 35mm print can't be located at the right price/shape.

(2023-07-25, 09:05 AM)SpaceBlackKnight Wrote: This was the work of Manson International (who had purchased overseas rights from Tokuma Shoten) and New World has US distro rights until Manson/Orion's rights expired. There are 35mm prints but because of their rarity they're ether absurdly priced or was priced cheap (because of the seller not knowing what exactly it is) and sold quickly to scalpers and film cutters.

No doubt Lakeshore and MGM (who owns the catalogs of New World and Manson International respectively) had preprints of this version at some point, but had returned them to Ghilbi and were likely destroyed under company orders.

I've just seen these fan reconstructions and compared a rip of some VHS. It seems the opening and closing credits are the only real noticeable changes as everything else is hacked down.

Supposedly, some WEB and Blu-Rays of Nausicaa use ether the old HD master or the 4k one that have textless credits and/or digitally recomped titles in different spots than the originals. Those might be useful for doing a proper reconstruction for titles and stuff if a 35mm print can't be located at the right price/shape.

Both the 2010 and 2014 releases are 4K restorations from 6K scans.
Also, the original textless negatives for the scenes were apparently lost (or the film was caught up in some rights shenanigans, as the film was technically made before Studio Ghibli was founded), so the Disney Blu-ray kept the original Japanese credits. And the opening text was instead read out loud by Tony Jay (Frollo) instead of being recomposited in English.
The other Ghibli films, however, did get digital recomps.

(2023-07-28, 09:22 AM)Hydra Spectre Wrote: Also, the original textless negatives for the scenes were apparently lost (or the film was caught up in some rights shenanigans, as the film was technically made before Studio Ghibli was founded), so the Disney Blu-ray kept the original Japanese credits. And the opening text was instead read out loud by Tony Jay (Frollo) instead of being recomposited in English.
The other Ghibli films, however, did get digital recomps.

I was shown footage of a German WEBRip that seemed to be using the latest master and had digitally recomped credits in a different font. These sections looked much sharper than the original optical shots so they could have been minted from dupe or interneg elements during the 2014 mastering.

(2023-07-30, 05:28 AM)SpaceBlackKnight Wrote:

(2023-07-28, 09:22 AM)Hydra Spectre Wrote: Also, the original textless negatives for the scenes were apparently lost (or the film was caught up in some rights shenanigans, as the film was technically made before Studio Ghibli was founded), so the Disney Blu-ray kept the original Japanese credits. And the opening text was instead read out loud by Tony Jay (Frollo) instead of being recomposited in English.
The other Ghibli films, however, did get digital recomps.

I was shown footage of a German WEBRip that seemed to be using the latest master and had digitally recomped credits in a different font. These sections looked much sharper than the original optical shots so they could have been minted from dupe or interneg elements during the 2014 mastering.

A German WEBRip? What site was it from? I'm pretty sure they don't have the Ghibli films on iTunes or something in Germany. And Netflix uses the StudioCanal UK transfer, which is the 2010 BD but with DNR.
I'm not sure if the GKIDS Blu-ray recomposited the credits, however. I don't have it.
Also, the 2010 and 2014 restorations are sourced from the same 6K scan.