[Proposal] Predator 2 Widescreen 2.05:1 version

[CSchmidlapp]

Does anybody know if they Matte Flat prints to 2:35:1?
I thought it was 'scope' territory to keep resolution and light.

[PDB]

Yes totally read those, nonetheless I stand by having viewed the film in wider format on release week in France, and the Pal SE DVD looks like the only way I can recreate that format experience. Those movies shots flat before Super 35 set in all have formats problems, with people complaining about boom mikes on widescreen transfers et al. So something funky was definetely going on behind the scenes at the time. The Crow is similar with a different wider japanese transfer, The Punisher still have boom mikes on all transfers, I also read Batman, Batman Returns and Edward Scissorhands had problems etc.

That's almost always bad projection

Q. Please tell me why in big budget movies you can often see the boom microphone in the picture. I have seen it frequently in many big budget pictures. The cinematographer must be incompetent to not notice this, along with the editors. Why do they leave it in? (Paul M. Nowak, Farmington Hills, Mich.)

A. The Answer Man gets this question about once a week, and answers it about every six months. When you can see the sound boom in a movie, it is usually not the fault of the filmmakers, but of the theater projectionist, who has framed the movie incorrectly. All movies contain more picture area than you are ever intended to see, in order to allow the picture to "bleed" over the sides of the screen. Sometimes a boom strays into the "head room," but if the projectionist has done his framing correctly you will never see it.

http://www.rogerebert.com/answer-man/mov...n-04281996

and then carried over to bad framing of video masters. It's always exasperated by 1.85 films which give you more leeway. Scope films don't. Boom mikes at the top are almost never the filmmakers fault.

Does anybody know if they Matte Flat prints to 2:35:1?
I thought it was 'scope' territory to keep resolution and light.

Not at that time. In the 50's they did with Superscope (close at 2:1):

http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/wingss2.htm

which along with Techniscope (2 perf) were the primogenitors of Super 35.

A lot of the issues that we are seeing are just different framing of the IP and/or OCN with each new transfer. That happens a lot especially with films that are open matte since there will be extra info at the sides and top/bottom for even a correctly framed master. As for a 70mm being a different aspect ratio. Sure that could happen. A 1.85 film could be cropped to 2.20 or matted on the sides (ala Aliens) but those pics posted earlier in the thread by Mr Brown are clearly hard matted, even for non SFX shots. So cropped version or not, it looks like the film was meant to be 1.85

Also I note that video magazines at the time didn't complain about any changes when the US LD first came out:

https://www.widescreenreview.com/ld_deta...recid=3058

[CSchmidlapp]

Thanks again PDB for sharing your knowledge good sir.
Ive still so much to learn about the history of Film Production on the technical level.

[dvdmike]

Huh this thread is interesting

[zoidberg]

This is just a saga now

[CSchmidlapp]

This is just a saga now

And I don't think it is over yet lol.

[Stamper]

Yes it's funny cause the LD obviously as some boom mikes. Weird they didn't notice.

I appears there are three differentely formated Predator 2:

- SE R1 + BD both are the same master and are very tightly cropped, not making any sense to the framings.
- Early R1 & 2 DVDs I found a spanish DVD which is a different crop and color timing than the R1 SE, more opened. I think the first R1 release is probably the same master. This one seems to have the original color timing intact with very dark blue in the final cold room scene. It might be the LD master port, only in 16/9.
- R2 SE DVD9 this is opened on the sides all the way to the edge, and top and bottom adjusted to 1.78.

There are also some open matte HDTV airings, but with logos.

[IcePrick]

Someone's selling that widescreen Japanese LD on facebook for $10. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_f...=155957696

[Valeyard]

Anyone knows if there is somewhere a print of Predator 2 for sale to check the format? Cos I think the movie was originaly 2.35:1 but always been 1.85:1 cropped on video. I'm certain I saw it on the screen in 2.35:1. All the trailers are about 2.35:1.

It's certainly possible you saw it projected onto a cinemascope screen. Or if you saw it on 70mm you would have seen it in 2.2:1 which is of course closer to cinemascope than flat. But the film on 35mm is 1.85:1, there's no question about that.

As for trailers, most films in those days had both scope and flat version trailers - and yes they went to extra effort to frame scope trailers in many cases.

For example, here's the ID4 trailer you usually see:



And here's the same trailer in the Flat version:



Some shots will simply be cropped to the centre, others have been re-framed.tentional?

[Stamper]

Yes, we established here the format is indeed 35mm 1.85:1. Also where the scope trailers originate. Nonetheless the film as a history of home video 2.1 and 2.35 releases, so it's gonna be fun to restore a copy to this format and see how more cinematic it is. The theater I saw it in was 70mm (I saw all the huge releases in the same place, the biggest at the time in Paris, and the sound was astounding, it's where I saw Die Hard, T2, Demolition Man, Die Hard 3...) so I'm guessing it was blown up to 70mm by filling the screen, hence my surprise when I discovered later the blah laserdisc.

This theater sound was awesome, I never experienced at home, such incredible sound moments as the building explosion in Die Hard (the bass!), the one in Demolition Man, or the nuclear blast in T2. SUBWOOFER HEAVEN.

I found a DVD9 with the opened up framing, so all I need to do now is to convert it to 23.976, sync the soundtracks and crop it appropriately. I'll go 2.1:1 since it seems to play without problem that way.