Return of the Living Dead (1985) Shout Factory BD with edited credits

[SpaceBlackKnight]

Regarding the Orion logo, the one from the Terminator could work but the issue is that source is a super clean and stabilized 4k master, while the SF ROTLD SF 2k source is kinda ratty and shaky at times with some spots/debris. The both combined wouldn't mesh 100% due to the discrepancy between sources, and would be best to find another SF release of an Orion title that had a recent 2k scan.

Luckily, I have found an Orion card from a recent 2k sourced SF BD that would fit right in with the recent ROTLD master and work perfectly.



AFAIK, I don't think the Orion logo had it's iconic jingle on release prints of ROTLD, as that started being used more often around 1988 or so.

If this could work, PM me for more info.

[crampedmisfit1990]

Nice findings, SpaceBlackKnight. I was thinking The Terminator one may be too clean looking but didn't know right off another release that had that same Orion intro on blu-ray. Although I knew there were others.

[SpaceBlackKnight]

If anyone wants the Orion jingle to add to the synced LD track, please PM me and I might be able to help out. I know of a few releases that have a true mono version, alongside the stereo revision that can cleanly down-fold to mono if all else.

[Turisu]

My personal preference for the framing would just be to use the Shout master as is. Cropping is a normal part of theatrical presentation and I'd rather be a few pixels short than have chunks of another source tacked on. At worst there would be a noticeable difference in the sources, at best it would just increase your workload and the time taken before the project is complete for no real gain.

[spoRv]

Does it magically create more details and finer grain on the lower resolution version?

Nope, but the detail difference does not seem so high, so *maybe* they may blend well... I'd give it a try nevertheless!

[X5gb]

Look forward to seeing your screenshots of the result spoRv, if you can pull it off, prefer as uncropped as possible whether true to theatrical presentation or not.

[spoRv]

Forgot to add "if I was in you (Evit)"!

[Evit]

I checked a VHS transfer of this film and what appears before the film is a silent Orion logo.

Does it magically create more details and finer grain on the lower resolution version?

Nope, but the detail difference does not seem so high, so *maybe* they may blend well... I'll give it a try nevertheless!

Sounds like a job for you SpoRv and I agree with Turisu, I don't know on what screens you guys watch this stuff on but this kind of tinkering does not go well with quality, including drowning it in filters and fake grain to cover up the deed. We're always complaining that official releases are filtered, tweaked and so on, it's ironic if we end up being the first ones to do it.
But who says there can't be TWO Return of the Living Dead parallel projects? You are free to try blend the two sources to obtain a larger frame while I stick to the Shout release as base to recreate theatrical version.

[Evit]

You'll be happy to know that the crop is not constant, in fact, for some scenes, the Scream Factory Blu-Ray shows more info than the UK BR, a lot more. They are only framed very differently. I'm just exploring the frame differences for now

[Evit]

So, there are more scenes cropped in the UK version than in the newer (and better looking) US release.
These are two examples of how much the UK version crops from the film (inner image is from the UK Blu-Ray). I hope it will make you feel better knowing that I'll be using the Scream Factory US release as main source