[Help] Highlander II - US Theatrical Cut - Extended Shot Problem

[HippieDalek]

After restoring the European Theatrical Cut of Highlander 2 I thought I'd put together a preservation of the US Theatrical Cut. I thought this would be a quick task as the French DVD provides an excellent visual source, and all I'd have to do would be to sync up some high quality audio. I completed a first version that I was fully happy with, but just as I was about to release it I ran into a problem. 

The US Theatrical Cut contains a shot that is extended by around 1 second. Annoyingly this extension isn't present on the French DVD. I have two other sources for the extended shot; the Japanese DVD which is a low quality letterboxed LD rip, and the UK DVD which is high quality but Pan and Scan. 

Even with colour correction the Japanese DVD shot has such a massive drop in quality that it sticks out like a sore thumb. The UK DVD is an excellent match for the French DVD in terms of colour and quality, so I attempted to use the various sources to patch back in the cropped off parts of the image but the result was less than successful. 

Does anyone have any suggestions or tips on what can be done? Part of me is tempted to just ignore the extended shot as it's less than a second and contains absolutely nothing of interest, but the perfectionist in me doesn't want to let this go.

Below are frames from each source. I can provide the actual clips if anyone wants them. 

Japanese DVD


UK DVD


French DVD

[MrBrown]

Can you give a Timecode where the Scene could be found?
And what to look for?
I have some DVDs of that movier that I may check.

[Chewtobacca]

Part of me is tempted to just ignore the extended shot as it's less than a second and contains absolutely nothing of interest, but the perfectionist in me doesn't want to let this go.

Let it go.  If it's less than a second, then that's fewer than twenty-four frames.  It isn't worth the drop in quality that would come from splicing in another source.  If the shot were absent entirely, that would be different, but as it just runs a fraction of second shorter, it's a non-issue.

[deleted user]

Can you render that entire scene out from the 3 sources raw as YV12 Lagarith without any adjustments and send it to me? I'd love playing around with this and see what I can do.

[HippieDalek]

Can you give a Timecode where the Scene could be found?
And what to look for?
I have some DVDs of that movier that I may check.

Here are the timestamps (hh : mm : ss)

Japanese NTSC DVD : 00:44:02
UK PAL DVD : 00:42:17
French PAL DVD : 00:42:17

It's the moment General Katana drives the train through a wall. The shots above are approximate start frames. The extended shot starts with the woman near the centre of the screen, the shortened version of the shot begins with her already far to the right.

This shot only appears in the US theatrical cut, all the other versions use the shortened shot. It's odd that the French DVD also uses the shortened shot but is otherwise identical to the US theatrical cut.

[HippieDalek]

Can you render that entire scene out from the 3 sources raw as YV12 Lagarith without any adjustments and send it to me? I'd love playing around with this and see what I can do.

PM sent.

[DeafYakuza]

I’m very curious about your project of three cuts of Highlander 2. I think you will get a great releases. I can give you the German tracks for dubbing if you want. Tell me...