Highlander 2 - 35mm Scan

[Chewtobacca]

So enjoy the unofficial year of Highlander 2!

The unofficial year of Highlander 2 follows the official year of Blade Runner.  Now I'm not sure who's who around here or which planet this is supposed to be. 

[austin_1138]

Woah there is another highlander nut running around. I'm not a consistent poster but I am definitely interested in donating since its seems the theatrical cut will never be released. Seems the whole franchise was forgotten long ago besides the first film. Count me in.

[HippieDalek]

Woah there is another highlander nut running around. I'm not a consistent poster but I am definitely interested in donating since its seems the theatrical cut will never be released. Seems the whole franchise was forgotten long ago besides the first film. Count me in.

There's more of us Highlander nuts running around than you'd think. I've been rather surprised recently by how much love there is for Highlander 2. I've done my best to restore the US and EU Theatrical Cuts in standard definition, but it seems this is the only way if we ever want to see them in better quality. Even he alternate cuts of the first film have been pretty much forgotten about these days, but the fans have been doing some amazing work to keep them alive. I've been particularly inspired by williarob's Highlander 1 US Theatrical Cut preservation. 

Thank you so much for helping out, it's really appreciated. Would you be ok letting me know roughly how much you think you'd be willing to pledge? It's ok if you'd rather PM me, and I won't be asking for any money until everything is confirmed and definitely going ahead.

[HippieDalek]

I've just had a quick chat with a seller on the 35mm forums and thought I'd give a bit of an update and get your opinions. I had my eye on his print as it appears to be the longer European Theatrical Cut so could be used to restore both the US and EU cuts of the film, as well as large parts of the Renegade Version. 

He was advertising it for sale quite some time ago but now that pledges are going well I thought I'd get in touch to confirm he still had it and was still willing to sell it. He let me know that it didn't sell, and although he still has the print it is currently in his vault and he'd need to know he was going to sell it before he went to find it again. He also let me know that his price has reduced to $150 which sounds excellent to me. 

"Print was made in 1992 on low-fade film. One of the cores has adhesive tape on left perforation"

Here are the sample frames I have:

   
   
   
   
   

The first frame is unique to the EU Theatrical Cut. However as the print is in the vault he can't give me an exact running time so I can't confirm that it's not one of the later European cuts that have had sections removed, he does however say there are no splices. 

The seller appears to have a good reputation, he's in Russia so the print's audio is in Russian but as I know have an excellent English language source for the EU cut this shouldn't be a problem. He assures me there are no Russian subtitles in the film.

I'd love to hear opinions on this print from both backers and people who have experience with 35mm prints. Does this look good to you?

[HippieDalek]

I ran out of attachments on that post so here's the last picture I have:
   

[deleted user]

I don't have all that much experience, so here's just some random thoughts that may or may not be useful:

One thing to consider is that Russian prints tend to be printed on Orwo material which means the colors may be somewhat different compared to normal European/Theatrical releases, however I'm not an expert and it may vary depending on time of release etc. Specifically, Orwo tends to be more green-ish is what I understand.

One of these images you posted says "CBEMA" on it, which seems to indicate a company from Russia called Svema which produced film stocks, so not actually Orwo it seems. I don't know anything about them, I just googled it, so I can't say anything about whether that's good or bad. Some of the images look a bit low contrast (not very opaque blacks) however that could just be the way the photo was taken/processed.

The price seems fair however shipping from Russia, at least on the eBay prints I saw, tends to be exorbitant, so calculate another 150-200 at least for the shipping to Europe, more to the US I think. If you go for this one, I'd suggest having it scanned in Europe, there are some talented and affordable people here who could help out.

I also ignorantly wonder whether Russia may have different cuts than Europe? I don't think they technically count as Europe, but I'm not sure how that was handled in terms of movies.

[HippieDalek]

I don't have all that much experience, so here's just some random thoughts that may or may not be useful:

One thing to consider is that Russian prints tend to be printed on Orwo material which means the colors may be somewhat different compared to normal European/Theatrical releases, however I'm not an expert and it may vary depending on time of release etc. Specifically, Orwo tends to be more green-ish is what I understand.

One of these images you posted says "CBEMA" on it, which seems to indicate a company from Russia called Svema which produced film stocks, so not actually Orwo it seems. I don't know anything about them, I just googled it, so I can't say anything about whether that's good or bad. Some of the images look a bit low contrast (not very opaque blacks) however that could just be the way the photo was taken/processed.

The price seems fair however shipping from Russia, at least on the eBay prints I saw, tends to be exorbitant, so calculate another 150-200 at least for the shipping to Europe, more to the US I think. If you go for this one, I'd suggest having it scanned in Europe, there are some talented and affordable people here who could help out.

I also ignorantly wonder whether Russia may have different cuts than Europe? I don't think they technically count as Europe, but I'm not sure how that was handled in terms of movies.

Thanks for the information, I'll look into Orwo and CBEMA and see what I can find. We haven't talked about postage prices, but in his forum posts he's previously stated $110 for postage to the EU so I'd already factored that into my estimates. I've been recommended a scanner in the Czech Republic, I haven't spoken to them directly yet but I've heard excellent things about them and someone has offered to put me in touch with them. 

The biggest uncertainty I have is what to do with the print after, as I have no facilities for storing and preserving film.

[deleted user]

I can highly recommend said scanner myself.

As for what to do with it after, you can just sell it again if you're happy with the scan. Or you pay shit tons of money to have it sent to you.

[Hitcher]

Resell?

[HippieDalek]

I can highly recommend said scanner myself.

As for what to do with it after, you can just sell it again if you're happy with the scan. Or you pay shit tons of money to have it sent to you.

Resell?

That would be the ideal option, but the print seems fairly common and not in high demand, so not sure how easy it would be to resell. I was hoping to maybe rent a print but this sellers buy price is just too good.