[Released] Ransom Extended Version

[alleycat]

When Ransom was released on Laserdisc it contained an additional 18 minutes of footage. That version has never been released on any other format. Whilst the DVD release contained some deleted scenes, they only ran for 4 minutes and were cropped 4:3.

For this project a friend captured the US Laserdisc on a Domesday setup and sent me the video. I then went several stages of processing in Avisynth including deinterlacing, decimating, cropping, cleaning, dehaloing, chroma noise removal and upscaling. That footage was then processed in Phoenix to remove instances of dust/dirt. There was then some light processing in Topaz and finally regraining in After Effects.

@zoidberg also captured the US Laserdisc for me and in some instances I used that footage instead. There was one short in particular that looked really bad on the Domesday version, so having two different captures allowed me to mix and match. Also, both versions had different colors so I was able to merge these for certain scenes.

This additional footage was then inserted into the Blu Ray footage to recreate the Extended release. Expectations need to be set here; LD footage is never going to seamless integrate with Blu Ray footage. I have tried my very best to make the footage look as good as possible, but I feel that overprocessing low quality footage is often worse.

The Blu Ray footage was adjusted slightly so that it better matched the LD footage. Fortunately most of the additional footage is completely independent, so it is less jarring on the eyes when it occurs. Overall I was very pleased with how it came out, I’ve been working on this for the last few months and I’m specifically looking for errors when I watch it, so hopefully others will be able to enjoy it for what it is.

In terms of audio, @zoidberg was able to capture both the PCM and the AC3 tracks from the Laserdisc. And my friend with the Domesday setup managed to capture the DTS track from the Japanese Laserdisc – so we have a complete audio offering.

The English subtitles were also a challenge as the additional footage has obviously never been subtitled before. So the blu ray subtitles were cut up and the extra footage transcribed line by line – that part was pretty time consuming.

Finally in terms of extras there is everything from the DVD, including one deleted scene that isn’t actually in the Extended Version, and some interviews from YouTube.

Once again, massive thanks to @zoidberg and my Domesday friend, without them this project would have never happened.

• BD25 with animated menus, background video, pop up menus and resume function
  
• 1080P AVC Video
  
• English 2.0 PCM, English 5.1 AC3 and English 5.1 DTS from the Laserdiscs
  
• English SDH Subtitles
  
• What Would You Do Featurette
  
• Between Takes featurette
  
• Deleted Scene
  
• Bobbie Wygant Interviews with Mel Gibson, Rene Russo, Gary Sinise and Ron Howard
  
• Theatrical Trailer
  

PM me for the links, contributing/long term members only please. Contributing means active members of the forum who post and/or make their own projects - i.e. not newbies or those who have never posted a single thread.

High Resolution cover and disc art available from @Pineapples101 Here.

Blu Ray Footage:






LD Footage:







Menu:





Just to clarify this is a project that I have made for myself which I am choosing to share. If you don't like the project, if you think it should have been done differently then feel free to keep that to yourself and consider doing your own project.

[Beber]

Interesting. I've never seen that cut.

[dvdmike]

It's why I have the LD to this day and always looking for the dts

[alleycat]

It's why I have the LD to this day and always looking for the dts

Yeah I didn't expect for a minute I'd get the DTS due to the rarity and cost of the disc so really pleased I was able to include it.

[dvdmike]

I love my Dolby set it's the best versio of the film

[stwd4nder2]

Finally got around to watching this. You did a pretty good job integrated the LD footage all things considered, it was very watchable on a large screen. And the DTS track sounds great. Fantastic work @alleycat!
Now as far as the extended cut itself, I think most of that footage was cut for a good reason.