[proposal] Battlefield Earth

[spoRv]

OK, OK, this is considered one of the worst movies ever made... I should admit I saw it few years ago, and, even if - of course - it is not a masterpiece or a milestone, I don't think it's one of the worst... I saw many, many ugly movies, and, among them, this is actually one that, even with its (many) flaws, has some good points... which ones? You have to suffer and watch it all to discover them!

Battlefield Earth is available on 2.35:1 on DVD, and 1.78:1 on BD; the original theatrical aspect ratio is 2.35:1 - the BD has more details on top and bottom, but less on the sides; the best thing to do will be to use the Axis-Aligned Polygon Aspect Ratio (AAP A/R for short) techinque, but it should be adjusted shot by shot, and nobody - including me - will waste his time to do this kind of job for this movie!

Another option is to use the 720p web download as source - that has the right 2.35:1 a/r - upscale it to 1080p, clean a bit the image from some dirt and dropouts, add back the eventual scenes that *should* be not included there, but still present in the Special Edition DVD and BD - for that few scene, I could actually use the AAP A/R, then crop the image to 2.35:1, so the central part of the image will benefit from the increased resolution of the BD, mantaining the right a/r thanks to the sides taken from the DVD.

What do you think?

P.S. Do you want to see a movie worst than this? Give 2047 - Sights of Death a try!

[spoRv]

Made some tests... there are shots presents onto the webdl but not on BD, and vice versa... plus, the webdl has a better color grading IMHO... so, if someone could be interested in this project, I'd use the BD shots that are missing from the webdl and crop them, instead of using the DVD - I compared quickly both BD and DVD, and they should differ only for some frames here and there, so supposedly they *should* be the same.

Not that this extended version will enhance the quality of the movie... it will only prolong the torture just for some minutes more!

[kk650]

Andrea, I think there are films far more worthy of your talents to be honest. I've never watched this film but as far as i've heard its considered one of the worst films ever made.

Have you considered doing a colourmatch of Gladiator, using the remastered blu-ray as the main source but colour matching to the dvd or hdtv release? That would be a release I would really be interested in and I suspect that colourmatch could do a great job. I'm sure it'd be a really popular release as well, many have complained that they prefered how Gladiator looked on DVD like I do.

[spoRv]

Gladiator is still on my "project drawer", and I strongly hope - but can't be 100% - that I will be able to restart to work to all my project ASAP...

About Battlefield Earth: yes, it's not a great movie, but I'm interested in restoring it more for the technical fact that between two editions, there are shots present in one and not in the other, and viceversa, and also different wipes due to these differences... and you know, I like challenges!

[spoRv]

OK, I had to watch it again, after some years, to know if I'm totally crazy (that's notorious, by the way) or just a little bit... well, tow days ago, I cut out two hours of my life to watch it... and, even though its countless errors, flaws, bad acting and triumph of Dutch angle, I can't say it's one of the worst movie ever made...

There is something to save - not too much, indeed... I liked the theatrical, over the top acting way of Travolta and Whitaker - the former remembers me a bit Jack Nickolson's Joker, only alien and with a lot of dreadlocks... CGI is not that bad, considering it's a 2000 flick... there is enough action to stay awake for the whole movie, even if story is a bit confused during the second part.

The worst thing - apart headache due to 99% of the movie shot with Dutch angle (ouch!), is the fact there were two occasional missing explosions - one human head and one alien hand - that was resolved simply moving the camera away during them! I wonder if there is a good CGI designer around that could add those explosions back...

[spoRv]

Some tests here, using Axis-aligned Polygon Aspect Ratio:

http://fanres.com/showthread.php?tid=20&pid=211#pid211

[bendermac]

speaking of this movie...

i have the german bd and american itunes version. both cuts are quite different.
is the american bd the same cut as the dvd/itunes version?

[spoRv]

AFAIK, the German BD has a different cut not found in any other source, while DVD and Web DL have the same cut.

[spoRv]

After "a bit of time!", thanks to random.next and his great avisynth plugin (THANK YOU!!!), I've started to test the AAP-AR version of this "mastersh...piece"


the crossed frames are wrong, because I mixed two different cuts, where one has black frames for the missing shots, and vice versa; also, sync job was stopped around frame 60000. Still, you have an idea of what the final product could look like. Strange, unhortodox, but great IMHO!

Also, it is another chance to use the YAO subtitle hack, for the ones who can't stand the AAP-AR version, so anyone would be happy - well, the 0.1% of the population which actually do like this movie!

More, I thought to mix both cuts, and get an extended edition, with all the scenes from both versions.

[shonenbat]

My god I'd be so on board for an extended cut that has all the scenes intact. I have friends who've never seen this movie and they need to be subjected to it. Interestingly, there isn't just scenes exclusive to each version, scenes are re-ordered for the DVD version in the last third of the movie. I'll need to dig up my notes on that.