by August » Sat Nov 07, 2009 7:32 pm
"I am not going to get into an argument about what Toho Co. Ltd. owes the consumer."
I wasn't either, just stating the fact that what people want versus what companies are willing to do, are not in synch.
"I make oblique reference to some people (perhaps even better informed than I) who are criticizing the Toho BD for what they think should have been done WITHOUT HAVING SEEN IT."
I agree.
"To say [I paraphrase] 'I haven't seen it but Toho should have given it the METROPOLIS treatment and spent years and a million dollars to digitally wet gate clean each frame.'"
Interestingly, it doesn't have to get that complex. Or that expensive. The fact is that Toho doesn't want to spend anything on film restoration (thanks, Armand. I have the same problem with "Destoroyah"), meanwhile, US companies like Animeigo have done it for them with a number of their films. (These then were released in Japan, using the transfers that Animeigo produced. So, win-win.)
There are nice dreams about film preservation, but dreams and the reality of motion picture economics are two distinctly different things.
August Ragone
Showa GAMERA Special Features Producer
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