Re-mastered Eps: Possible Release? News Posted by John Hoare on 24th July 2005, 13:16 This is timely. (More from us later on that.) From The Webboard: “i’ve almost got all the R2 dvd’s but i’m dying to get my hands on the special ed’s (in english) why have these not been made available to us” Oh dear. However, Mr. Ellard’s response is rather interesting: Um…do you mean the Remastered episodes? If so, here’s the reason – we haven’t finished releasing the shows in their regular format yet. No decision has yet been made about the three series of remastered eps on DVD. Once we have the regular releases, Just The Shows and the Partworks mag completed…well, no doubt we’ll look into it. For the sake of dragging the topic out a bit – would people like the remastered eps made available? If so, what bonus material would take your fancy? Firstly – nice to hear the Partworks mag is still in the pipeline at the moment. But talk of the Re-mastered eps possibly being released is very interesting. It has been mooted before, but I’d forgotten all about it. Predictably, I couldn’t actually give a buggery about the eps themselves. I think they’re an abomination. But more Dwarf extras? Yes please! As for suggestions: a nice documentary behind-the-scenes of the Re-mastered series would be excellent – how it came about, interesting stuff production-wise, and opinions on how the final eps turned out. Also, episode-by-episode documentaries on the first two series would be excellent… You lot got any?
Well, I know it’s asking too much, and I know it isn’t going to happen, but I’d only be interested in the Re-mastered (or Re-bastard, as my mate calls them…) series if they were redone, in a similar way to what’s being done with ‘Tikka’. Sure, they’re not all bad as they are, but I must admit a dislike for things like the film effect, the Series VIII ship, certain editing decisions and deranged additions such as the crashing sound when a HOLOGRAM runs out of the room. And, honestly, the only new extra I can see is a featurette on the making of the Re-mastereds. Unless there are other uber-cool features that can’t fit onto the VII & VIII DVD releases. I’m sorry if I’m looking upon this in a negative way.
> Also, episode-by-episode documentaries on the first two series would be excellent… This is why *I* wanted to release the remastered. Whether it happens isn’t my call, but if it DOES, I would want to complete my ‘Making Of Red Dwarf’ documentary saga by finally getting I and II covered the way they should have been. BUT – that depends on a) us doing the release, and b) 2ent deciding that such docs would be worth funding. I’m not sure they appreciate the docs as extras, because reviews – and otehr feedback – tend to gloss over them so quickly. (Which I genuinely believe means that they’re good enough and so can be taken for granted. But you can never be sure.)
> ‘m not sure they appreciate the docs as extras, because reviews – and otehr feedback – tend to gloss over them so quickly. It’s absolutely ridiculous. Bloody idiots. Special mention goes to Sci-Fi Online, who can die a long and painful death.
The “remastered” documentary would suit the series VIII disc the way the “RD USA” one did for series V. I think that the doc should go on the series VIII disc, with a few specific scene-by-scene comparisons interspersed throughout. That would cover remastered for me.
“I’d vote for a full release if, and only if, there’s lots of lovely extras.” Okay, but I think the complete remastereds on DVD would be superfluous to the average fan’s requirement and it would be unfair if the only way to get a documentary on the remastereds would be to buy the series on DVD. I’ve never encountered anyone who prefers the remastereds over the original versions (though I have read one person on the internet saying they do) so it would surely be more appreciated to just have the comparison clips submerged in a fantastic documentary about the subject? I’m sorry to be a negative bastard but I suppose I’m not the sort of fan to buy something I don’t like just for the extras. I’d just feel conned that I was buying the first three series again. The remastered series with an extra disc for bonus material won’t come cheap. Yet I *would* like to see a good documentary. On this subject while we’re here – haven’t some countries only been getting the remastered episodes? And they’ve had all the series already? Does this mean that series IV – VI were remastered at some point? Sorry if this has been asked/answered before.
> “it would be unfair if the only way to get a documentary on the remastereds would be to buy the series on DVD”. Can’t say I agree. Just because people didn’t like Alien Resurrection, doesn’t mean the Alien Resurrection docco should be put on Alien’s DVD. Is it unfair that Series II fans interested in the Rob/Doug split have to buy VII to get the docco that covers it? Not really – you get the bonus pertinent to the main feature. With RD USA unlikely to get a release, it was ‘document it here or nowhere’. But if there IS to be a remastered release, we’d be mad to put a docco about it on Series VIII – robbing the remastereds of an extra, taking space we don’t have, and covering a subject without showing the thing we’re talking about in full. > “I’ve never encountered anyone who prefers the remastereds over the original versions” I have…but they tend to be overseas viewers who saw that version first. (And without remastering, we’d have had less success selling to stations internationally.) It’s bizarre when someone says ‘why did they dump the cool FX in favour of lousy models on the DVD?’! Plus we are getting emails and webboard requests for them. I guess generally from completists, but some of those guys are buying Just The Shows as well…and those vanilla sets ARE selling well. > “The remastered series with an extra disc for bonus material won’t come cheap.” Shouldn’t cost the Earth, though. RRP on VII and VIII is, I think ?22. That’s three discs. Extrapolate that for four… > ” Yet I *would* like to see a good documentary.” Me too. Jem talks about new sound, Mark talks about recutting, Chris talks about the new FX, Ed talks about the field removal malarky and Doug discusses just why they didn’t go down so well. All good and interesting stuff – but it belongs WITH the episodes. What really interests me is, as John mentioned, the chance to do full-on Seires I and II docos with cast and crew. True, the Series I intro section has kinda been done with Launching Red Dwarf – but that aside, it could be a couple of hours of decent doccos. > “On this subject while we’re here – haven’t some countries only been getting the remastered episodes? And they’ve had all the series already? Does this mean that series IV – VI were remastered at some point? Sorry if this has been asked/answered before.” On TV you mean? If so, yes – but they switched to the regular versions from IV onwards. Nothing was remastered after III (the new Tikka aside). Smeg knows if they were confused by the changes the show appeared to go though! (Interesting to note that the dubbed versions of I-III were made immeasurably easier for broadcasters by the remastering process, which created music and effects – M&E – tracks where they previously hadn’t existed. Making the whole thing a lot easier to dub.)
“Is it unfair that Series II fans interested in the Rob/Doug split have to buy VII to get the docco that covers it? Not really – you get the bonus pertinent to the main feature.” Fair enough. I’d personally argue that the remastereds go with the series VIII feature, being a decision of that era, just like the US documentary belonged with series V. But if there’s really no room for it on the DVD, and after what you’ve said about some people considering the remastereds to be definitive versions of the first three series, obviously I need to look at this a bit differently. “Shouldn’t cost the Earth, though. RRP on VII and VIII is, I think ?22. That’s three discs. Extrapolate that for four…” Yes. That isn’t cheap. Especially since I already have the original series I-III. I consider the remastereds to be an intriguing little spin-off with as much playability as storyboards with a parallel soundtrack. I’m not interested in buying complete versions of the remastereds but I’d love to see a documentary covering this ground. I can’t imagine that a documentary examining the phenomenon (without repeating what’s already covered in the main series I-III docs) will last for more than about 60 minutes without padding. An episode-by-episode analysis? How do people think this will work? Surely the impact of remastering was greatest on The End, featuring more of the re-recorded Holly and overlayed things like skutters than any of the other episodes? Include some reflection on the drunken blue midget and the polymorph’s arrival through the RD piping and what more is there to add? “Well on this episode there was more of the same, but particularly memorable is the addition of new background chatter and music in the flashback to Lister’s party days with the crew. It’s more full in this version, and more convincing to our ears.” “And on this episode there are hardly any changes besides the use of field removal malarky, so onto the next one…”
> An episode-by-episode analysis? How do people think this will work? We’re not on about deconstructing the *Re-Mastered* series episode-by-episode – Andrew was talking about doing an ep-by-ep documentary for the first two series as episodes, equivalent to the big long documentaries on the Series III DVD onwards.
Yes, I know. That’s what I thought I was talking about. I was saying how do people think this will work? I’m imagining that the doc would work best looking at the factors of the remastering itself rather than approaching the factors as they appeared across the episodes. “Jem talks about new sound, Mark talks about recutting, Chris talks about the new FX, Ed talks about the field removal malarky and Doug discusses just why they didn’t go down so well.” Would you suggest these factors be broken down into each episode, approached as the storylines brought them up? I just think this would create a lot of repetition, that’s all.
Mr Milk, you’re not understanding. These doccos wouldn’t discuss the remastering – which would possibly get its own sepearate doc. It would discuss the making of the series, just like every otehr seires doc. So you’d have Doug talking about the writing, Danny being later, Craig deciding to have dreadlocks, Ed getting a headache from the future Echoes script, etc. etc. So ‘how would it work’? Exactly like the other six docs.
So on the remastered Dwarf discs there would be documentaries that cover the series all over again and then *possibly* a separate shorter one to cover the remastered project? I’ve got it now. I think.
Okay now I *do* get it. Series one and two didn’t get big long docs on the original DVD release so this wouldn’t be pointless repetition.
Mr. Ellard: Here is a possible extra for a Series 1 remastered DVD – remember that episode that GNP yanked after having to remount Series 1, the episode where Rimmer goes mad and tries to steal various parts of Lister? If the script is still around, why not bring in Chris Barrie to produce something similar to Identity Within for Series 7? Just a thought…..
Oooooohhh! Yes! I’ve *always* wanted to see what that was like. It sounds an *incredibly* spooky idea for an ep. Like I said in an old article, far worse than Quarantine – there, Rimmer goes mad from an external force, wheras here he goes mad from an inability to cope with his own death. Would it need Rob Grant’s permission? And if it did, would that pose a problem? Mind you, they might hate the script so much now (they did write Me2 as a replacement because they thought it was the worst one) that they might not want it mounted – although as I recall, In 6OTB, Rob or Doug says it’s “not as bad as they remember”. Hmmmm. Be nice to have a copy of the script, at least, if Doug felt it wasn’t worth doing an audio version.
> Be nice to have a copy of the script, at least, if Doug felt it wasn’t worth doing an audio version. Although if they’re going to do that, I’d probably prefer a book of all the lost Dwarf eps, in whatever form they got to, and including first drafts of episodes that were broadcast that ended up changing radically. That would be BRILLIANT. Not sure how well it would sell, though. If only everyone was as geeky as me. I suspect we’re due for a huge retrospective book with lots of rarities at some point though. Even if we have to wait 15 years.
I’d also like to see ‘Dad’ in some form. Supposed to be extremely sexist but women aren’t exactly well presented on Dwarf anyway.
Mr Ellard’s response from the Webboard: >It’s good point – but having read the script…well, it’s not even half-way done (at least, not the version I’ve seen – dunno if the rest even exists any more), and much of it was canibalised for other Series I, II and III stories. >Ditto Dad from Series III, sorry to say. >Andrew A great pity, although I wonder if GNP have a full version of the script kicking around somewhere – according to 6OTB it certainly sounded like it. Rob Grant talked about it getting to the rehearsal stage and even coming across the script itself shortly before recording 6OTB, so presumably they must have had at least some form of sizeable working draft. Still, it would seem a bit strange to hear the recycled jokes from other shows, whereas of course Identity Within is a complete and original script.
> I’d also like to see ‘Dad’ in some form. Supposed to be extremely sexist but women aren’t exactly well presented on Dwarf anyway. Ahem. We might have an article on this soon… That’s an article, not the actual script, Mr. GNP Lawyer Sir.
I’ve been reading snippets on it, though that’s all we seem to have. The ‘brother and sister’ stuff from Last Day is in there, as well as the start of a scene where Lister meets his layabout loser dad.
We’ve only got what looks like the start of the ep – including all The Last Day stuff. But we’ve not got the layabout loser dad stuff… Can’t you do a Time Hole article on it or something Andrew, including what exists of the script, along with a bit of history and analysis?
I wouldn’t be confident enough of my facts to do it. I’m finding pages of things in old vaults, floppy discs with files where you can only read every 3rd line, etc. etc. I’d be speculating. Also, given that Rob and Doug didn’t want these scenes out there, I can’t really propose the notion in the office without getting things thrown at me.
Bah. Ah well, maybe something about it will turn up in an expensive coffee table book in thirty years time…
Just for what it’s worth, Mr. Andrew, sir…I would be very, very excited about a remastered release if it included full documentaries on series I and II, along with (of course) whatever other extra features you intend to include. This, of course, is assuming it’s up to par with the general level of fantastic excellence you guys have churned out so far, which I doubt would be a problem. There are very few things that I would buy just for the bonus features…in fact, Dwarf may well be the only thing…but you guys do such a great job on those episode-by-episode documentaries that they become more of a double feature than a bonus feature.
It’s true. Let’s pretend these Dwarf DVDs as we know them never happened…instead they only assembled series specific episode-by-episode documentaries exactly like the ones we have. Who among us wouldn’t buy them? And being as we obviously want the episodes on DVD as well, it’s like getting two programs we really want for the price of one.
