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Gryphonadmin
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Jun-27-19, 07:43 PM (EDT)
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"From the Earth to the Moon"
 
   By which I mean the HBO miniseries from the '90s, not the Jules Verne novel it's named after.

From the Earth to the Moon (largely based on Andrew Chaikin's excellent book on the Apollo program, A Man on the Moon) was sort of a spiritual successor to the 1995 film Apollo 13. It was produced by the same people (including Tom Hanks, who starred as Jim Lovell in Apollo 13 and introduced each episode of From the Earth to the Moon), featured some of the same actors (albeit not playing the same characters), and, in the case of the episode spanning the Apollo 13 mission, was deliberately designed to complement rather than overlap the movie. It's one of my favorite pieces of television.

The problem with From the Earth to the Moon was that it was made just in time not to be produced in HD. This led to a few problems with the DVD release, which they cropped for widescreen rather than pillarboxing it (so the top and bottom of the scene got cut off), and made a Blu-Ray release impractical. I was hoping that for the 20th anniversary of the original airing last year, they might think it was worth making, but no soap.

(A similar thing happened to the Director's Edition of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the one made by Robert Wise shortly before he died. New footage was shot, new effects were added, and a new master was made for that release—on DVD, just in time to miss the development of Blu-Ray, so the source footage is all in SD, and all the new bits would have to be made over again in HD from scratch. Which is why there isn't, and probably never will be, a Blu-Ray version of that cut of the film.)

Well, it seems if the show's own 20th anniversary wasn't, the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 was motivation enough for Imagine to finally take the trouble of remastering From the Earth to the Moon in HD, because I just discovered that there is a Blu-Ray edition (with prominent "remastered in HD!" box graphics) available for preorder, with a US street date of July 16 (the anniversary of the launch). I'm really pleased about this (with the caveat that I really hope they've done the remaster correctly, and not repeated the mistakes of the DVD version).

Sadly, I found out about this by learning from a BBC report that actor Max Wright has died. He was probably best known for his role on the '80s sitcom ALF, but I think first of his performance as Günter Wendt in the third episode of From the Earth to the Moon (the one covering Apollo 8). That reminded me to check again whether the show ever had come out on Blu-Ray, and, well, here we are. Silver lining department, I guess. :/

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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  Subject     Author     Message Date     ID  
  RE: From the Earth to the Moon Offsides Jun-28-19 1
  RE: From the Earth to the Moon Senji Jun-30-19 2
     RE: From the Earth to the Moon Star Ranger4 Jun-30-19 3
     RE: From the Earth to the Moon Gryphonadmin Jul-16-19 4
  RE: From the Earth to the Moon Gryphonadmin Jul-16-19 5
     RE: From the Earth to the Moon Lime2K Jul-16-19 6
     RE: From the Earth to the Moon MoonEyes Jul-17-19 7
         RE: From the Earth to the Moon Gryphonadmin Jul-17-19 9
             RE: From the Earth to the Moon MoonEyes Jul-21-19 10
     RE: From the Earth to the Moon Senji Jul-17-19 8

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Offsides
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Jun-28-19, 02:45 PM (EDT)
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1. "RE: From the Earth to the Moon"
In response to message #0
 
   Hmm, I thought I had seen that, but now I think I'm getting it mixed up with "Moon Shot", another mini-series from around the same timeframe. Please provide a follow-up report on the new version (assuming you've ordered it) so we all know whether or not to get copies for ourselves :)

Offsides

[...] in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.
-- David Ben Gurion
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#include <stdsig.h>


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Senji
Member since Apr-27-07
183 posts
Jun-30-19, 07:59 AM (EDT)
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2. "RE: From the Earth to the Moon"
In response to message #0
 
   Of course they don't seem to have redone the DVD release in the process...


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Star Ranger4
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Jun-30-19, 08:24 AM (EDT)
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3. "RE: From the Earth to the Moon"
In response to message #2
 
   >Of course they don't seem to have redone the DVD release in the
>process...
\
But that just makes the STUPID, sister of mine.


Of COURSE you wernt expecting it!
No One expects the FANNISH INQUISITION!
RCW# 86


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Gryphonadmin
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Jul-16-19, 01:38 PM (EDT)
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4. "RE: From the Earth to the Moon"
In response to message #2
 
   >Of course they don't seem to have redone the DVD release in the
>process...

Well, that would involve turning around and downscaling the UHD remaster back to letterboxed SD. I'm not an expert, but I'm going to guess that didn't seem worth the effort to whoever was in charge of the project.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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Gryphonadmin
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Jul-16-19, 02:17 PM (EDT)
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5. "RE: From the Earth to the Moon"
In response to message #0
 
   My preordered copy came yesterday, the day before the street date, which was probably unintentional, but why argue with success? I watched Disc 1 and the extras on Disc 3 last night, and here is my report:

It's amazing.

To elaborate on that a little, the remaster they've done on this release is a full restoration, like they do on old movies—dig the original negatives out of the vault, scan the film, clean up the individual frames, whopping amounts of digital color correction. (The new version also has a Dolby Atmos surround sound mix, which I don't have the gear to appreciate properly, but it sounds very good indeed on the regular Bose home-theater speaker bar I have here.)

This process was followed up with a complete overhaul of the visual effects, but they didn't change anything, which was a bold decision on someone's part; instead, they re-created the original effects sequences shot by shot, using modern CG (I think the original was a mix of model work and fairly primitive '90s CG), so that the detail level would hold up against the rest of the footage. CG edits of older films are a hit-and-miss proposition (we've all been scarred by the Star Wars Special Edition), but someone obviously took a lot of care over this project.

Also, after watching the making-of featurette, I did a little more research and found out something interesting about the aspect ratio problem, namely: the aspect ratio of the HD/UHD release (16:9) isn't the native aspect ratio of the source film, but what I didn't realize at the time was that the original SD broadcast (4:3) wasn't either. The show was shot on Super 35, which is 35mm film that uses the whole frame, stealing the area traditionally reserved for the optical audio track. This is very close to 4:3 (technically 1.33:1), but has to be cropped a bit to be shown at that aspect ratio.

The traditional thing to do with Super 35 is to crop it to a cinematic AR and deliberately leave out huge swathes of the top and bottom of the native frame, and DPs shooting on Super 35 will frame their shots with that cropping in mind. This may be why (along with very careful editing), in the original DVD widescreen version of From the Earth to the Moon, the damage isn't too bad—it was probably photographed trying not to leave anything important in the areas that traditionally get left out of a Super 35 print.

(Also, since the 4:3 print was itself cropped, there's not as much missing from the top of the frame in the widescreen print as you might think (the vertical crop isn't centered), and you get some bonus stuff over to the sides that was on the film, but not seen in the original broadcast. This stuff is complicated!)

Anyway, most of the places in the original widescreen cut where the cropping was obvious were in the effects sequences, and since those were being remade anyway, they were in an excellent position to work around the issue, which it seems like they did. So far, in the first four episodes, I haven't noticed anything obviously missing, including the one sort of canonical example from the DVDs (the effects shot in the Gemini 8 segment of episode 1 where, thanks to the crop, you can't see what is actually wrong with the spacecraft—they fixed that).

So, yeah. This isn't a cheap or simple BD release, it's a proper ground-up remaster, and learning that removes the one reservation I had about encouraging people to go and buy it before it was released. This is a great version of an amazing series, and if you have the budget for it, the equipment to watch it on, and any interest in the golden age of spaceflight, you should get it.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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Lime2K
Member since May-4-04
133 posts
Jul-16-19, 07:19 PM (EDT)
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6. "RE: From the Earth to the Moon"
In response to message #5
 
   This is absolutely great to hear. I dropped an in-store-pickup request for it at a local-ish Target store, and wanted to check some reviews before picking it up. Looks like it's time to go get it!
(if I was smart i would've picked it up on the way home from work, but i clearly haven't had enough caffeine to function at that level today) :P
--------------
Lime2K
The One True Evil Overlord


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MoonEyes
Member since Jun-29-03
894 posts
Jul-17-19, 03:42 AM (EDT)
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7. "RE: From the Earth to the Moon"
In response to message #5
 
   I went and looked for this on Amazon since a close friend has the old version, and I figured that it might be a good little present for him to have the new one. And, well, I found an interesting review there. I quote:


"It pains me to write this, but the new CGI in FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON is mind-numbingly bad. Looks like something out of a direct-to-video kids movie. The Earth shots look like 2D paintings and the moonscapes resemble PlayStation 1 graphics. The CGI spacecrafts have no motion blur, either, which makes the movement look incredibly hokey.

Almost all of the miniature model shots have been replaced, as well.

In addition, the "restoration" of the 35mm film elements has been handled very poorly. The color correction is over-saturated, with "Mare Tranquillitatis" suffering the most, from what I've seen so far. The faces in mission control are literally orange.

Keep your DVDs from 2005 - HBO should have never touched this. Now I see why Tom Hanks has done zero press for this re-release."


Now, I am almost certainly getting it ALL THE SAME, partially based on your review above, Gryph, and partially based on the fact that it was the single bad review in the list, but still, would you like to comment?


...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-Covered Balls!"


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Gryphonadmin
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Jul-17-19, 04:41 PM (EDT)
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9. "RE: From the Earth to the Moon"
In response to message #7
 
   LAST EDITED ON Jul-17-19 AT 04:41 PM (EDT)
 
OK, I didn't wake up today thinking I would be asked to rebut an Amazon user review, but, sure, let's go...

>"It pains me to write this, but the new CGI in FROM THE EARTH TO THE
>MOON is mind-numbingly bad. Looks like something out of a
>direct-to-video kids movie. The Earth shots look like 2D paintings and
>the moonscapes resemble PlayStation 1 graphics. The CGI spacecrafts
>have no motion blur, either, which makes the movement look incredibly
>hokey."

Perhaps my film appreciation skills are simply lacking, because I think the new effects shots look quite good. But then, I'm the kind of guy who can't hear the difference between vinyl and a high-quality digital recording, either, much to the disgust of True Audiophiles. Just from the tone of the wording, I suspect this person may be a similar breed of cat, but for video. Maybe they're terrible and I just have a bad eye for that stuff, who knows.

>"In addition, the "restoration" of the 35mm film elements has been
>handled very poorly. The color correction is over-saturated, with
>"Mare Tranquillitatis" suffering the most, from what I've seen so far.
>The faces in mission control are literally orange."

I can see some merit in this complaint; the new print is highly saturated. That goes back to the show's original intent, though, which was that they wanted it to look like it belonged to the era it's set in. Color film (and color TV that was shot on film) in the 1960s looked like that. Especially on TV—color TV was such a new thing in the mid-'60s that production designers wanted to take every advantage of it. (That's why, for instance, everything on the original Star Trek is so brightly colored.) The more subdued sensibility we're all used to nowadays didn't really come along until Gritty Cop Movies became a thing in the '70s.

(Some of that might also be the settings on the viewer's TV, or whatever they're watching the discs on; my old plasma TV did have to have its color setting ramped back slightly to avoid some scenes washing out, but then it's an old plasma TV.)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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MoonEyes
Member since Jun-29-03
894 posts
Jul-21-19, 05:09 AM (EDT)
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10. "RE: From the Earth to the Moon"
In response to message #9
 
   I apologize for any "on the spot"-putting. But, you know, you and I seem to have about the same taste, and you're seen it, so...thank you for answer. Am getting.

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-Covered Balls!"


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Senji
Member since Apr-27-07
183 posts
Jul-17-19, 05:19 AM (EDT)
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8. "RE: From the Earth to the Moon"
In response to message #5
 
   That sounds like I might want to acquire a copy now while it's hot ahead of getting the Bluray player to actually play it on? :-D


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