Dawn of the Dead (and zombies in general: just for fun)

[Paul L Scholar of Sleaze Find all posts View Profile Close Paul L]

Isn't the Japanese disc taken from the same transfer as the R1 Weinstein special edition?

I think you're right, Ian. I believe I'm right in saying that the Weinstein disc is the same transfer that's been released on BD in the UK by Optimum (and by Umbrella in Australia) and can now be bought fairly cheaply - it looks nice but suffers from cropping (with some shots framed quite differently to the Elite DVDs) that affects some scenes worse than others. (I haven't seen the Weinstein DVD, as I never bought it due to being happy with the Elite Millennium Edition. However, I understand that the transfer for the Weinstein DVD was approved by Romero.) The Optimum BD (and the Umbrella BD) also includes an 80 minute documentary, which I presume is the same documentary that was included with the Weinstein DVD.

I know that the Japanese disc is prohibitively expensive at the moment, so regardless of the transfer quality there's no chance of me being able to buy it and find out for sure :D I believe it's supposed to be the same as the Weinstein DVD release (and therefore the Optimum/Umbrella BDs).

To confuse matters even more, there are in fact two French BDs:
http://www.amazon.fr/nuit-morts-viva...4914954&sr=1-1
and
http://www.amazon.fr/nuit-morts-viva...4914954&sr=1-2

[Ian Jane Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Ian Jane]

Jeez, haha, this can't be easy.

And yeah, the Weinstein transfer was director approved. I have the disc, the cropping was minor and I didn't even notice it until it was pointed out. I think Don May Jr. did the work on it and I seem to remember him saying somewhere it had to be cropped because of some damage that couldn't be fixed, but I could be remembering it wrong as I'm getting old and senile.

[Paul L Scholar of Sleaze Find all posts View Profile Close Paul L]

Jeez, haha, this can't be easy.

And yeah, the Weinstein transfer was director approved. I have the disc, the cropping was minor and I didn't even notice it until it was pointed out. I think Don May Jr. did the work on it and I seem to remember him saying somewhere it had to be cropped because of some damage that couldn't be fixed, but I could be remembering it wrong as I'm getting old and senile.

Aren't we all?

I did some digging around on the dark corners of the 'Net and found this comment by Don May Jr, which is pretty illuminating: he apparently supervised the digital restoration (but not the transfer) that appeared on the Weinstein disc:
http://z8.invisionfree.com/MHVF/inde...ost&p=11791103

I think I'll hang on to the Optimum BD and the Elite DVD and, each time I view the film, alternate between the two ;)

[Ian Jane Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Ian Jane]

Is the Optimum release completely uncut? I have the UK Network BD and it's chopped up a bit. I'm still going to hold out hope for a domestic release as I've owned this one enough on various different formats that I don't feel a pressing, burning need to buy it again for the umpteenth time - I'm just curious.

[Paul L Scholar of Sleaze Find all posts View Profile Close Paul L]

Is the Optimum release completely uncut? I have the UK Network BD and it's chopped up a bit.

The Optimum release is indeed uncut, Ian. As far as I can ascertain, it's exactly the same as the Weinstein disc. The Network is from a completely different transfer, minus the cropping but missing about 30s of footage - probably due to print damage or some such.

I've owned this one enough on various different formats that I don't feel a pressing, burning need to buy it again for the umpteenth time

Ditto :) I've definitely got a similar bout of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD purchasing fatigue, which was why I never bought the Weinstein release.

[Mike T Guest Find all posts View Profile Close Mike T]

Thanks to Ian and Paul for the discussion of the NOTLD BDs! It helped me decide on the Optimum edition, which I received today and is awesome sauce. The cropping doesn't bother me as much as the anally retentive, as this bizarre ideology perpetrated on the internerd that we're meant to see an entire exposed aperture is just fallacy. Films are shot with "safe" areas, that allow for loss of visual information that occurs with the use of projector gates and such (that were used to mask off full aperture prints to standard 1.85 widescreen). So, meh.

I must say, never having seen the film in anything approaching a decent version I'm very happy with the BD as the incresed resolution and detail, accompanied by the clarity of the lossless audio is a revelation. To reiterate what Paul noted: yes, uncut and the film runs 95m53s. (The image will crop off nicely to 1.78 when I eventually do a review for EWS)

Cheers for all the information chaps! You helped me make an informed buying choice that I'm happy with. :up:

[Ian Jane Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Ian Jane]

So there's a new Blu-ray release out in Germany now it seems.



Version 1: Remastered HD Cut
Version 2: 3D Cut
122 mins, Ger DTS-HD 2.0, Eng DTS-HD 5.1

And it has a 3-D version??

But then there are some Media Book releases coming out in Dec...







All three are English friendly and available at dtm.

http://shop.dtm.at/product_info.php?products_id=57347

[Ian Jane Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Ian Jane]

The Argento cut of the film is getting a new 4k restoration.

Details here:

http://dawnofthedeadcollectors.blogs...storation.html

[Ian Jane Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Ian Jane]

Drool.....

https://www.amazon.it/Dawn-of-the-De...N=B01LTHL0IS&m

[Alex K. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Alex K.]

Great cover!

[Rakesh R. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Rakesh R.]

Pretty exciting news about the Argento cut, but we seriously need a 4k scan of the Romero cut. Hopefully, this release will give incentive to some studio to work on a new 4k scan of the original version of "Dawn of the Dead".

[Derrick King Waterfall Puncher Find all posts View Profile Close Derrick King]

I guess I'll stick this here: New 4K restoration of the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD to premiere at MoMA in November

[Ian Jane Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Ian Jane]

Dawn Of The Dead cast returns to Monroeville Mall.

Could be kinda fun for locals I guess.

[Alex K. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Alex K.]

Neat.

[ropo1 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close ropo1]

Drool.....

https://www.amazon.it/Dawn-of-the-De...N=B01LTHL0IS&m

[ATTACH=CONFIG]16374[/ATTACH]

Anyone else got this non-4k?

For me the theatrical version is the worst, but my disc for that one doesn't work possibly got a 4k disc (no way to check atm)

It's kinda funny that Refn is used to promote this 20 years before his career movie btw :bruce: