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Old 11-01-2004, 06:55 PM
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filmmaker2 filmmaker2 is offline
Backyard Waterfall
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Horrorwood, Karloffornia
Posts: 3,401
Aha!

Another Laser maniac! I have that on laserdisc too. In fact, there is a funny, and rather pathetic story that goes with that disc...

Well, when the disc was first announced (1998? I think), a lot of people in Los Angeles put in advance orders on it, because the announcement said that each disc came with an original copy of the movie's pressbook. Original, meaning, not a reprint. (Everyone assumed that a box of these had turned up in someone's attic.) And furthermore, the first 500 discs ordered would have their pressbooks autographed by Clark and Ormsby.

Now, 500 is not a lot of discs. Everyone wants to be in that first 500, right? The fans out here were going crazy, because they had some technical problem and the disc's release was months late. Laserdisc stores who had placed the advance orders for all us poor schmucks were getting phone calls every day. "Is it in yet? Where's the disc?? We want the disc!!" So everyone who had plunked down a down-payment was just frothing at the mouth waiting for the damn thing. It just goes to show how obsessed the hardcore fans of this film really really are.

When the shipments of discs finally arrive MONTHS later, it turns out that the pressbook is actually a reprint, but nobody cares because they've been waiting for months for the thing.

In the end it was worth waiting for, because the image quality is better (less compressed) than what they eventually released on DVD. But now there's talk of a NEW transfer of the film, from a different print, coming from some British company. I am very interested in seeing this!
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