This news was so big we wanted to headline it so here it is, everything you need to know from Brian Mix, thank you Brian! Reposting his news as follows... Hi Guys, Last Sunday I sat through Kevin Burns presentation on LIS on BR. And its a ton of great news. All of the episodes have been re-mastered from the original film elements and sound recordings. Lost in Space will never look or sound better. Billy Mumy is working to coordinate the extras including new interviews and commentaries on the pilot episodes. Yes they have both pilots on the disks and have even found some missing clips and sounds. No release dates yet other than 2015, and I take it from some of the comments they are still adding content to the disk set. The current plan is to release all 3 seasons in one set and maybe in a B9 case. Now, if you have been following the aspect ratio question they have a unique solution. As you know LIS was shown in the old square aspect ration of 1960s TV. However when it was shot the film recorded a wide screen image. When filming for TV they would draw lines on the side of the viewfinder to indicate the safe area this was to leave room for the optical soundtrack that would be added later and because TV sets of the day would not show the outer edges of the picture. When they scanned the film the technicians grabbed the whole frame even in the safe zone, yielding a windscreen format of LIS we have never seen. This sounds great, however, the folks working on the set in the 60s all knew about the safe area, and when working at the speeds they were if a light stand or set clamp was in the shot but not in the safe area they would go ahead and shoot knowing that part of the film would never be seen. Until now. I have always felt that the original artist only meant for us to see the original squareish format, and they composited the shots for the small screen. Showing the full frame is the same as George Lucas fixing Star Wars. It was not that way originally, leave it alone. Having said that seeing LIS on the a big screen at the con filling up the wide 16:9 ratio in HD was breathtaking. So, this is the long way around to their unique approach. The Blu-ray disks will be in the original format. Whats called pillar box, with black bars on the sides filling the space so the picture look as it did when originally broadcast, even on a wide screen TV. However the episode broadcast on stations like ME-TV, Netflix and Amazon streaming, will be the wide screen versions. So the hard core collectors, like us, who will be buying the blu-rays get the show as it was, and the new fans seeing it for the first time will get the more modern wide screen version. I think this is the perfect compromise. Why not put both versions on the Blu-ray? I hear you ask. Unfortunately its too cost prohibitive. Its 85 plus hours of content, and the disks will be expensive enough. Who knows maybe someday they will release a wide screen blu-ray, until then you can always download the wide version. Couple of other notes before I wrap up this long post. Sheila Allen fronted the $700K to do the re-mastering with no grantee from Fox they would distribute them. That was a huge risk and shows how much she really loved us fans. AND now that Fox is again interested in LIS, they are looking at starting up a new show. Guess I buried the lead. BrianM
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 23:07:16 +0000