Dragonslayer on Bluray? - Dragonslayer (1981) Discussion

[–] solar_tide 14 years ago

I haven't found any info yet. The DVD is no longer available, so I'm hoping that the blu-ray will be forthcoming soon. It seriously deserves to be remastered AND how awesome would it be to get some commentary with Mr. Robbins, Mr. Barwood, and Peter MacNicol?

Dragonslayer is still my favorite movie after all these years. I used to sneak out of my room at night and watch it when it was on late night on HBO in the early 80's. Ahhhh, I savor those memories. What a fantastic movie!

Short in stature, tall in power, wide of vision, and narrow of purpose.

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[–] Aquaman-5 14 years ago

The fact that the DVD is no longer available does not bode well for a Blue Ray release. It can mean one of two things:
1) The movie on DVD did not sell enough to keep it in print, in which case a Blue Ray release is unlikely.
2) They let the DVD go out of print because they are preparing a future "special edition" release on both DVD and Blue Ray. Wishful thinking.
Anyway, I'm glad I bought the DVD when it was still available.

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[–] shootr2 14 years ago

I have good news and bad news, sort-of. Good news is, it's availiable thru Netflix streaming in HD. Bad news...as viewed on my 50" plasma, many of the effects of the dragon don't hold up well at ALL in HD. Thick black matte lines all over the place, the insert shots are obvious (the dragon crawling through the cave), in some scenes it's worse than the painted-glass and miniature work from the original King Kong!

The fact that HD shows these flaws so glaringly may be why there's no Blu-Ray. I read somewhere that with some films, after mastering in HD, studios decide against releasing on Blu-Ray due to the cost vs. potential negative word-of-mouth.

HD highlights the beauty in some films, and the ugly in others.

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[–] Humphrey_Fish 14 years ago

I'd think matte lines can be cleaned up with relative ease, now.

George Lucas, reguardless of what he did with the rest of the Special Edition material of Star Wars, at least got the Rancor fixed without ruining it.

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[–] Illinoisguy1 12 years ago

Thick black matte lines all over the place, the insert shots are obvious (the dragon crawling through the cave), in some scenes it's worse than the painted-glass and miniature work from the original King Kong!

Yup, noticed this too. And that's just playing the dvd on a blu-ray player hooked up to a 32" HDTV.

As you noted, the matte lines are so obvious now. When the dragon is crawling around the cave it just doesn't blend well at all because you can tell they are inserted shots. And during the final battle I can see the clouds through the cast members.

I can only imagine how much worse they would look like in true HD.

I think that this film does need to have a complete restoration and have it's visual effects cleaned up in order to put it on Blu-Ray.

But something deep down tells me that Paramount is just too cheap or disinterested in doing this for a catalog title.

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[–] Blueghost 11 years ago

What most likely happened is that too much light was pumped through the gate during the transfer process. It's happened to most films with effects' shots; Star Wars, Star Trek, any of the big sci-fi productions.

If you turn down the brightness some, and turn up the blacks a little, you'll find that the film will then be presented as intended in the theatre.

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[–] VIsraWratS 13 years ago

I hope. I wish it had a Lowry Digital restoration done to it, but I doubt that'll ever happen. Then maybe a making of feature included as a special feature.

Was a making of Dragonslayer ever produced?

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[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Fornicus 13 years ago

It better be out soon because I'm so tempted to buy it again on dvd.

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[–] prbronx5 11 years ago

I don't know. I have it on DVD, but I just watched it on Verizon Fios HD, and it looked great. I don't think the matted dragon effects looked horrible at all. I mean if the Harryhausen stuff can look good on Blu-Ray, a properly mastered Dragonslayer should be ok.

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[–] LJ27 7 years ago

There's a company called Twilight Time that might release it, if they can get the rights. I might write and ask them and Criterion Collection. If they think people will but them, they'd probably be glad to try to release them, although usually in small (3000-5000 copies) batches. I think you can go on the websites for Criterion Collection and Twilight Time and suggest titles for future releases and I know for sure you can go onto Shout! Factory's site and suggest titles for future releases. I think Warner Brothers owns this title now, which increases the likelihood of a BluRay release.

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