888 Stalker

Discuss releases by Criterion and the films on them. Threads may contain spoilers!
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Moshrom
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Re: 888 Stalker

#201 Post by Moshrom » Wed Jul 19, 2017 12:07 am

The non-Zone scenes on the French Potemkine blu-ray are sepia. They're yellow on the Criterion. The colours on the Potemkine match perfectly to Mosfilm's own YouTube upload after applying a TV to PC luminance expansion. It's obvious that the master of the restoration as completed by Mosfilm contains those scenes in sepia, not yellow.

Criterion clearly had some reason to suspect that the tint wasn't strong enough, so they altered it. I'd be shocked, though, if they had access to an actual reference print, which I'm sure only Mosfilm owns.

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miless
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Re: 888 Stalker

#202 Post by miless » Wed Jul 19, 2017 12:53 am

It's probable that Criterion was provided (or perhaps they demanded) ungraded files.

Robespierre
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Re: 888 Stalker

#203 Post by Robespierre » Wed Jul 19, 2017 3:50 am

Mine is coming Thursday. So pumped. It's a shame this isn't a loaded, two disc edition in a digipak and thick book but at least the A/V sounds fantastic.

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Luke M
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Re: 888 Stalker

#204 Post by Luke M » Wed Jul 19, 2017 9:56 am

I would've enjoyed a book filled with critical essays. The essay included does provide fascinating account of the making of the film. Though I would've preferred something more cerebral.

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MichaelB
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Re: 888 Stalker

#205 Post by MichaelB » Wed Jul 19, 2017 11:49 am

Moshrom wrote:The non-Zone scenes on the French Potemkine blu-ray are sepia. They're yellow on the Criterion. The colours on the Potemkine match perfectly to Mosfilm's own YouTube upload after applying a TV to PC luminance expansion. It's obvious that the master of the restoration as completed by Mosfilm contains those scenes in sepia, not yellow.

Criterion clearly had some reason to suspect that the tint wasn't strong enough, so they altered it. I'd be shocked, though, if they had access to an actual reference print, which I'm sure only Mosfilm owns.
The strong tint chimes better with my own memories of watching it multiple times in the 1980s (almost certainly the same print every time; I doubt there were ever that many in British circulation!).

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solaris72
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Re: 888 Stalker

#206 Post by solaris72 » Wed Jul 19, 2017 12:04 pm

The new transfer's gorgeous and all, but the most important improvement is that the spine now reads top-to-bottom, as is the spine-text convention throughout the whole of the civilized world, rather than AE's edition which has the title printed on the spine bottom-to-top, like some sort of abomination.

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swo17
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Re: 888 Stalker

#207 Post by swo17 » Wed Jul 19, 2017 12:06 pm

That's convention for like every European DVD release though (or the great majority of them anyway). Or are you not including Europe among the civilized world?

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bunuelian
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Re: 888 Stalker

#208 Post by bunuelian » Thu Jul 20, 2017 1:17 pm

After slumming it for so many years with a bad transfer it's pretty astonishing to see Stalker like this. I'm floored.

When I first "discovered" Criterion back in ~2001 I emailed Mulvaney about adding Stalker to the collection. I take all the credit for it finally being here, of course.

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FrauBlucher
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888 Stalker

#209 Post by FrauBlucher » Thu Jul 20, 2017 3:08 pm

Bunuelian, please ask Mulvaney about Satantango so I can get my copy in 2033.

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bunuelian
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Re: 888 Stalker

#210 Post by bunuelian » Thu Jul 20, 2017 7:08 pm

Will do. I'll see if he can bump Andrei Rublev up to 2031 while I'm at it. Good ol' Mulvaney is looking out for us, after all.

comersa1
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Re: 888 Stalker

#211 Post by comersa1 » Thu Jul 20, 2017 9:57 pm

The Blu-ray release seems to have a subtitle error, it was first mentioned on Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/criterion/comm ... tle_error/: some of the people there are wondering if Criterion will fix it by releasing a fixed version second printing. The people there seem a little disappointed by this being that it is a big release and you would think that more care would have been put in it, and some of the people there also list examples of other botched releases. So my question to you is, do you think criterion will fix it, if so when? I saw the film on filmstruck and liked it, so i want to buy it, just not twice if its fixed later, even though I have a feeling that criterion will not fix it.

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domino harvey
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Re: 888 Stalker

#212 Post by domino harvey » Thu Jul 20, 2017 10:17 pm

Subtitle tracks often have a typo or two. I have never heard of any label repressing or reissuing any title as a result of one

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Ribs
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Re: 888 Stalker

#213 Post by Ribs » Thu Jul 20, 2017 10:28 pm

You see it a lot on SDH tracks, presumably as far fewer people if any are doing the necessary QA to spot stuff like that. But it happens all the time and should not be that shocking to anyone who's been collecting foreign films for an extended period of time.

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bunuelian
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Re: 888 Stalker

#214 Post by bunuelian » Thu Jul 20, 2017 10:29 pm

I didn't notice this and I'm a professional editor. I guess I need to get more serious about finding things to bother me.

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soundchaser
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Re: 888 Stalker

#215 Post by soundchaser » Thu Jul 20, 2017 10:42 pm

I remember the typo being in the theatrical release, too. Wouldn't shock me if Mosfilm provided the file and Janus rolled with it. In any case, no big deal - it's literally all of one word.

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MichaelB
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888 Stalker

#216 Post by MichaelB » Fri Jul 21, 2017 2:31 am

As someone who QC's subtitle tracks regularly (in fact, I'm doing two today), I have to confess that stuff like that, where there's nothing wrong with the individual words, is maddeningly difficult to spot in real time. My brain's geared to look out for typos rather than poor grammar.

One of my least favourite jobs is QCing the subs on a reissued disc where I originally signed off on them, because I almost always spot a mistake that I let through earlier - which sticks out like a sore thumb now, because previously I'd missed it because I'd been correcting loads of other surrounding mistakes.

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Roger Ryan
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Re: 888 Stalker

#217 Post by Roger Ryan » Fri Jul 21, 2017 8:27 am

soundchaser wrote:...it's literally all of one word.
It seems to me that the correct translation (or, at least, the correct English-language tense) should be "I'm not sending you in there - You're going of your own free will." Still, it's not like the sentence is unintelligible or a carefully worded joke is ruined. A typo like this isn't going to lessen my viewing experience.

I recall a similar typo in an intertitle translation in the "complete" Metropolis DCP when I saw it in a cinema. I fully expected the mistake to show up on the Kino Blu-ray when it was issued a few months later and was pleasantly surprised that the error had been corrected.

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TMDaines
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Re: 888 Stalker

#218 Post by TMDaines » Fri Jul 21, 2017 10:01 am

solaris72 wrote:The new transfer's gorgeous and all, but the most important improvement is that the spine now reads top-to-bottom, as is the spine-text convention throughout the whole of the civilized world, rather than AE's edition which has the title printed on the spine bottom-to-top, like some sort of abomination.
It's never a bad thing when an American loudly demonstrates his complete ignorance of the rest of the "civilised world".

There's a pretty good ergonomic reason for why bottom-to-top is superior for browsing books on shelves, as opposed to top-to-bottom that is better for coffee tables. Strangely the only time I browse in bookshops is in countries that use bottom-to-top as standard.
Last edited by TMDaines on Fri Jul 21, 2017 10:08 am, edited 2 times in total.

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swo17
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Re: 888 Stalker

#219 Post by swo17 » Fri Jul 21, 2017 10:03 am

MichaelB wrote:As someone who QC's subtitle tracks regularly (in fact, I'm doing two today), I have to confess that stuff like that, where there's nothing wrong with the individual words, is maddeningly difficult to spot in real time. My brain's geared to look out for typos rather than poor grammar.

One of my least favourite jobs is QCing the subs on a reissued disc where I originally signed off on them, because I almost always spot a mistake that I let through earlier - which sticks out like a sore thumb now, because previously I'd missed it because I'd been correcting loads of other surrounding mistakes.
I always notice these things, you people should hire me.

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solaris72
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 3:03 pm
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Re: 888 Stalker

#220 Post by solaris72 » Fri Jul 21, 2017 10:06 am

TMDaines wrote:It's never a bad thing when an American loudly demonstrates his complete ignorance of the the rest of the "civilised world".
I had hoped that the absurdity of valuing the transfer secondarily to the spine title would convey the spirit of the comment. Foot in mouth.

Werewolf by Night

Re: 888 Stalker

#221 Post by Werewolf by Night » Fri Jul 21, 2017 11:36 am

domino harvey wrote:Subtitle tracks often have a typo or two. I have never heard of any label repressing or reissuing any title as a result of one
Criterion did a re-press of the DVD of Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie when it was discovered that there were several typos in the subtitle track, but that was practically 100 years ago, when Criterion strived toward perfection. They might quietly correct this one for the next time they need to press the discs, but I'm sure there will be no recall or replacement of the current discs.

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Drucker
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Re: 888 Stalker

#222 Post by Drucker » Fri Jul 21, 2017 11:43 am

soundchaser wrote:...it's literally all of one word.

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Grand Wazoo
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Re: 888 Stalker

#223 Post by Grand Wazoo » Fri Jul 21, 2017 11:53 am

I love the people on that reddit thread claiming they will no longer buy it.

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colinr0380
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Re: 888 Stalker

#224 Post by colinr0380 » Fri Jul 21, 2017 1:28 pm

My favourite recent one of those mistranslations was in Criterion's subtitle track for Mulholland Drive, where in the musical number 16 Reasons Why I Love You "secret sighs" gets translated as "secret sides"!

I thought it was quite a charming error to make! Usually in these situations, even in foreign language films where the subtitles are necessary for comprehension, its pretty easy to get the gist of the intent of what is being said if its only a problematic word or two within a sentence. And of course it can often happen that the subtitler may only be capturing the 'essence' of a dialogue and reworking it to sound better in English, and scan better as the sentence flashes up on screen. I'd always prefer a perfect translation with no errors (or adaptation that might add its own originally unintended nuances to a scene), but can understand why it happens. Though I would say that, as I do a fair bit of audio typing in my day job! :wink:

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MichaelB
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Re: 888 Stalker

#225 Post by MichaelB » Fri Jul 21, 2017 1:41 pm

When I create hard-of-hearing subtitles from scratch (which I do rather a lot of at the moment), I'm almost always given an official transcript by the rightsholder to work from, and I often encounter mistakes caused by the transcriber blatantly mishearing what's being said.

With regard to what Colin said, sometimes you do indeed have to précis what's actually being said, even for hard-of-hearing subtitles. Looking at my two current projects, both courtesy of the same writer (Peter Nichols), with The National Health, I found I was able to retain the overwhelming majority of the dialogue, but A Day in the Death of Joe Egg was much tougher because the delivery is noticeably more rapid and overlapping, so I had to "capture the essence" a fair bit more. My subtitling software internally assesses the length of the subtitle and the amount of time it's onscreen, colour-coding the end result, and while I sometimes overrule this (there's a passage in The National Health that's full of polysyllabic medical gibberish where it seemed to me that the reader would get the gist even if they didn't have time to process every syllable), in general I find it's a good idea to stick to the rules.

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