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Subtitles on secondary commentary (DVD Set)

PostPosted: Fri May 30, 2008 6:24 am
by Dave
Hi all, a question:
I'm Italian and unfortunately I discovered there are no subtitles (neither in English) for secondary commentary (e.g. Paul Sammon in Workprint DVD) :(
Does anyone know if in the web i could find at least the transcriptions. It would be good also in English!
Thank you

PostPosted: Fri May 30, 2008 7:47 am
by BR796164
Yes, neither I am a native English speaker and I missed subtitles for the commentaries as well, I had to rely on my hearing. Unfortunately I doubt
the subtitles/transcriptions for the commentaries can be found easily, if there are any at all...

PostPosted: Fri May 30, 2008 8:50 am
by Dave
UEEEE'!!! :cry: :cry: :cry:
Maybe Charles or Warner can help us...

PostPosted: Fri May 30, 2008 9:53 am
by BR796164
Actually maybe we could ask Charles right away...

So, Charles, if you're gonna read this : why the commentaries aren't subtitled for non-native English speakers or people with impaired hearing? Little time?

PostPosted: Sat May 31, 2008 9:45 am
by Charles de Lauzirika
As I've learned over the years, every studio has its own policies in regards to all aspects of a disc's content and authoring. There is also the cost involved with this process to consider. Unfortunately, I rarely have any say when it comes down to what I would call the "factory" part of the process and the inclusion or exclusion of subtitle tracks. And given the aggressive release schedules these days, I also don't have the time to oversee it myself, because I'm so focused on getting the actual content right. Of course, it goes without saying that I think ALL of the content on a disc should be subtitled in all the languages required for the release, and whenever it comes into the conversation, I always encourage the studio to do so. Sometimes it's just not possible.

In the case of Blade Runner, these issues were intensified even more because we had no less than five discs worth of content being prepared for multiple configurations and formats around the world. It was a lot to do in very little time and I think, on the whole, Warners did an absolutely sensational job with such an ambitious release.

And besides, I get the feeling that the subtitles for Paul Sammon's commentary track would have been so dense with text, you wouldn't even see the movie playing behind it. You might as well just read Future Noir again for the umpteenth time!

PostPosted: Sat May 31, 2008 4:40 pm
by Dave
Thank you very much Charles.... you're really kind.
So....i'll try to understand what i can, even if my English is not so good.

Anyway, last week I bought on amazon.com "Future Noir - 2nd Edition"... so i'll try to catch some news, secrets, history of Final Cut release reading it! :wink:

PostPosted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 2:36 am
by BR796164
Thanks for enlightenment, I see those points. :wink:

PostPosted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 9:39 pm
by dmohrUSC
It's been almost six full months since the 5-DVD BR Ultimate Collection was released, and I'm honestly amazed that I (as I'm sure is the case with most other BR fans) still haven't gotten through it all yet. Its gloriously encyclopedic level of content makes me curse my general lack of free time, which any truly great DVD collection by rights ought to succeed at doing. Charles' description above of Sammon's commentary makes my BR-lovin' heart go pitter-patter, as well as slap myself on the forehead for not having gotten around to it yet. Unbelievably mind-boggling that it's already this far into 2008, and there are still such treasures to be discovered in the new BR DVD set!

(Personally speaking, unless I'm working on some professional or academic project, I find it vitally important to keep switching up my viewing material, lest I go down a mental rabbit hole 'ala' Jack Nicholson in The Shining -- "all BR and nothing else makes me a basket case"? :wink: Continually expanding the horizons of your experience while maybe even adding to your intellectual and emotional intelligence along the way is really the only way to go, that is, for anyone who wants to genuinely grow and develop themselves; plus, it always makes for returning to the material you love (like BR, obviously) with a fresh perspective, and there's nothing that makes you appreciate good movies and storytelling more than your own reinvigorated consciousness... What I'm trying to say is, it's been about a month since I've visited the BR Ultimate Collection, so I think it's about @#$% time to bring on the Workprint and another dissertation-worthy infusion of supplementary DVD narration!)

PostPosted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 1:05 am
by BR796164
Actually I was so horny (my apology, ladies) about the 5-DVD set in December that I was through all the material in two weeks. I saw Dangerous Days 3 times so far.

It took me about a month to watch all stuff on 9-DVD Alien Quadrilogy, that's truly exhausting collection. I thought I'm an Alien Nutjob by the time I reached DVD#9.

PostPosted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 10:49 pm
by dmohrUSC
So this past weekend, I finally had the great pleasure of watching and listening to half of Paul Sammon's commentary on the BR Workprint DVD...hope to finish up the second half later this week.

There's some really great info there, although you'd be certifiable to expect otherwise :wink: It's been years since I've read Future Noir, so I can't say for sure if the following info is included in Sammon's book, but I really enjoyed learning (or re-learning) the following tidbits: the narration for the BR teaser trailer was actually done by Morgan Paull, since Harrison Ford was unavailable; the Esper sequence arose entirely out of Harrison Ford's screenplay discussions with Ridley Scott & co., in order to provide more "detecting" for Deckard to do; and maybe happiest of all, that Philip K. Dick actually got to see footage of the Deckard-Zhora chase sequence on TV before he passed away (all these years, I'd only thought that Dick had seen a reel of rough special-FX shots for the movie, but to know that he actually lived long enough to behold Ford as Deckard was just heart-rending to learn).

My fave bit of the commentary so far, though, was when Sammon digresses from providing juicy trivia and details about the making of BR, and launches into a wholehearted & impassioned analysis of the scene where Deckard breaks the news to Rachel that she's actually a replicant. It's great to hear Sammon going beyond the usual movie-buff encyclopedic knowledge of a beloved movie, and talking about why he himself loves the movie so much. His argument about this scene being the emotional core (up to that point in the movie) of BR is very compelling, and I for one totally agree with it. Sammon's argument also shoots gaping holes in the criticism of everyone who's accused the movie over the years of being entirely emotionally distant. As Sammon says, this is the scene where BR suddenly becomes unnervingly emotionally raw and real, not just "eye candy," and forces the characters to confront the question: who am I? Sammon also nails it when he notes that this scene is the closest in spirit to Philip K. Dick's storytelling aesthetic of paranoia and obsession with the questioning-of-self.

(I still disagree with Sammon's (and others') interpretation of the Deckard/Rachel love scene as "rape"; to me, the duration of this scene seems initially rough yet ultimately consensual, and is more about Deckard's helping Rachel break down her emotional and sensual barriers and explore her sensual existence - and address the question "what does it mean to be fully alive?" - rather than just imposing his will on her outright. Check out the first love scene with Tony Cheung and Wei Tang in Ang Lee's unrated "Lust, Caution" if you want the love scene in BR to appear tame in comparison...and you could even argue that the aforementioned scene in Lee's movie isn't "rape," either, but rather willful submission on the part of the female, which it seems to me applies to BR's love scene as well. But of course, every movie is entirely open to each viewer's interpretation, and always in the eyes of the beholder.)

At any rate, I'm so glad that Sammon was able to contribute to the extent that he did in the BR Ultimate Collection, both in the Dangerous Days doc and the Workprint commentary. It's great to hear him really hold forth on the history of BR, and what BR means to him personally as a viewer. It's also great to read in the interview posted here on BZ where Sammon expresses his indebtedness to C.D. Lauzirika; I'm sure the feeling is more than mutual on Charles' part; both Paul and Charles probably truly "had each others backs" over the last several years, while Paul was updating 'Future Noir' and also sharing such vital contributions and input to Charles' definitive, once-in-a-lifetime BR DVD collection.

I'll admit I was a little amused to discover that when Sammon recorded his commentary for the Workprint DVD, he hadn't yet seen the Final Cut! Going by his commentary on the WP, he appears to have been informed of a lot of the updated material in the FC ahead of time, but I imagine his recording session was done before the FC was finally "locked" and signed off on by Ridley Scott. I have to chuckle thinking about how unbelievably thrilled Sammon must've been to finally behold the FC in all its glory; he probably had a tent pitched outside of the Venice Film Fest's theater last year (hell, I wish I'd've been able to pull an all-nighter there with him! :lol: )

PostPosted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 11:22 am
by Charles de Lauzirika
Although Paul hadn't seen the final, FINAL, Final Cut at the time his commentary was recorded, he was pretty well aware of what the changes and enhancements were going to be. I believe we had already had him down to an early run-through of the new sound mix at that point, so the cut was pretty much locked. But, of course, Ridley made changes after that, all the way up until the days before its premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

The one amusing thing I remember from Paul's first "final" viewing of The Final Cut on the Warner lot was how I had been teasing him for months that we now knew the name of the actor who played Abdul Ben Hassan but that we weren't telling anyone...and when the screening was over, and the new credits had finished rolling, the one big note I saw written on Paul's notepad was something like "BEN ASTAR IS ABDUL BEN HASSAN."

PostPosted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 6:30 am
by deleted
Ha, he seems happy to know too!

PostPosted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 7:39 pm
by dmohrUSC
Charles de Lauzirika wrote: The one amusing thing I remember from Paul's first "final" viewing of The Final Cut on the Warner lot was how I had been teasing him for months that we now knew the name of the actor who played Abdul Ben Hassan but that we weren't telling anyone...and when the screening was over, and the new credits had finished rolling, the one big note I saw written on Paul's notepad was something like "BEN ASTAR IS ABDUL BEN HASSAN."


Many thanks for sharing the hilarious & awesome anecdote, Charles! It all makes me wonder how frantically Sammon was sending text messages to the publisher of Future Noir Vol. 2 after his very first screening of the FC :lol:

I finally finished listening to Sammon's terrific commentary on the WP DVD yesterday, and it's really sweet to hear him talk about how up until then (before he'd seen the FC) that the WP was actually his #1 favorite version of BR, mostly due to its grittier texture and harder-hitting (i.e., mostly unmixed) sound design, and then to read his interview with BZ (available on the front page of the website) where he offers the following take on the FC:

"...it gives me tremendous pleasure to report that The Final Cut is, hands-down, the best-looking, best-sounding Blade Runner ever shown in a theater. That includes the original 1982 70mm, six-track theatrical prints, one of which I caught in Los Angeles back in the day. The Final Cut has been so well restored, in fact, both visually and aurally, that seeing it in a hardtop again was like seeing it fresh, for the first time...I kept spotting little details in the digitally-projected Final Cut, like scraps of waste paper on Deckard’s apartment’s floor, that I had never noticed before. For someone like myself to notice that, who’s already viewed BR so many, many times – well, that’s really saying something!"

One last note I'll mention is that although I truly appreciate Sammon's commentary on the subject for the WP DVD, I personally don't share his stated wish that the last (and only) bit of Deckard's narration in the WP, during Batty's death scene, had made it over to the FC. I agree with Sammon that this bit of narration was probably the best of all of BR's versions (I personally think the alternate version of this narration on the Deleted Scenes reel is *even better* than the WP's, maybe the best section of Ford's narration for the whole project) -- but I still believe that Batty's death scene plays MOST beautifully without any narration whatsoever -- just Vangelis' glorious music, and the light FX on the soundtrack of Batty's tears being lost in the rain (sorry for laying it on a bit thick there, folks :oops: ) In this case, I definitely think Ridley Scott made the right choice for the FC. But of course Sammon, like anyone else, is totally entitled to his own personal notions of what his very own "fan edit" of BR might be like...I would absolutely LOVE to hear more about what his own "dream version of BR" would consist of!