{"id":5891,"date":"2012-12-10T02:12:50","date_gmt":"2012-12-10T07:12:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mondomark.com\/wordpress\/?p=3613"},"modified":"2012-12-10T02:12:50","modified_gmt":"2012-12-10T07:12:50","slug":"enemy-mine-comes-to-blu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=5891","title":{"rendered":"Enemy Mine comes to Blu"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

He's 'glowing' for reasons most unusual.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Some film reviews come out naturally and are written in relatively short time, whereas other require more editing time because either the version that materialized was too long & windy (which of course is completely rare, if not statistically impossible<\/em>), or there were many specific points that needed some elaboration (which is strikingly different from outright blather).<\/p>\n

Then there are films that just don\u2019t work, but the reasons for their flaws also mandate some rest time to figure out why they just don\u2019t click for most, but strangely click for some. Enemy Mine<\/a><\/strong> [M<\/a>] (1985) is pretty much a cult film \u2013 a dud when released in spite of a vocal fan base who\u2019s been waiting for a special edition for years.<\/p>\n

I never managed to catch the film in theatres or video, so it was kind of exciting to check out what can best be described as The Deeply Flawed Film. In the end, I didn\u2019t care for it, and will never be one of its converts, but it has its place within sci-fi as an unusual attempt to inject a humanist story within a pulp framework and filmmaking style.<\/p>\n

The good: Twilight Time\u2019s new Blu-ray looks & sounds great. The disappointing: Fox clearly never felt the need to mount any kind of special edition, so while fans can relish the film in HD, there\u2019s still a void for all those contextual extras.<\/p>\n

If the Blu sells out, and if the rights are picked up again for a second try, maybe it\u2019ll happen. The problem is actors and directors get older, memories get fuzzy, surviving publicity and production ephemera get lost, and it becomes harder to pay tribute to a film that\u2019s now getting close to 30 years old. This isn\u2019t to say it\u2019ll never happen, but we know how Special Features Producers have to stretch testimonies and tangible relics from a production when the available sources and surviving materials are few.<\/p>\n

A movie made in 1985 and later discovered on TV and home video means there\u2019s a generation or three accustomed to special editions, so it behooves (first time I ever used that antiquated word) labels to go for the definitive edition, much in the way Shout! Factory\u2019s been doing for a bevy for cult movies (especially the Roger Corman and recent John Carpenter films). Twilight Time\u2019s Blu sports an isolated score track, so fans can see how Maurice Jarre shaped his score around specific dramatic peaks.<\/p>\n

Suggestions for the ultimate SE: the obvious making-of doc featuring interviews including comments from original director Richard Loncraine and the cast discussing the first version that was aborted by Fox, Barry Longyear\u2019s novella in PDF form, the two differing shooting scripts, promotion and publicity ephemera, Cinefex <\/a>article by Janine Pourroy, and an edited Criterion-style commentary track featuring thoughts from the filmmakers, writers, production designer, make-up designer Chris Walas, and sci-fi film historians.<\/p>\n

As for the fans’ hope of seeing some kind of reconstructed Loncraine cut, that\u2019s likely an impossibility beyond some brief efforts within a comparative featurette.\u00a0If Loncraine never gave editing notes, there\u2019s no way of knowing how to piece it together scenes beyond guestimation. If there\u2019s no surviving location sound of the dialogue scenes, you have no sound. And given Loncraine didn\u2019t shoot enough to finish the film, you have no completable movie.<\/p>\n

A perfect example of what happens when \u2018something\u2019 is crafted with raw footage is Something\u2019s Got to Give <\/strong>(1962), Marilyn Monroe\u2019s last film. She was fired early into production, the film wasn\u2019t finished, and the footage was decades later assembled into a small group of functional scenes with stock music which give an impression of what the film may have been, but at roughly a half hour, it\u2019s really just a curio, if not an experiment. A \u2018What if\u2026\u2019 that appeases fans wanting some kind of peek at what could\u2019ve been.<\/p>\n

Even if Loncraine shot enough for a patchy 60 minute cut, you still have a huge amount of post-production work that needs to be done in addition to figuring out the sound and visual effects. Yes, Warner Home Video funded Richard Donner\u2019s edit of Superman II<\/strong>, but it was done within a tight budget, it had post-production limits that limited Donner from making the effects shine, and most important: there was enough footage for a functional film.<\/p>\n

It was also in Warner\u2019s interest to make sure what was delivered was sellable, so it had to be a finished movie in HD. Lastly: Warner didn\u2019t fire Donner, the producers – the Salkinds – did, and most studios are reluctant to mount a reconstruction of a film using the director they fired, even as an editorial consultant. The only people who know whether it\u2019s possible to create an alternate version using the Loncraine and Petersen footage are the few who\u2019ve seen the footage, and that requires a lot of logging just to form a paper edit.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not impossible, but it\u2019s rare when a wholly alternate version \u2013 as opposed to an alternate scene \/ an alternate ending \/ a rejected score mix – appears on video.<\/p>\n

Coming next: Canada’s Top Ten of 2012 on home video.<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com <\/strong>( Main Site<\/a> \/ Mobile Site<\/a> )<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Review of Wolfgang Petersen’s Enemy Mine, that flawed 1985 sci-fi drama newly minted on Blu-ray from Twlight Time, and an Editor’s Blog on the issues with creating an alternate version.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[1701,512,1702,1696,1695],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-1x1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5891"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5891\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}