OT: World War I in color?

It is weird seeing clips you know were black & white and here they are in color. Oh well, maybe it will get some youngsters interested in WWI history. The one on the airwar was worth watching. Cheers,

The Keeper (of too much crap!)

gorgeous shot of a gunbus. why ain't there a good 1/48 kit?

oops, see below

if the mythology is correct and it exists, ted turner has earned a really nasty place in hell. next to l ron.

I enjoyed the few that I saw. I'm no artsy-fartsy Hollywood type so I felt no need to raise a moral outrage and testify before Congress on the matter when they appeared. When Truner retreated and took the colorized versions with him I likewise felt myself unstirred to action.

I've already seen the WWI in Color show now being run on THC. I liked it but after a while you start to recognize the same footage being rehashed between episodes. Like the colorized feature films, I think the added color lends an interesting perspective. Nothing less, nothing more. Keep in mind that much of the "combat" footage had to have been training maeuvers or playacting for the camera. So the idea that seeing the footage in the period b&w is an accurate portrayal of WWI combat, is skewed somewhat to begin with.

Here's another way of looking at those colorized movies. I'd rather watch a colorized version of "Sgt York" starring Gary Cooper, than a Dolby Digital Hollywood remake directed by John Woo and starring Cage-Gibson-Costner-Cruise-Gere or any other worn out screen mug. Complete with Soundtrack by Moby I'm sure. ;-)

WmB

To reply, get the HECK out of there snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net

That's an artistic medium where (at least sometimes) a conscious choice was made by the producer/director. I find the choice is sometimes entertaining ("The Wizard of Oz", depending on the scene, "Casablanca", 1951 "A Christmas Carol", etc.) and sometimes self-consciously annoying ("The Last Picture Show" - or maybe it was just a lousy movie). Either way, it's the artists' statement.

In documentary film making such as coverage of a war, it is usually preferable that it be as realistic as possible. I have no problem with colorizing WWI, at least if proper research has been done (and they suggest that it has). I don't mind that all the characters have the same skin tones and I'm fascinated by the uniform colors, especially parade dress like the Kaiser and others wore.

I hate "Casablanca" in color, but WWI is fine by me.

-- C.R. Krieger (Enjoying seeing that)

I have a suspicion that trying to colorize something with close ups of German aircraft in 4 color, or worse, 5 color lozenge would be a real challenge. Hell, it's bad enough for us poor modellers. :-)

Bill Shuey

War is black and white...the rare middle ground is just a trade of hues. My nightmares( thank the gods they don't come as often as they used to) have never been in color..always in b/w ..its the way war is..and the faces are always fuzzy...you figure it out? Mike IPMS

Sometimes movies have been changed substantially for TV playing. "Quigley Down Under" has two versions. One runs 2 1/2 hours, the other runs 2 hours. "Mr. Destiny" has been changed around so that some scenes are left hanging, sans meaning. I was impressed that NBC showed "Top Gun". When I saw it at the theatre it was full of salty language. They seem to have cleaned that up fairly well without hurting the story line. I usually prefer the original edition unless the original was so ponderous that deletions move the story along.

Bill Banaszak, MFE

...who has a VCR and doesn't run into the DVD problem too often...

I know what you mean. Years ago my wife and I went to see "Aliens" (2nd in the Alien series). It was okay, but several years later a friend made a copy of the director's cut for me. It was about 45 minutes longer, and for the first time, all of the scenes made sense. In the theater, it had been rendered incoherant to bring it to around 2 hours in length.

-- John The history of things that didn't happen has never been written. . - - - Henry Kissinger

A not uncommon problem. The "Star Wars" films are another series of films that suffered from being cut up to fit a theater manager's time slot.

Bill Shuey

DC, you're right. I did take this discussion off-track. I don't think I'd care to have a machine edit things for my viewing. One should be mature enough to read at least one review before renting/buying a movie. Maybe it's just my curiosity but I always like to know a little about a movie before I watch it. Parents and guardians also ought not be exposing children to movies that are actionable by the machine in the first place.

Bill Banaszak, MFE

The extreme example is the Lord of the Rings trilogy, where the director's cuts are about 30% longer, and much truer to the original story. They also have much better continuity (in the first two parts, anyway).

The thing that really teed me of though, was renting a tape of "They Might be Giants" about four years ago, only to find that the most climactic scene of the movie, the riot in the supermarket, was completely cut. Fortunately, the DVD I rented last year had the uncut version.

Mark Schynert

I have no kids so no skin off my arse either way. Maybe a benefit of machine censoring is that once the blood, gore, and sex mavens in Hollywood realize that people aren't seeing their worst examples of depravity, they might CHOOSE to reel things in a bit and go back to making good movies. It's like trolls. Tune them out and they either go away or change their squelch to something more palpable. Fact of life, few people(including trolls and shock film producers) like being ignored.

Just a thought. Apart from that I support the right of everyone over the age of 16 to watch what the heck they want when they want. As long as they can keep their SUV on the road when they change discs. ;-)

WmB

To reply, get the HECK out of there snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net

Don't get me started on distracted drivers! I was waiting out a light whilst one vehicle was making a left turn in front of me. It was turning like there was a steering problem. There was but it was behind the wheel. The driver obviously needed two hands to handle the truck but one was stuck to the side of her head.

Bill Banaszak, MFE