BTW, here is an e-mail I got from Theo de Klerk, a Thunderbirds fan
who wasn't very impressed with what Carlton has created with their
"remastered" Thunderbirds:
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From: Theo de Klerk
Subject: Thunderbirds
Well, I've seen it. The new Thunderbirds. And I'm not impressed. Below some
of my impressions - feel free to quote them in your web sites if you want
to...
The soundtrack, as I feared, has some additional sounds superimposed on the
original sixties sound, but of a sound colour different from the original
and therefore mostly an immediate give-away as being "added on".
The Thunderbirds and the mobile carriers have additional whistling and
rumbling sounds added respectively, no doubt to create a surround sound
effect. The trees of TB2's launchpad make an additional noise as do the
ground door that open behind TB2 when it is ready for launch.
The good thing of the sound is a crisp dialogue - no tape noise in the
background.
Added together, at best you can attempt not to hear the additional noises
and fake stereo/surround effects. At worst you wished there was an
opportunity to switch back to the sixties-only soundtrack. No doubt this
option will fail on the DVDs that are about to be published.
The picture - in general the colours are well saturised, but how they
managed to produce some vertical cable scratches in the picture, I'll never
know. The colour balance is also not very consistent: between different
shots the colour of the mobile control of Scott Tracy for example, does
change in various shades of red to brown. The wires are still there and
so are the cigarettes - the image itself was thankfully not touched.
Overall, the money spent on the restoration of Thunderbirds is money wasted.
Except for the crispier dialogue track and slightly better colours (than the
laserdiscs but no better than the BBC broadcasts in the nineties put to an
A/B comparison), the series would have been better off if shown straight
from the original prints with no effects or repairs added.
I seriously have to think about whether I want to buy those DVDs.
Theo
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So I guess we should really hope that Carlton leaves UFO alone... :-/
--
Marc Martin,
[hidden email]
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