LEGEND Coming From Arrow - 2-Disc Blu-Ray - September

[AndyDursin]

Yeeeeeesssssssss..... my guess is some cut is going to be 4K UHD if it's at all possible since it's following FLASH GORDON and TREMORS from Arrow.

Also must be a US only release since nobody is dealing with FoxDisney any more, and Arrow would have to in the UK for this title.

[AndyDursin]

Paul they should reach out to you for thoughts on the score. My guess is they'll ask the usual suspects if it's the same people producing supplements, but Paul is the LEGEND authority.

[Paul MacLean]

Paul they should reach out to you for thoughts on the score. My guess is they'll ask the usual suspects if it's the same people producing supplements, but Paul is the LEGEND authority.

Thank-you!

Have not heard from them yet! Does Arrow make a lot of effort when it comes to special features?

[AndyDursin]

They do, they and Powerhouse/Indicator are kind of like the UK Criterion, only better these days. They go to great lengths for interviews and transfer quality. Arrow is mostly genre films, sci-fi/horror/fantasy, and their special editions are superior to the comparable Shout Factory titles in the US also.

This will not be just a packaging of the current Universal LEGEND release with a few new extras -- it should have remastered transfers, hopefully in 4K, and a wealth of new supplemental content.

[AndyDursin]

No 4K UHD apparently. What a disappointment.

[Paul MacLean]

I'm guessing the print quality of the directors cut is not good enough to be improved by 4K.

In fact 4K might even reveal more of its imperfections.

[AndyDursin]

On Scott's cut, I think the contrast would be an issue also, especially when you get into HDR and Dolby Vision being applied. Like the scenes where Lily and Darkness are having their conversation ("sit, stand, sit") -- the darks are so black, you can't make out details in the background that you can see in other versions. That's a result of the only source they could locate and the contrast being "off". You can't fix it either, and HDR would probably intensify the shortcomings.

But the European theatrical version, and the American release cut -- I can't imagine those are in such bad shape they would not benefit from a 4K scan.

Arrow hasn't announced anything official yet -- let's hope they take everything into account.

[John Johnson]

A similar thing happened when Arrow released The Last Starfighter. It was only released in the US. The UK rights are held by another company.

[AndyDursin]

I'm very much confused by the overseas rights for LEGEND. It was released by Fox in some (most) overseas markets and since they've been absorbed by Disney, I would expect Arrow ISN'T working on it for a European release. That would mean they're just licensing LEGEND thru Universal for North America, like THE LAST STARFIGHTER, which is a Universal movie but is distributed by Lorimar/whatever internationally.

Yet I don't know if Arnon Milchan's Regency company doesn't have some overseas home video rights and his catalog seems to bounce around from studio to studio (used to be Warner Bros., now it's more recently Fox. Which explains how LEGEND once ended up on a Warner Home Video laserdisc -- in Japan!). Who knows. His Regency logo was on the Fox European Blu-Ray of LEGEND before the movie started.

Either way, even if Arrow is just releasing it in the US, that shouldn't factor into them doing a 4K UHD. Universal has all the elements there, it's more "their" movie than Fox's.

[AndyDursin]

Still no official announcement on this...will stay tuned

[AndyDursin]

Arrow formally announced their Blu-Ray only package today -- I wonder if they used my interview with Charlie from FSM back in 2002 for their booklet.

No new scan of the 113 minute "Director's Cut." There is a new 2K scan -- of the theatrical version. Also does not include the 93 min. European version at all.

Paul Sammon provided a new commentary. Note other extras are still in production so there could be quite a lot of solid material in here, despite the (expected) disappointment over no UHD being produced.

Special Features:

High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentations of the U.S. Theatrical Cut and the Director’s Cut of the film
DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround and 2.0 stereo audio on both cuts
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing on both cuts
Illustrated perfect-bound book featuring new writing on the film by Nicholas Clement and Kat Ellinger plus archive materials including original production notes and a 2002 interview with Charles de Lauzirika about the restoration of the Director's Cut
Large fold-out double-sided poster featuring newly commissioned artwork by Neil Davies and original theatrical artwork by John Alvin
Glossy full-colour portraits of the cast photographed by Annie Leibovitz
Six double-sided, postcard-sized lobby card reproductions
Limited edition packaging with reversible sleeve featuring newly commissioned artwork by Neil Davies and original theatrical artwork by John Alvin

Disc One - U.S. Theatrical Cut

Brand new 2K restoration of the U.S. Theatrical Cut from original film materials, including a 4K scan of the original camera negative
Brand new audio commentary by Paul M. Sammon, author of Ridley Scott: The Making of His Movies
Reconstructed isolated score track by Tangerine Dream from 2002
Isolated music and effects track
A Fairytale in Pinewood, a brand new featurette interviewing grip David Cadwalladr, costume designer Charles Knode, co-star Annabelle Lanyon, camera operator Peter MacDonald, set decorator Ann Mollo and draftsman John Ralph
Incarnations of a Legend, a comparison featurette written and narrated by critic Travis Crawford discussing the differences between the various versions of the film
The Directors: Ridley Scott, a 2003 documentary in which the director discusses his career up to that point, including Legend
Music video for “Is Your Love Strong Enough?” by Bryan Ferry

Disc Two - Director's Cut

Audio commentary by director Ridley Scott
Creating A Myth: Memories of Legend, an archive documentary from 2002 featuring interviews with Ridley Scott, William Hjortsberg, Mia Sara, Tim Curry, Rob Bottin and several other cast and crew members
Original promotional featurette
Two deleted scenes, the alternate 'Four Goblins' opening and 'The Fairie Dance'
Storyboard galleries for three deleted scenes
Two drafts of William Hjortsberg's screenplay
Alternate footage from the overseas release, plus textless footage
Three theatrical trailers and four TV spots
Image galleries

*** EXTRAS STILL IN PRODUCTION AND SUBJECT TO CHANGE ***

[AndyDursin]

Artwork:

https://www.diabolikdvd.com/product/leg ... -preorder/




Also a Zavvi exclusive "Original Artwork" version

https://us.zavvi.com/blu-ray/legend-ori ... 70512.html

[AndyDursin]

James Flower at Arrow DID confirm they are using my interview with Charlie so that's great at least.

He also spoke on Twitter as to why there's no 4K UHD. They could have produced one for the European version (because those elements were in the best shape) but DisneyFox wouldn't license it to them

Here's the thread:

James Flower
@jamesflowerfilm

So, the big controversy from today’s @ArrowFilmsVideo announcement: no 4K UHD for Legend. As I hinted a few weeks ago, there are sound reasons for this, and I’m going to try and explain why in this thread.
·
10m
We tried very, very hard to make headway with Fox on clearance to include the International Cut as an extra, but no dice. Ever notice that the International Cut’s never been released in the US, nor the US cut in the UK? You need both to sign it off and we couldn’t make it happen.
James Flower
@jamesflowerfilm
·
10m
You may ask, “Why not use the negative to make the Director’s Cut look even better? It’s only 20 mins shorter, right?” In fact, there are so many tiny cuts and minute differences throughout that less than an hour of negative material could be used in a Director’s Cut restoration.
James Flower
@jamesflowerfilm
·
10m
So even if we used our 4K negative scans to upgrade portions of the Director’s and US cuts, what does that leave us on UHD? Two compromised, Frankenstein masters that would inevitably fall short of people’s high expectations, no matter what we did.
James Flower
@jamesflowerfilm
·
10m
Make no mistake, if Arrow does a new 4K master, whether it’s Tremors or King of New York or Donnie Darko, and spend as much as we do on restoration, UHD authoring etc, we want it to be a massive improvement. Legend in this form would not qualify.
James Flower
@jamesflowerfilm
·
10m
So here’s the deal: the Arrow Blu-Ray, in addition to awesome new extras, has both Director’s and US cuts in the best quality they’ve ever been seen in. It’s still a stonking upgrade, thanks in no small part to those neg scans of the one cut that’s unfortunately missing.
James Flower
@jamesflowerfilm
·
10m
(Side note: if you desperately want this cut of the film, it is still available on Blu-ray from Fox in the UK and elsewhere – for now! Just a shame you haven’t seen our master of it which looks even better…)
James Flower
@jamesflowerfilm
·
10m
If Disney ever play ball and the opportunity ever comes to do a UHD with three cuts, we can re-assess what to do with the Director’s Cut, whether it’s a rescan or AI upscaling with fake grain and fake HDR (as I know one non-US label has done without you lot noticing)...
James Flower
@jamesflowerfilm
·
10m
Because at least then there’ll be one cut of the film that looks amazing, 100% restored from negative, which would make the visual flaws in the other two cuts a little more forgivable. I sincerely hope it happens one day... but knowing what we know, don’t hold your breath.
James Flower
@jamesflowerfilm
·
10m
Once again for those at the back: there is no surviving negative of the longer cut, and any 4K improvement on what’s been released before would have been nominal and not currently worth the substantial hassle and expense. One day, that may change... but not today.
James Flower
@jamesflowerfilm
·
10m
Until then, the story of Legend remains, such as it ever was, one of messy compromise. We’ve done the best we could with what we have in the meantime – so, enjoy! (FIN)

[Paul MacLean]

That's awesome that it includes the original publicity stills and the Annie Leibowitz portraits.

From time to time I've been tempted to buy the original stills from people selling them on Ebay -- glad I didn't because they were charging more than the price of this entire Blu-ray release!

[andy b]

That's awesome that it includes the original publicity stills and the Annie Leibowitz portraits.

Hey Paul

The 6 photos with credit block are base on the photobuster set we put out for the UK, printed in Italy, there were 6 different images as shown in the Arrow press release.

We also at the time time did a set of 30 x 20 character posters posters based on the Leibowitz images, all with the Legend logo & a "coming soon" wording at the base. The best one was Tim Curry with the wording "I am darkness" across the top.

The 10 x 8 set was based on the US Fox printed sets, two images swapped out for more Tom Cruise. The 11 x 14 set not often used in the UK were literally the USA set brought over.

France, Germany, Spain & Italy printed different sets. If you were going to get an original set the German set is the best on, for quality & actual images.

Have to admit, part of me like to see old add campaigns being included in these new additions & part of me thinks, "heck another fat box on the shelf"!

regards
Andy b