Who thinks this is a bad idea?

[Raz_Kaz]

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- The DVD era is resurrecting the great colorization debate of the 1980s, and at the heart of the matter are Curly, Larry and Moe.

Sony's Columbia TriStar home-video unit is releasing two Three Stooges DVDs that allow viewers to watch the original black-and-white or digitally colorized versions.

Purists consider it desecration, while Sony executives say the process can help introduce Hollywood classics to young audiences reluctant to watch anything in black and white.

The Stooges discs coming out Tuesday also give die-hard fans better black-and-white versions, the studio insists.

To prepare for the colorization process, Sony did a more extensive restoration than it had with previous black-and-white-only Stooges DVD, said Bob Simmons, a technical specialist who worked on the project.

"The best thing about this DVD release is it gives the consumer the ultimate choice," said Suzanne White, vice president of marketing for Columbia TriStar home entertainment. "They can watch the very best, the finest restored image of the black-and-white version, or watch the new colorized version and switch instantaneously between the two."

The new Stooges DVDs, "Goofs on the Loose" and "Stooged and Confoosed," contain four shorts each featuring Moe and Curly Howard and Larry Fine.

Raimi: 'Leave it as they are'
Offering a choice does not appease colorization critics, who include Sam Raimi, director of Sony's "Spider-Man" blockbusters.

"I don't think they should mess with black and white," said Raimi, who is such a Stooges fan that credits on some of his movies label extras as "fake Shemps," a reference to doubles used to complete Stooges shorts after the death of Shemp Howard, who replaced brother Curly after his stroke in the 1940s.

"I think they should just leave it as they are and try to preserve them as best they can. I feel like it's an artistic interpretation that's not anybody's right to make except the director's."

In the 1980s, media magnate Ted Turner enraged film-lovers when he colorized "Casablanca," "The Maltese Falcon" and other classic black-and-white films from the MGM library he had acquired.

Those 1980s dye jobs often tinted actors' faces an unnatural, pasty hue, while colors of clothing, sets and props were arbitrary.

The new digital process allows greater range of colors that give people, objects and backgrounds a more natural look, Simmons said. Researchers also mined Sony's archives and prop warehouses to more accurately recreate colors, he said.

For example, they found the actual stove used in "An Ache in Every Stake," in which the Stooges play ice-delivery men caught up in preparing a fancy birthday meal that climaxes with an exploding cake. The stove was yellow, so that's the hue it has in the colorized version, Simmons said.

'A form of vandalism' or a helpful tool?

In the '80s, Ted Turner colorized several films. "Citizen Kane" was going to be one until a contractual stipulation ruled it out.
Yet critics say it's bogus to match colors to studio props, whose tints were chosen for the way they photographed in black and white. Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert, responding to a reader's question last month, wrote that for consistency, colorized versions would paint the actors' faces light green, the color of makeup that was applied so they would photograph better in black and white.

"Colorization is a form of vandalism," Ebert wrote.

Columbia TriStar's White says colorization is just another tool to make old movies more palatable to modern audiences, like converting analog sound to 5.1 digital audio.

The studio hopes to use the colorization process on some black-and-white feature films. If coloring the images raises consumer interest in old titles, "it may be a way of getting more black-and-white films released" that otherwise would not have been economically feasible, White said.

"Star Wars" creator George Lucas, who testified with Steven Spielberg before Congress in the 1980s against colorization and other forms of alteration, said the process yanks such slapstick performers as the Stooges out of the black-and-white universe they belong in.

"Would color distract from their comedy and make it not as funny anymore?" Lucas said. "Maybe just the fact that they're in black and white makes it funny, because their humor is dated. But by putting it in black and white, it puts it in a context where you can appreciate it for what it was.

"But you try to make it in full living color and try to compare it to a Jim Carrey movie, then it's hard for young people to understand. Because you're then thinking you're comparing apples to apples, when you're not. You're comparing apples to oranges. I'm saying it's not fair to the artist."

Source







Side note, anyone else find it Ironic that Gearoge Lucas is against modifying classics when he's set out to release a modified DVD collection of the classic Star Wars movies?

[geofroley]

I say include the option. It's not like it's going to be less funny then it would be in black and white.

[boingo82]

Hmm..I'm ambivalent.

[Oz]

Dead set, if people are getting upset over this, let me know where they live and I'll kick their arses. Try these topics to get anooyed over:
-World Poverty
-World Hunger
-War in the Middle East

Fuck off.

[geofroley]

Originally Posted by Oz

Dead set, if people are getting upset over this, let me know where they live and I'll kick their arses. Try these topics to get anooyed over:
-World Poverty
-World Hunger
-War in the Middle East

Fuck off.

Dude, it's not that big of a deal. It's just a DVD of a show. Calm down.

[boingo82]

Originally Posted by Oz

Dead set, if people are getting upset over this, let me know where they live and I'll kick their arses. Try these topics to get anooyed over:
-World Poverty
-World Hunger
-War in the Middle East

Fuck off.

Precisely.
I'm annoyed over Americans thinking it's within their rights to cut babies' genitals without medical need.

[Neutrino]

Originally Posted by Oz

Dead set, if people are getting upset over this, let me know where they live and I'll kick their arses. Try these topics to get anooyed over:
-World Poverty
-World Hunger
-War in the Middle East

Fuck off.

i'm with OZ on this one too. If people want to do something at least get a worthy cause to fight for.

[Oz]

Originally Posted by geofroley

Dude, it's not that big of a deal. It's just a DVD of a show. Calm down.

I will not calm down about it. It's absolutely fucking rediculous! Who gives a shit about the colour of some old TV show when several thousand people are dieing in countries outside the US. Oh, sorry, I forgot - that is the only country that matters on an internation scale.

[EighteenVisions]

Originally Posted by geofroley

Dude, it's not that big of a deal. It's just a DVD of a show. Calm down.

Perhaps one should look further into what is being said before telling another to "calm down". Lets analyze, shall we?

The topic at hand is, is it wrong to change the colours of a classic television show? As Oz stated, "who gives a fuck?". That's a good question. Who really cares? I mean sure, there are those out there who have nothing else in their petty existence's than to worry about the colour of a televisions show, but for those of us who concentrate on things that are going on around us, that are actually WORTH worrying about, it's insulting. Get it?