The UNIT Files - Pull your loaded finger Out NOW

[Rob McCow]

Not quite, but it's exciting stuff none the less! And at least one of these stories has a good showing for UNIT, with the Brigadier, Yates and Benton strutting their narrow-trousered stuff.

Or are these a pair of stinky, boring releases?

[Si Hunt]

(d) All of the above

Si.

[Rob McCow]

So, who would win in a fight? Androids or Dinosaurs?

[SiHart]

Dinosaurs could have those silly Kraal androids in a fight any day of the week. Even when they're floating awkwardly above the ground

[Anthony Williams]

Hurrah!

I really hope Invasion of the Dinosaurs 1 will be in colour. It'll be a huge disappointment if it's not!

[Dirk Gently]

I'm assuming it's in B&W, then if it's in colour it'll be a great surprise.

[Rob McCow]

Random Googling says:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/t/27...lor-once-again

it appears that the only other B/W Pertwee that might not be "colour recoverable" is the B/W Invasion (of the Dinosaurs) part one. Although the chroma dots are present, they get optically filtered out on the right edge of the picture, which could cause a problem getting a good "colour lock" using this recovery process.

The only existing film is the 16mm black and white engineering print, which suggests that the Chroma-dot technique used so successfully on Planet of The Daleks part (whatever it was) won't work here. So unless they've got a team of monkeys with felt tipped pens, there may not be a colour Dinos part one on the way.

[Si Hunt]

But they'd already manually recoloured "Planet" before the Chroma Dot recovery process was discovered.

So no need for monkeys or felt tips, perhaps.

Si.

[Rob McCow]

The way I understood it, they combined the Chroma dot version of Planet with the recoloured version to get the best possible mix. If there's only a 'recolourized' version of Dinos, then it might not be quite as good. But it might be. I'll judge it when it comes out!

[Si Hunt]

No, it won't be as good. What could be as good as the actual original colour? But the point is, they were set to release a recoloured Planet before they even knew about the chroma dots, so there's no reason why they can't do the same for Invasion.

I have faith in them - there's not been a single release yet where they've given up and said "We can't recolour it" or even "we can't release it in moving form". Chroma dots or no, every other Pertwee has been recoloured so far. It'll be a bitter pill if this comes out in monochrome.

Si.

[Anthony Williams]

No, it won't be as good. What could be as good as the actual original colour?

According to the pedants on the missing episodes forum, it is just as good as the actual original colour - as they told me in the most scathing way possible.

[Si Hunt]

That's "Planet" though, which has chroma dots...

Si.

[SiHart]

Steve Roberts has said that manual recolourisation via Legend Filmsis now too expensive to be viable on the bdugets they have.

[Larry]

given the choice I'd prefer to of had The Daemons, in this set instaid of the Android Invasion, which IMO, is one of the worst stoties to feature UNIT.

[Phillip Culley]

Given Steve Roberts' comments on GB about how 2|Entertain commissioned the restoration of a black and white version (thereby carefully skirting a confirmation there will be a colour version as well), I suspect Invasion of the Dinosaurs is going to be a 2-disc affair - one disc for extras and the other containing both a colourised Part One as well as a black and white copy. What's possible is that the colourisation hasn't worked as well as Planet of the Daleks: 3 (which is backed up by previous comments about how the chroma dot colorisation hasn't worked as well this time), so we'll have a poorer-quality colour version and a higher quality black and white version.

[Andrew Curnow]

The classicdw twitter feed would seem to confirm that: "The fully restored DINO Ep 1 is in black-and-white. Alternative vers also on release featuring best-endeavours colour recovery..." posted 27 minutes ago.

[Matthew T]

Originally Posted by Steve Roberts View Post
Right, looks like Dan Hall has released the information via Twitter, so here's the skinny...

Having seen what came back from Colour Recovery, our original intention was to have ep1 colourised via Legend Films. However, when their quote came back being five to eight times higher in dollars per minute than they charged us for 'Planet of the Daleks' (which when the exchange rate was also factored in was up to ten times more than previous), our options were limited. We could either release it in monochrome or look again at the poor quality colour from the CR process.

I have to say that my own feeling was that I would rather see a very good quality monochrome restoration than a sub-standard colour one and actually, this is what was decided upon. However, Peter Crocker asked me to take the CR version into the BBC and give it a quick grade and a DVNR blast for potential future use. As I was walking past one of the monitors in the apparatus area, I caught sight of one of the scenes in the UNIT HQ and actually it looked pretty good. So, having previously being very vociferously against this, I found myself speaking to Peter and then to Dan about the problems that needed to be overcome and the potential for including this as an extra.

After Dan had seen it, he agreed and was able to provide Peter with some additional budget to go back in and paint back in the blue where possible and make the whole thing look a bit nicer generally, then it came back to Jonathan Wood at the BBC for a final grade.

It is presented on the disc as an alternative to the monochrome episode. In fact, it will be presented via angle-branching so that the viewer can choose which version to watch and still have all the subtitles, commentary etc. It should be understood that this is very much an extra - that standard of the colour episode is below what we would be happy to call a restored episode.

I'll ask Peter to send me the final version of those two frame I posted yesterday so that you may compare and contrast the two. Probably won't happen until Monday though.

..

[Andrew Curnow]

That sounds pretty good to me - I would say that should keep everyone happy wouldn't you?

[Si Hunt]

It's such a shame that for the very first time cost has led to a Doctor Who story not being released in as complete a form as possible. Sounds like Legend got greedy.

Si.

[Ssarl]

Legend has moved from colourisation into 3D. Presumably they now have much bigger clients and can make better money for their time than Doctor Who. Changes in the exchange rate havent helped. Really we were lucky they did Planet when they did, as so many factors changed so quickly afterwards only that it wouldn't have got funded any other time.

They have vetoed major stuff on cost before - a hybrid of RSC and film prints would probably give better results for some eps but it's not worth the cost. Same with using location film negatives on a couple of releases.

[Anthony Williams]

Here are the comparisons between the basic chroma dot recovery, and then with the blues added back in manually (which was considered not good enough to totally replace the b&w version):

[Andrew Curnow]

I don't remember that scene, where the Brigadier is watching EastEnders on his giant TV screen? Well that definitely sorts out the UNIT dating, mid-80s it is.

[Andrew Curnow]

As to the colour - it's hard to tell from two frames really. I'm sure we'd have seen much worse in the old video days. But... at least we will be getting a colour version, which actually I'm sure will be perfectly fine for the average Who fan. Exciting!

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

Thanks for posting those Anthony. The versions with blue added back in don't look too bad it has to be said. I haven't watched Dinosaurs for a while but by the time it's released it'll have been 2 years since I left work in Southall for the last time so I can cope with seeing the gas ring.

[Si Hunt]

The first one (location) looks fine. The second looks a bit washed out, but these are no disgrace.

However, wern't we told at one point that Episode 1 had no chroma dots?

Incidentally, "Mind of Evil" Episode 1 apparently hasn't got any, so if Legend are now too expensive, is this curtains to getting a full colour version of the story? Will it have a black and white Episode 1? Is it the new "Dinosaurs"?

Si.