In any case, when you do eventually get your hands on the discs, fans of The Abyss may be pleased to know that well-known audio errors on the film should finally be corrected on both the physical 4K and Blu-ray.
If you’re a longtime fan of The Abyss, and you’re familiar with the Special Edition version of the film on LaserDisc and DVD, you’ll know that the DVD release included audio errors in its dialogue and music (in the SE’s Dolby Digital 5.1 mix only—the 2.0 track was okay) that were introduced by seamless branching.
At about 16:38 into the Theatrical Cut, Bud asks Lindsey, “So what are you doing down here, Hotrod?”
But in the Special Edition, this dialogue is slightly different. At 20:36, Bud says, “You know, I can’t believe you were dumb enough to come down here and now you’re stuck here for the storm. That was dumb, Hotrod. Real dumb.” To which Lindsey replies, “I didn’t come down here to fight with you.” And that causes Bud to say, “Yeah, well… then why did you come down?”
Except that in the DVD version of the Special Edition via seamless branching, that last line “Yeah, well… then why did you come down?” was actually replaced by his line from the Theatrical Cut: “So what are you doing down here, Hotrod?” It was an awkward conversational turn, made all the more weird because you could see that Bud was still mouthing his SE line.
And near the end of the Special Edition, at about 2:39:22 in the 5.1 mix, there was an odd shift in the tone of the score caused by the branching as well.
Again, these were errors introduced in the DVD authoring process, and they’re something that the folks at 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment always meant to correct when they released the film on Blu-ray. Except that never happened… and then Fox got purchased by Disney, all the Fox Home Entertainment people got laid off, and nobody at Disney had any awareness of the audio errors.
So when the production team at the mastering and authoring vendor working on the new 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray release of the film finished the new Special Edition presentation last year, they used the DVD branching as a guide... and these same audio errors crept into the new Atmos mix on the 4K SE master.
But here’s where the story turns positive...
A sharp-eared Digital Bits reader who goes by the name of SuperDan on Twitter went to the 4K remastered Special Edition theatrical screening of the film back on December 6th. He noticed that the audio errors were still there, and messaged me privately on Twitter to alert me of it when he walked out of the theater.
And the good news is, I have contacts directly involved in the 4K remastering and disc authoring work on all of these new James Cameron titles. So I was able to alert the team right away, and they flagged the errors for QC to check out. Turns out, QC did confirm the errors. And luckily, they hadn’t sent the discs off to replication yet, so they were able to pull the audio stems and correct the mix in the Special Edition master.
I mention this now because, just yesterday, I received confirmation privately that the audio errors have indeed been fixed for the new physical 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray release. They should be corrected soon in the 4K Digital masters as well (the HD Digital masters were corrected long ago).
Suffice it to say, The Digital Bits may have just saved Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment the headache and embarrassment of the errors not having been caught, not to mention the significant cost of a disc recall and replacement program.
You’re welcome, Bob Iger.
You guys can repay the kindness by releasing Tombstone, the Kingdom of Heaven: Roadshow Edition, and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World in 4K Ultra HD.
Special thanks to SuperDan for being Johnny on the spot and alerting me to these errors. Thanks also to our friends at Lightstorm, Fox Studios, and the production vendor for addressing them. And thanks to Disney for letting them do so.
When you hear me say occasionally that all of us here at The Bits work hard behind the scenes, in ways that most people never even see, to make physical media a little better for everyone… this is the kind of thing I’m talking about. And in a very real way, this is part of what your support of The Bits on Patreon makes possible. (So thank you!)
Now then, in terms of announcement news today, Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment has officially set Paul King’s Wonka (2023) for release on Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K Ultra HD on 2/27, with the Digital release expected on 1/30. The 4K will include Dolby Atmos audio. Extras will include 5 featurettes, among them Unwrapping Wonka: Paul King’s Vision, The Whimsical Music of Wonka, Welcome to Wonka Land, Hats Off to Wonka, and Wonka’s Chocolatier. You can see the cover artwork above left and also below.
Via Vision Entertainment’s Imprint Films is kicking off a brand new Imprint Asia label in March with three new Blu-ray titles: Cui Rui and Liu Xiang’s Lost in the Stars (2023), Kei Kumai’s The Sea Is Watching (2002) (produced from the final screenplay written by the great Akira Kurosawa), and Takeshi Kitano’s The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi (2003). Each is limited to 1500 copies. Street date in Australia is 3/27.
Finally today—back to Warner for a moment—our friends at the Warner Archive Collection have just announced the Blu-ray release of Looney Tunes Collector’s Choice: Volume 3 on 3/12, which is set to include 25 more rare classic Warner Bros. animated shorts spanning some thirty years (from 1934 to 1964). Per their announcement, highlights include “some of the first and last original Bugs Bunny shorts, landmark early appearances by Egghead and Elmer, hilarious rarities with Bobo the Elephant and Quentin Quail, and the first color Merrie Melodies short.”
The specific shorts included are: A Feud There Was (1938), A Hop, Skip and a Chump (1942), China Jones (1959), Cinderella Meets Fella (1938), Dumb Patrol (1964), Egghead Rides Again (1937), Elmer’s Pet Rabbit (1941), Hobo Bobo (1947), Honeymoon Hotel (1934), I Only Have Eyes For You (1937), Mexican Joyride (1947), Mr. and Mrs. Is the Name (1935), Of Rice and Hen (1953), Pre-Hysterical Hare (1958), Punch Trunk (1953), Quentin Quail (1946), Riff Raffy Daffy (1948), Saddle Silly (1941), Sheep Ahoy (1954), The Mouse on 57th Street (1961), The Sheepish Wolf (1942), There Auto Be a Law (1953), Tugboat Granny (1956), War and Pieces (1964), and Wet Hare (1962).
We’ll leave you with a look at the Cameron 4K titles (with Amazon links which will hopefully be live for pre-orders soon), the new Imprint titles, Looney Tunes, and more! (Again, Amazon links will be added when as go live)...
Stay tuned!
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