#film workprint

[strangeandinterestingblog]

TW: Major character death and attempted suicide (this ain't the happy cut)

These are mostly alternative takes that were never used and never fully restored from the '86 film. It's interesting the use of temp tracks for some scenes. Mostly, Twoey being a giggly brat and the way the phone gag was drawn out was cool to see. Pacing means fun stuff sometimes has to go.

[foodfightnovelization]

More Foodfight! Material DISCOVERED

That's right, I'm back. Just like I prophesized in my last post, yet another treasure trove of Foodfight! goodness has been uncovered, and this might be one of the strangest to date...that's right, official Foodfight! Cinnamon Sleuth Cereal was sold at Albertsons back in 2007, over five years before the movie finally came out!

Okay, not really, but I had you going for a second, right? So, this IS a proposed packaging design for actual Cinnamon Sleuth cereal, but it never went into production, it never made it to stores and there was certainly never any actual cereal to be eaten. This, among several other designs and a collection of behind the scenes material, was sent in recently by a Foodfight! crewmember, who explained they were mockups created to show off possible tie-in products. I'm not sure why they chose Albertsons for these mockups but it's likely they were in talks with them at the time and wanted to show off designs including their branding. In any case, I just had the Cinnamon Sleuth box printed because I thought it'd look cool next to my collection of Foodfight! merchandise, and I wanted to see if anyone would be convinced this really existed.

I've included all the designs above in case you want to print your own- there are several more including another cereal, brownie packaging and milk cartons. Curiously, the milk cartons have Farmland Dairy logos on them, with Farmland Milk actually appearing in the finished film at several points. I'd say this confirms my theory these mockups were created to show to companies they were already actively working on deals with, but I can't say for certain that was the case.

Equally curious are these character sheets from 2002, seemingly showing off almost every model created during early production. There are so many fascinating layers to this- Sunshine is still a human instead of a catgirl, showcasing a very different model to the one seen in the initial trailer, and Maximilius Moose is still a dog named Panzer Pup, both aspects that were changed once the decision was made to change Dex to a dog. However, it may be that Dex's human design was edited out and replaced after the fact, given Dex's model here appears to be the one from the finished film (you can tell by the weird hands). In any case, it's fascinating to get a closer look at all these characters- while the majority of the models for the main cast were found recently (see my last post for more on this), there are a bunch of side characters here we've only seen brief glimpses of before, including the Pringles man and the scantily-clad Cherry Waifer. The most fascinating to me however are the Red and Yellow M&Ms- I've read through their scene in the movie's script, I've seen multiple versions of the storyboard, even rough layout animation in the workprint, and it's only now I'm FINALLY getting to see their actual character models and how they would've looked in the Foodfight! artstyle. Sure, they more or less look exactly as they did in M&M commercials that aired around the same time, but it's still amazing to actually see these characters modelled and rendered after analyzing so many different iterations of the scene as it went through development.

The crewmember in question also sent a folder containing over a hundred stills which while at first glance appear to be from the finished movie, are actually subtly different in multiple ways- usually lighting, facial expressions, or background textures like the sky or color of a hill. A lot of these are labelled "fix" which makes me speculate if after the movie was completed, the crew went back and tried to touch up the animation to make it look more appealing before release. Is there a slightly better looking version of Foodfight! somewhere out there in the world? Who knows, but really it would've been like trying to polish a turd. The movie was already ruined by then, and I don't think any number small changes would've done much to salvage it. However, that does bring me to my next interesting point...

There are also storyboards dated May 2011, depicting an alternate opening to the movie giving a much more cinematic introduction to the main characters. It's crazy to think they were still working on storyboards so late in production, but there IS actually a reason for this. I unfortunately can't upload the entire sequence due to this site's image limit, but what you might notice are a lot of characters being described as "flying over the audience", "flying into the camera" or knocking things "into the audience", with some of the boards having "(3D)" written in parenthesis next to them. It's my belief that very late into production, Kasanoff wanted the movie to be 3D, made popular by the then-recent Avatar, and this new opening sequence full of flashy 3D effects was drawn up to show off what they could do with the technology. It's not clear if any of this was ever actually animated, but imagine going to see a movie that advertises itself as 3D but only the first minute contains any 3D elements. Of course, Kasanoff requesting this is only speculation on my part, but given how the movie was ruined by the crew having to cater to his whim of directing the whole thing with motion capture (made popular by the then-recent Polar Express) it's no stretch to assume the 3D opening sequence was a similar situation.

There's a ton more that was sent to us as well, so much so that I could never hope to talk about all of it. However, it should be on archive.org at the time of writing this if it isn't already, and you can now access everything Foodfight! related through the official Foodfight! collection on there!

That's right, so much Foodfight! material has been uploaded over the past year that the Internet Archive gave it its own archive, allowing you to find everything in one convenient place (including my scans of the novelization and Deluxe Sound Storybook). It'll also be updated periodically whenever something new is found, so it'll always be the home to all things Foodfight!. Whether you're wanting to take a look at some concept art shown in ROTTEN: Behind The Foodfight, read through an early draft of the script, or check out something I've talked about on my blog, it's all here at your fingertips.

I don't think there's ever really going to be an end to the depth of the Foodfight! rabbithole. I thought I was done a year ago when I finished analyzing the novelization, and look at everything that's been found since then. Every time I think I'm out, this movie pulls me back in. So...in my next post I'll FINALLY show off my collection of Foodfight! merchandise and talk about what this movie means to me, but that doesn't mean it's the end for this blog. Whenever I say I'm done with Foodfight! I end up jinxing it, so if I try to conclude things now in a few months some CD will show up with a bunch of lost footage on it, I'll get mailed concept art of a bunch of characters we've never seen before, or it'll turn out Larry Kasanoff was actually D.B. Cooper the whole time. So as long as there's something new to discuss, as long as there's a Foodfight to be fought, I'll keep updating this blog from now until forever. You better duck when they launch the cream pies!

[calliemity]

Orin Scrivello's Lost Head Prop: A Masterpost

Written and researched by Calliope Avery

Content Warning: Very very mild and low quality special effects gore, implied violence, uncanny valley stuff(?), Orin Scrivello's face.

Little Shop of Horrors (1986) has an unfortunate reputation of leaving a lot of really cool things on the cutting room floor. The most infamous would be the movie's original ending, a beautiful and impressive sequence of puppetry that ended up completely scrapped. However, today we're talking about a prop that never made it into the final movie in any form:

Orin Scrivello's Decapitated Head!!!

Pictured above are the only 2 photos of the prop in its original state that I can find at the moment. The left photo was taken for promotion and advertising purposes, and the right image is actually a Topps trading card! (Which I have a physical copy of, hehe!)

To put it bluntly, I am slightly (very) obsessed with this prop head. There's so much mystery around it, and everything I've managed to dig up both fascinates me and makes me very upset. So much thought and hard creative work was put into the creation of this thing, and it was left completely left out and forgotten! I desperately want more people to be aware of this, so here is my big and (hopefully) well organized masterpost on everything for your learning pleasure. Alright, let's talk about some heads!!!!!!!!!

Forming a Timeline

The earliest mention of the head can be found in an early draft of the movie script, dated February 14th, 1985. There's plenty of concepts in this script that never seemed to get past this draft, but the severed head concept was not one of them. Here, take a look!

source

This section, found on page 66 of the script, not only established the existence of the head, but also establishes the facial expression it will later take on! Clearly, this concept was good enough to be held onto once actual production started, which is good for us! If it wasn't, then this post would be a lot shorter.

Early production of the prop began after the actors were cast, as face molds of Steve Martin were created as bases for the head.

source for the left image - source for the right image

Oooo, check these guys out!!! The left one is made of plaster, and the right one is made of rubber. The website sourcing these images included a quote from Steve Martin about the casting process. Here's the full provided quote:

"These molds were taken of my head for Little Shop of Horrors. It was cast on the lot at Pinewood Studios outside of London, and I got exceedingly claustrophobic during the casting. My entire head was covered with plaster and two straws were placed in my nose for breathing. Argh." - Steve Martin

I unfortunately don't have much information about the crafting process of the prop. I'm currently trying to track down anyone who could've worked on it, but the few people I've managed to contact haven't responded to me yet. So I can't say anything concrete about who worked on it and what went into creating it. The only thing I can assume somewhat confidently is that the creation of the prop happened around the same time as filming for Orin's scenes. It would allow them to make the face molds and also match up Martin's post-mortem Orin face with the facial expression of the prop.

Here's where it starts going downhill. From what I've found, the prop was never filmed with its face toward the camera. In the workprint that I accessed from the Internet Archive, the prop appears for 2 shots, and both of them only show the back of the head. Take a look:

source - timestamp: 1:02:59

[Video description: a low quality, slightly green tinted video depicting a deleted scene from Little Shop of Horrors (1986) where Seymour is feeding the decapitated head of the dentist, Orin Scrivello, to the plant. The video starts with a man in glasses reaching into a garbage can and pulling out a dark-haired decapitated head, holding it upside-down by the fabric on its neck. The head is faced away from the camera, so only the back of its hair is visible. There are vines flailing in the foreground of the shot. The video cuts to a shot of the plant puppet laughing silently. The video cuts again to a shot of the man slowly shuffling forward while dangling the head in front and away from himself. The plant is seen on the left side, still laughing and flailing its vines. Throughout the video, there are brief flashes of light that resemble lightning. The video's audio only consists of thunder noises and an unidentifiable sound that resembles chewing noises. End ID.]

My best guess for this choice is maybe it isn't as convincing when filmed? In the photos it looks really well made and realistic, but perhaps it didn't come across that way during shots. Regardless, the head was still in the film at this point, so that counts for something!

But as you and I both know, those 2 shots were left on the cutting room floor, completely removed from the final product. The prop was left completely unused and unspoken of... except for one instance.

Remember the trading card I mentioned at the beginning? It's a part of a full set of trading cards that were made and distributed by the brand Topps. Back when the movie first came out, you could buy a pack of 5 mystery Little Shop of Horrors themed trading cards, along with a stick of bubblegum. This 44-card set is notable for featuring a lot, and I mean a LOT of images from cut movie scenes. There's photos of the original ending, there's photos from the cut sequence The Meek Shall Inhereit, and of course there's also the card featuring the prop head! However, those 2 sequences would later be rediscovered, cleaned up, and then added into the Director's Cut rerelease of the movie. The prop head wouldn't get this treatment, staying obscured, unknown, and unmentioned.

Fast forward about 30 years. A certain unused movie prop would be offered in an auction, allowing us to not only see high-quality photos of said prop in its current state, but also to allow us to know the exact materials it was made of! Without further ado, I present Orin Scrivello's decapitated head, circa 2018:

source

This absolute freak of a guy was up for auction at the "Profiles in History: Icons and Legends of Hollywood" auction on June 5th, 2018. No one ended up buying it (I would. I need to buy it actually. Please sell it to me.), but the auction gives us some absolutely divine information about the prop, such as what it's made of and its dimensions! Here's a quote from the auction website describing its materials:

"Vintage original hollow cast resin character head painted in realistic flesh tones with brown eyebrows and eyes. The 13 x 8 x 9 in. head has been polyfoam filled for stability. Exhibiting cracks to the crown, which is brittle and with other wear and age. A striking likeness of Steve Martin. In vintage good condition."

How neat! The high-resolution images allow us to see the detailed sculpting of the prop, which is still evident and impressive with its age and missing parts! The creases on the forehead, and around the mouth and eyes, the realistically colored teeth, this was clearly sculpted with a lot of attention to detail. I would've loved to have an image like this back in the prop's prime, back when it still had hair and a fresh coat of paint.

Why was it Scrapped?

This is entirely just me theorizing, but I have a feeling it's for the same reason the original ending got snubbed.

If you take the time to watch the archived workprint, you'll find a lot of cuts and changes were made that changed the tone of the whole finished project. Orin's death and dismemberment scenes got edited down a lot. Shots of him struggling and knocking things down as he falls to the ground got cut, the voiceline where he begs Seymour for help is gone. The shot where Orin's legs jolt when Seymour brings down the axe is gone too.

It's not just Orin-related scenes either! Mushnik no longer cries out for Seymour when being killed and eaten, and that's ignoring how different the scene happens in the stage musical. And obviously, the entire ending got changed so that Audrey and Seymour survive, leading to the cut of the magnificent ending sequence where all the Audrey II's destroy New York. In a way, the film got murdered and gutted of any of its real horror, with attempts to cover up any of the blood they couldn't scrub out.

In the movie's later quest to rebrand as a softer version of itself, it only makes sense that 2 shots of a decapitated head wouldn't make it. The appearance of the dismembered leg made it through, probably because it's less gruesome, but a head is... different. I obviously think it should've been kept it in, along with almost everything they trimmed from the workprint, but alas.

Tldr, they cut the head off of the movie because it wasn't funny enough.

Conclusion

This is where the information I have ends, unfortunately. I do have more research routes I would like to take, but one of them involves desperately contacting random people who I suspect could've been involved (I've tried this, I've gotten no responses from those who I've managed to find an email for), and the other route involves taking a road trip to the actual goddamn Library of Congress, which is not something I can do right now or even in the near future. So this is probably as far as I'm getting!

However! If I find anything new, this post will be updated and/or remade again, depending on how big or little the info is. For now, I think this is good enough to share, and maybe letting people know will encourage others to research this prop as well! It'll probably be easier if it's not just me, y'know.

I'll finish by saying that I think research and preservation of art like this is very important. While it's common for cool artistic things to end up cut from movies, I think preserving that those cool things existed in the first place is something worth doing. Even though this prop head was a very small part of the movie, it's clear a lot went into creating it! I feel bad that I'm not able to credit any person or people for their work, but I hope getting the word out about it will do some justice.

If you've read this whole thing, thank you so much! I appreciate your interest and I thank you for taking the time to read all this. I hope you found it as interesting and fascinating as I do!

Oh, by the way, if this post looks familiar at all, you've probably seen the original version of this post I made awhile ago. I wasn't happy with the formatting of that post, and I ended up making too many discoveries to just continue updating it. I'll keep the original up to preserve it, but reblogs will be off for it, as I want this version to be the one to go around. Thanks!

[subterraneanna]

Restored film frame, Star Trek: The Original Series, "Patterns of Force"

This frame was in good condition and only needed minor dust and scratch removal -- not exactly an exciting before and after comparison so I'm omitting it. I'm not sure why this was printed b&w. Perhaps it was more cost-effective to print b&w dailies/rushes and/or workprints. This is just a guess so if anyone knows more feel free to chime in. Also, I've gotten a few questions about the process and realized I should mention that I digitize my film with a film scanner. The photos of me holding the slides are purely for illustrative purposes in case anyone wants to see the whole thing. My phone isn't involved in the process.

[brokehorrorfan]

Link will be released on 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray on September 10 via Kino Lorber. The 1986 British horror film features a killer chimpanzee played by an orangutan.

Richard Franklin (Psycho II, Road Games) directs from a script by Everett De Roche (Road Games, Razorback). Elisabeth Shue and Terence Stamp star alongside a trio of simians.

Link was previously restored in 4K by StudioCanal. Special features are listed below.

Special features:

Audio commentary by film historians Lee Gambin and Jarret Gahan

Audio interview with director Richard Franklin

Deleted workprint scenes

Link theme demo by Jerry Goldsmith

Theatrical trailers

Teaser trailer

Young graduate student Jane Chase (Elisabeth Shue) becomes the new assistant to an eccentric zoology professor (Terence Stamp) at the remote home he shares with two brilliant chimpanzees and an elderly orangutan butler named Link. But when one of the chimps is found dead and the professor mysteriously disappears, Link becomes dangerously aggressive towards Jane. Now, the time for “monkey business” is over and the true terror is about to begin.

Pre-order Link.

[tygerbug]

https://youtu.be/FC4sYmilGF8 The Thief and the Cobbler Recobbled Cut Mark 5 Work in Progress 06/20/23

This restoration is still a work in progress. It contains new animation which has not yet been completed, and is "half done" in this preview. At times, there are unfinished edits and smudgy frames.

"Animation among the most glorious and lively ever created!" - The New York Times "The best and most important 'fan edit' ever made." - Twitch Film

Chief Restorationist: Garrett Gilchrist

Directed by Richard Williams Screenplay by Richard Williams and Margaret French Master animator Ken Harris Produced by Imogen Sutton and Richard Williams

Here is your first sneak preview of a newly re-restored version of this lost animation classic, written and directed by legendary three-time Academy Award winning animator Richard Williams (animation director of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and the author of The Animator's Survival Kit). Nearly 30 years in the making, a labor of love by a team of animation greats, this was to be the masterpiece of Williams’ career, perhaps the most ambitious independent animated film ever conceived. It was taken away from Williams when he couldn’t meet his deadline, recut and destroyed. It has never been seen the way it was intended to be seen … until now. Based on Williams’ original workprint, missing scenes have been restored using storyboards and unfinished animation. Restored to its true form, this lost cult classic has finally been found - for you at home.

2023 could be considered the 60th anniversary of when production began on the film that would become "The Thief and the Cobbler." 2023 is also the 30th anniversary of when production ended on the film, when a reedited version called "The Princess and the Cobbler" had a very small release in some countries. 2023 is also the 10th anniversary of "The Thief and the Cobbler Recobbled Cut Mark 4," a restoration by filmmaker Garrett Gilchrist which intended to restore the film to its original intended form, as much as possible. This is also, approximately, the 25th anniversary of Gilchrist's first experiments with restoring this film.

So we thought it would be a good idea to go back and restore the film further, and see what could be done with it. We still do not have access to a high quality HD copy of any version of the film (such as the released version "Arabian Knight" or Williams' workprint "A Moment In Time"). We do have some 35mm workprint scenes, which we transferred in HD for this project, and which make up over 30 minutes of the film. Some scenes were also upscaled and rebuilt in HD, and all scenes were cleaned up and restored frame by frame by Garrett Gilchrist. Any Blu-Ray labels that would like to take on this project with us officially can contact us.

Garrett Gilchrist writes:

I had often said that I wouldn't do a "Mark 5" edit unless an HD version of the film (in any form) was released and could be used for a better quality version. The "Recobbled Cut" project was begun in 2006 and continued until 2013, originally. That's eight years of work restoring the film (frame by frame in Photoshop!) and building up a huge data archive of Richard Williams' work (Available via ocpmovie at archive. org). I wasn't going to return to the project without a very good reason to do so. No new footage has turned up in our hands in the last ten years.

But it's been ten years since the "Mark 4," and I was approached by animators Dennis Van Hout and Kiko Pablo (The Crow Artist), who had animated a few new shots for the film. It's very difficult, without a budget, to create the sort of high quality animation that this film requires. However, their efforts showed me that it's possible. I had just completed inking a Thief and the Cobbler Coloring Book (available at archive) and felt more confident that I could draw and ink in Richard Williams' style. I chose about twenty shots that seemed possible to animate, and began work on them in early 2023. You can see a half-finished version of the results in this video. I am still working to bring the results up to standard as much as possible.

I also "re-restored" most of the film for this version, rebuilding some shots in HD using cropped DVD sources, recoloring some shots to appear higher quality, removing dirt and damage in Photoshop frame by frame, and doing months of new work to bring the film to life like never before. We were never happy with the HD transfer of the scenes of The Thief in the War Machine, which are very red and dark and lack detail. Some color correction trickery helped bring more detail to the scenes, and dirt and damage was removed by hand in Photoshop over the course of several months.

Other HD scenes were also restored by hand, which had been overlooked for the previous version, because I'd been working on it for eight years at that point and had to stop somewhere. The U-Matic video source for the workprint was also revisited. Pencil test scenes are hard to see due to the low quality of the video source, and I went back to the original source for this version, and cleaned up the scenes very carefully frame by frame to bring out quality and detail that was previously lost. Scenes that previously switched from one source to another have been cleaned up as much as possible so that the sources match seamlessly. Some workprint scenes have been recolored by hand to improve their quality.

The scenes directed by Fred Calvert were done on the cheap and are not up to the quality standards that Richard Williams intended. In this edit I have reworked the Calvert scenes as much as possible, so that they play more smoothly with additional inbetweening. I have removed animation errors and improved scenes with special effects, and rebuild some scenes in HD. This work will continue as time allows.

Our newly animated scenes are also a work in progress, and will require further work to make the animation smoother and more in line with the rest of the film. I am just one illustrator and do not have the budget of a professional animation studio, so I'm really pushing my luck by trying to insert new animation into a cult-favorite masterpiece by one of the greatest animators who ever lived. But I also was careful to choose scenes that are less complex in how they move. It's been a lot of work, and it's still a work in progress. But I hope you enjoy seeing what I've been up to all these months, as well as the delightful new animation by Dennis Van Hout, Kiko Pablo, Chris Fern and others.

[centrally-unplanned]

Incredibly kino restoration work (as always) by Kineko Films. Authentic citypop vibes straight from the source, accept no substitutes. It helps that as a late 90's OP it is at the heights of the technical proficiency (and budgets) of traditional animation, which makes its blend very smoothly with the obvious markers of it being a workprint, early digital would never.

[charliesheendog]

Foodfight! Investor Workprint

This workprint, dated August 5th, 2005, was created early in the second phase of Foodfight's production when they were slowly converting to motion capture. Due to investors demanding to see an early cut of the film, Larry Kasanoff had a portion of the team cobble together this workprint using storyboards specifically drawn or composited for it. Many boards are quite rough, using renders spliced together with stock photos. This was due to time constraints on the storyboard artist. Before this, there were no storyboards for the movie except for the first 7 minutes, which were drawn when Dex was a human being and were for the demo reel. This was because Larry did not understand the point of storyboards and felt that they were not needed during production. At this time, there were no lines recorded for the cast, they were in the beginning stages of recording motion capture, there was nothing to show investors. This is just a bunch of storyboards stitched in with some animation from the demo reel that was done in 2001, which was made years before motion capture was even considered. This was specifically made just to show investors and was of no use to the team. Foodfight didn't even have enough material to put together a workprint (if they even made one) until at least 2007.

[weaselbeaselpants]

Merry Christmas

I don't use tumblr on Christmas Day because that's an art day, like Halloween tends to be for me.

So here's some holiday wishes whether any of you want it or not. Here's some playlists I'd like to share with you guys that I hope will make things a little happier in these tough times.

^animal videos where animals are reliably not being annoyed in order to be cute and are just doing their thing.

Animated show and film deleted scenes, workprints and documentaries.

and finally, some top-tier animation shorts that are worth your time. As with any of my animated short playlists, this one gets more and more 'intense' and adult the further you go down it- so be aware of that.

Stuff like this makes me so happy, so I thought you'd like it too, both mutuals and users who I hope are having a happy Holiday.

@castorochiaro @despazito @claricehopeful @randobambo @miyamezz96 @thebigdeepcheatsy @ben-the-hyena @pleasetiemyshoe @chaifootsteps

[paleoforest]

Some sketches with ZigZag The Grand Vizier, Magician and Sorcerer too, voiced by Vincent Price - by director of Who Framed Roger Rabbit

- from The Thief and The Cobbler

The Unfinished Animation Art from Richard Williams, which has a confusing and intriguing story, what making for almost 3 decades. It lost in shadow of Aladdin, because of host's perfectionism - unsuccessful animators left/fired from project, took ideas with them and went another studio. Film was twice remaked and shamefully released, then tragically forgotten in time.

But there's some enthusiast, who calls for profi artists: Garrett Gilchrist is editor of Recobbled Cut - the restoration of this masterpiece, what based on origin Workprint, rough footages and other versions (The Princess and the Cobbler & Arabian Knight)

I really love the bad one! In particular, this criminal brain has a Jafar and Genie vibe at same time, but he is original. For example - Zigzag all time speak with rhymes. After I watched film, few months I just did something and mumbled his quotes to myself for fun! Once they came useful on English lesson! Well, you should see and hear him for yourself..

Here Greatest Underrated Villain of all time

Now this Animation needs worldwide fame and full completion! Teamwork can put some beauty back in the world!

I draw all these in 2022 :D

[flyingturtlepei]

TLM Washerwomen scene: Workprint vs. final film.

[popculturebuffet]

Thomas and Friends Retrospective: The Magic Railroad: The Workprint Cut (Comissioned by Lachie V)

Previously on this blog:

Also I may or may not have reviewed a bunch of Thomas the Tank Entine, cumilating in a look at the disasterous theatrical cut which you can find my barely coherent thoughts on that barely coherent film here. We haven't gotten the results back from the lab yet.

The Theatrical cut is so legendarily wonky I just.. coudln't leave it at that and feel like I gave the film a good shake. So I took on the arduous task of watching an unfinished workprint that I erronously said last time was on the blu ray. While the blu ray has some scenes from this version, the full workprint was leaked seperately and god bless those who did as it gives us something of a look at what this film was supposed to be. So join me under the cut as I see what this film WAS and if what it was was any good.. or at least comprehensible. After the nightmare of that last review i'll settle for "Makes sense from point a to b" that's the state we're entering this review at people. You've been warned.

The workprint of the Magic Railroad is interesting. This is the first workprint i've ever seen and thus the first i've ever covered on this blog. For those unaware, as I was before I googled it, a work print is an unfinished version of a film, with effects, adr and the soundtrack largely missing. So it was fascinating to see just how many pieces of the film, even things as simple as a line that LOOKED on screen are put into place after the fact. Film Editors don't get enough credit.. plenty of blame when it's earned but not enough credit and this made me respect them all the more.

That said watching a prototype of a finished film i'd seen.. was a lot. It seems easy, the effects just aren't there right? Well it's not just visual effects: it's SOUND effects. The only sounds are either ADR from the various crew member and anything on camera. And said ADR is not from the actors yet but various voices i'd never heard before and also Britt Alcroft. It's fair and I don't blame the cut for it, this wasn't MEANT to be viewed by anyone but editors. It's just hard on my autisim: whlie i'm functional and can handle sensory changes normally in a film, having there be no sound where their clearly should be in a lot of places... was just weird. I KNOW why it's not there, and usually my mind fills in the gaps but for some reason here it just felt extra off when an explosion or heavy digging happened with no sound. It's just this freaky effect and it took some time to get through it as a result, not helped by me only realizing what was really throwing me off towards the end of the film.

I can't recommend this cut as a film.. because it's not finished nor was it intended to be a finished product. It's not really something for bad movie night like it's theatrical cousin. As an interesting artifact of this film and Thomas as a whole though, I am delighted it exists as it fills in a LOT of the gaps and is complete enough I can judge what aspects were cut by their own merits.

Let's start with the big one, the most infamous and curious of the bunch: PT Boomer, played by Doug Lennox who realizes exactly what kind of film he's in and hams it up accordingly. Boomer is one of the films big bads... and was almost entirely cut from the theatrical cut, with only one brief scene that was redubbed, a scene so plot important and load bearing I forgot it even happened.

PT Boomer is all about

Wanting to make profit off things. That's.. about what we get. Seriously we have two seperate scenes where one of the kids asks Billy then Stacey about boomer.. and they just say essentially "He's greedy and wants to buy everything" without ever clarifying who he is, what he does for his BUISNESS, or what his goals are beyond "profit off a magical lady train he broke in the past." I am so sad he got cut as while he woudln't of made the film much better, he is so bad it's good glorious: even in this his plans literally boil down to

KIDNAP MAGIC LADY TRAIN FOR REVENGE

?????

PROFIT

It's still not much above Disel's plan that just replaces kidnap with kill and profit with "become train king". It is funny though and gives this guy a leg up.

The most we get is his backstory with Burnett, Lily's grandpa who gets fleshed out considerably in this version. In the original his backstory was just "diesel nearly killed this train I found and my wife never got to ride her" which is prettty damn thin and even before the workprint cut I could tell something was missing.

The actual backstory is still as thin as a sheet of paper covered in bacon grease, but it's at least.. something: He swored to take her on a ride but before he could Boomer, who had also wanted to bang Lily's grandma but lost out to burnett because well evil I guess, found her and threatned burnett if he didn't let him drive the train. He ended up driving too fast, making this a dramatic version of that trampoline scene from community.

I've tried not to use youtube videos as the thumbnail takes up the link but it really is just this exact moment but with trains and a dead wife.

We also get a minutes long montage of Burnett dancing with his wife. it adds nothing to the plot and is one of the cuts i can absolutely see why it happened. We also get a scene of Stone and Lily having dinner where he says I don't like trains.

Another change as a result is that the big cave scene with Patch.. is towards the end. In the thetrical cut we get 80 gallons of train expoision while the workprint at least plays it as a mystery: a whistle is heard in the mountain and instead of finding out what it is seconds after we hear it, it's played up the whole film. IT's a much better fit and I question why this was changed at all.

That also goes for Boomer. I went back and checked and. .he's not really IN the movie that much. He shows up, meances a bit, hams it up and leaves. He spends most of the film either trying ot find stone, buy shining time for some reason, which makes mr conductor's visions of an apocalypse make far more sense, and the rest trying to dig his way to the hidden railway then blow everything the fuck up when that dosen't work out. Keeping him in.. really wasn't going to hurt the film and I don't really buy reports "he scared children". The evil brother of the attention all gamers guy isn't going to be in any child's nightmares.

Cutting boomer also makes the non lily or coked out conductor characters feel more suplerfous as it turns out the original cut had way mroe for them to do. Not a lot, but still more. Patch has a horse.. which WAS in the theatrical cut but I did not notice. Probably because he's also lacking his sweet cowboy hat... it's like taking away knuckles cowboy hat from the sonic ova: you take away the source of his powers. Billy likewise gets a scene with boomer and a scene getting a warning. He still dosen't DO much but I feel bad for clowning on his actor last time: Russel Means is actually a wonderful billy replacement. He's not as good as Tom Jackson is in the role, but he's still pretty neat but in the theatrical cut he's there for all of two seconds and seemed a lot stiffer. That was really the editing's fault not him as he has billy's laidback charm and wise nature down pat. Stacey also gets an extra scene, though she still got PLENTy in the theatrical. Cutting this plot was unfair to the actors involved and their screentime and especially douchey to Doug Lennox, who put in a great performance. .that got cut entirely.

To my shock though the mass cuts... really aren't responsible for the film being pretty hard to parse. The workprint cut IS legible at least as a few confusing bits are explained: instead of wanting to kill all trains disel wants to conquer them, and he's unaware Lady is connected to the magic, meaning he GENUINELY dosen't realize he dies if he destroys her. So instead of stupid his plan comes off as dangerous and just the right amount of sinister for a preschool film instead of

We also get clarifcation on the "My Universe" thing. The narration for the work print still referes to it as mr. conductor's universe.. but they actually explain what the hell they were saying with that: The various mr conductors built this universe. Granted

Unlike the theatrical though, I can at least accept that answer: the mr conductors do have godlike powers and it makes Mr Conductor speaking with authority on his power loss possibly killing him less ass pully: it makes sense they'd pass this shit down through generations and makes sense Mr C Junior wouldn't know it as he's a fuckwit.

It makes the film less maddening.. but it dosen't change the fact this new lore is just kinda jammed in there, a square train in a round station house. The lore still dosen't make a ton of since even for a film for small children, and again thei rparents and possibly older siblings still have to watch it with them so why punch down. All punching down did was get parents to cave and go take their kids to see X-Men or Pokemon 2000 instead, both much better movies. Especailly pokmeon 2000. Fuck I really need to cover both of those don't I.

It also dosen't explain simple shit like "Why does lady tie the two universes together" and "after being in a coma for so long why is magic just fading now". It's still at the end of the day an overcomplicated mess that creates it's own weird lore never to be used again that no one vibed with because even for the stupid train children show it was baffling instead of fairy tale style like they were going for.

The other scenes cut are far more understandable: that dance scene I mentiond went on to long and we get a brief prologue of Lily in the big city and the reason behind the fire escape line. It's.. nothing we honestly needed mostly Mara wilson wistfully starring outside a train.. which is adorable but dosen't really move the plot along.

So that leads us to the final cut and the final change worth talking about between versions: the voice actors. Like with boomer the executives tried overcorrecting to test audience complaints. They dont' like one of the villians? Cut him out entirely. They don't like the voices for some of the characters? replace the bitches! Yeah originally Thomas was voiced by John Bellis, Percy and James by Thomas UK narrator Micheal Angellis, Splatter and Dodge by Patrick Breen, and Disel 10 by Keith Scott.

Unlike with removing boomer I get most of these edits: Unlike boomer I completely buy that D10 scared children as Keith Scott's voice for him is terrifying.. though the terror is undrecut by the adr version of him sounding like Lumpy Space Princess. It's a great voice and I feel bad for Scott.. but it is a bit too scary> Granted they coudl've just.. worked with him to find another voice as they had before (He tried a russian voice before this that was apparently even creepier), so it's shitty they fired him and everyone here instead of simply recasting them or giving them something else.

LIkewise I love MIcheal Angellis and having him voice cameo was a good idea.. but they shoudl've had him do Henry instead. His voice works when he's narrating every character.. but I get why having an old gentleman voice for Percy and James, both younger engines dosen't quite work. Granted unlike with D10, where his replacement got the tone better, making Percy and James small children dosen't fix the problem. Their youthful not 8. Stupid Train Children is not that literal a term.

Thomas on the other hand.. was fine: he sounded youthful, had a nice plesant voice and I honestly prefer it over the final cut voice with Eddie Glenn. Glenn isn't bad.. but Bellis just got the character better. Splatter and Dodge are also way better and the film does a far better job conveying thier reluctant minon status and making them humorous foils to dissel.

So all in all the Work Print version is a better film.. but only by comparision. It has some good stuff that was cuts and the edits done were mostly moronic but it's still a film that alternates between boring and WHAT THE FUCK. it just explains more, which helps with the latter

The Magic Railroad in either film is a film that tried to cram way too much shit in. It tried so hard to escalate thomas to save the world level shit when that just .. dosen't scale with either Thomas and Friends or Shining Time Station. Both are about small scale problems in small slice of lifey places: a cozy british isle and a whimsical train station. Their biggest issues are dickheads like Disel and god emperor or schemer. You could've had thomas go on a treasure hunt to save the rail way or shining time or both. Maybe Schemer is trying to buy the failing railway. I mean if their going to go with the skeezy buisness douche cliche at least make it the guy you already have who would defintely do that if he could. Give him Boomer as a boss if you want. It keeps the tension, the two worlds element and mr c going back and forth as he could've taken Mara Wilson to shining time to go on the hunt to save the station. Give her an attachment to it. Make Burnett stone a conductor. You don't have to throw everything out, but simply lowering the stakes would've made this a more coherent film. I"m not sure how GOOD it woudl've been bu tit would've been a better Thomas Movie, a better shining time movie and something people would've actually wanted to see.

Instead it's a mess that changed Thomas as a whole, with Britt's failures here leading to her stepping down and eventually the company being purchased by HIT. But more on that another time for now we can put this train to bed. These reviews have been exausting as I don't want to be negative but these films, both cuts, are hot garbage. one just makes more sense. Hopefully if the proposed thomas film goes through they get it right... until then all we're left is a mess of what could've been and alec baldwin on cocaine.

Next Time: Turns out there is one as we have a new plan. I'll be covering season 6 sometime later this year, season 7, then teaking a break while Lachey figures out the rest of the schedule and I cover venture bros seasons 4b- the end. Thanks for reading

[foodfightnovelization]

Foodfight! The (OFFICIAL) Video Game

Yes, you read the title right! No it's not the fangame I made a couple months ago, this is the real deal, the whole enchilada, the ACTUAL Foodfight! tie-in game! Shortly after ROTTEN: Behind The Foodfight was released, its creator Ziggy, myself, and everyone else in the Foodfight! community thought we'd found everything there was left to find. After all, we'd uncovered the workprint, the novelization, almost all the original footage, Ziggy had interviewed countless people who worked on the movie, some character models had even been found...so that was it, right? But as I hinted at in my last few posts, the Foodfight! story wasn't quite over yet.

Reese, a friend of Ziggy's, had reached out to one of the developers involved in the Foodfight! tie-in game that was set to be released alongside the movie, and shortly after ROTTEN came out, Ziggy also managed to get in touch with them. One thing led to another and we were sent a HUGE 10GB folder of art, documents, models, and footage related to the game. What you see above is a concept submission trailer created to show off the game and what it'd look like, similar to the pitch reel created for the movie itself. Needless to say, this blew our minds! If you've read my previous post on the subject, you'll know that up until now the only thing anyone had EVER seen of this game was a few seconds of grainy footage from E3 2006. To go from that to a whole stockpile of material from its development was INCREDIBLE! To learn more about how this found its way into our hands, I'll direct you to a blog post from Ziggy himself, explaining a little more about the game's developers (and relaying a truly hilarious story about Larry Kasanoff)

However, I want to talk more about the INCREDIBLE plethora of material included in the folder that was shared with us. Ziggy uploaded everything he was sent to archive.org, so I'll link it below if you'd like to peruse the files yourself, but keep reading if you want to know more about what's included!

Just to start off with, the footage from the above concept trailer and the assorted screenshots- doesn't it just look awesome? It's way more visually appealing than the finished movie ended up looking, for one thing, and it's seemingly inspired more by the early pre-motion capture footage than anything that came later on. It's also just mindblowing to finally see all this, to suddenly go from knowing basically nothing about the game to knowing so much about it! And best of all...doesn't this just look EXACTLY like a movie tie-in game from the mid 2000s? I mean, that shouldn't be too surprising, that's exactly what it is, but tie-in games of that era had a very specific look and feel and this just takes me right back to that. Remember the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory game where you're racing around on a trashcan lid, the Spider-Man game where you're running around Oscorp avoiding security robots, or the Incredibles game where you're rushing through a burning building fighting guys with flamethrowers? Doesn't this just look EXACTLY like one of those?

And you might be thinking "it's too bad we only have a few minutes of footage and some screenshots, I wish we could know even more about what the game would've been like". Well, your wish just came true! Buried deep in the files is a copy of the game's design documents, telling us EXACTLY how each level would've played out! (If you're struggling to find it, it's in AUDIO> Final Drop> FF> Docs) So not only do we get to see a ton of what the game would've looked like, we also get to see how the whole thing would've come together, with 26 action-packed levels consisting of a variety of different gameplay types. Looking at several other files, it seems like the number of levels may have been cut down to 15 later in development, but hey, it's fairly common for design docs to be more complex than the finished game. Regardless, reading about everything they had planned...this really is the ultimate stereotypical tie-in game. I mean, just look at some of these level descriptions! Isn't this every movie-based game you've ever played, all rolled into one? You can bet your boxtop if it had made it all the way through development, it'd easily have the honor of being one of the few tie-in games BETTER than the movie it was based off, although considering how the finished film turned out maybe that's not saying much.

Based on what the developers said in the article linked above, it's unclear exactly how much of the game was finished before it was cancelled, and unfortunately it's incredibly unlikely they'll ever be able to compile a build together to send our way. However, there's just SO much included in this folder it's hard to complain. Not only do we get basically a complete picture of how the game would've come together from all the documents, screenshots, audio, cutscenes and footage included, there are all kinds of additional files that are both interesting and incredibly useful.

Not only are there models and environments from the game itself (unfortunately the only character model included seems to be Dex), there are also models of the ENTIRE CAST taken directly from the earlier version of the movie! Every main character is here, from Dex to Sunshine to Mr Leonard, as well as a bunch of other models such as Dan's plane and cockpit. This is HUGE, and I can't wait to see what talented artists will do with all these resources. At the time I'm writing this, someone already ported several of the models into SFM (Source Filmmaker) and another made several animations in Blender!

I'm sure even more will happen soon, but right now this is pretty incredible. Who thought this would EVER happen? That one day we'd have models of every main character, a complete workprint of the movie from 2005, a tie-in novelization, footage of the long-sought after videogame, and so, so much more. In the span of less than a year, Foodfight! went from some of the most obscure lost media of all time to some of the most well-documented lost media of all time. We have so much there's no way I'd ever even be able to discuss it all, that's how far we've come in the past few months.

Seriously, I've barely even scratched the surface of what's in this folder. There are 3D cutscenes from the game, 2D cutscenes, concept art for the planned toy line, footage of prototypes of those toys in action, MORE gameplay footage, previously unseen storyboards not included in the workprint, raw audio of Charlie Sheen's voice sessions from the movie, tons of songs from the game, the entire score from the movie, and that's STILL not everything! I mean, holy chips! I STRONGLY encourage you to download the folder for yourself and take a look...maybe you'll even find something I haven't yet?

I really think that with this folder now out in the public, this is as much closure on Foodfight! as we'll ever get. I know I always say that and then there's some amazing discovery a few months later, but this is just such a huge smorgasbord of material that I don't even think we can count Foodfight! as lost media anymore...okay, we haven't found absolutely everything so it's partially found media at best, but could you really ask for more than all this? We have countless models from the movie, design docs and footage from the planned tie-in game, early drafts of the script, we know EXACTLY what the movie and game were going to be like before everything collapsed... now, if you're so inclined you can take all that and make something out of all of it, but me? I'm pretty satisfied just having the knowledge. Knowing what could've been before it all fell apart, getting to see so much I never thought I'd get a chance to see... right now, I'd say my Foodfight! cravings have been satiated. Unless another monumental discovery is unearthed anytime soon (at this point I wouldn't be surprised), I think there's really not much more to say. If nothing comes up in a month or two, I'll make a post showing off my personal collection of Foodfight! merchandise, an epilogue to the past year I've spent obsessing over this movie. In the meantime, I hope you all enjoy the absolute treasure trove of Foodfight! material that's been discovered! Dig through it all! Make something out of it! There's so much in these files, you could create your OWN Foodfight!, with blackjack and hookers!

[calliemity]

in my attempt of creating a Mushnik Content Movement, i'll throw my own hat into the circle. im not really one for headcanons so ill share some mushnik character facts and trivia :]

his character blurb says he "seldom smiles but often sweats"

unlike in the movie, stage mushnik is genuinely concerned about seymour possibly killing orin. theres actually some character contrasting between the two versions: in the stage show mushnik actively works to keep seymour from ever leaving the shop, and in the movie he wants to get seymour out of the picture

vincent gardenia, who played mushnik in the 1986 movie, felt that director frank oz only casted him because he liked his last name

in the movie, mushnik's lines while hes being eaten were replaced sometime after the workprint was made. originally, he properly screamed in pain and he cried out for seymour multiple times

gardenia and moranis had some trouble filming the part where mushnik asks for the "secret gardening tips" because they both would break character to laugh

lee wilkof, the very first seymour from the original cast from 1982, was supposed to play mushnik in the 2003 revival. after the entire production got revamped, he ended up being replaced along with the rest of the cast

[waeirfaahl]

Don't trust Zira

Although I strictly against any sequels, prequels, spinoffs, remakes of the original The Lion King 1994, I disagree with fans, who is negative toward "Mufasa: The Lion King" for ignoring TLK-2:SP and other series and for "changing canon". The 2019 movie and its prequel are separate universe, so they can do what they want. The problem happens, when bad sequels are connected to the original TLK 1994. Like, many people hated TLG for contradiction to either books or TLK-2:SP, but... TLK-2:SP already created the large contradiction to the original film and created the plot and logical hole that breaks the story. Now I'll discuss about the aspect that bothered me pretty long time. So I summarize all my thoughts in this post.

The sequel of the original TLK had several different scripts, which always were changed many times during production. Simba's pride literally was the abomination of the production hell. So here we have the main antagonist Zira, whose presense in the film gave birth to thousands of fanfics and headcanons and theories. Almost all fans believed that she loved Scar and wanted revenge for his death, and that she was Scar's beloved or friend so he chose one of her cubs as heir or even fathered them all. But what if I say, that it's all lie? What if Zira has no relation or connection to Scar? What if she just made up this story with Scar's heir for own goals? The workprint of the sequel gave me some details, which perfectly demonstrate this version as the true one. And there's no need to ask the authors themselves for answers. If we look at the early scripts, neither Zira nor her cubs and followers ever existed. Yes, in early scripts Kovu was the only Scar's cub, whose unnamed mother went from the Pridelands and later either died or abandoned Kovu, so he was in friends with Brutus the elephant and various other animals. In later scripts Kovu still was Scar's cub, but he lived with the power-hungry maternal aunt Bianca, who allied with Shenzi and her clan. In later scripts finally we see Zira, who was vaguely described as Scar's queen, and she already had these sudden followers (who actually were the suffering pride of the villain suitor prince in one of the early scrips). However, Nuka and Vitani weren't Scar's cubs, and they weren't Zira's cubs as well, they were orphans. Plus, Zira actually stole Kovu from his real father, king Regandi, and brainwashed him into her weapon and "Scar's heir". I have no idea, why the information about true origins of Kovu, Nuka and Vitani was scrapped, if in the final movie Zira is described by both the authors and the workprint as Scar's most loyal follower, i.e. fanatic.

But... what if Zira and her pride are NOT Scar's followers, but just pretended? I have many arguments that debunk the entire idea of Zira's existing in the original film or as a follower etc. First of all, well, for Scar it is a huge contradiction. He is egocentric tyrant, who cares only about himself and wants to rule as a sole king, where others are slaves or servants. No queens, no cubs. Only Scar. The deleted scene from the original film, where Scar harrassed Nala, is not a strong argument — he just wanted to find a way to become loved by others in kingdom, and when Nala and lionesses rejected him, he blatantly said to them "Fine. I don't need your love and respect, only your obedience" and then called the hyenas for Nala's banishing. Plus, if Scar wanted a queen, he'd do this way earlier, i.e. not 2-3 years later, when Simba and Nala are already adult — this aspect already debunks the idea of Nuka or Vitani being Scar's kittens, 'cause if Nuka is allegedly Scar's son, Scar's attempt to seduce Nala makes no sense, 'cause he already had a pregnant mate and 6-month-old heir or whatever in this case.

And both Nuka and Vitani never referred to Scar as Father, Zira never referred to Nuka and Vitani as to Scar's cubs ("Scar, watch over MY poor Nuka..." — not OUR), Nuka never used this as an argument to be king as well as Vitani. Plus, if they were Scar's cubs, Zira would love them way more than Kovu, fathered by random rogue, 'cause they'd be the heirs of her "adored Scar". But no, Zira hates and ignores and abuses Nuka and shows no love toward Vitani, but "loves" and brainwashes "the chosen one" Kovu. If they were Scar's cubs, they'd have no need in trying to get attention of their fanatical mother, she'd already adore them from the beginning, and she'd make exactly them to be king and queen, not Kovu. Second, all lionesses in the original film hated Scar and fought on Simba's side.

Third, as we know, in the original film Scar cruelly mistreated all, he devastated the kingdom and acted like a ruthless tyrant, everyone starved and suffered during his reign. Zira and her lionesses have nothing to admire Scar for. Think about it.

Fourth, if Zira and her pride allegedly were Scar's followers and existed in the original movie — why Zira and her followers were defeated and banished? In the original film in Mufasa's pride (later conquered by Scar and then fought on Simba's side against Scar and the hyena clan) there were 12 lionesses, but after Simba returned, there were 6-7 lionesses (including Nala and Sarabi), i.e. other 5-6 either ran away or died, while in Zira's pride (without her three cubs) we see 9-11 lionesses. How could they be defeated and banished, if Simba, Nala, Sarabi and their lionesses were exhausted by hunt and then by the battle against Scar and 100+ hyenas?! It makes no sense.

Then let's go to Zira. The entire Zira's claims are these:

1. Scar chose Kovu as his heir (i.e. Scar knew Kovu, Kovu knew Scar):

"He was hand-chosen by Scar to follow his pawprints and become king!" – Zira to Simba.

2. Kovu was born in Pridelands:

"Kovu was the last born before you banished us to Outlands!" – Zira to Simba.

In the deleted scene Zira also says this:

"That is our home! That is where we belong! And soon, my beloved Scar, we shall reclaim your kingdom!" – Zira to her cubs.

So, what's wrong with these claims? Well, everything. 

First of all, many people ignore one tiny detail in Zira's claim – that Scar chose Kovu himself "to follow his pawprints and become king". How and when could he do this?! "To follow his pawprints" – it means "To kill the previous king and conquer the kingdom and power by force". Scar could not choose anyone for this mission before the battle on the Pride Rock, because he did not suspect the existence of Simba (that Simba is alive). Scar had no idea that he will be overthrown, and he only feasted with the hyenas. During the battle he would not have had time to do this – he tried to hide and escape during battle and then was chased by Simba and later fought with him. Plus, he ruled alone and wasn't interested in getting a queen and making cubs. He was lonely character, who needs no one, while the hyenas were just his army.

In the workprint of the sequel Zira says this:

"Don't be a fool, Nuka! Kovu is the chosen one! We must fulfill Scar's dying wish and train Kovu to become king!" – Zira to Nuka.

What kind of dying wish, if Scar tried to run away, fought with Simba and then was eaten by the hyenas and burned in the fire?! He couldn't survive even for few seconds at all! 

Second, Kovu couldn't be born in Pridelands. He has no memories about Scar. All he says is either "Scar was not my father" or "I heard about Scar this, but what you tell now, I never heard" type of lines. 

Also in the deleted scene Zira proudly says this:

"Remember, Scar took you in and accepted you as his own son. Yes, he wasn't your father, but he chose you to become the next king." – Zira to Kovu.

You can notice that she is the only character, who insists this, while Kovu is pretty unsure and uncertain in this scene. We see how Zira brainwashes him (under false attempt to cheer him up), so her claims about accepting Kovu as son by Scar can't be the truth at all. 

So, when Kovu was born? In the workprint we find out that Kovu was born before Kiara, and he already is pretty grown up cub during Kiara's presentation. However, Rafiki discovers Kovu's existence exactly after Kiara's birth and presentation, he refers to Kovu as "What is this? Another cub? Where he can be? In the Outlands... where Simba banished Scar's followers...". I.e. Rafiki didn't know about Kovu until the day of Kiara's birth and presentation.

Plus, as the sequel demonstrates, Simba and the pride never knew that "Scar had a heir", they didn't know about Kovu, since Simba refers to Kovu just as "the cub". Plus, Zira only now introduces Kovu to Simba:

"Haven't you met my son, Kovu? He was hand-chosen by Scar to follow his pawprints and become king!" – Zira to Simba.

So, why Zira mentions this only now, but not during/before banishing? And how Simba and others didn't see any cubs (or even newborn cubs) in Zira's pride and literally were okay with their banishing? I doubt that Simba is so cruel to banish innocent little cubs to die from hunger and thirst. 

I'm genuinely sure that Kovu (and even Nuka and Vitani) was born after Scar's death and after Zira's banishing. Zira just made up this story for gaining power. She didn't love Scar, he was just a manifestation of her desire to rule the Pridelands. Don't believe me? In the sequel Zira says this:

 "I now see the path to our glorious return to power!" – Zira to Kovu and her pride during My Lullaby song.

In the workprint Zira also says this: 

"[Scar is dead] because of Simba! If not for him, Scar would still be the king!" – Zira to Vitani.

Then she dreamily adds this to herself:

– "And I, Zira, his devoted queen!". That's it. Zira is angry toward Simba not 'cause of banishing or Scar's death, but 'cause Simba returned and deprived her of the opportunity to legitimately seize power, i.e. the possible chance to become queen. She wants power, Scar for her is just the manifestation of her desire, nothing more. I mean, she herself never claimed her right as a queen, she acts like a power-hungry conquer, she blames Simba, not the hyenas who ate Scar, and she is absolutely okay with fact that Scar killed his brother and tried to kill his nephew, since she mentions about Scar's inner darkness and is proud of this. She's a cunning psychopath, who admires another cunning psychopath.

Even in TLG her line "I and Scar were very close" is a blatant lie, 'cause Scar was resurrected as a volcano spirit and he NEVER mentioned Zira or "the hand-chosen heir"and NEVER visited them.

I was pretty adult, when I discovered the existence of Simba's Pride, so since the 1st watching I saw the cruel and power-hungry lioness, who pretends to be a devoted follower of the previous king, lies and manipulates, using her cubs and her pride as a weapon for conquering the kingdom. Seriously, even in My Lullaby song Zira sings NOT about her love for Scar and desire to avenge him and fulfill his wish or whatever, she sings exactly about her desire to use Kovu as a weapon for conquering the kingdom and to kill Simba and his family, before this song she says exactly about "glorious path to returning to power". Scar was only a manifestation of her desire for power. That's it. Nothing more.

I assume, Zira could be a "black widow" type of the character, i.e. she could ingratiate herself with the trust to kings, convincing them to make her a follower, an advisor or a queen, later kill these kings and get the power and rule, until a kingdom becomes devastated and destroyed, so she leaves this place and repeats this. Hence she could have cubs (with these kings or random rogues) and use them as a weapon and army well before Nuka, Kovu and Vitani, i.e. she didn't care about them, if they die. She was a wandering nobody from other lands and wanted to rise to power, prepared for this in Pridelands, but Simba returned and ruined her plans, she tried to claim her rights as a "loyal follower" with young Nuka and the group of convinced lone lionesses from other lands, but was banished and waited for battle and returning to power, using Kovu and Vitani. And, well, I would more quckly assume that Simba simply forbade them to be in Pridelands, so they simply can go away and find the new inviting lands, but Zira wanted exactly these lands. So her cubs and followers suffered.

[brokehorrorfan]

Night of the Demons will be released on 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray and Night of the Demons 2 and Night of the Demons 3 will be released on Blu-ray on October 3 via Scream Factory.

Shout Factory is offering an exclusive set with all three films with exclusive slipcovers by Joel Robinson, six posters, a prism sticker, a set of five enamel pins by Matthew Skiff (limited to 600), and a set of five lobby cards by Beyond Horror Design (limited to 500). Pictured below, it costs $199.99.

1988's Night of the Demons is directed by Kevin S. Tenney (Witchboard) and written by Joe Augustyn. Cathy Podewell, Amelia Kinkade, Linnea Quigley, Hal Havins, William Gallo, and Alvin Alexis star.

1994's Night of the Demons 2 is directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith (Leprechaun 3, Leprechaun 4: In Space) and written by Joe Augustyn. Amelia Kinkade, Merle Kennedy, Cristi Harris, Rick Peters, Jennifer Rhodes, and Christine Taylor star.

1997's Night of the Demons 3 is directed by Jim Kaufman and written by Kevin Tenney. Amelia Kinkade, Larry Day, Kristen Holden-Ried, Tara Slone, Gregory Calpakis, Patricia Rodriguez, and Stephanie Bauder star.

Night of the Demons has been newly restored from an earlier 4K scan of the unrated camera negative, presented with Dolby Vision HDR. Night of the Demons 2 has been newly transferred from the interpositive.

Workprints/alternate cuts of all three films are included. Special features are detailed below.

Night of the Demons 4K UHD special features:

Audio commentary by director Kevin S. Tenney, executive producer Walter Josten, and producer Jeff Geoffray

Audio commentary with director Kevin S. Tenney, actors Cathy Podewell, Billy Gallo, and Hal Havins, and special makeup effects creator Steve Johnson

Audio Commentary with director Kevin Tenney, actors Linnea Quigley and Phillip Tanzini and casting director Tedra Gabriel

Interview with writer/producer Joe Augustyn (new)

Interview with actress Jill Terashita (new)

Interview with special effects artist Nick Benson (new)

International cut (standard definition)

Night of the Demons Blu-ray special features:

Audio commentary by director Kevin S. Tenney, executive producer Walter Josten, and producer Jeff Geoffray

Audio commentary with director Kevin S. Tenney, actors Cathy Podewell, Billy Gallo, and Hal Havins, and special makeup effects creator Steve Johnson

Audio Commentary with director Kevin Tenney, actors Linnea Quigley and Phillip Tanzini and casting director Tedra Gabriel

Night of the Demons workprint (under the title The Halloween Party)

The Halloween Party alternate title card

You’re Invited: The Making of Night of the Demons - 2014 documentary with cast and crew

Interview with actress Amelia Kinkade

Interview with actress Allison Barron

Interview with actress Linnea Quigley

Alternate R-rated scenes

A Short Night of the Demons - 6-minute version of the film shown to potential distributors

Theatrical trailer

Video trailer

TV spots

Still galleries

Promo reel

Still galleries - Behind-the-scenes, special effects and makeup, stills, posters and storyboards

It’s Halloween night and Angela is throwing a party… but this is no ordinary Halloween party. Everybody’s headed to Hull House, a deserted funeral home, formerly the home of a mass murderer. But when the partygoers decide to have a séance, they awaken something evil - and these party crashers have a thirst for blood. Now it’s a battle to survive the night in Hull House.

Pre-order Night of the Demons.

Night of the Demons 2 special features:

Audio commentary by actors Cristi Harris, Jennifer Rose, Darin Heames, and Johnny Moran (new)

Audio commentary by director Brian Trenchard-Smith and director of photography David Lewis

Interview with directors Kevin S. Tenney and Brian Trenchard-Smith (new)

Interview with actor Amelia Kinkade (new)

Interview with actress Cristi Harris (new)

Interview with special effects artist Steve Johnson (new)

Interview with producer Jeff Geoffray (new)

Night of the Demons 2 workprint 

Dailies

Trailer

Behind-the-scenes gallery

It’s Halloween and the teenagers from St. Rita’s High School want to party at the neighborhood’s haunted house. For years, the Hull House has sat in eerie silence – tales of its haunted past have turned into gory jokes and no one really believes anything ever happened there. However, Angela (Amelia Kinkade), the hostess from hell, is summoning her army of teen demons to the blood-curdling contest between the school’s priests and herself, the princess of darkness.

Pre-order Night of the Demons 2.

Night of the Demons 3 special features:

Audio commentary by director Jimmy Kaufman

Audio commentary by writer Kevin S. Tenney and special effects artist Roy Knyrim (new)

Interview with director Jimmy Kaufman (new)

Interview with writer Kevin S. Tenney (new)

Interview with actress Amelia Kinkade (new)

Interview with producer Jeff Geoffray (new)

Night Of The Demons 3 director’s cut (workprint)

Night Of The Demons 3 TV cut

Behind-the-scenes footage

Alternate title sequence 

Dailies 

Trailers 

It’s Halloween! The gates of Hull House have creaked open once again and Angela (Amelia Kinkade) is waiting for her treats. When a group of rambunctious teens take refuge in the foreboding funeral home to escape the law, they soon realize their grave error.

Pre-order Night of the Demons 3.