24 episodes in 30 months is a pretty encouraging pace, even if some were already intact. Hopefully there are more to be found.
Wiped Episode Discoveries
- Thread starter Allyn Gibson
- Start date
Seems we've been averaging 50% missing from the recoveries then, which is a useful bit of info to bear in mind. Better than I'd have expected; I'd have guessed that finds would be more biased to the better selling stories, and hence to those already recovered.
As for Web of Fear 3, there's a widespread rumour that it was found with the rest, but the film is damaged, so it won't be announced unless it can be salvaged.
In the DWM feature on Web/Enemy, the restorers certainly mentioned that some of the film cans for the other episodes had been dribbled on by a leak and damaged, but fortunately the corrosion hadn't eaten through to the actual films themselves (yet; a few more years and, goodnight vienna!). The rumour is that Web 3 was there, but it had been more badly damaged, to the extent that the film may not be salvagable (in the same piece, Philip Morris does say that he's not given up hope of finding part 3, which could be a coded hint; equally, he could mean that he has a lead on another film store at PBTV, in which case they might have Abominable Snowmen and Wheel in Space as well). Whether there's any substance to this, or if it's just people putting two and two together to get a hopeful five I don't know; I've not heard anything direct from anyone near the horse's mouth on that.
As for Web of Fear 3, there's a widespread rumour that it was found with the rest, but the film is damaged, so it won't be announced unless it can be salvaged.
In the DWM feature on Web/Enemy, the restorers certainly mentioned that some of the film cans for the other episodes had been dribbled on by a leak and damaged, but fortunately the corrosion hadn't eaten through to the actual films themselves (yet; a few more years and, goodnight vienna!). The rumour is that Web 3 was there, but it had been more badly damaged, to the extent that the film may not be salvagable (in the same piece, Philip Morris does say that he's not given up hope of finding part 3, which could be a coded hint; equally, he could mean that he has a lead on another film store at PBTV, in which case they might have Abominable Snowmen and Wheel in Space as well). Whether there's any substance to this, or if it's just people putting two and two together to get a hopeful five I don't know; I've not heard anything direct from anyone near the horse's mouth on that.
Indeed, have just picked up that it was one reference in the documentary.
Paul Vanezis has responded to the claims in the BFI documentary, in the process offering some sad news for Morecambe and Wise fans. He's requested that the post not be reproduced, so I won't quote, but it's publicly viewable here. Obviously with any Vanezis statement you want to be looking for careful wording, but food for thought nonetheless.
Okay, the gist of it seems to be that Morris is still cataloguing finds and thus hasn't fully identified everything in his possession or determined its recoverability yet. So the lack of information given to the public might simply be a result of Morris's own people not having the full information yet. Sounds reasonable. So there could be new finds yet to come, or not.
It's more likely that they aren't ready for sale yet, they've been found for the better part of a year according to rumors, but it still takes a while to remaster them.
Well, that's what's we're discussing: whether the rumors have that right. It's also been a big part of the rumors that Phil Morris shipped thousands of film cans at once, that a lot more material is already in the possession of the BBC, that "Marco Polo" is being or has been restored, etc, and people have denied all three in the kind of absolute language they didn't use about Enemy and Web. At this point I'm out of the business of claiming anything with real confidence, but I'm increasingly inclined to agree with Rarewolf that whatever else Morris may have found, it hasn't made its way back to the BBC (or, for ITV material, the BFI) yet.
Marco Polo and The Moonbase have DVD release dates and I don't see any reason why he'd hold back most of his discoveries.
As Allyn says, there's no DVD release date for Marco Polo, and The Moonbase, despite rumors to the contrary last year, has the missing episodes animated.
I don't know if he is holding anything back, but it's not hard to believe he might be doing so, whether or not his reasoning for doing so is obvious to you and me.
That's a little harsh. We're talking about canisters of film that have been lost for decades, perhaps because they were mislabeled or unlabeled, or because the labels have eroded away. And the film itself is often in such fragile condition that you couldn't just open up the can and pop it onto a projector; it needs to be carefully, meticulously inspected. It's like an archaeological expedition. It could plausibly take a long time for Morris's company even to figure out what they have and whether it's complete or recoverable at all. And that's nobody's "fault" -- on the contrary, with materials this fragile, it would be criminally reckless to rush the process.
Well Marco Polo did have one but I cna't find it now and The Moonbase is set to be released in region one on Feb. 11, I hadn't heard about the animated eps. though.
Unvarnished is how I'd describe it. After this amount of time, he knows what he has. He should have a rough idea of the condition of each by now as well. They may not have had time to pop them all in a projector, but they'll have made a visual assessment by now.
Mr Awe
^So I assume you're a film restoration expert, and thus qualified to judge the difficulties that a professional in the field would face? I'm just an outside observer myself, but I can think of a number of things that would make it more complicated. The sheer volume of material they may have to search through and catalogue could be a factor, if they have gotten a lot of things beyond Doctor Who. The film in many cases may be too fragile to unroll by hand, or faded enough that visual inspection would give unclear results; it may take delicate computer scanning and enhancement to confirm a find, depending on the level of deterioration. And even once they know they have something, they'd need to do more work to assess how complete and recoverable it is, which might require a frame-by-frame examination, which could take weeks for a single serial. It would be irresponsible of them to announce anything before they've had time to make a full assessment of their findings.
While I do agree with you for the most part, I have to think the films or tapes are pretty good shape to begin with since the first nine recovered eps. took a very short time relatively speaking to be remastered.
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