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Does the estate even have Smooth Criminal master tape?

WiseGuy

WiseGuy

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Ive noticed out of all footage shown of Smooth Criminal short film. Warner Bros seems to be the only company who owns the highest quality. Is it possible the Estate only owns a Master VHS copy of this short film?


HIStory ON FILM Vol. 2 DVD
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VISION DVD
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THE ONE DVD
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MOONWALKER DVD
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MOONWALKER BLU RAY
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BAD 25 DOCUMENTARY DVD
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I wouldn't be surprised if they don't lol

Btw, I had forgotten how good the colors on the Moonwalker dvd are.
 
Probably not, they don't have a lot of things you would think they have.
 
The bluray really is a masterpiece. Except for the clips they cut. (drug scene etc)

Master VHS? If you want the highest of quality and something to release. VHS is not the medium you want.
 
smooth-criminals said:
The bluray really is a masterpiece. Except for the clips they cut. (drug scene etc)

Master VHS? If you want the highest of quality and something to release. VHS is not the medium you want.
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Well what I really meant was all the videos from estate seem to be from a VHS source or actually a BETA CAM. Notice everytime a production that shows Smooth Criminal is a bad quality copy. BAD 25 Documentary is a bad quality version of Smooth Criminal the BTS footage is HQ.
 
BAD 25 DOCUMENTARY BLU RAY
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MOONWALKER BLU RAY
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The BAD 25 DOCUMENTARY is obviously cropped from the 4:3 source tape
 
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barok232 said:
Wow, I never noticed the color gradings of the different versions before. Bluray is green??!!! Sh*t!
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Yeah, I don't know why but colour grading when remastering films has been really bad recently. The Star Wars blu ray set was graded all wrong.
 
I grew up in the black and white era. I honestly don't care what colours the various versions have.
I'm only ever looking at Michael, any way.
 
SmoothGangsta said:
They don't have a lot of his unreleased material and are happy to let it sit in the hands of others so this wouldn't really be any different.
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That's not something any of us can say, with 100% accuracy, surely? The Estate Execs need to know what there is and where it is, in order to acquire it and unfortunately Michael was not good at keeping track of it with any real consistency (he said that himself).
 
barok232;4232342 said:
Wow, I never noticed the color gradings of the different versions before. Bluray is green??!!! Sh*t!
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I’d argue the DVD is far too on the blue scale in that screenshot.
 
Mikky Dee said:
That's not something any of us can say, with 100% accuracy, surely? The Estate Execs need to know what there is and where it is, in order to acquire it and unfortunately Michael was not good at keeping track of it with any real consistency (he said that himself).
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It's been reported before that they have asked people for songs and then not taken them because they wanted to remix them or not have them at all.
 
barok232;4232356 said:
Of course you would argue :p
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The fact I’m seen as constantly complaining instead of someone who is actually sticking up for Michael’s artistic creations is baffling to me.
 
We constantly have these convos about what the estate has and doesnt have.. what we know is we dont know..

We have no idea how good material was taken care of through Michael's life. There was a long period Michael did not trust pretty much anyone.. during those years who knows what he did or did not do with his material. We cant just assume everything Michael has done and recorded was handled by the people in the estate.. Michael was very hands on in ways and hands off in ways. That said it leaves alot to the imagination.
 
Hulkamaniac said:
I wouldn't be surprised if they don't lol

Btw, I had forgotten how good the colors on the Moonwalker dvd are.
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Even the unofficial DVD I got that one Christmas, the colour was pretty crisp.
 
Mikky Dee said:
That's not something any of us can say, with 100% accuracy, surely? The Estate Execs need to know what there is and where it is, in order to acquire it and unfortunately Michael was not good at keeping track of it with any real consistency (he said that himself).
Click to expand...

When did he say this and in what context?

Thanks!



 
I think - and hope - that the original film for Smooth Criminal exists so it can be converted into 4K.

BUT - since Moonwalker is on Blu-Ray I guess they must have it right?
 
I don't think Vision is an indicator of anything. That was one of the worst, sloppiest releases under MJs name. The Estate really had a terrible start project wise.

The fact they used LQ footage in Bad 25 is more worrying as that looked like it actually had some thought go into it.
 
I wish they would be more open about their intentions or plans. They could do so much more to enrich their status. They own multiple domain names, including mjonline.com. If they just made a website dedicated to their intentions, who they are, their achievements thus far etc.

Even release a database/catalogue of what stuff they have. I can't see it ever being done, but one can dream.
 
Hess said:
I think - and hope - that the original film for Smooth Criminal exists so it can be converted into 4K.

BUT - since Moonwalker is on Blu-Ray I guess they must have it right?
Click to expand...

It is likely that they already scanned it in 4K when they made Moonwalker Blu-ray. Warner could have the original film and not Estate.
 
SmoothGangsta said:
They don't have a lot of his unreleased material and are happy to let it sit in the hands of others so this wouldn't really be any different.
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I don't think it's totally fair to say that they're "happy" about this. Some people just aren't willing to hand anything over (master tapes, unreleased material, song multitracks) to the current administration and, as far as I know, there's no way for the estate to legally force them to do so.

SmoothGangsta said:
It's been reported before that they have asked people for songs and then not taken them because they wanted to remix them or not have them at all.
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I'm almost positive this isn't true. Even if the estate isn't given the permission to release a song (as with "Chicago" on Michael), they still request the master tapes if they don't already have them.

The only occasion I can think of that would fall in line with this idealism was when L.A. Reid wanted to use "Chicago 1945" on Xscape, which Steve Porcaro declined because he didn't want it remixed.
 
Hess said:
I think - and hope - that the original film for Smooth Criminal exists so it can be converted into 4K.

BUT - since Moonwalker is on Blu-Ray I guess they must have it right?
Click to expand...

I would guess they have the original 35mm film. I want to email them to ever ask if a official U.S. release is ever going to happen.
 
Fans should realize that the Estate does not focus on releasing previously unreleased MJ’s songs.

Not because there are allegedly not many unreleased songs in the vault, but because such a strategy is not much profitable for the Estate from a business angle.

Remember that John Branca is a businessman, John McClain is a businessman, too.

So, they will continue to mainly release previously released songs (coupled with several unreleased ones, every now & then) in order for the Estate to maintain business longevity.

Also, it is a fact that MJ himself was not really organized in keeping track of his own audio, unreleased material during his career (as confirmed also by some of his close collaborators).

But, again, this does not necessarily mean that there are only very few remaining unreleased songs in the vault.

One clear example is that there are over 60 unheard songs, most of them nearly completed, from the BAD era alone (Spike Lee confirmed that, as well).
 
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