Wrong, Wrong, WRONG!!! Nyuck, nyuck...Grrrr

[Anthro Girl]

Okay, totally OT (although I suspect O'Neill would not be happy):

Stooges Digitally Painted on DVD
By DAVID GERMAIN, AP Movie Writer

LOS ANGELES - The DVD era is resurrecting the great colorization debate of the 1980s, and at the heart of the matter are Curly, Larry and Moe.

Sony's Columbia TriStar home-video unit is releasing two Three Stooges DVDs that allow viewers to watch the original black-and-white or digitally colorized versions.

Purists consider it desecration, while Sony executives say the process can help introduce Hollywood classics to young audiences reluctant to watch anything in black and white.

Read full story here, which includes a screen shot.

Is this true? Young audiences won't watch black and white, so Hollywood has to exercise a little revisionist history? Arrrrrrrrrrrghhhhh... At least they are releasing the B&W, but that is just so...wrong!

[Mio]

Color = Better.

[Anthro Girl]

Color Stooges = WRONG
Mio = Evil Spawn

[Mio]

Color is good in all cases. We live in the 21st century. Not 1940.

[Ugly Pig]

Color = Better.

Not color that wasn't there originally. Modifying other people's artworks (yes... movies count as artwork) is inexcusable.

And that goes for any kind of modifying, be it colorization, censorship or [shudder] pan-n-scan.

[Mio]

Not color that wasn't there originally. Modifying other people's artworks (yes... movies count as artwork) is inexcusable.

And that goes for any kind of modifying, be it colorization, censorship or [shudder] pan-n-scan.

It's no different than running an old recording through an audio thingy to make it work on a 7.1 speaker setup.

[Daniel Jackson]

Whut's wrong with adding color? I'm sure the original producers would have liked to have the show in color if possible, so how is adding color bad? Black & White is fine with me, but if they add color, I see it as an improvement. Kind'a like how when a movie that's rushed into theaters gets a special edition.

[Anthro Girl]

It's no different than running an old recording through an audio thingy to make it work on a 7.1 speaker setup.

ERRRR <loud buzzing sound>. Try again, demon child.

Digitally remastering a recording generally cleans up the pops and skips, but old Robert Johnson recordings from the '30s or Elvis recordings from the '50s still sound like they should given the equipment with which they were made.

I'm all for cleaning up film prints (unless we're talking about George Lucas, but that's another thread), but colorizing is different. That's adding something that wasn't there before and was not intended to be.

[Mio]

Only because the technology didn't exist at the time.

[Anthro Girl]

Only because the technology didn't exist at the time.

<ahem> Okay...so how would you explain Schindler's List? Or Clerks? Nevermind that. We all know Kevin Smith was poor.

The Three Stooges made movies and shows from 1930 up until 1970. Only a handful of them were in color and of those, only ones since 1960. Color motion pictures have been commercially possible since the 1920s, although the real breakthrough was Technicolor in 1934. The first color television broadcast was in 1940, although the televisions to receive them didn't really appear in homes until the mid-50s. The technology did exist. They didn't use it. They chose and designed sets, wardrobes and makeup to accomodate the fact that they were shooting in high-contrast black and white. Maybe they did it because they couldn't afford color. Maybe they could afford color, but it ate into the profit margin. Nevertheless, that's what they turned in...black & white issues of the work for which they became famous. That's the way it should stay, IMO.

There is another side to this argument other than my own snobby artistic issues. The colorization of a film or television show has never been done by the original creators of the work. Because the copyrights on a lot of the early B&W stuff have expired, adding color to a previously B&W work allows the new owner to slap new copyrights on it and therefore make money from something that otherwise would not be a profit-making venture. Ta-dah! It's always about money, isn't it?

[Larry]

IF they're gonna add color, I sure hope things are better than when Ted Turner tried it. That was freaking awful. My favorite film of all time is Casablanca, and I'd never ever want to see it in color. It's perfect (or darn near perfect anyway) just the way it is.

[Anthro Girl]

You might enjoy this one:

TED TURNER TO MONOCHROMIZE FILMS

FYI, Ted Turner bought the rights to a whole bunch of films in the 80s and then started to colorize them. In addition to Casablanca, he did The Maltese Falcon and Yankee Doodle Dandy. Although he threatened to do it to Citizen Kane, that thankfully did not happen. Somebody, not Turner (I don't think), wanted to colorize George Romero's Night of the Living Dead! I don't think they did. I wouldn't know...I have the B&W version on DVD.

[Mio]

I just don't like Black and White. As I've said before, somewhere, probably, I love excellent visual effects, props, and sets. Color just goes with those

[Anthro Girl]

I just don't like Black and White.

Then don't watch it.

As I've said before, somewhere, probably, I love excellent visual effects, props, and sets. Color just goes with those

So do I, but that doesn't have anything to do with colorizing previously released B&W works.

[Larry]

Some things are just meant to be left alone. Radio's Amos and Andy is an example. A huge radio hit in pre-tv days. Once TV started, they tried to take it to TV, and it failed. Older films, espcially Noir films should remain as they were filmed.