Synopsis:

This a 28th Anniversary restoration and preservation of the extended version that was only available in LaserDisc.

Intentions:

In order to preserve and restore the extended cut of Ransom that was only available in LaserDisc.

Change List:

- For the extended scenes, I have used two transfers, and I have mixed them in order to get the best quality possible. - All the clips have went through several stages of processing in Hybrid (I had to install Parallels and Windows as I am a Mac user) including deinterlacing, decimating, chroma noise removal and dehaloing. After that, I have upscaled it with Topaz and cleaned in AE and then I applied grain again with Topaz and colour corrected with CinemaGrade in FCP. Cuts and Additions: 18 minutes and 13 seconds have been added to the Theatrical Cut of the movie. They were available only in Laserdisc so my main goal was to recreate and preserve the LD Extended Version of the movie. The new scenes add a lot more depth to the story and character development and they do not slow down the movie. Far from it: The movie is even more exciting now.

Additional Notes:

Maybe some of you are not aware, but when Ransom was released on Laserdisc in US and Japan, it contained 18 minutes of footage that has never been released on any format since then. The DVD and later the Blu-Ray of the 15th Anniversary did contain several deleted scenes, but they only ran for 3:53 minutes in SD and were cropped 4:3 and mainly are brief flashes of character, most devoted to Agent Hawkins and his efforts to endear himself to Tom and cool the demands of his superiors. According to the LD back cover, in order to keep the pace up, several scenes that solely focused on character and story development were removed from the Theatrical Cut. The Laserdisc Extended Cut is by far the better version of the movie, the re-integration of the new scenes add a lot more depth to the story and character development and they do not slow down the movie. The footage from the LD has been upscaled, cleaned and treated in order to get the best possible image quality. But, LD footage is never going to seamless integrate with Blu Ray footage so the expectations need be set here. All the extended footage of the US Laserdisc has been re-integrated in the Blu-Ray of the Theatrical Cut in order to preserve it and recreate the Extended release.

Other Sources:

Ransom - LaserDisc Extended Edition.

Special Thanks:

A very special thanks to Wraith and Phase3 for their valuable help. And also a very special thanks to bionicbob. He is always supporting all my projects.