Synopsis:

An ongoing project that seeks to remaster classic episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 using the best available HD film sources in their original aspect ratio.

Intentions:

My goal is to give these classic episodes new life with a true HD remaster – not simply an upscale or playing the riffs over the HD movie. At the same time, I want to hold on to every element that made these classic episodes so great, so not a word of dialogue has been removed.

Change List:

Rotoscoped the final countdown door so that it opens/closes on the new, expanded HD theater. 00:00 – Updated “Turn Down Your Lights” logo 6:10 – Replaced the Film Ventures International credits with recreated Walter Reede titles (done by youtuber SpaceHunterM?). This is probably the biggest change from the original episode. Since the theater sits empty for 45 seconds while the FVI credits run, I felt the Walter Reede titles were a much quicker and more suitable way to get the show going. 6:18 – Animated a bit more of Joel and the bots walking into the theater to account for the extended theater seats. 27:39 – Red curtains open on the theater as Joel and the bots return. This was done to account for the extended seats, and to avoid more time-consuming animation. 47:57 – Red curtains close as Joel and the bots leave. 1:18:20 – Red curtains close as Joel and the bots enter. 1:29:47 – For whatever reason, the moment the nuclear plant self destructs the screen flashes a solid lime green. I replaced this with what I felt was a more fitting orange gradiant to match the explosion. Cleaned up the silhouettes whenever the MST3K Info Club address showed up. Not sure when exactly that was. 1:36:33 – Recreated the Best Brains logo with HD movie footage.

Additional Notes:

The film is sourced from the Criterion Collection Godzilla box set. I intentionally built the edit in 2.35:1 so that the image expands when we move from SD TV show and enter the new HD theater. This comes from some of my favorite local theaters which show previews in 1.85:1 before expanding for the main feature (assuming it's in cinemascope). The song 'Dance Yrself Clean' by LCD Soundsystem also served as inspiration for this, A light gamma tweak was applied to the movie so that Joel + the bots are always the blackest element onscreen (even if it’s just barely perceptible at times) while trying to maintain the integrity of the Criterion transfer. Silhouettes and host segments were deinterlaced and upscaled by Riffling. Some light saturation and contrast boosting was applied to the host segments.

Other Sources:

Godzilla versus The Sea Monster - Recreated Walter Reade-Sterling Title Card by SpaceHunterM? (youtube) Curtains closing by Jurassic Films (youtube) Green Screen curtains opening by Yuriy Tsymbaliuk (youtube).

Special Thanks:

Thank you to INIGHTMARES who showed an interest in this edit and provided feedback, Riffling for the upscaling the footage, and ArtIsDead for producing the cover art.