I've almost completed the project... I've only hit one or two minor snags.
- I need clean versions of the Kintoun sound effects to cover up an audio edit near the end, since the movie cuts off somewhat abruptly in the VHS cap. I've had no luck searching these out.
- I'm curious if there's a higher quality version of the Harmony Gold intro theme than the RM on Temple of Trunks? I used it to restore the missing bit of the song, but the quality is so much lower on the rm that it's slightly noticeable.
Here's a clip of my progress: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeOnRAPjuPM
(Just as a general note, I will not be linking more than clips in the thread.)
For those curious, here's a repost of the complete list of edits:
I'm surprised that the video the kind person with the VHS uploaded worked out and matched up so well, since it only runs at 14fps.
Anyway, that's not the subject of this post. As I did my edit, I wrote down notes to help me keep track of everything I did. It turned out to be a good edit list, so I thought it would be a good thing to share with the community (and it was actually the whole reason I signed up here!) Nothing here is too surprising, and, really, I wonder if everything matches up exactly to the original Funimation Blood Rubies dub? If I were tasked with having to edit this for TV and time, I probably would've made (most) of these same edits. Even still, some of them are a tiny bit bizarre. So let's get started!
The first edit, and I'm not sure if this is an actual edit, but the opening narration is completely gone. I think it's likely that this is cut, since right after Mysterious Adventure plays, they have narration in the dub. So for timing sake, all of the timecodes for these edits begin right at the beginning of Mysterious Adventure.
Mysterious Adventure is some odd conglomeration of scenes. Some scenes are from Devil's Castle, I think? It's also textless, and HG has overlayed a Robotechesque font with the production credits over it. If someone can help me identify exactly what they did here, that would be awesome. As it stands, my cut just uses the actual Japanese intro.
The first confirmed cut in the is 8 minutes, 8 seconds in. Bulma pulls a gun and starts firing on Goku. Goku's shot in the head a bunch of times (and he shakes it off like the little tank he is), and it's quite easy to see why this was edited out of the broadcast. A young teenage girl using a gun? Yeah right.
The second cut is 19 minutes and 59 seconds in. Yamucha encroaches on Goku's personal space and kicks him in the face. 2 or 3 frames of a goofy looking spit-take are cut out (I wonder why? Is this cut from Funimation's first Blood Rubies dub?), followed by slow-mo of Goku's face flying through the air, and then Yamucha clawing at Goku's face. This goes on quite a bit -- somewhat gratuitously in fact -- before he Hadouken-shoves Goku so hard he flies through the air and into a wall. The Harmony Gold edit cuts back in when Goku smashes into a wall, so it looks like Yamucha just swiftly kicks Goku and he goes flying through the air. It's actually pretty seamless, frankly.
The third edit is mere moments later at 20 minutes 10 seconds. Goku gets back up from being smashed into a wall, and uses the Rock Paper Scissor technique on Yamucha, quite brutally poking him in the eyes and dispensing with him. The Harmony Gold edit picks back up where Bulma comes in and uses her even more impressive cootie technique to scare off Yamucha.
The next edit is 28 minutes and 48 seconds in, and it's easy to see this one coming. Bulma has Oolong disguise himself as her so that she doesn't have to show Roshi her bazongas. This backfires in so much that Oolong gets a little too into it. In the Harmony Gold cut, it cuts to Gurumez's men scoping out the situation from afar. In case you were wondering, before Gurumez's goons intervene, in the Harmony Gold dialogue all Roshi asks for is a kiss and not a boobie show.
At 31:50 minutes in, some slow and thoughtful scenes are cut, with scenes of Goku flying around on the Kintoun and Oolong complaining to Bulma while they fly off from Roshi's island. While there's obviously some pausing on the VHS, I'm pretty sure this was just a commercial break, mainly because it fades up during a scene where a seagull is flying in whereas in the original it fades through Master Roshi talking into the same scene with the seagull. (Some frames of the seagull sequence are cut-out due to this.) My only guess as to why this was cut was mainly timing or them figuring kids wouldn't dig the slow scenes since there's really nothing offensive there.
At 32:34 more of Oolong's complaining inside of Bulma's aircraft is cut out; this time he's insulting Bulma's motives for getting the Dragonballs and she's not very amused by him claiming she's only in it for herself and that she'll run off as soon as she gets them. He then asks why she's searching for the Dragonballs, and when she says it's for a boy-toy we cut to a long shot of the plane shaking with Oolong angrily calling Bulma a lamester mcstupidface. Instead of Oolong's eloquence, we cut directly to Gurumez berating his soldiers. I really have no idea why this was cut out. If it wasn't for time, it must've been too-slow a scene for kids.
At 33:56, just after Goku is attacked by Main Baddy #1, scenes of Gurumez's men firing gratuitously at Bulma's airship and they narrowly evade getting shot down are snipped away. They had no problems showing the bullets before, so my guess is this is either a timing thing, or they just weren't comfortable showing this /amount/ of bullets. I'd say timing, if only because at this time in American cartoons (in HG's Robotech, natch), they weren't too worried about showing bullets hitting and destroying inanimate objects, and in fact the scene where the plane is shot down does remain! It just looks like Bulma's plane goes down really easily in the Harmony Gold version, making Capsule Corp.'s equipment seem less reliable to 1980s America's Test Audiences! Such misrepresentation... I wonder if Dr. Briefs would have a good lawsuit against HG due to damaging the image of his fine Capsule Corp. products somewhere in this edit?
At 34:22 there's a rather severe edit to Goku's battle with Henchman #1, though it's easy to see why; The Henchman -- specifically an adult henchman -- takes Goku's face and runs it through a the outside of Gurumez's castle while flying through the air, the remains of bricks flying through the air in their wake. It's quite obvious why they cut this out, especially since they don't establish that Goku's a tough cookie and bullets don't even harm him. You can just imagine the Harmony Gold lawyers thinking 'Kids might try to imitate this and we're reasonably sure their faces won't break the siding off of really old castles.'
A few seconds later, it's way okay for kids to throw adults through the sides of really old castles though, as we see Henchman #1 fall off his hover-thing due to Goku's due diligence!
35 minutes in; Not an edit. Yamucha storming the castle and smashing one of Gurumez's soldiers in the face so hard that it damages the guys teeth. Wow.
35:57; There's a small cut where bullets richocheting repeatedly off of Yamucha's stomache and do absolutely no harm while he sort of freaks out comically. It actually makes the whole scene seem more brutal with the edit; the since the scene plays out with the main henchwoman running up, pulling out a sub machinegun, the gun firing gratuitously, Yamucha getting shot as we cut to a profile shot of him getting blown back into a wall as Bulma and crew run away in terror as Yamucha's body unceremoniously slides down the wall and slumps to the ground is all intact. Maybe that was the point of the edit? To make bullets seem more dangerous? To be honest, speaking from strictly an editor's standpoint, the Harmony Gold cut flows better in this instance.
36:15 Showing Yamucha's shirt with bulletholes through it was a-okay, but during his battle with Henchwoman #1 it's not okay to show him accidentally grabbing her boob and her becoming startled. In the Harmony Gold version, Yamucha is, instead, a hair fetishist we find out. It's not accidentally grabbing mammaries that makes him go numb, no no no no, but merely seeing Henchwoman #1's luxurious flowing hair.
It's either cutely naive, or in a sort of weird and creepy 'I've got a folder on my hard drive named hair, and in it, there are subfolders labeled by color and length' kind of way. I guess we're lucky it wasn't feet?
The funnier thing about this is that in the Harmony Gold version, this scene is immediately followed by Henchwoman #1 going ballistic and throwing grenades at Yamucha repeatedly because he.. GASP ... saw her hair!
Jumping to 39:54, a scene of the Pre-Z-Fighters and Penny looking up at Shen-Long in amazement is cut, as-is some footage of the dragon. Likely for time!
And then at 40:03, a slow panning shot of Penny remembering the hardships the blood rubies have caused her and her village is cut out. Either likely for time or for it being too-slow paced for children.
40:54, a short scene of Penny thanking Shen-Long for his help is cut out. Ungrateful little demonspawn!
The capture we have cuts off at about 42:08... I wouldn't doubt that it actually ends here and cuts to credits. What follows is a scene of people waving to Goku as he flies off, and we segue into I'll Give You Romance. (I'll romance you!!!) The HG ending -- if it's the same as the second movie -- is a still card of Goku in his orange gi on Kintoun over clouds with Mysterious Adventure playing. What is this from? One of the later openings I think? It was used as a VHS cover at one point I believe...
And there you have it.
I'm not sure, but I think maybe the Funimation dub does as well. When I get a chance I'm going to compare the edits to both of the films.
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