d_osborn wrote: ↑December 22nd, 2022, 10:04 am ...and Calgary randomly has a test screening print of GB2.
Richard was talking like it was a special cut of the film sent special to Calgary, and he's right, that would make no sense. But that's not what I'm saying I saw.
Just to walk through it, I did not see a test screening, those are held close to LA (sometimes in far-flung cities, but in the States). I also didn't see a preview screening - I'm not even sure there was one for Ghostbusters 2, as they're usually reserved for movies where they want to create some word of mouth and a second Ghostbusters didn't need that. I guess it's not impossible a test screening print ended up in the wild, but we'd have to find out things like, do test prints go back to the lab or distribution where they might get mixed in with release prints? I'd imagine that test prints, just to avoid cockups, go to the studio, but that's just an assumption on my part.
What I saw was the first / early showing on opening Friday at Northhill Mall in Calgary.
That's it, right there, the one I went to. 16, drove myself and some friends, waited in line outside, saw movie.
Did I see a different print? Mandela Effect and conflated memories aren't impossible, but they're not the easy answer in this case - I didn't buy the novelization until years later, and the NOW comic didn't come out until months later. And honestly, I didn't read the novelization, just collected it, and what I remember visually bears no resemblance to what was in the NOW comics adaptation.
I don't recall seeing the Slimer ending, but as the first movie has a Slimer ending, it's easy to believe I may have saw it and in hindsight I think I'm thinking of the first movie. I don't remember differences in the montage, but again, would I remember small changes to a montage when I finally see the movie again on VHS? Probably not.
I also don't remember seeing Sherman outside the building, which is what eventually got published in a few places as stills - it might have been in the cut, but I don't remember it.
What I remember is just after the guys hustle down the hallway at the hospital, they head through a door - in the cut we have now, it jumps away from the hospital - and into another stretch of hallway that leads outside and it's here that they meet Sherman, Louis introduces him. That's it.
Could I be wrong? Yup. And I'm not too worried about it - I can't prove it either way. I can clarify that it's not as simple as I was a kid and I read the comic and that's how I came to "remember" it.
As for how Calgary got the print, Derek, you and I are on similar pages. My preferred theory is that as they wrestled with cuts right up to release, they had to meet a print deadline and sent in a cut, and a few prints were made - then another, final cut was sent in to replace the first, but physical prints being expensive, why waste the first ones that got made? The changes we're talking about are minor, and who will remember them once it goes to VHS?
I don't think Calgary was singled out - I doubt the prints of that cut were even city-wide. I think a few were made, that one cinema got one (an argument could be made that these early prints, however many there were, were specifically sent to non-major markets, like a theater in Calgary Alberta so they weren't showing in major markets where the big reviewers), and unless we eventually find evidence to clear up whether I'm misremembering, I got to see a cut with deleted footage.
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