Is there a Midnight Castle DVD?

[MJNSEIFER]

Does anyone know if there is a DVD of "Rescue From Midnight Castle" in its entirety? Even if (and especially) if that is the only episode on the DVD?

I have the DVD that shows all episodes of G1, and I love it, but it shows the edited version of RFMC, which is very disappointing to me, as that is my favorite G1 episode, and it looks very butchered as the edited version, in my opinion (they even cut out the most adorable G1 scene ever, in my opinion. ^_^)

So yeah, is there a separate DVD that shows the full version?

[achab1984]

That is a very good question. I did some looking around and had no luck.

[Ponyfan]

All the official DVD releases have the edited MLP and Friends version.    I think the only way to get a DVD of the uncut version is to burn one from a VHS copy or buy one from someone that did that.  I've always felt like Hasbro must have either lost or destroyed the original version since it hasn't been seen since the Firefly's Adventure VHS release. My favorite song from the special was "A Little Piece of Rainbow" and I was always disappointed when it was cut when it shown on Disney Channel. 

There's also scenes missing from the last Jem DVD release but according to Shout Factory, Hasbro gave them all of the available masters.  So something must have happened to them too. 


Ponyfan

[Taffeta]

Either my sister or I have a vhs with RaMC on it, but I don't know whether it's the version with or without that song. The UK VHS had a later release so the chances are it is cut.

What scenes are missing from the Jem DVDs? The only place I can think where scenes might have walked are the original first five episodes, which were extended from Truly Outrageous - but I thought they'd had an official release...?

[Carrehz]

There's several DVD releases, but none of them are uncut, sadly. Only VHS releases have the uncut specials.

(I've been working, on and off, on a list of which releases have which specials, what's cut, etc... because there are actually a few different versions out there... but it's slow going since it turned out to be a bigger project than I was anticipating. I really need to get back to that sometime...)

[lovesbabysquirmy]

oooooo guess what I randomly found in my CD folder that I never go into usually..

some fan-burned copy of RAMC as well as Escape from Katrina

i have to find a DVD drive in my house somewhere LOL

[Ponyfan]

Either my sister or I have a vhs with RaMC on it, but I don't know whether it's the version with or without that song. The UK VHS had a later release so the chances are it is cut.

What scenes are missing from the Jem DVDs? The only place I can think where scenes might have walked are the original first five episodes, which were extended from Truly Outrageous - but I thought they'd had an official release...?

I'm not an expert on the different versions of Jem, but when Rhino released their version, the first five episodes had longer scenes and songs.  When Shout Factory released their set, the songs were shorter.  I know that one scene that was longer in Rhino's version was when the car is about to go over the cliff and Jerrica says "Synergy, we need your help."  In Rhino's version this scene continues with Jerrica asking Synergy if she can produce a hologram of Jem that talks to which Synergy replies that she can.

I think Shout Factory's version also uses the earlier version of the five part series as there are animation errors that were fixed later on. In one scene Jerrica has Jem's hair instead of her own and the concerned neighbors that show up after the house burns down look like they are standing in the debris instead of beside it.  

Basically, when Shout Factory released their version of Jem, there was a lot of complaints that they used the "wrong" masters because they didn't match the ones that Rhino used for the first five episodes.  Rhino's set wasn't perfect (Pizzaz' hair color was wrong) but I guess since that's the version a lot of people saw first, they were disappointed when Shout Factory didn't match even though SF was able to get all of the episodes released.  After so many complaints the CEO of Shout Factory stepped in saying those were the only masters that Hasbro had that weren't the short Super Sunday/Saturday episodes.



Ponyfan

[Carrehz]

Oh, I remember hearing about the Pizzazz hair thing.

IIRC one of the Transformers DVD releases used earlier masters that were missing a lot of retakes (corrected animation) too?

The only differences between releases for MLP, that I know of, are:
- RaMC and Catrina have songs cut
- there's multiple versions of the title cards for both specials. One release is missing the opening for Catrina.
- one release (I think Australian, I'm going off memory here - I don't have time right now to dig out all my notes about this! ) has the original recaps and "To Be Continued" cards intact, all other releases cut them out
- Shout Factory's release of Catrina has an odd animation glitch in "Dressed Like A Dream" where a couple of seconds of animation is repeated

(and of course Glass Princess has the "Hurry" song missing, but as far as I know that never made it to a home video release)

I'm not sure if any of the VHS releases of RaMC were cut or not. I know the "MLP in Dreamland" PAL tape is definitely uncut but not sure if there were any later releases over here.

[Taffeta]

Whether they are still playable is anyone's guess, but we did used to have all the vhs released in the UK between us, thanks to carboots. MLP in Dreamland sounds familiar but...no idea where they all are now. Somewhere in the house...LOL

As for Jem, I am not 100% sure which official release I have LOL. I know that I also have versions of those original episodes which were taped off UK Gold in the mid-1990s. Have never compared them though.

There are quite a few glitches and issues in Jem animation generally, as well as some odd odd soundtrack issues on some of the UK release VHS. But I also know that versions of some of the songs - studio versions? - exist with different lyric sections and stuff. All very mysterious.

Not to go off topic completely, but the script I have for the Britrock episode suggests that the song Queen of Rock & Roll was meant to be reprised later in the episode but it never was, I guess due to time constraints. Although there are some major edits between the scripts and the final episodes, I've always wondered if there ever was a version of Britrock with this third song included or if it was scrapped well ahead of animation...

I could say more about the first 5 eps but this is a pony thread so I will stop there I just don't think in general records of animation were kept as religiously as we maybe would like them to be now that digital preservation and release is such a thing.

[Ponyfan]

The only differences between releases for MLP, that I know of, are:
- RaMC and Catrina have songs cut
- there's multiple versions of the title cards for both specials. One release is missing the opening for Catrina.
- one release (I think Australian, I'm going off memory here - I don't have time right now to dig out all my notes about this! ) has the original recaps and "To Be Continued" cards intact, all other releases cut them out
- Shout Factory's release of Catrina has an odd animation glitch in "Dressed Like A Dream" where a couple of seconds of animation is repeated

(and of course Glass Princess has the "Hurry" song missing, but as far as I know that never made it to a home video release)

I'm not sure if any of the VHS releases of RaMC were cut or not. I know the "MLP in Dreamland" PAL tape is definitely uncut but not sure if there were any later releases over here.

I think the two part version of RaMC also cuts a few seconds off of Glory licking the smashed apples off of Applejack's face. I haven' seen either version for a while but I think it's shorter in the cut version. 

I just don't think in general records of animation were kept as religiously as we maybe would like them to be now that digital preservation and release is such a thing.

I agree.  I can just see someone at Hasbro/Sunbow not realizing that some masters were different than others or thinking "Why do we still need these things?"

Ponyfan

[Carrehz]

Yeah I was counting the AJ/Glory thing as part of the cut songs, since it's part of the opening theme.

I honestly don't think Hasbro, etc realize there ARE multiple versions of the MLP cartoons. Thing is with the Transformers DVDs, TF fans are very dedicated and half of them are running the asylum by now x) It's not really the same with us MLP fans.

[MJNSEIFER]

Thank you to all who answered.

It looks like there isn't a full DVD version (at this point?), which is shame - I love that I have all the episodes together, but it's a shame that my favorite is edited. I'm still pleased to have it, but it does feel incomplete, I have to say (not only is it missing Applejack and Glory's adorable moment, but edit surrounding it is so jarringly sudden, that it's glaringly obvious that the episode was edited - like it jumps so suddenly to the next scene, it just looks wrong in my opinion - though that may be because I know that something's missing.)

I know the "MLP in Dreamland" PAL tape is definitely uncut but not sure if there were any later releases over here.

At least I have the knowledge that this exists, so thanks for this. I know it's VHS (at least that's what it sounds like it is), but it's something - maybe if I see this I'll get it. 

[Taffeta]

A PAL VHS probably won't play on a NTSC (US) machine. I remember that we used to be able to play US vhs on UK players but it wasn't possible the other way around. So you might need to think of a way of extracting the data before trying to obtain the tape

I tried to put some of the commercials Kim Shriner taped for me onto vhs onto my PC back in the early 2000s as well, but they would only come up in black and white, again because of that NTSC/PAL incompatability. I never did manage to do anything with them - fortunately most are now on YT.

[MJNSEIFER]

I'm from the UK (and live there) so I think my VHS is PAL/Region 2 or whatever, so I should be fine. Thanks for the heads up though. 

Somethingly, I actually had to get a region free DVD player in order to play the G1 DVD, as it was American.

[aria_elwen]

I can't help on a true dvd unfortunately (since it's not been released uncut 😞) but archive.org once again proves it's worth with: https://archive.org/details/mlp-rescue-at-midnight-castle
It's the PAL children's library release and I believe unedited. (it was the version I had as a kid).
You can also download it from the site for a digital copy.

Edit: the same uploader has also put Escape from Catrina on the site as well. https://archive.org/details/mlp-escape-from-catrina from the looks of it (and from what I can remember) it's from the same tape.