Comments on Street Hawk Pilot from LaserDisk

[pentastar]

I just got my DVD copy of the Street Hawk pilot from Scott. It came from the LaserDisk copy that included the original version of the pilot (Blue particle beam, extended scenes, special effects jumps). It was definately worth the $10.00!

After seeing this version of the episode on DVD, I have a few thoughts:

- Though it would never pass for High-Definition, the LaserDisk copy of this episode is clean and clear, and much improved from the original VHS copy I had.

- It's interesting to see what got cut in order to get the US aired version down to 60 minutes. A lot of it was just trimming; taking out the first and last few minutes from each scene. Only 2 complete scenes were removed, and they were relatively minor. From what I recall, the following scenes and moments were cut:

• The opening shot at the dune was trimmed a little, as well as the shot of Marty driving off on his dirt bike.
• When Jesse walks out of the grocery store and watches the pair of police bikes drive by, as he's staring off into space a car almost runs him over, honks and yells at him. Startled, Jesse drops the groceries, and then glares at the driver while he limps off to his Mustang. (This explains why he didn't have any groceries to take out of the car when Norman meets him in the parking garage).
• The end of the scene where Jesse first comes to Bernie to ask him to run a chemical analysis of the paint flakes was cut, and included Bernie's response to Jesse's comment, "I owe you one," to which Bernie replied, "Everyone owes me one; if you all paid up, I could retire!"
• The first scene that was completely cut involved Jesse going to a Japanese restaurant for lunch. He spots Jayne Modean's character (sorry, don't remember her name) and sits down. She came to the restaurant expecting to see him because she wanted to get to know him a little better. Time passes and we see Jesse and her laughing at a story about a cross-dressing stripper that Jesse had hired to prank Commander Altobelli.
• The second cut scene followed the first, and involved a big meeting with the police board. After the meeting, Commander Altobelli yells at Jesse for not telling him that someone tried to kill him. As he's yelling, Comissioner Gordon overhears the conversation and realizes that Corrido had gone against his wishes and attempted to take Jesse's life.
• At the end of the scene when Jesse shows up at the lab to hear Bernie's results, the last part of the scene was cut which revealed that the beaker of yellow fluid under the bunson burner was actually soup that Bernie was warming up, which he walks up to, takes a sip, and says, "Needs more salt."

- I much preferred the blue particle beam over the red one we got during the series. It just makes more sense, especially Norman's comment that, "At the lowest setting, it can stun a suspect."

- The special effects used for the jump at the convenience store and for the chase through the city were very poorly overlaid. I'm glad they redid them both.

- Seeing this episode again, I'm impressed with the job that Richard Venture did in his role. Commander Altobelli is a tough, yet likable and concerned boss. He doesn't come off as the stereotypical police commander.

Thanks, Scott, for the copy of this episode on DVD, it was great!

[spyhunter2k]

I've messaged Scott and hope to get one myself soon. I'd love to have the pilot (sooner or later) in every version it was released in.

As soon as I get mine from Scott, I'll add some comments. Thanks for the insights so far. It will be great to see those deleted scenes for the first time. I think the conversion I sent away for will also be ready in the next couple weeks or, so when taking screen grabs I'll have several hi-res versions to choose from, which will be nice.

[pentastar]

The "swear filter" cut out "s-p-o-o-n" because it has the word "p-o-o" in it!?!?! That's ridiculous!

I can say "crap", but not "p-o-o"?

[scott]

I just got my DVD copy of the Street Hawk pilot from Scott. It came from the LaserDisk copy that included the original version of the pilot (Blue particle beam, extended scenes, special effects jumps). It was definately worth the $10.00!

After seeing this version of the episode on DVD, I have a few thoughts:

- Though it would never pass for High-Definition, the LaserDisk copy of this episode is clean and clear, and much improved from the original VHS copy I had.

- It's interesting to see what got cut in order to get the US aired version down to 60 minutes. A lot of it was just trimming; taking out the first and last few minutes from each scene. Only 2 complete scenes were removed, and they were relatively minor. From what I recall, the following scenes and moments were cut:

• The opening shot at the dune was trimmed a little, as well as the shot of Marty driving off on his dirt bike.
• When Jesse walks out of the grocery store and watches the pair of police bikes drive by, as he's staring off into space a car almost runs him over, honks and yells at him. Startled, Jesse drops the groceries, and then glares at the driver while he limps off to his Mustang. (This explains why he didn't have any groceries to take out of the car when Norman meets him in the parking garage).
• The end of the scene where Jesse first comes to Bernie to ask him to run a chemical analysis of the paint flakes was cut, and included Bernie's response to Jesse's comment, "I owe you one," to which Bernie replied, "Everyone owes me one; if you all paid up, I could retire!"
• The first scene that was completely cut involved Jesse going to a Japanese restaurant for lunch. He spots Jayne Modean's character (sorry, don't remember her name) and sits down. She came to the restaurant expecting to see him because she wanted to get to know him a little better. Time passes and we see Jesse and her laughing at a story about a cross-dressing stripper that Jesse had hired to prank Commander Altobelli.
• The second cut scene followed the first, and involved a big meeting with the police board. After the meeting, Commander Altobelli yells at Jesse for not telling him that someone tried to kill him. As he's yelling, Comissioner Gordon overhears the conversation and realizes that Corrido had gone against his wishes and attempted to take Jesse's life.
• At the end of the scene when Jesse shows up at the lab to hear Bernie's results, the last part of the scene was cut which revealed that the beaker of yellow fluid under the bunson burner was actually soup that Bernie was warming up, which he walks up to, takes a sip, and says, "Needs more salt."

- I much preferred the blue particle beam over the red one we got during the series. It just makes more sense, especially Norman's comment that, "At the lowest setting, it can stun a suspect."

- The special effects used for the jump at the convenience store and for the chase through the city were very poorly overlaid. I'm glad they redid them both.

- Seeing this episode again, I'm impressed with the job that Richard Venture did in his role. Commander Altobelli is a tough, yet likable and concerned boss. He doesn't come off as the stereotypical police commander.

Thanks, Scott, for the copy of this episode on DVD, it was great!

Hey, your welcome!

Just so you guys are aware the actual version that aired on ABC was in a 90 minute timeslot. The only time the pilot was in a 60 minute format was in syndication, and on the VHS pre-recorded tape release. However, even in the 90 minute slot, the running time was still a bit shorter than the version I sent you. I have the original ABC version, if anyone is interested.

Off the top of my head, a few other things are different too. In the ABC broadcast version, when Jesse stares at the Jane Fonda poster and activates the visor, the sound FX of the visor opening was NOT dubbed in. You can actually hear the real sound of the Ghibli helmets visor raising.

Also in the broadcast version, there is no streak effect when the bike goes INTO hyperthrust.

During the scene in which Jesse confronts the liquor store bandits, listen carefully to your version. As he comes out of hyperthrust the background music stops and doesn't resume until Jesse is saying "too late Im already here" and then it fades quickly. In the ABC version, the music is all the way through the scene until it fades in the same spot.

When Jesse comes out of hyperthrust before riding up on the dirt bike bandits, an extra point-of-view shot of slowing down is included that was not seen in the televised version.

I agree the blue screen FX shots of the bike are horrible compared to the real jumps performed on location. Why in the world they were included is beyond me. But still very cool to see the recently found photo's of the shots on the blue screen stage.

[spyhunter2k]

Thanks Scott for sending me this. I finally got a chance to watch it last night.

I have to say that the coolest thing about this was seeing the two deleted scenes. Jesse meeting with Sandy and smoothing things over a bit helped explain why she'd be willing to help him later in tracking down the source of the paint chips found on his friend's Marty's bike.

As Pentastar pointed out, the scene where Jesse was operating the slide projector during a presentation by Commissioner Miller, after which Miller overhears Altobelli's angry "The next time someone tries to kill you Mach, I want to hear about it!" statement to Jesse helps explain why Commissioner Miller drove out to Corrido's compound to confront Corrido.

The next neatest thing was seeing the blue particle beam. It even had a cool sound that came with it, more of an electronic buzzing noise rather than the "tschew....tschew-tschew" sound of the red laser beam.

The superimposed jump effects were poor, but it was neat to see them. I'm torn on whether I prefer them to having the shots re-done with the wrong bike! Poor effect vs. continuity error...?

The effects were different entering hyperthrust, as Scott pointed out, mainly the streaking effect, but also in the alternate/Canadian version the hyperthrust exhaust port never lights up as the bike enters hyperthrust. I'm glad they corrected this in the later syndicated version.

Several sound effects were different--seems like I remember a final "HISSS" when the bike finished rotating when it was first introduced that I don't remember hearing in the syndicated version. There were many other small differences as well like this.

Though this doesn't count as an omitted scene, one other thing I noticed was that in this version, Norman does not regain visual contact prior to Jesse being knocked off the bike by a rocket-propelled grenade blast at Corrido's. Recall that in the syndicated version Norman has restored visual contact and sees the thug taking aim at Jesse and yells, "Do something!" after which Jesse is knocked off the bike. Then Norman says "Great, he abandons the bike!," while in this alternate version these scenes of Norman are omitted and he is shown still trying to reconnect wiring.

Once Jesse is thrown from the bike and runs toward the barn, it seems that his trip is much longer than in the syndicated version, It looks like there are a few extra shots of him running.

Overall, it was nice to see this version. I would love to combine the best aspects of each into one re-edited pilot DVD one day, but the replica must be finished first...

[leigh]

It's great to hear more about this version. It's great to read about the differences.

What's the quality like? Can anyone post any screens?

[spyhunter2k]

Check my Japanese Laserdisc to DVD post on the main forum. Scott posted a couple of screen caps there.

[josh]

I was able to take a sample clip from the "Canadian" pilot and uploaded the robbery scene (w/ the blue beam) here. The file is 21 MB so you probably don't want to download it unless you have a broadband internet connection.

~ Josh

[jstrick999]

I was able to take a sample clip from the "Canadian" pilot and uploaded the robbery scene (w/ the blue beam) here. The file is 21 MB so you probably don't want to download it unless you have a broadband internet connection.

~ Josh

[jstrick999]

I downloaded the file using the link. All I got was audio and some pattern that reports, but not the video.