I love how most of the press coverage has been OH NOES about the destroyed movie sets, like they can't easily be replaced. I mean, they're fake to begin with, right? But vaults of master prints irrecoverably lost is something else altogether:-(

pumpkinsoup

Jennifer Tilly will know vengeance!!

rabbitboy

@Indiana Bento and the lost Temple of Citroens: Shit. I was going to see Prince of Darkness.

But due to being screened the night before at the New Beverly, the new print of Zardoz was saved.

And this is why we should believe in petty Gods.

aspiringexpatriate

Well, On the New Beverly theater's MySpace page they left this note:

"Unfortunately, due to the recent fire at Universal Studios our screenings of Prince of Darkness, Sudden Death and Bride of Chucky have been indefinitely postponed. It appears that the archive print of each was destroyed. We apologize & will post any updates ASAP."

So 3 MASTER works already gone!

Indiana Bento and the lost Temple of Citroens

Screw those classic prints! I have to know if the Hasselhoff Knight Rider car is safe!! And what about the A-team Van?!!!!

PS>Do NOT type "Hasselhoff" into google unless you are prepared for the consequences . . .

SunnydaZe10

@britneyspearstears: I don't know exactly where you heard that but it's been known for years that studios don't give a shit about their classic prints. I think we owe it to Martin Scorsese and such for the prints saved so far. I even heard stuff from the 70s are in worse shape than stuff from the 30s and 40s, if memory serves. I wonder if you can make a career out of film preservation.

Jaguares

Guess I can stop holding out hope for "Howard The Duck" on the Criterion Collection release.

martini-shark

ATTN! I need some help here, please... I cannot, for the life of me remember where I read this, but there have been some big complaints from film preservationists about how the major studios have made little effort to maintain their archives, Universal, Fox, everyone... there was a story about a PA tripping over an original print of Gone With the Wind. It might have been in Fade In magazine, a search returns null. Thank you to anyone who can help me out.

britneyspearstears

@Jaguares: The article, made film preservation seem like a worthwhile career. The point of the piece was that the major studios didn't want to spend about a few million to maintain their archives. Thank you Scorsese, thank you Criterion Collection. God damn this town.

britneyspearstears

My votes for STOP OR MY MOM WILL SHOOT to have been lost.

Lulamaybelle

I don't know about the US, but in the UK there's a network of regional moving image archives maintained by universities and the British Film Institute. Those centers specialize in archival film restoration and preservation, and in the history of moving image technology. Of course they're always short of funds.

But to store archival prints somewhere that's not fireproof? *rolls eyes*

Bear_Necessities

Gone with the wind, takes a literal meaning I hope.

tbolt

Film studios invest tens of millions transferring hundreds of prints into digital form. And they usually start with the most important films first.

I'm guessing that what was lost in the fire wasn't a whole lot.

marmidukestank

I don't really trust corporate executives to figure out which "important" films needed to be transferred ASAP.

Tiger_Tanaka

Talk to your local candidate about the National Film Preservation Board: [www.loc.gov]

CourageousCoward

@marmidukestank: I may have over stepped and I may have over dramatized my initial woes. Yes, pretty much everything of importance has been transferred. Also, my numbers were off. Apparently they estimate some hundreds of millions to properly preserve these archives, not a few million as I had previously stated.

britneyspearstears

I used to work for the UCLA Film & TV Archive and part of the job(besides restoring film prints) was delivering and picking up prints at all the studios(including the Playboy mansion- oh boy!).

These are prints that are screened at various theaters, film festivals and schools around the world. They certainly aren't the only prints available and they're usually in mediocre-to-bad condition anyway(especially considering our era of DVD/Blu-Ray picture quality).

So basically(as Defamer confirmed) nothing that was lost in the fire was the only film print of the respective film available.

Things like negatives and last surviving prints are kept in vaults.. where the only fires that can occur are from old nitrate stock films. But nitrate films are usually kept separate from other film prints.

Benovite

@britneyspearstears: If you check out the link I posted above, you'll see that the Library of Congress (no fires breaking out there!) also has a film preservation division and many films are archived there as well.

CourageousCoward

I'm just relieved that the destruction didn't include negatives or original archival prints so in some cases, they could be replaced. I love the movies. Speaking of which, I'm going to sit back with my Purple Mojo, my copy of Howard the Duck and turn down the lights. The cascade effect just might take the edge of all this stress caused by some careless roofers.

WolfLy

@CourageousCoward: Thank you. Good looking out.

britneyspearstears

There is a career in film preservation (though the amount of people flowing out of the training programs outnumber the amount of jobs in the field). Some good resources:

[www.amianet.org]
[www.loc.gov]
[selznickschool.eastmanhouse.org]

Splendid