Pirating the Pirates

Piracy of the Pirates: Vancouver Friends Team Up to Restore a Classic Western

Willa Ross and her roommate, the reporter, spent a weekend illegally editing together three copies of the 1966 western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, after MGM's "restoration" inflated the film's runtime and altered its original soundtrack and dialogue. The project was abandoned for nearly a decade due to the difficulty of obtaining the original film materials.

The original Star Wars trilogy is no longer considered canon by its creator, George Lucas, who feels the 1977 films do not fully represent his vision. This sentiment is echoed by others who feel disappointed by revisionist studio edits and budget cuts.

Independent labels like Arrow, Kino, and Eureka strive to present films as close to the filmmakers' original intent as possible. However, this can be challenging when working with raw digital scans, partial cleanups, or when the label must source, scan, and restore a film themselves.

Director James Flower of Arrow Films notes that filmmakers often revise their work, which can lead to historical inaccuracies and the unavailability of accurate versions for historians and audiences. For example, Wong Kar-wai altered the color grading, aspect ratios, and soundtracks of his films for a 2021 Criterion box set.

In a 2019 screening of the official MGM masters of Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy, Willa and the reporter were disheartened by the poor quality. They decided to create their own version using better raw materials and technical improvements. A local cinema programmer arranged for an official Digital Cinema Package from MGM to be swapped out with their homebrew copy for a public screening.