Current Events > do you get upset about lost media?

(+) Yeah! (+)

when i learn about stuff like books or movies or whatever that got lost to history, it makes me sad. like all those lost episodes of Doctor Who. or how much of the early cinema of like the 1920's no longer can be watched cause the film reels got destroyed. sometimes even on purpose. I was just now reading about the Illiad after I was thinking of trying to read it finally. and apparently Homer wrote about the entire 10 year Trojan War but I think The Illiad and the Odyssey are the only parts that survived. there were several prequels or sequels to Illiad that only exist in fragments or mentions of them in other works. ancient Greeks were able to enjoy an entire series by Homer but we only get the Illiad and Odyssey. I wonder what happens in those lost books. makes you wonder. and it's sad to think it's impossible to ever know what they were like

Yes, I believe everything should be preserved so future civilizations can see our history.

---

I wanna see the full cut of Event Horizon.

Apparently they filmed a lot of shit from when the crew of the other ship goes all murdercult, and it was FUCKED UP.

---

The problem is that we are so bad at preserving stuff so even new media is lost.
Like https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0316736/

---

DrizztLink posted...

I wanna see the full cut of Event Horizon.

Apparently they filmed a lot of shit from when the crew of the other ship goes all murdercult, and it was FUCKED UP.

I wish I could see that. I loved that movie. didn't know there was more to it

MabusIncarnate posted...

Yes, I believe everything should be preserved so future civilizations can see our history.

Yes. A few of my favorite porn scene files got corrupted and it really pissed me off.

---

It depends on the situation. Some things you can understand being lost such as obscure 100 year old movies that barely had any copies made. Other things are more frustrating such as the original quality moon landings and the BBC junking their old programs up until the late 1970s.

---

You should read up on the DuMont network, one of the older rivals to the NBC, CBS, etc. throne. When they went bankrupt, a lot of their old archives were just dumped in NY Bay.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuMont_Television_Network

---

Shotgunnova posted...

You should read up on the DuMont network, one of the older rivals to the NBC, CBS, etc. throne. When they went bankrupt, a lot of their old archives were just dumped in NY Bay.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuMont_Television_Network

I don't know why they couldn't just sell the archives to collectors or something

DrizztLink posted...

I wanna see the full cut of Event Horizon.

Apparently they filmed a lot of shit from when the crew of the other ship goes all murdercult, and it was FUCKED UP.

What made the release was already pretty fucked up.

---

very.

---

I'm kinda glad so many previously deemed lost media is showing up

Like I never thought I'd see that Aqua Teen episode of Boston or Dexter's Rude Removal

---

Zikten posted...

I don't know why they couldn't just sell the archives to collectors or something

Until the late 1970s most companies did not see "value" in old TV programs.

A lot of Dr. Who episodes were only saved because Ian Levine wanted to buy old episodes. Shortly after this happened the BBC stopped junking episodes and tried to find missing ones. This also caused the Dr. Who fandom to realize there were a ton of missing episodes and a large search over the years for missing episodes. Some have been found in "obvious" places like old TV stations, but others have been found in weird spots such as a barn in New Zealand.

Of course, once the VHS became popular companies realized they could resell old TV shows.

---

Like the show Yes, Dear not being on anything? Same with Salute Your Shorts. That shit makes me mad.

---

yup it breaks my heart

---

gatorsPENSbucs posted...

Like the show Yes, Dear not being on anything? Same with Salute Your Shorts. That shit makes me mad.

that would be called "semi lost media" I guess. stuff that technically is in archive somewhere but they refuse to let it out. the crime drama Cold Case is like that. a very popular show in it's day from like 10 years ago on CBS I think. was about detectives solving old murders from years or something decades in the past. each episode would feature music made from the year the murder happened. and apparently they only had the rights to the music for tv broadcast but not to feature it on streaming services or dvd. so if they ever did a dvd/blu ray release or put it in netflix or whatever, they would have to remove the music. and that was a massive element to the show so it wouldn't work. and they don't even air it on tv anymore. there is no legal way to watch Cold Case these days which sucks.

Apparently the early Disney channel shows - Dumbo's Circus, Pooh Corner, and Mousercise - is lost media. There's only a few episodes from each of them that can be seen today from people's VCR recordings.

---

gatorsPENSbucs posted...

Like the show Yes, Dear not being on anything? Same with Salute Your Shorts. That shit makes me mad.

Lost media means it was never released or aired again to a level where there is no backup, or was destroyed. Salute Your Shorts can be viewed digitally online, and had VHS releases. Lost media means just that: it's lost.

---

Its unfortunate, but I don't really think about it. There's so much stuff to watch you could spend a lifetime watching tv and movies and never even come close to watching all of it.

---

Zikten posted...

that would be called "semi lost media" I guess. stuff that technically is in archive somewhere but they refuse to let it out. the crime drama Cold Case is like that. a very popular show in it's day from like 10 years ago on CBS I think. was about detectives solving old murders from years or something decades in the past. each episode would feature music made from the year the murder happened. and apparently they only had the rights to the music for tv broadcast but not to feature it on streaming services or dvd. so if they ever did a dvd/blu ray release or put it in netflix or whatever, they would have to remove the music. and that was a massive element to the show so it wouldn't work. and they don't even air it on tv anymore. there is no legal way to watch Cold Case these days which sucks.

cold case still airs on tv at least (with the music intact. not sure if they edited them for time. probably). can theoretically dvr/vhs them.

---

I paid $80 for the theatrical Star Wars trilogy.

---

Wish I could see the lost episodes of Doctor Who

---

Irony posted...

Wish I could see the lost episodes of Doctor Who

They found a sound recording of a Patrick Troughton-era episode a few years ago, and released as an animation.

---

An interesting thing is that home recording and piracy has saved a bunch of things. Dragonball Z's original Japanese audio in official preserved copies were complete garbage. However, fan recordings saved the higher quality audio from when they originally aired.

This is also why ALL Dr. Who audio from the lost episodes exist. Fans would record the audio of episodes (unfortunately, video recording at the time was extremely expensive). Some even did dangerous things like hotwiring their TVs to get a direct audio fed to the recorder for better sound quality.

---

I want to remember that all audio of all Dr Who episodes have been found, but the video is missing in multiple episodes.

---

Irony posted...

Wish I could see the lost episodes of Doctor Who

There is one lost episode that is essentially confirmed to exist. 10 years ago they found all the episodes of "The Web of Fear" from an old TV station archive in Nigeria. However, one of the episodes was stolen when the episodes were to be picked up and moved out of the station (the episode featured the first appearance of a long running character). It is now known to be valuable, so it probably won't be lost again. However, the film is getting pretty old and it is unfortuntly at high risk to succumbing to vinegar syndrome (the film will essentially disintegrate).

There are also rumors of 5 other episodes existing in the hands of private collectors (rumors are always sketchy, but this one has some weight to it since it was implied by the person who found the episodes at the Nigerian TV station)

---

does the library of Alexandria count as lost media? :p

anyways I've never been super invested in lost media beyond passing curiosity. i always love hearing stories about old, obscure media that only exists on old bootleg copies or something. but a sort of similar thing happens sometimes with videogames when companies lose the source code/assets to games.

I'm pretty sure Taito no longer has the source code for the original Bubble Bobble, and I heard that Bioware somehow lost the source code for one of the Mass Effect DLCs. Thanks to the nature of video games this is almost never relevant in a "lost media" sense, but it's always kinda neat, in a mildly sad sort of way. <_<

---

I get upset by not knowing what the removed YouTube videos in my liked/favorite playlists were.

---

AlisLandale posted...

I heard that Bioware somehow lost the source code for one of the Mass Effect DLCs.

Now that is frustrating if true. There is no excuse for this to be happening with a big name company for something that was made in the last 15 years.


---

YellowSUV posted...

Now that is frustrating if true. There is no excuse for this to be happening with a big name company for something that was made in the last 15 years.

take this with a huge grain of salt since i heard it second-hand, but it's the explantion i heard for why it (whichever one it was) never got ported to the PS3.

---

Thing was that films during the silent era were destroyed simply because they were put into theaters and thrown away once a new movie is made to air.

VCR and tapes proved that people enjoy rewatching old media over and over again.

---

Occassionally I get sad about stuff like silent films and classical literature being lost but there's not much I can do about it now.

---

ForsakenHermit posted...

Occassionally I get sad about stuff like silent films and classical literature being lost but there's not much I can do about it now.

Unless we got hold of a time machine

If I had a time machine I would go around history collecting various lost media and bringing it back to the present for archival

Zikten posted...

Unless we got hold of a time machine

If I had a time machine I would go around history collecting various lost media and bringing it back to the present for archival

*smack head*

of course! that's why it's all been lost. time travelers keep stealing it!

---

ImAMarvel posted...

Whenever I think about the Library of Alexandria, I just get sad.

another one is the lost history of the Aztecs and Mayans and such peoples. I think one of the reasons we don't know as much about the history of the aztecs is that a lot of the records got destroyed by Spanish priests thinking they were destroying satanic texts. their history and religious stuff was all tied together I think so they burned up the holy books and that also wiped out their history.

I kind of like the idea of beautiful things being impermanent, like the buddhist monks who spend years making intricate paintings with grains of sand and then wipe them away when they're done

---

Zikten posted...

Unless we got hold of a time machine

If I had a time machine I would go around history collecting various lost media and bringing it back to the present for archival

The problem being with literature it would be a tougher sell to convince people of its authenticity. Carbon dating would be a problem even if the literary merits check out.

With films it would be a lot harder for people to poke holes in with the actors being there and everything.

---

Yeah, I don't like seeing media being lost, video games in particular. Those people that buy up rare games/prototypes just to hoard the data and make it rarer are the worst.

---

ForsakenHermit posted...

With films it would be a lot harder for people to poke holes in with the actors being there and everything.

brb gonna create a deepfake replica of London After Midnight and sell it to a private collector >_>

---

ForsakenHermit posted...

The problem being with literature it would be a tougher sell to convince people of its authenticity. Carbon dating would be a problem even if the literary merits check out.

With films it would be a lot harder for people to poke holes in with the actors being there and everything.

For the carbon dating thing, one solution could be

1. Go back in time and get document
2. Put document in secure secret location
3. Return to present and extract aged document

Now it would pass a carbon dating test

AlisLandale posted...

brb gonna create a deepfake replica of London After Midnight and sell it to a private collector >_>

Honestly out of all the lost horror films from the the silent/early talkie era. London After Midnight intrests me the least mostly because we do have Mark of the Vampire which is a remake of the material after all. I'd rather see all the lost silent films from the 1910's or The Terror (1928 version) or all the lost other language versions of the early Universal Monsters movies than London After Midnight.


---

No. If anything, I'm upset that some awful shit isn't getting lost forever.

Namely everything Nintendo made between Super Mario Galaxy 1 and Super Mario Odyssey. And everything they've released since Odyssey too.

Pokmon Black/White and Sword/Shield (too recent, I know) being erased from history would be a boon to future generations.
---

r4X0r posted...

What made the release was already pretty fucked up.

https://screenrant.com/event-horizon-movie-blood-orgy- original-cut-unwatchable/

Dave Bonneywell (Game Of Thrones), an effects artist on Event Horizon, later detailed in response to a fan what was shot but later cut out of the "Blood Orgy." Bonneywell was told by Anderson to come up with creative effects for the scene and the director chose the ones he liked best. Some choice deletions include a woman being held down while screws are drilled into her teeth, a man's legs beaten with pipes to point they break off as he crawls away, a crew member's breast being torn off and another who's arm is broken with a pipe but the hand is still seen wiggling.

In addition, numerous gore effects like bites and stab wounds were trimmed from the scene. This whole sequence was shot over two days by another director called Vadim Jean, and the crew knew most of what they were filming would likely be cut. The original version also made it clear that sexual assaults were happening in addition to the mutilations. In the end, it's little wonder executives were so blindsided by the viciousness of the uncut "Blood Orgy" sequence and were overzealous in ordering Anderson to cut most of it. This footage is unlikely to be seen or restored, however, since footage from Event Horizon was stored in a salt mine and found to have degraded beyond use when the studio was looking to use it for a 2006 special edition DVD release.

---

Wtf why did they put it in a salt mine?

I can't think of anything that's been lost that affected me personally (apart from artwork lost in WWII), but it does scare me how close we came to losing certain things I now treasure. Supposedly Monty Python's Flying Circus was almost lost to the dustbin of history - as the BBC has a policy of erasing all its light entertainment archives every year or two - until John Cleese stepped in and saved it. And I remember reading somewhere that Elvis Costello wanted to destroy all his old master tapes at one point, saying that anyone who wanted to hear them had already heard them.

---

https://lostmediawiki.com/Home

---

I do get melancholic about things removing. Even something like LueLinks putting their year old threads into an unreadable cold storage put me off enough to not use it again.
---