babylon 5 "the gathering" intro (original)
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- čas přidán 26. 06. 2007
- this is the intro from the original version of "the gathering", this is my favourite version, the stewart copeland soundtrack and the backgound audio atmosphere makes the station seem "5 miles long" it is lost the rehashed and re edited version. . also the visuals are better in this movie as the original Amiga//Lightwave rendered cgi in this is better than the Typ season 3/4 stock cgi that replaces it in the re edit. kinda like, star trek the motion picture "leave it alone" !!
- Krátké a kreslené filmy
it's so mindbogglingly 90s!
But I can't help but loving it. B5 will always have a special place in my heart ❤
To this day no show has been able to match the story arc and continuity and future story outlay. Stuff that happened in season 1 that was just there making sense linked to season 3 etc... Amazing!
@@LiamDilley Whether it's better is debatable, but I'd say the Expanse gives Babylon 5 a run for its money in that department
In light of what happened to him, I always loved that it was Londo doing the voice over here. It bookends nicely with the intro to In The Beginning where Londo says "I know, I was there." as he makes his entrance in the flashback storyline.
I always thought the same, it makes sense.
He must have suffered from dementia though because he called Sinclair "the stations last commander" notwithstanding the fact that it had a number of others.
I love the complex lighting set ups with shafts of light and dark rooms lit by display panels. It makes the sets look real. You actually believe you're on a space station. It even makes C&C look big enough which it never did in the rest of the show. I guess it would have been too hard to maintain that look through out the actual series given how much time it would take to light each scene but it would have looked incredible.
Apparently there's a thing known as "illegal blacks" where video is too dark to be reliably visible. This fell into that
The story of Babylon 5 is Londo's story. It's the story he tells to the children in "In The Beginning" before the end of his life.
Napoleon Blownapart he tells the story of the earth Minbari war not Babylon 5
@@Matt-hg9mi Actually in the novelization of In the Beginning Londo starts to record the story of the Gathering after the kids leave. He got the missing pieces of both stories from Delenn when she was in his prison. even as an old man he was still baffled by the Minbari surrender until he forced her to confess what she knew. "I was there..." is absolutely old Londo but technically all of babylon 5 is meant to be a historical dramatization produced by the Anlashok memorial fund per the final episode. Based on Londo and Sheridan's etc written accounts of their role in history.
lucasbachmann I never even looked at it that way, thanks 😊
I like the '90s cyberpunk vibe of the pilot movie and the Stewart Copeland music.
Compared to the German Symphony the Stewart Copeland music sounds cheap and tacky! Totally inappropriate!! And I was a huge fan of the Police... The musical score is what gave B5 it's grand momentes presence!!! Sorry Stewart, maybe stick to the pop- tunes........
@@rachiesayd9423 Copelands music also sounds dated. Very mid to late 80s. Unlike the series which was superior
@@rachiesayd9423
Cry harder please.
@@rachiesayd9423 I've been wanting this score since the pilot aired. Never ever been interested in Franke's version.
This music, not the series itself, is what got me started in watching Babylon 5. So full of promise and discovery, it set the scene for the greatest music scores of the entire B5 series run.
Such an amazing series, I like this version of the opening much better and that guitar rift!
I LOVE the Steward Copeland intro. Please keep it alive.
Didn't even realize until now Tamlyn Tomita played Laurel Takashima in this
@@tedpilledtonysoprano5512 execs didn’t drive her away, she quit the series 🙄
The first 2 minutes feel and sound so much like one of those 90s documentaries about how they make widgets, which is awesome.
And Babylon 5 did indeed succeed in its original mission to create galaxy wide peace. After 20 years of celebrating this success, Babylon 5 is no longer needed and is scuttled.
The intro already got me so, so hooked, back in the day.
I really enjoyed the darker, more 1980s aesthetic of the pilot and really wonder what the series would have been like had they stuck with that.
I love and adore Christopher Frankes work for the show, but this intro piece is fucking awesome.
In one of JMS's original iterations of the Babylon 5 story, Sinclair was very much the final commander of the station, who married Delenn and sired a Minbari-Human hybrid. The vision in the first-season episode "Signs and Portents" was in that version meant to be Sinclair, Delenn and their son escaping the destruction of the station at the hands of the Minbari warrior caste.
The portrayal of the story for B5, before making changes due to the illness of the actor portraying Sinclair,, would be a great way to do the reboot. Of course, there may need to be a few changes here & there for the change in our times since then. Let's also get a look @ what the other Babylon stations looked like too.
@@rodneymcgeejr1842 I have mixed feelings for a reboot if it doesn't have JMS or someone he trust involved. these days they never do well
Under the leadership of it's Final Commander "Opps"
90 Lancaster
They made the Sheridan character a Captain, but yeah.
Robert Johnson You’re also forgetting Lochley. And the guy from Sleeping in Light. They must have had half a dozen commanders after Sinclair. This line was when the original arc had season 5 ending with the shadows destroying Babylon 5.
Ivonova was a commander but she was not in charge of B5 Sheridan was a captain so yes Sinclair was the final Commander in terms of rank to lead B5
@@BassWakil What, really? The Shadows were going to destroy the station? I am very glad they went with the version they used!
@@kimmccarthy7747 No. Straczynski had the entire series planned out. The Shadow War ended as planned, just a bit sooner. The Earth Alliance Civil War was going to happen throughout the fifth season. It's possible with the founding of the Interstellar Alliance at that time, B5 was going to be decommissioned then, with Sinclair being the last to walk out. Instead that honor went to his best friend Garibaldi.
I prefer this original version over the Special Edition, I just love the shot of Londo right here...0:38
Also, even though I love Christopher Franke's work on the series, Stewart Copelands work on the Pilot really fits the mood of the original Pilot which was much darker than the series itself.
Just compare this original opening to the opening of the special edition, there's so much more life to the scenes in the original version and Copelands music is great.
Franke was wonderful, but I do miss the guitars
If you want to get truly technical (and nerdy), Commander Nils was actually the "final commander" of B5 -- the last EarthForce officer assigned to the post before the station's destruction in 2281. And there was probably also a military overseer before Commander Sinclair took the job, supervising the station's construction (like we saw with Babylon 4 and Major Krantz).
i love this soundtrack
Agreed -- and that entire scene with Sinclair in his quarters was hugely expanded (by over 50%) in the TNT re-edit, along with the newly-added sound effects from the Battle of the Line.
The added footage hugely contributes to Sinclair's character, which is amazing when you consider that the restored footage originally got left on the cutting-room floor by the director (and reinstated by JMS for the TNT broadcast).
This was one of my favs back then I still love the first season the most tbh 😁🥰
I believe in the novelization for "In the Beginning" after Londo tells the children the story he summons Vir (or records it) and starts with the introduction to "the Gathering." Or it might be in the Centauri Trilogy. According to the novels Sheridan wrote a book on the Shadow War. And Londo wrote a great deal down too. meta-Babylon 5 is based on these. Londo asked Delenn when she was in the dungeon the Minbari side of the story - where he learns the answer to the Battle of the Line..
this sound track was the best opening scene for babylon 5
I liked it better than the TV series intro.
I actually had a VHS copy of the original pilot, recorded on the night it aired. Sadly, it along with most of my library was destroyed in the New Orleans Flood of 2005.
@BigDiamondCutter It was because Tomita had more of a desire to do movies, and the plan was to cut her character out at the end of the first season, in fact, she was supposed to be the one who shot Garibaldi in the back.
Aw, too bad the last two wailing notes of the theme is cut off at the end, but still, very cool to be able to still find this around. I don't know if I like Copeland's theme better than the Franke replacement, but I do appreciate it for its own style. Thanks so much for having this up. :)
Those two notes were key in the norwegian tvs normal reel for an upcoming episode, they kinda is the soundtrack of B5 for me. So it is a bit funny that they seem lost forever. :) I know them by heart of course
Chritipher Franke did an amazing job scoring the whole series, but I have always loved the energy and pop vibe of Stewart Copeland's score, a really cool music. It's a shame it never was officially released.
This is largely correct -- for the pilot, JMS and the producers leased a proprietary lighting system (called "Verilights"), which provided that moody ambience that we see here, but the system ultimately proved to be far too expensive and time-consuming for a TV budget, hence the switch to the "brighter" lighting-style used by John C. Flinn in the weekly series.
(Trivia-Note: the ponytailed customs agent seen at the beginning is one of the Verilight techs, in an on-screen cameo.)
Yup -- basically, the Babylon 5 station would've gotten destroyed by the Minbari at the very end of the fifth season (as seen in the flashforwards in "Babylon Squared"), with Sinclair and Delenn commandeering Babylon 4 as their new base of operations in the spinoff series (titled "Babylon Prime"), and moving it into the future to fight the Shadows, not the distant past.
Personally, though...I feel that what JMS ultimately came up with was superior to his original outline.
I like the original concept better... very ballsy. And without the disaster of the 5th season and anti-climactic end of the Vorlon-Shadow conflict. Having the Vorlons decimated and Shadows still hanging around sounds better.
Yeah, from what I understand, this *was* a major complaint on the studio/network consortium's part, re: the perceived "darkness" of the photography, et al.
When JMS and his crew took that year-long hiatus between production on the pilot and the series to reassess a few things, this was one of the aspects that got changed around, likely in part at network behest.
I wonder how the series would have continued on with Sinclair as its final commander
According to JMS's original planned outline, the EA Civil War wouldn't have even taken place; at the end of Season 5, the Minbari would've destroyed B5, leading to Sinclair and Delenn commandeering Babylon 4 for the spinoff series ("Babylon Prime"), with the Minbari resuming the war against Earth. If you get the chance, check out those script books -- Vol. 15 contains the entire "original" 5-year arc, and is very different from what we ultimately got (but in many ways, not quite as interesting).
@Signal 6EQUJ5 It was published by JMS in the fifteenth B5 script-book (which was only obtainable via the Cafe Press publishing-program if you'd already bought the previous 14 volumes).
But you can still read more about the "original" B5 storyline around the web, on sites like this one:
www.trekbbs.com/threads/synopsis-of-jmss-synopsis-of-the-original-arc-for-b5-spoilers.53739/
It's so nineties that it hurts like getting "it was your fault" dieabetus must hurt. You know it's bad but you can't stop...oh pilot episodes are really something.
thecraziestofalldave Well, duh. What else to expect from a '90s show?
I mean, the pilot was extra nineties, like it was a contemporarily made satire of 90's sci fi shows, the rest of the show was standard and really good actually.
I meant to start watching it in in early '94, but I could never remember what time it aired where I lived, then I relocated; finally got hooked in '96 with Severed Dreams....
Thanks for the upload. This is awesome. Just say NO TO SPECIAL EDITIONS!! :)
Thank you so very much. I never saw the first show's
I liked the idea of a more symphonic soundtrack to the series but I'm surprised they didn't try to ask Stewart again for Crusade and this time tell him his soundtrack will work good for the series. Crusade went with more a minimal "groove" driven soundtrack, but it was so "computerized" as to not have any room to breathe. Stewart's soundtrack would have fit like a glove.
It's funny how the pilot is not just inconsistent with the show but with itself as well.
The main plotline based around the poisoning of Kosh literally made no sense whatsoever. The only way it could have gone down as shown in Lyta's vision would be if Kosh had stepped out of his suit to shake the hand of the commander, at which point the assassin would have probably shat himself instead of trying to kill the dude.
The stuff you notice when re-watching a series you finished a decade ago. ^^
I think it's pretty clear that this discrepancy was intentional, or at least pretty quickly acknowledged in a way that was meant to serve the planned series arc. Sinclair himself brings it up in "The War Prayer," wondering aloud how the poison could have reached Kosh's hand given the encounter suit. The import of this plot element would presumably eventually have been dealt with had the arc not been changed to accommodate the departure of Michael O'Hare, at which point a number of foreshadowed revelations got dropped or altered (such as who was in the blue space suit in "Babylon Squared"/"War Without End"). Similarly, the thread of Talia Winters being "recorded" by Kosh in season 1 gets referenced later by Garibaldi when Talia is written out of the series, but is never brought up again as her foreshadowed ramped-up psi abilities are instead grafted onto Lyta Alexander when that character is brought back.
Unless it was done in such a way as to set up Sinclair to be sent to the Vorlon homeworld intentionally so he could be shown the truth of the Vorlons and his own role in a war fought a thousand years ago. Keep in mind the vorlons are manipulative.
The assassin was a Minbari. They have more of an idea what Vorlons look like, I believe. Remember, when she asks to see Kosh, she says something like, "I wished to see with my own eyes." This implies that someone told her what to expect, and even if it's normally a Grey Council secret, I suspect the Warrior Caste let the secret out to the assassin. I believe that Kosh did step out of their suit, whether out of surprise or in greetings to Valen, at which point they were poisoned.
@@chuckymcnubbin1518 Yes, but if they knew about him a thousand years ago, they know about the closed circle and would just let things happen as they happened. Fortunately, being disinterested in the affairs of others is very much on-brand for Vorlons so they can manage to avoid contradicting history quite easily.
Fantastic series
@thatguywiththeegg Because Sinclair was originally intended to be the Commander until the end. The idea to replace him with Sheridan was not made until part way into Season 1. The later redone intro took out the reference to the 'final Commander'.
I'm so glad this is on CZcams. I began watching this on Netflix a few minutes ago, and I was like NOOO WHERE IS COPELAND? I don't think his music would have suited the rest of the series, but I love the silliness of it. Also, if any of you are craving more Copeland and you haven't played the Spyro games for PS1, then you should do that. They are fantastic, and he scored all three of the original ones.
I miss the original intro music....goosebumps hearing it again after so many years....
They should kept this and original theme when the enhanced version of pilot was produced.
I really like the rock opera title song :) Also, lots of intruiging-looking species that didn't make it to the series proper.
This was when I realised my DVD set actually has the original version of the pilot, not the TNT edition.
…the TNT is the original, they brought back the original Takashima dub
I find it very interesting that it would be Londo Mollari instead of say, Commandeer Sinclair, who introduces the pilot. He was always my favorite character.
He clearly hadn't developed his Dracula/Mussolini accent yet however.
Also interesting is that Peter Jurasik is listed as just a guest star, despite having such an obviously prominent role that was intended to continue beyond the pilot.
It just makes you think "what could have been".
This is my first encounter with this material, looks like Battlestar Galactica meets Mos Eisley cantina.
Such a shame they didn't keep that theme and orchestration
If you compare this version with the TNT edit, you'll notice Tamlyn Tomita's vocals have been overdubbed in this incarnation -- basically, the execs thought that Laurel sounded too "strong" (and "macho"), so they forced Tamlyn to reloop her lines in a higher-pitched manner.
For the TNT re-edit, JMS said "screw this," and trashed the loops, restoring her original, on-set vocal performance. The result is a far more energetic performance in the TNT version, compared to this one.
Oh that explains a lot! I have never cared for her performance, this must be part of the reason why. (I still far prefer Ivanova, though.)
It was in the 15 volume limited-edition script books JMS put out a while back. Unfortunately, they are no longer sold.
well this is why i posted this vid, i actually like this version better. i love the music throughout the series by chris franke. but i think this as a pilot stands out because of the soundtrack by stewart copeland. which is better imo :-)
Sorry but NO WAY!!! Cheap and tacky.....
The music for the docking sequence sounds like it came from a lost Crash Bandicoot stage.
Can't believe it's been 30 years since this was aired..
"it's final commander": that line used to bug me, but then I thought about it, and Sinclair WAS the final Commander of the station... Sheridan was a Captain when he took over, as was Lochley.
Still feels like splitting hairs to me.
No.
Commander in this context is referring to his duty. Not his rank.
Sinclair was originally intended to be the only commander of Babylon 5.
Love the Stewart Copeland score on this.
Oh my... they should have arrested him simply for his unbelievably AWFUL fashion sense!
Well that sounds absurd enough to be something they would say. Thanks for that.
The original Laurel arc I've heard was she was supposed to be the one that shoots Garabaldi in the back. I suspect originally the Sinclair that took babylon 4 back in time was going to be the "old" Sleeping in Light period version. Then JMS changed it to Babylon 4 gets taken back in time in season 3 (like what happened) and then Sheridan would transfer from commanding the rebel fleet. Good thing the timetravel aging was in the season 1 episode or old Sinclair would have seemed retconned. .
I thought Takashima's arc was going to be that she was Control and the evil personality that Talia Winters had in her?
This is miles better than the reworked version.
Good stuff.
Count me in for the love of the Copeland music. The only music that comes close to it is Aerosmith's "The Movie."
Not one background Alien of the Pilot was ever used again :D And beside those council races no important species ever shows up here. No Drazi, No Gaim. Feels strange.
For a while, the original PTEN version was available on Hulu, but all B5 content was taken down in the summer of 2010. Only the TNT version is available via Netflix.
The first VHS release (through Columbia House Home Video) was the PTEN edit, but this was soon replaced by the TNT producer's cut in the retail marketplace, and those VHS copies now command a fair price on eBay (I own one).
As I recall, there was a brief mention in Season One that both Doctor Kyle and Takashima (along with Lyta Alexander who came back at the end of Season 2) were transferred back home by Earthforce due to their firsthand experience with a Vorlon (Kosh) with their travel orders coming from the highest levels. Kyle of course got mentioned a couple other times, but Takashima became MIA after that it seems (unfortunate).
That was in the first regular episode, I think
Takashima was mentioned again as Ivanova inherited her illicit coffee tree
@@bostonrailfan2427 not quite by name as I recall. It was just Garibaldi mentioning he "found" the plant as a way to lean on Ivonova to do something and perhaps another episode where Ivonova inherited it from her predecessor.
@@JMChladek it was a direct callback to the pilot where it was previously mentioned…Takashima had it planted and Ivanova inherited it afterward with Garabaldi confirming it was under Ivanova’s care
I think I will edit together a perfect version. I'll get a region 2 DVDs of the original version, AND the special edition. I'll keep as much of the original as possible, and put in extra footage from the other one (without causing contradictions). That way, as much Stewart as possible will be preserved.
What a very different opening..I forget how different it was before the show got going
During the shooting of this movie, Delenn was actually referred to as "he" in several instances, but these were ultimately overdubbed in post-production prior to broadcast, after the producers decided to make Delenn fully female.
Originally, Delenn was supposed to start as a male, then undergo a gender-change to female as a result of the Chrysalis device (in addition to her species-shift). Also, the plan was to overdub Mira Furlan with a male actor in the first year of the series.
As I recall, the only "he" reference was when the computer informed Sinclair that Delenn was waiting in the garden, and then it was redubbed.
That would definitely make things more interesting!
Going real deep into my memory I think it was the original tie-in comic book mentioned the Babylon station being "Sinclair's folly" because he was testifying in favor of it.
the revised opening is way much better than this, londo's voice has a different more "epic" feel, and the "man on a mission of destruction" part is cut off, making the speech seem more like an introduction to the whole series instead of just one episode.
and the echos from in the begining while sinclair is describing the battle of the line are simply priceless.
I like the B4 station better and what should be done is a series about the station when it was taken back in time and used to fight the Shadows.
RIP Mira
I really liked Stuart Copeland's theme, shame they never kept him on and that it's not available to listen to outside this clip
I rented the original 1993 pilot on VHS with the Copeland soundtrack and it is the one that sticks to me. I dig Chris Franke. It's not that. But I always prefer watching this one for some reason.
Straczynski dropped 4:08 Copeland worried that the music would be dated but I so strongly disagree. This was a missed opportunity to set a timeless tone that was consistent and measured. Oh well. I also miss Laurel Takashima; she would have been amazing.
Well, I do agree this version is good, but I also do like the re-edited version. I just think it helps tie in with the rest of the series a little better and I also like the extended scenes since they help explain why certain ones were put in there. Does anyone know if the re-edited version is put online or if I have to buy it on DVD with the B5 Movie boxset?
I agree 100% with your thoughts in the description. All they had to do was remove Londo's line about "its final commander." The rest...just, why? This score is so great. It really is what pulled me in.
Totally agree about the score. I preferred Copeland's stuff to Franke's stuff.
Well, Sheridan and Lochley were Captains so it's technically correct... the best kind I think sometimes.
Well, technically Sinclair was the final commander with "Commander" as his rank, as Sheridan was a Captain, sooooo...........
Probably the original storyline called for Michael O’Hare to sit in for the entire run, but maybe when his mental health started to degrade, alterations were made
i like the music
Minbari is the race. The movie was Babylon 5: In the beginning. It was touched upon in the series.
I'll buy the pilot for the soundtrack. IF I get interesting, I'll think of watching the rest.
Yes, they said that it made the show difficult to sell to foreign distributors. I have no idea why that would be the case, though.
Maybe because the score was done by the son of a super spy?
rewatched the pilot recently with the 90s Music. There where alot Issues that have been altered for the Show for good.
like the bad painted Plywood Doors, the too thick Mimbari Make-up that made Delenn look like Ed Munster and not a potentional Love-Interest for the Protagonist and that cheesy 90s Tune
I can see how the original Music sounded more Edgy and unconventional in contrast. The show would have aged faster with 90s jazzguitar as mainscore. XD
the thing is, she originally was ment to be male, then with the crystalis change to female, it probably would have been the first transgender character to actually be protrayed in a good light, the funny thing is, you can still see a lot of the dialog relating to that still in the series, they never really changed it,
So glad they switched to leather.
I'm a big fan of The Equalizer (stopped watching after Copeland stopped doing the music), so I got all excited when I heard a familiar beat in the first few seconds back on 2/22/93, then saw his credit in the opening titles.
That's basically what made me hope that there was going to be a series - wanted more Copeland!
Thanks so much for posting this! I can't sit through the re-edited version on the DVD with the new Christopher Franke score.
Franke's music was fantastic for the series, but the Pilot was really helped over the rough edges by that cool beat of Copeland's.
You can watch the Copeland version of The Gathering on Hulu!
I always preferred Copeland's soundtrack over Franke's.
I think i got this version on video i liked it tho my only gripe is i wud of preferchristopher franke doing the music, the theme here sounds like it came from a cop show.
it's so hard to find the origonal un touched version, the only one on itunes ect, is the "movie" they redid
@BMWM3GTRLOVER TV, it was a pilot episode.
Wow, Thanks for the information. I'll have to look up Verilights. Were there also network complaints about the pilot being too dark? I seem to remember reading this somewhere. It's the sort of thing networks tend to complain about.
I generally agree with "leave it alone". The cuts to tighten and streamline the pacing seem reasonable, but the tinkering with CGI shots or the score is some OCD "for-the-sake-of-consistency" shit.
@knoxvilleguy2
Well sinclair was meant to be there all the time but the actor who played him was meant to be a rare fella, borderline drunk/prev, it was Jerry Doyle (Garibaldi) supposedly that got him kicked off the show because of this.
Yes, I loved the Stewart Copeland music! They re-did the pilot with Chris Franke score later and the version with Copeland's music can't be bought.
How did you get this?
Though good, Franke's music was more conventional in style. I thought Copeland's style was more fresh and brought a unique out of the box character to the show.
You can get the original aired version on Amazon video. It's a bonus episode in their season 1 list. www.amazon.com/Babylon-5-The-Gathering/dp/B000I5SYHS/ref=sr_1_4?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1505932375&sr=1-4&keywords=Michael+O%27Hare
mister spiff The region 2 release of The Gathering has the original soundtrack
Check out a genre called synthwave if you havn't.
I was there at the first dawn of the age of Fortified Wine.
@BigDiamondCutter - " The final commander " & yet JMS supposedly had the series 5 - year story arc planned out already & under lock & key in his office. I guess Londo was speaking from his perspective at the time.
Sinclair was supposed to be the final commander. He was supposed to be B5 commander through the whole five year arc, with the entire series originally planned to end with the "War Without End" two-parter, with Sinclair taking Babylon 4 back in time and becoming Valen and thus closing the circle of time and creating the future that would unfold. Michael O'Hare's mental illness which forced him to drop out of the series, however, scuppered that original plan and JMS had to shift things around a bit, including recasting the series lead and moving WWE up to complete Sinclair's story-arc. Fortunately, Straczynski had anticipated the possibility of difficulties and losing people along the way and thus built several trapdoors into his series plan in order to adjust it as necessary.
@nisus8 I hear that the Minbari were suppose to be Gender Neutral so was Delenn until season 2 transformation
Lighting makes such a big difference! The station never again looked as good as in the pilot. It just got uglier season by season...
3:47 its a pity that the guitar centric tunes cant be found anywhere from the babylon 5 ost... : \
This version had to be re-edited because the actor Michael O'Hare who played Commander Jeffrey Sinclair in the first season was not the station's final commander. Sheridan followed him & then there was Captain Lockley as well. Also the CGI looked pretty dated by the time they did the re-edit in '98. I would like to get this version though, where can I get it from?
Not bad - I haven't seen the original pilot since it first aired, I was wondering how it compared to the remade one they put on DVD.
Have to say, I like the music from the remade one better.
BTW, I noticed that the playback seems to be slightly faster - they all sound like they inhaled a little helium before speaking.
I've never seen the re-edited version, the PAL DVD does have the original opening. Can someone please upload the re-edited opening, I'd like to see the differences.