Rock and Rule...
Recently, I took the opportunity to revisit Rock and Rule...
There was a video release available sometime in the late 80's or early 90's, but, unless you had connections in the video industry, knew precisely what to ask for or where to look and were willing to pay through the nose to get it, you weren't going to see stacks of Rock & Rule VHS tapes on store shelves.
As it happens, I worked in a video store for a number of years. After business hours, I had free time to examine the store's (old school) microfilm catalog. Rock & Rule was listed and was available as a rental only title. This meant that I could order the title if I was willing to pay the same price the rental stores had to pay. To ensure that only rental stores carried the title, pricing was set very high. If memory serves, I could have had a VHS version directly from MGM/UA for something in the neighborhood of $90-$100. I was sorely tempted, but sadly, I let the store manager talk me out of buying the official VHS release.
Sometime later, long before the DVD release, I picked up a bootleg copy. Now that Rock & Rule has an official DVD release, I had to upgrade. The picture and sound quality on the DVD release are, of course, much better than my shabby VHS copy could ever hope to be.
Perry from Gamma Ray Digital commented on the audio restoration process...
The style of animation is unique. Everything has a worn out, used, second-hand appearance. There is a limited use of CG, but, for the most part nearly everything is hand-drawn. The technological limitations of the time didn't allow for much more than a few CG elements.
The music is very good. I particularly like the opening sequence. But, some of the songs tend to make the feature feel a bit dated. Even so, I enjoy Rock & Rule as much today as I did way back in the misty dawn of time and I never get tired of seeing it. I gave Rock & Rule a 5 out of 5.
Rock & Rule features songs by Debbie Harry, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Cheap Trick, and Earth, Wind and Fire. Unfortunately, at the time of this writing (circa 2007) the soundtrack release is still in legal limbo due to rights issues.
Prologue...In this acclaimed, animated rock and roll feature, Angel, a member of a punk rock band in the post-apocalyptic future, is kidnapped by Mok, a legendary superocker. Obsessed with a dark experiment, Mok plans to use Angel's voice to summon a demon from another dimension. The rest of the band follows Mok to Nuke York in an attempt to rescue her and then the ultimate battle of good versus evil begins.
The war was over...Rock & Rule is a Canadian production circa 1983. I first encountered Rock & Rule in the misty dawn of time (sometime around the late '80s) when rare and wonderful gems such as this could be found on broadcast TV. According to the liner notes there was a very limited theatrical release, but, if you weren't one of the handful of people to catch the theatrical release in 1983, your first exposure, like mine, would almost certainly have been on TV.
The only survivors were street animals: dogs, cats and rats. From them, a new race of mutants evolved.
That was a long time ago...
MOK, a legendary superocker has retired to OHMTOWN. There his computers work at deciphering an ancient code which would unlock a doorway between this world and another dimension.
Obsessed with his dark experiment, MOK himself searches for the last crucial component --
...a very special voice.
There was a video release available sometime in the late 80's or early 90's, but, unless you had connections in the video industry, knew precisely what to ask for or where to look and were willing to pay through the nose to get it, you weren't going to see stacks of Rock & Rule VHS tapes on store shelves.
As it happens, I worked in a video store for a number of years. After business hours, I had free time to examine the store's (old school) microfilm catalog. Rock & Rule was listed and was available as a rental only title. This meant that I could order the title if I was willing to pay the same price the rental stores had to pay. To ensure that only rental stores carried the title, pricing was set very high. If memory serves, I could have had a VHS version directly from MGM/UA for something in the neighborhood of $90-$100. I was sorely tempted, but sadly, I let the store manager talk me out of buying the official VHS release.
Sometime later, long before the DVD release, I picked up a bootleg copy. Now that Rock & Rule has an official DVD release, I had to upgrade. The picture and sound quality on the DVD release are, of course, much better than my shabby VHS copy could ever hope to be.
Perry from Gamma Ray Digital commented on the audio restoration process...
We would have preferred to work with the original magnetic stereo master, or better, the stems from the original mix, but neither were available. So, you work with what you've got, and 35mm Optical has a surprisingly good frequency response. [In comparison] ... 16mm optical, which is significantly more limited because the track itself is tiny [and generally mono] - that's where you get the stereotypical warbly, tinny film sound. But 35mm, if it's in good shape, is actually pretty good to work from. In fact, 20+ year old magnetic tapes can have their own problems that don't show up in optical - like bleed-through, where the magnetic particles on one wind of the tape affect the next wind, causing a faint echo. none of that with optical - generally the worst you get with 35mm optical is popping and potentially hiss, which wasn't an issue with the print we worked from.There don't appear to be any edits compared with the version that I have on VHS. In fact, the special edition contains two versions of the movie as well as a lot of other bonus material. My favorite scene is Omar's appearance on stage at the power plant to save Angel.
The basic process was to remaster the stereo mix, taken off of the HD tape after the telecine work was completed. Once the stereo track was remastered, the audio mastering facility we work with used a TC Electronics 6000 to "unwrap" a surround mix from a stereo soundtrack. we were all pretty surprised at how much of a bottom end there was in that optical track when the remastering was finished. in the 5.1 mix, during scenes in Mok's ship, for instance, there's a really nice rumble in the background from the engines. The TC box is very sophisticated about picking up on reverb that's already in the stereo mix and sending the right stuff to the surrounds to give it more depth without making it sound really weird.
With something like this, it's partly about luck. We got lucky that the optical track was in good shape, so we ended up with good remastered stereo and 5.1 tracks.
The style of animation is unique. Everything has a worn out, used, second-hand appearance. There is a limited use of CG, but, for the most part nearly everything is hand-drawn. The technological limitations of the time didn't allow for much more than a few CG elements.
The music is very good. I particularly like the opening sequence. But, some of the songs tend to make the feature feel a bit dated. Even so, I enjoy Rock & Rule as much today as I did way back in the misty dawn of time and I never get tired of seeing it. I gave Rock & Rule a 5 out of 5.Rock & Rule features songs by Debbie Harry, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Cheap Trick, and Earth, Wind and Fire. Unfortunately, at the time of this writing (circa 2007) the soundtrack release is still in legal limbo due to rights issues.
