SICK, bro. The only thing that would be sicker is if there were some titties I could screencap.

I thought he was being hyperbolic until I went and saw for myself :O

maybe he was alluding to the film's toxic shooting location and its suspected deleterious effect on cast and crew.

Wow, those screenshots look fabulous. The promise of watching this film at home at this level of quality seems to be fulfilled, at last.

Are there different sound mixes for this film? I saw the new restoration at the Brattle last week (the film remains a masterpiece by the way) and was comparing it with my Kino DVD, and I noticed that the use of music is different in, for example, the shot of the defused bomb under the water with the fishes and the oil swirling around it. In the Kino version the sound of the rumbling train comes up and Ravel's "Bolero" is heard very clearly as soon as the train starts, while in the new restoration a very slight part of the music (from a different part of "Bolero") is only heard briefly near the end of the shot.

Yes I believe so. I actually remember NOT hearing sounds when I watched my old Kino disc. This of course is trivial compared to the moving bed. I don't know what caused that but I sure as shit remember a static object moving when it shouldn't have.

Crikey, I've never heard Bolero in it! My old Artificial Eye DVD contains both versions of the soundtrack and there are a few notes on the two different soundtracks in this review:
http://offscreen.com/view/stalker

And I was not even aware that the old Kino DVD contained both soundtracks! It's useful being able to toggle back and forth between them to compare their differences. The music during the handcart sequence is the most obvious difference but there are also more minor ones, like "Bolero" being much more amplified (and less subtle/effective IMO) in the Ruscico mix during the shot of the fish swimming around the bomb.

The ever-useful Nostalghia.com has a page that covers the varying soundtracks for Stalker that seemed to result from RusCiCo creating a 5.1 mix for their DVD release 15-odd years ago. Elsewhere there's also mention of missing gunshots on the mono track used on earlier DVDs.

Did the latter get fixed for Criterion's release? (Not that I recall ever noticing this, so I'd hardly be dismayed if the answer were "no".)

The missing gunshots have been restored (at least they were present when I saw the restoration theatrically)

Just to make sure the soundtrack in this new restoration isn't as radically altered as some of these posts suggest, the music heard during the final shot is not actually Ravel's Bolero, but, rather, the Ode To Joy portion of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, right?

I checked the Mosfilm restoration on YouTube, which I believe is the basis for Criterion's edition, and am happy to confirm that it ends with the Ode to Joy, as I've always remembered it.

I also checked the trolleycar sequence, and that's also as I remember it: electronically enhanced sound effects to a clearly composed rhythm but nothing that would normally be regarded as music - in other words, not the treatment on Ruscico's 5.1 remix.

Whether this will be carried over to the Criterion edition remains to be seen, but I can't see why it wouldn't be.

I can confirm the above on the Criterion Blu ray: the gunshots are there, the trolley sound effects are as they should be, and Ode to Joy is at the end.

Good to hear; thanks Chris

From a poster on DVD Classik : looks like the French release (from Potemkine) uses the same new restoration than Criterion, but doesn't have the yellow tint.

Does anybody know which one would thus be correct ?

Based on multiple 35mm viewings, I'd say the yellow (actually sepia) tint is more accurate.

Unless my memory is playing tricks I thought those scenes were monochrome when I saw it at the cinema when it first came out.
I can't get used to this sepia tint.

I have a pretty vivid memory of the sepia. Mainly because I'd never seen a sepia-tinted black-and-white film in the cinema prior to then.

I have projected it years ago, and my memory lends to sepia. On reason why it was sepia, is that the copies were made on color film stock, and it’s quite difficult to make pure B&W on color film stock, especially when the stock was ORVO.
The same problem is with MIRROR, the B&W scenes should be sepia, and not pure B&W. I don’t think such things should be changed afterwards, even tough in these digital times, it’s no problem to mix pure B&W and color film stock.

I'm still wondering : these 2 definitely look like they're taken from the same digital restoration. So didn't the MosFilm restoration feature the yellow/sepia tint and Criterion added it ? Or is it the other way around ?

The again the copies of ANDREI RUBLEV was made on B&W film stock. Only on the last reel, it was used color stock. The change to color was made true the campfire. First it was pure B&W stock, the when the reel changed, it changed to sepia (because of the color stock) before the crossfade to color.

I belive (don't know), that if you make a restoration from the film negative, the material is pur B&W, but if you use for references a film copy (on color stock) the scenes is sepia.

I belive (don't know), that if you make a restoration from the film negative, the material is pur B&W, but if you use for references a film copy (on color stock) the scenes is sepia.

I finally watched this tonight. Amazing Criterion isn't marketing this as a prequel to Stranger Things.

If only Stranger Things was on par with Stalker!