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I talk about #lostmedia and media preservation sometimes (because I devote a somewhat significant amount of personal effort to the digitization, preservation, cataloging, and curation of various at risk or otherwise lost film and television programs. I talk about it because I'm working to overcome it!)

So I probably think about this more than most folks, I guess?

But do you ever consider how the magnitude of significance of the loss of any given piece of lost film is essentially unknowable?

We might have some contemporary press to depend on to tell us if a given film was good or not, but we might not! And even if we do, we have to trust them! The significance of a lot of films is only obvious in retrospect. Some of my favorite films were widely panned on initial release.

We'll never know what we lost.

Euan 2025

@Euan@speedlines.stctp.zone replied · 4 weeks ago

@span ajroach42 In the 90s Official Godzilla Compendium, which I had as a kid, the write-up on 1962's King Kong vs. Godzilla refers to a comedy sketch that played before the film in Japan, where Godzilla and Kong are interviewed before their bout like sumo wrestlers. I assume this is lost media because not only have I never seen it anywhere, I've also never heard anyone else bring it up besides in that book. (Some googling just now has led me to find there's quotes from what Godzilla and Kong say in the sketch in the book "Japan's Favorite Mon-Star: The Unauthorized Biography of "The Big G"", which are shared on [Tohokingdom.com](http://Tohokingdom.com) and the IMDB trivia page for the movie, so I've just gotten to know what they said for the first time!)

However, a friend recently made a joke about Godzilla monsters acting like wrestlers, and I told him about the sketch I'd read about, and it made him laugh. And I think there's something kinda magic about the fact, as a lost piece of art, it's still landing its desired effect, that still survives, even if only by way of a paragraph in a book I happened to have.

Leonard Kirke

@LeoKirke@retro.social replied · 4 weeks ago

@span Euan I still have this book! I got it at a Walden's in Myrtle Beach, SC circa 1998 and still have it to this day, but it's been ages since I perused it; I totally forgot about that bit.

I am curious because I have read that the OGC actually has a lot of misinformation in it, though I haven't gone back through to check that claim. If they didn't cite a source, and if there wasn't another source mentioning it, I wonder if that bit wasn't true? (And then I wonder if "Mon-Star" might also have been parroting the Compendium, or vice-versa, and neither actually had a source?) I'd be very curious if any of the historians who focus on Godzilla's film history might have any insight on this? I recently attended an event where Jeffrey Angles was present and if I'd known about this, I'd love to have asked him about it.

Space Catitude 🚀

@TerryHancock@realsocial.life replied · 4 weeks ago

@span ajroach42

I think all the lost Doctor Who episodes are object lesson in this.

They were simply not seen as valuable enough to keep -- the reusable video tape was seen as more valuable.

But the value of Doctor Who appreciated enormously over time. Shows got better and a huge fandom grew around it.

Now those early shows are so valuable that it is financially sound for the BBC to pay to recreate them with animation! Far more expensive than those video tapes!
📺

Andrew (Television Executive)

@ajroach42@retro.social replied · 4 weeks ago

@span TerryHancock sure, but at least in the case of doctor who, we know what's missing.

We know exactly what's missing.

And we have home taped audio recordings of the audio tracks of every missing episode, because people recognized doctor who as something special well before the bbc did.

But what about the things that aired or were released to cinemas before the advent of home tape recorders? Who knows what we lost in the DuMont archives!

What else should be here? https://blackfilmarchive.com/1920-s

Space Catitude 🚀

@TerryHancock@realsocial.life replied · 4 weeks ago

@span ajroach42

Very true.

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