[VIP] Disc Preservation Project - Universal Studios Florida: The Magic of Movies

The Spook Central VIP Exclusives Area is the home to content that has been made exclusively available for supporters who pledge a monthly donation through the Spook Central Patreon page. Said content is either downloadable through the VIP Exclusives Area here or on the Patreon page, though I link to some exclusive content throughout Spook Central where appropriate. You can learn more about the Spook Central VIP Area in this blog post. The VIP articles that are posted on Spook Central, which are easily distinguishable by the "[VIP]" at the start of the article title, are readable by all visitors, but contain download links that will only work for VIP members. If you wish to download this content, become a supporter through the Spook Central Patreon page. With that out of the way, let's continue...

For many years, Spook Central has spearheaded the Ghostbusters PDF eBook Preservation Project, an effort among fans to preserve out-of-print Ghostbusters books so that pieces of the franchise's history are available to all, and are not lost to time, or held hostage by price-gouging aftermarket sellers. Thanks to the gracious amount of webspace provided by Raffaele, Spook Central is able to do the same with selected fan-made and promotional digital disc content. I have a few discs that are suitable for the Disc Preservation Project, though if the primary content from them ends up on an official, commercially-available, easy-to-obtain Blu-ray/DVD/whatever, then I won't include it in the project (or will remove it if it's already been included). This is about preservation, not piracy.

Originally, the plan was to make .ISO images files available, which could be downloaded and burned onto DVD-R discs, which would give you an exact copy of the original DVD. However, even with the gracious amount of webspace provided to Spook Central, I find that that may not be completely feasible in the long-term. Most of the disc images are 4GB each, and that adds up pretty quickly. Also, some people may not be able to to download files that large. There's also the concern that there may not be many dinosaurs like me left, who would prefer a "physical disc"-suitable file. With all of that in mind, I felt that the best thing for the project is to proceed with DVD-ripped .MKV video files of selected content from each disc. These files would have the same quality as the video on the disc (I won't recompress them), but they could be immediately played without the need to burn a disc or mount an image file. Anyone who does want the .ISO image files for all of the discs in the project, can buy the limited-edition physical flash drive release, which is a copy of my master flash drive for the small amount of people who may want those files.


Universal Studios Florida: The Magic of Movies is a 73-minute promotional documentary, hosted by John Forsythe, which was sold on VHS at the USF gift shop for $19.95 back in 1991. There are two different versions of the documentary. One is 1 min 19 sec longer than the other, with some different footage/scenes. A copy released on fan-made DVD by the former ExtinctAttractions.com website (which runs 1 hr 13 min) has Beetlejuice with the Ghostbusters in a street scene, while a copy uploaded to YouTube has a few quick different shots of the Ghostbusters on the street - without Beetlejuice (but with Wayne Brady as Winston). The YouTube copy has a somewhat different opening (with production credits at the start), and scenes with a movie monsters concert, the Star Trek photo "ride", and the Nickelodeon "Family Double Dare" set.

Three different VHS copies have popped up on eBay (excluding an alternate purple-colored variant of "version 1"). The first two have a 1991 copyright date on the case, while the third is dated 1994. It is my belief that the 1994 VHS is an updated version of the others, which would explain the two versions noted above - but I could be wrong about that since I've never watched any of these VHS tapes themselves.

I bought the v1 version on a bootleg DVD from eBay user "ipalpatine", which is the source for the DVD-ripped MKV video file provided below. This is the complete documentary, even though it is not entirely about the Ghostbusters stage show, which is featured from 56:40 to 1:01:26. The Ghostbusters street scene (version #1) is shown from 23:07 to 24:02. It contains chapters every 10 minutes. Check out Spook Central's Universal page for framegrabs and more information, and last month's Disc Preservation post has the Universal EPKs.


Disclaimer: No copyright infringement is intended with the content on this page. The presentation of disc content is done solely to preserve materials that are no longer being published, or in the case of fan-made discs, may have never been made available for public purchase in the first place. These materials will be lost and gone forever if the fans don't properly preserve them. Please note that the money paid to me as a Spook Central supporter is for my hard work in bringing this material to you since August 1996. You are not paying for the content itself. The money I receive is used to fund Spook Central and to pay for my living expenses.