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Posted: |
Mar 19, 2014 - 4:13 AM
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By: |
Joe E.
(Member)
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I'm honestly not sure about the music changes or commercial editing, though I'd be extremely surprised if material cut simply to allow for commercials was kept off the DVDs, since they don't have the ads and don't need to accommodate them.
That said, the series was updated in the 1990s, for pre-DVD video releases, reflecting new scientific discoveries made in the years since the original airings, and Sagan also taped some additional codas appended to the ends of some episodes, noting not only additional discoveries but also things like the thawing of relations between the superpowers. I believe any / all Cosmos DVD releases incorporate these updates.
The series can be seen via streaming on Netflix, and I imagine the version there reflects the most current home video release, so to answer your question, I'd recommend checking that out. They have a free trial offer if you're not already a member.
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I was looking this up the other day. Wikipedia has the rundown.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos:_A_Personal_Voyage
There are about 3 or 4 versions depending on how you look at it.
-The original PBS broadcast from 1980
-The 'Special Edition' from about '86, in which Sagan re-conceived the show down to 6 eps
-The A&E broadcast version of the 13 eps edited for time and includes a few clips of new footage. That seems to be the version NatGeo just showed prior to the premier of Tyson's remake.
Two things that didn't make that edit were the illustration of the Tesseract, and footage of the experiments that showed how easy it is to make organic molecules. Much more I'm sure, but that's what I remember most from last seeing this in 1980.
-Ted Turner bought the broadcast rights in '89. Those eps were re-edited for time and include some updated epilogs by Sagan. It includes a 14th ep, a conversation between Turner and Sagan.
There is a version available on DVD, but I'd wager it's the A&E version.
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Thanks for the info. Great run down. I had no idea there were so many versions of this series. What a convoluted mess.
Well, not such a big mess- All the versions were overseen by Sagan, or Ann Druyan, and only one version is even available on DVD. Even edited for time, the 13 eps are still riveting.
I watched these over the past week or so, as much out of nostalgia as anything else.
Sagan is completely captivating but the information is presented more conversationally than in a 'this-will-be-on-the-test' sort of way. I don't know if that helps or hurts. I had not seen this in 34 yrs, but I still remembered a lot of what Sagan was saying.
Still, I missed seeing him try to stir up a human in a vat of charcoal and water.
Oh, and Flatland. They left out Flatland for time.
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On sale today for $40.
http://amzn.to/1mCgs6b
These appear to be full 60 min episodes. Even allowing for the odd update by Sagan and Druyan, I'd say this is as close to the original 1980 broadcast as you will find.
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I never saw it the first time around. I'm looking forward to it.
ADDED: A Question -- Has the science held up over the last 34 years?
Short answer- yes.
Long answer-
The original series spent a lot of time on things most of interest to Sagan- Mars, the the Voyager missions, Venus, nuclear arms proliferation. Tyson's series shifts focus a bit.
The original eps are still interesting and informative for the novice or intermediate viewer.
We know more now, but I don't think more than one or two things presented in 1980 are contradicted by current science.
The original eps are as much about Sagan's conclusions about the information as they are about hard facts.
Some of those Pioneer and Voyager probes have reached the very edge of the solar system so who knows how Sagan would have rhapsodized over that milestone. The conclusions Sagan comes to in 'The Persistence of Memory' will fairly blow your mind.
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Guess I was late to the party. 
