Monty Python and the Holy Grail: Dehanced Edition
If you were to ask me “Adam, what’s your favourite movie” I’d probably have a hard time coming up with an answer (“just one?!”) but ask me what movie I’ve seen more than any other and the answer is simple: Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
I honestly have lost count of how many times I’ve seen this film. When I was a kid I used to go to Blockbuster every single weekend and for a while there I’d rent a movie I had never seen before, and Holy Grail. I even made an audio cassette recording of the film so I could fall asleep listening to it. This was back when owning certain movies was far less trivial, otherwise I would have bought a copy of my own. In fact, I eventually saved up literally nickels and times to be able to order the initial bare bones DVD from HMV.com only to replace that a few years later with the spectacular new 2-disc special edition (truly a revelatory experience). It was almost like watching a new film; there was 24 new seconds, the sound was crisp, the Green Knight was actually green!
But there was one thing that started to nag at me. In creating the new (and very good) 5.1 surround mix, for whatever reason they had to re-dub all of Michael Palin’s narration and… well, it just wasn’t the same. The performance was off, he sounded older, it just wasn’t what I was used to. But there was nothing I could do about it.
Fast forward to 2025, the film’s 50th anniversary. I finally got around to a project I had been meaning to do for some time: a dehancement of the audio track. What on earth is that you ask?
Basically I took the 5.1 surround mix, mixed out the re-recorded voice over wherever it appeared, dropped in the mono track in its place*, and exported it. Simply re-mux it to your copy of the film (this one is specifically setup and timed to the new 4K release, which I still cannot buy in Canada) and you can enjoy the best possible visual quality, with the best possible audio quality.
Does anybody need this? No. Does anybody want this? Probably not. But I do, and so I made it. My first “fan edit” I suppose… Hopefully you enjoy it.
*To clarify: I kept the rear surround and LFE track for these sections, and mixed the old mono narration to the front/centre channels, so the 5.1 experience remains essentially seamless, but the re-recorded narration is replaced by the superior original narration.