by Shokara » Fri Sep 15, 2017 11:14 am
I picked up Tsuburaya's Blu-ray release of Ultraman Great/Ultraman: Towards the Future. As speculated earlier in this thread, yes, much like Star Trek: The Next Generation the final visual effects for the thirteen episode direct to video series were created and edited on video rather than film. Some of these effects were upgraded for the two movie compilations of the show. I'm uncertain whether any live action practical footage was also shot on video rather than film, but there are numerous uses of stock footage that was shot on video.
Yes, both the Japanese and English versions of the show are available on this set, but only for the thirteen episode series. The two movie compilations on the set are in Japanese only. However, rather than using interchangeable audio tracks, the Japanese and English versions are separate video sources, and you select which version you want to watch from the main menu.
The title sequences are edited differently using different music and video generated text. The English version has non-removable Japanese subtitles. This is because the masters used for this Blu-ray set are likely from Tsuburaya's domestic Japanese laserdisc release upscaled to 1080i, and Tsuburaya previously released the English version in Japan on VHS and laserdisc with Japanese subtitles before removable subtitles were invented for DVD.