Godzilla KOTM... from the Criterion Collection!?!?!

[lhb412]

^ Looking good! The shot of the water pumps best sells the improvement.

[canofhumdingers]

That’s a notable improvement, which is good. The more vibrant colors and (more importantly) better contrast will help hide the fact that the whole film is basically slightly out of focus. It won’t actually fix the problem, but it will make it less apparent. Especially on smaller screens.

I’m curious to see a similar comparison for Son of Godzilla. I thought we had confirmed that it still had the awful heavy yellow tint just like the Japanese disc, but now I’m thinking maybe not?

[mr.negativity]

[Dr Kain]

Well I just got my official confirmation that my set will NOT be arriving until tomorrow. -_- I'm never ordering from Diabolik again since they couldn't actually guarantee delivery on the day of release. If I wanted that, I would have just preordered it from Amazon.

[Dr Kain]

[Dr Kain]

So far this set is fantastic.

The 54 movie is obviously the same as before, but Raids Again looked excellent. As for KKvsG, sure, the video was quite inconsistent with some scenes looking good, some looking bad, but god damn does it look better than the Region 2 DVD I have. Plus, getting to finally see this movie with subtitles was a real treat. Tomorrow I hope to tackle Mothra vs Godzilla.

[Benjamin Haines]

I didn't realize that Barnes & Noble's 50% off Criterion sale would begin the same week that this set released, but today is November 1 and it has begun:



https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dvd-cr ... s/34116464

At about $120 with sales tax and free shipping, these eight discs are about $15 apiece, or if you prefer, it's 15 movies for about $8 each plus a lot of bonus content.

[Gwangi]

Just curious. If there is a faulty disk among the set (meaning it has issues playing), would one have to return the whole package or just that one disk? I hope that this will not be an issue to those who purchase the box, but I am sure that they must have some sort of contingency plan for this (of course, one can chalk this up as an argument on why they should have been sold separately, in addition to the box set).

[Dr Kain]

[canofhumdingers]

A retailer would likely make you return the whole set. You *might* have luck contacting criterion directly if it’s just one disc, but I wouldn’t count on it being a sure thing. Some manufacturers will send individual replacement parts, some won’t.

[Tom R VanSlambrouck]

Ben you beat me too it I was going to post that the Criterion sale started already.

However I do have something to add, if you're a Barnes and Noble Member you can take an additional 10% off. So the set goes down to $101.24 before taxes if applicable in your state. My state has a 6% sales tax so the final cost for me is $107.34. I informed my parents and they're going to pick it up for me for Christmas so sadly I'll have to wait until Christmas to dig into this set. After watching all of Ultra Q and going through Ultraman now I can wait until then and the sub only option for some films doesn't bug me as much as when I first found out.

[canofhumdingers]

Thanks for the heads up about the sale starting already. My understanding is that it runs until the end of November?

I wanted to have a bit more time to check out reviews before I make my final decision, but I don’t want to miss the sale either (I’m assuming I’ll be ordering it, I just want to do a bit more research now that the set is actually out and widely available).

[jellydonut25]

I'm just gonna wait until the next Criterion sale. If I don't find it used cheap before then, that's when I'll finally pull the trigger...but I don't need this NOW. I just watched all the movies in the lead-up to KOTM. I can wait on the features.

[Heiseigodzilla425]

I saw a post about the B&N sale on Facebook this morning, and called my local B&N while I was on my way to work. I had them hold a copy, and picked it up at lunch. Its a very good thing I called them early, because they only had 3 copies today, and the other 2 copies had sold by the time I got there to pick mine up around noon.

[lhb412]

Got the second to the last copy at my local Barnes & Noble ($112! Amazon is price matching now, too)

..... aaaaand it goes in a closet, not to be opened 'till Christmas.

[Dr Kain]

I watched Mothra vs Godzilla today. God damn the movie has never looked this good. Sure, the video isn't perfect, but compared to the DVD, it's a godsend. Except there was one tiny little problem. Every time the camera angle or scene changed, there was a tear that flashed across the top and bottom of the screen. I've watched this movie like 200 times previously and that was never there before. I also guess it's like that on GTTHM and Invasion of Astro-Monster, so I'm wondering if it is a disc issue and not a movie one. Guess I'll find out tomorrow. Moving past that, as I said, it was pure joy watching this movie again.

[canofhumdingers]

That’s not a tear, it’s a splice. That’s where they literally cut the pieces of film apart and then taped or glued them back together in the editing room to create the final edit of the film (this is where we get terms like “cutting film”, “final cut”, “cutting room floor”, etc. - it was a physical process and they literally cut the various pieces of film up and put them together in the order needed.)

These have always been there (in fact they’re on every film you’ve ever seen that wasn’t edited digitally, which is most films in history), but you normally don’t see them because they are supposed to matted out by proper framing. It’s very disappointing to hear that criterion of all companies left these in sight. They plagued the previous media blasters BD of Megalon and I was hoping they’d be fixed in this set. Sounds like that probably isn’t the case?

Edit: For people who were lauding the criterion screenshots of having more picture information at the edges over the Sony transfers of certain films; perhaps it’s actually too much information? As we said before, the difference between the two would be well within the normal tolerances of matting the projector. Maybe the Kraken discs are actually more correctly framed if all the criterion discs are showing every editing splice.

[Benjamin Haines]

[canofhumdingers]

I have mixed feelings about that. My optimistic side says, “Yay! People still love Godzilla! Awesome! And maybe this will show Toho that there is demand and they should relent and let criterion (or anyone) restore and include the unique dubs and alternate versions.”

But my cynical side is saying, “great, people are salivating over what is clearly a sub par release (especially for Criterion standards) and they are willfully feeding Toho’s suppression of anything but the cheapest release of the Japanese cuts only. It’s only going to solidify their terrible current policies toward the franchise.”

What do you guys think?

[lhb412]

^ I think it's good with the films are being seen and enjoyed at all. Although I'd appreciate very much if superior restoration work was done, ultimately people loving the films is what keeps them around and is of paramount importance.

[H-Man]

I haven't bought this and probably won't, unless maybe I can get a used copy at a cheap price. So I'm with humdingers' cynical take.

[Benjamin Haines]

[kiryugoji04]

I'm just happy these movies are back in print in an edition that cherishes and respects their contributions to culture, even if Toho kneecapped the release in some aspects. I can't afford it myself yet but I'll be happy to buy it at the end of the month or in July if that's what it comes to.

[H-Man]

“Clearly subpar” also refers to the use of transfers that were already inadequate when they were produced eleven years ago. I’d tolerate the absence of alternate versions of these films if we’d been gifted modern transfers that actually make the movies look like they should, and similarly, I could stomach the recycled HiVision transfers had more bonus content I don’t already have been included. As it stands, there are only three aspects to this release that I don’t already have on my shelf or on my hard drive:

*new subtitle translations for these films.
*uncut/untampered-with dubbed audio for select films.
*Alex Cox interview and the Ed G. and Steve R. liner notes

With regard to the first two, I can access those on Criterion Channel for less than the msrp of this set while also enjoying hundreds of other movies. Or, I could watch them from my DVR, since the dubbed films have played on Comet and most of the subtitled versions on TCM last month. And I’m all for physical media but I can’t get over how much of an immense disappointment this collection represents to me. As I said, I may buy a used copy somewhere down the road just to ensure I have access to stuff I already have (for free) on my DVR.

No disrespect to Ed and Steve but I don’t intend to spend $100+ on their comments.

[Dr Kain]