Shin Godzilla on BD

[Gargantuan Gargantua]

I mean, in the grand scheme of things a 5.1 mix vs. a 3.1 mix would not make or break the movie for me. I have the gear to listen to things at loud volumes with little distortion so I can be snobby about sound. It wouldn't really make a difference though cause they use so many old sounds mixed with new sounds that it can be audibly messy. The old stock sounds/scores are inherently distorted and they didn't do too much to clean them up with the exception of a few. Again, it doesn't effect how I feel about the movie. More of a spergy nerd thing on my end.

[klen7]

i prefer an open layout in my home, so i havent had a 5.1+ set up in years just because i find the rear speakers awkward and obtrusive. Even when i had the full setup I often found myself bumping up the center channel.

[O.Supreme]

Picked it up yesterday at Wal-Mart. The interview Godzilla vs The Nerds was ok, nothing special. I've met Matt Frank before, he's a pretty cool guy, and obviously a fan, he pretty much carried the interview. The other 2 guys (Funimation eomployees) didn't really seem to know what they were talking about beyond "were excited to have distributed this movie"...

Good to know IDW is getting distribution in Japan...its hard to believe however its been almost a year since IDW's last Godzilla series finished (Rage Across time). I wonder if they have anything in the works??

I also listened to the English dub. It was nice to hear a dub that wasn't commissioned by Toho, and IMHO is the best since Godzilla 1985. It was a bit odd however to hear they went with the pronunciation of "Gojira" in English, but occasionally referring to the creature as "Godzilla" when relating to anything coming from the United States. Its definitely a different take, and one wonders with future films, will we start to hear "Gojira" in English more than Godzilla? I guess we'll see. I assume the animated films are getting an English dub...but as far as I know there's been no announcement as to who will be producing it.

[lhb412]

Currently halfway through the dub. Not the best dub, but pretty decent - the best actors I feel are dubbing some of the side characters. A guy'll pop up and I'll go "oh, that's a striking voice" and it'll be that character's only line! While in the end the original language is preferable, actually hearing the rapid fire dialog does change the viewing experience and helps you appreciate the film in different ways. The parts where we're rapid fire cutting between various locations and are hearing snippets of people talking is more easily digested when heard and not read.

Many are getting upset that most of the actors emphasize the word 'Gojira' wrong, but after growing up with HK dubs I feel I give pronunciation a lot of leeway (maybe too much).

[Dr Kain]

It was nice to finally get to see this movie without a billion text titles everywhere, but seriously, do we really need to know that they are in the corridor of the 2nd floor? Why does that even matter? Hell, why not show them in the bathroom and subtitle it, "Executive's Private Bathroom 5th Floor East Quadrant 35 degrees to the West of Tokyo."

Seriously though, the movie was just as good as it was in theaters as I love how disorganized the government is as they have no idea how to handle a monster attack. Not to mention all of the politics involved just to hold a friggin press conference and then again to determine what course of action can be taken. I do love how the situation effects the entire world and not just Japan.

Character wise though, I've come to realize there are only 4 characters that truly matter, and one of them can't even speak English despite being an American born citizen. Thankfully the other three make up for her and it is also cool to see the dude from Gamera the Brave/Kamen Rider Ryuki in this (not one of the important characters though).

The video quality on the BD was quite impressive and I'm not sure if the CGI was touched up a bit or if it was just because I wasn't watching it on the big screen, but it didn't bother me as much this time around. THere are still a few scenes that look really bad (like the dentistry scene and the train bombs), but I wasn't apalled by them as I was initially. Sadly though, the audio was meh. I had to turn my receiver way up just to hear the dialog clearly and the music was quite low. The only time I could tell my subwoofer was working was during the explosion scenes. Despite being ripped right out of Evangelion, the soundtrack is excellent (one of the few things Evangelion does have to its name) and I do love the Ifukube bits.

I'm still unsure where I will place the movie, but it is just as good as the 84 film, if not better. I do think you still could have shaved off a good 20 minutes though. I'm sticking with my 8/10 score.

Oh, that Nerds vs Shin Godzilla feature was terrible. The dude in the red shirt had no idea what he was talking about half of the time. He kept saying Godzilla Jr was in SpaceG when that is Little Godzilla. He said Godzilla changes his beam against King Ghidorah when that was MechaGodzilla. So many mistakes it's like he didn't even watch the films but rather just highlights so he could participate in that segment.

I wish they had done some type of feature on the voice actors or have the people who had to sub the movie talk about their experience subbing it.

[lhb412]

Wow, so this is the #1 selling movie on amazon?!

That's spectacular!

[O.Supreme]

^ I probably would have got mine from Amazon, but Walmart was cheaper, and more convenient. I'm actually quite surprised, I never thought I'd see such a niche title at B&M ever again, but glad it happened.

[planetxleader]

[canofhumdingers]

I haven't seen anybody mention the reversible (I guess, it wouldn't really work that well since it wraps all the way around...) cover art.





Also I think the disc art is quite nice. The blu ray matches the regular cover while the DVD matches the inside cover art. I swapped the disc order because I hate it when they package the DVD in what I consider the "primary" disc location (on the right) with the BD on the left hidden under the digital copy leaflet...




Sorry for the sideways images. I'm still learning how to use Imgur since Photobucket decided they don't want anyone to actually use them anymore.

[Benjamin Haines]

[lhb412]

^I've been rewatching Shin Godzilla so much I haven't even had the chance to give Kong: Skull Island a spin! That's definitive for this era we're in: I have to hold off on the new King Kong movie because I'm so busy enjoying the new Godzilla movie!

[Shokara]

Nice to see Shin Godzilla selling so well. Now for some minorly nitpicky, nerdy stuff about the movie. I can't remember if I read it in this thread or elsewhere, but a minor issue that some have with the English dub is the pronunciation of the word "Gojira." The dub uses the typical English language speaker's pronunciation "Go-JEE-rah," emphasizing the second syllable rather than the traditional Japanese method, "GO-jee-rah," emphasizing the first. Well, whether by accident or design, at least one moment in the dub pronounces it as "GO-jee-rah" at the 01:30:04 marker when spoken by the character Ogashira. I know, it's a really small issue and very nitpicky, but for those that haven't seen or heard the dub yet, the "proper" pronunciation is in there at least once. lol

[william newell]

Just got done watching this(so glad to have an "official" copy!)and I gotta say, the print looks great, and the dub is better than I expected! Both in translation, and in execution. In one case in particular, the dub actually improves the actors performance. A really nice, and respectful, presentation of the film,imo. Well done, Funimation!

[Benjamin Haines]

[Dai]

[lhb412]

[Shokara]

[lhb412]

^Cool.

[lhb412]

[canofhumdingers]

Personally, I don't love the way the subtitles and other titles are handled on the disc. For one, I did enjoy the layout and design aesthetic of all the Japanese text. It was artistically done and clearly had a lot of thought and effort put behind it. Also, I've come to generally dislike the practice of letting subtitles bleed over into the letterbox bars. I strongly prefer the (by necessity) theatrical method of containing the subs entirely within the film image.

That being said, I completely understand why funimation chose to go the route they did. I do wish they had used different fonts to distinguish dialogue from title cards. Also, it would've been really nice (and pretty much eliminated all my complaints) if they had just copied the Japanese text placement and style with the English text.

But even with those (admittedly rather minor) gripes about the handling of text, Funimation did a VERY nice job with this release. As I mentioned elsewhere, I was very impressed with the dub and am very grateful Funimation chose to have one made for the film! Overall I'm just happy as can be to have such a nice home video release, and so soon after it came out THEATRICALLY in Japan!!

Not to mention the fact that they also brought it to US theaters, where I saw it twice!

[Dai]

[Benjamin Haines]

[Dr Kain]

[Benjamin Haines]

[lhb412]

Funimation is now owned by Sony... could be a great chance to have some of their releases redone with better subtitle tracks.