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

[KaiserGhidorah]

Media Blasters was selling the special edition of Megalon. I know because I have a copy of it that I snagged on ebay from somebody else who picked it up. I listened to about 5 minutes of the commentary and shut it off and haven't touched it since. They do have alot of supplemental extras on both discs and I was fortunate enough to pick both up and rest assure you, I will be hanging on to them.

[GFan]

I was lucky enough to pick up MB's special edition DVD of MEGALON at FYE when it was first released! Missed out on both of MB's Blu-rays though.

I am very excited to get the rest of the Showa-era in HD, and in one easy purchase. I really hope Criterion picks up FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD to pair with WotG!

[Gwangi]

I suppose that Criterion will be releasing the other Toho properties that they have available at a later date, namely "Rodan" & "War of the Gargantuas". And my guess is that we will probably be getting only subtitled versions of those features.

If there is one movie that is badly needed of a restoration is the American cut of "Rodan". Frankly, I don't think that will happen.

[H-Man]

DAM and Megalon looked better on Media Blasters' DVDs than on Blu-ray. DAM is at least watchable but they must have really screwed up the encode on Megalon, though I guess that's gonna happen when you have 6 people on the payroll.

[lhb412]

^ as I've mentioned before, their transfer of Destroy All Monsters is pretty good if you do a lot of fiddling with the picture. Now, their encode of Godzilla vs. Megalon is straight-up botched.

[Dr Kain]

MB's video for DAM was fine, but their audio was awful. It has this really bad echo at times, though it is much worse on Megalon.

[Gojira69]

I kept a copy of an old Megalon pan&scan DVD just so's I'd never forget what this thing looked like for 40 years on home video!

[Gojizilla]

So if this Godzilla Showa set is sourced from Toho's blu rays, how will the quality be? I'm not familiar with any opinions good or bad about them.

[canofhumdingers]

[jellydonut25]

It's a shame Criterion won't be doing the same level of restoration to all the movies they did to Gojira and are just taking Toho's masters and doing "some touchup" or whatever...

[canofhumdingers]

[H-Man]

Toho's HD transfer of Godzilla Raids Again (pictured here from an HD-TV recording and downrezzed to 720x540) isn't even better than the transfer on the German *DVD*:





I think the Toho transfers are -at best- watchable and I'm sure a lot of fans will be content with them. I just think it's disappointing because the films can and should look a hell of a lot better.

[canofhumdingers]

^Yikes!

[lhb412]

^^ The picture on the DVD is immediately more appealing because the contrast is better and makes the image pop. If you zoom in on the side of that guy's face you'll see that, despite the less pleasing nature of the picture that the Blu-ray is less pixelated and more detailed. Now, if Criterion were to go in and do the necessary adjustments (god willing), the Blu-ray image could be made it all respects superior.

Again, I will make statement for the thousandth time: the 2008 transfers are not perfect, but they are not inherently terrible either. The main problems with them are they are overly bright, not enough contrast, problems with the color levels - these are all fixable problems not inherit to the image itself. Despite everyone's fixation on the amount of pixels or whatever in the image being the be-all end-all of picture quality, in truth there's a dynamic range of factors that go into whether a picture looks pleasing or not.

[WaverBoy]

[canofhumdingers]

[lhb412]

^ I know about the softness inherit to the transfers, and of course I believe they could be improved however I also believe that that's not the be-all end-all of a pleasing picture and that the films will look fine. Not definitive, not super excellent, but pretty good.

[Henry88]

could anyone show a comparison of the 2004 sony dvds vs th2008 Toho blurays.

[jellydonut25]

[canofhumdingers]

Yep, omgitsgodzilla on TK basically said the same thing, jelly. So frustrating!

[Henry88]

[WaverBoy]

[lhb412]

I want someone at Toho to go full galaxy brain and order the entire series redubbed.

[Gwangi]

Perhaps it is just my thinking (and it probably is), but there seems to be this mentality that Toho is a Mom & Pop shop struggling to keep afloat, therefore, they can’t give what the fanbase sometimes desires.

I've been involved in staffing for the medical device industry for nearly 25 years, and if (and I emphasize if) Toho is like the companies that I've had to personally deal with, they do indeed have the money and resources to do just about anything! If it is a matter of restoring a movie, even an American cut, they probably can do it. If it is a matter of finding the proper materials, they probably can find them. If it is a matter of paying royalties to voice actors (eventhough, that question was debunked earlier in the thread), they probably can pay those off. Toho's dealings are not only in movie and merchandising, but they also hold vast sums of real-estate. Folks, they are a wealthy company! But just like the corporations that I personally know, they sometimes do not want to that extra mile, because it will eat up profits. True that, but here is a dirty little secret of the business world - they won't starve and as a matter a fact, they will still be rich!

[Gojira69]

Without sounding critical, what would be the motivation for someone who already has all of the Godzilla films that have come out on digital home video in the US, to buy the Criterion set, besides acquiring the Japanese release of KKvG? Please, this is not a rhetorical question, it just seems I may have missed something in this thread and online...