Monster Zero x SciFi Japan - Archive Only

Sometimes a movie or series isn't given the care or attention it deserves for its home video release. What are some of the titles you've seen that were released in forms that were disappointing, insulting, or downright bizarre? Some examples from my collection:

Rodan. The version of Rodan bundled with War of the Gargantuas is great, but this movie had an earlier release that looked like a bootleg, with no Japanese language track, and colour so blown out that it looked like it had been painted over by a toddler.

Kiseki Films DVDs. Kiseki were a moderately successful UK anime distributor in the 90s, but they had run out of steam by the time the DVD era came along. As a result, I don't think they ever picked up any new licences after the late 90s, and just dumped their existing catalogue onto DVD using the same masters as their VHS releases. This was painfully obvious due to the baked-in subtitles with blocky black backgrounds, and instances of damage to the master tapes that made them look like cheap bootlegs. Things get weird when you look at how the releases were organised. Kiskei licensed a mix of anime classics and gore-soaked exploitation trash, and their DVDs were double features that sometimes combined both. The most ill-considered combined The Cockpit with Digital Devil, mashing Leiji Matsumoto's sombre, contemplative anthology of WWII stories together with one of the worst OAVs ever made. But the worst release was reserved for my all-time favourite anime, Gunbuster. This featured the shoddiest attempt at censorship I've ever seen, with repeated footage and freeze-frames amateurishly cut in to cover up instances of nudity. What made this especially bizarre is that the uncensored VHS release was already a PG certificate, and the censored DVD gained the same, so their sloppy work didn't even open it up to a wider audience.

Cobra: Le Film. I'm not usually a fan of releases making heavy revisions to original works, but Manga UK's various experiments in this field did produce a couple of gems. Unfortunately, these versions have generally not seen re-releases on DVD or blu-ray due to expired licenses for the music they used. One of the most prominent was Space Adventure Cobra: The Movie, where the entire score was replaced with songs by Yello, giving it a unique feel. This movie has seen numerous DVD and blu-ray releases in the UK and US, but none of them include this dub. Instead, the only post-VHS release with this version of the English dub is the French DVD from Pathe, Cobra: Le Film! Exactly how they managed to source this dub when even Manga Entertainment couldn't re-use it is a mystery. Also, the DVD has a disappointing non-anamorphic transfer that looks awful compared to the recent blu-ray.

That weird, stretched WoTG master on the Classic Media DVD is the old Toho laserdisc master, the same laserdisc that Video Daikaiju used to have a bootleg of. I actually held on to the 2002 Rodan disc, despite getting the later double feature; although both the 2002 and 2008 disc use the same ancient transfer of the US Rodan, the 2002 disc is better encoded.

How about that first DAM disc that had no chapter stops?

I've been getting into Hong Kong action films recently, and the transfers that HK has made available of a lot of these films has a whole heckuva lot to be desired. Many have this weird... I don't know hot to describe it, metallic look? Lot of 'em seem to be upscales of DVD masters that weren't even all that great for DVD. The first Police Story is a good example of what I'm talking about, as well as the marginally improved transfer of Police Story 2. I hear the transfer of The Killer is similar, but I'm still this close to biting the bullet and getting it because I love the movie and it's no longer on Netflix.

Shout!Factories DVD release of Gamera was superb, no doubt, I just wish the original film could have included the English production of Gammera:The Invincible (similar to Criterions inclusion of GKOTM on their Gojira release). I also wish the English opening/closing sequences used by AIP (and to a lesser extend Sandy Frank) would have been included as bonuses.

I can't recall if it was someone from Shout! Factory or August Ragone who said so, but apparently the reason Shout! didn't include "Gammera The Invincible" was because the UCLA Film & TV archive asked for too high a donation in exchange for access to the master elements for the US release, and Shout! didn't feel it would be worth the expense of including the old Neptune Media master in the DVD set.

Correction: Here's the discussion where August stated the above:



No detailed reason why Shout! was unable to use the Neptune Media master was mentioned.

^ Thank you for researching this more in-depth. I pretty much knew the reason why, but still...It's a disappointment to me, that's why I chose to include it. In fact pretty much every odd or disappointing release has a logical explanation (whether it is public knowledge or not...) but that still doesn't stop us from wishing things had been done differently.

Really the only release *I* cannot nitpick is Criterions BRD of the original Gojira. Yes I know some fans can and did chose to criticize the packaging, but as for the content itself, its exactly what I would want in a release. The best possible version of the original film, and the best possible release of the English alternative. I wish every Toho and Daiei kaiju film could be given such treatment, but I know it'll never happen, which is why I end up sometimes with multiple releases of the same film to make sure all bases are covered.

^Exactly, a perfect example.