by August » Wed May 19, 2010 2:15 am
Shout! Factory's Brian Ward, on the Shout! Factory Gamera forum, had his to say about the impending release of GAMERA VS. BARUGON:
"Sadly, the English language version is not included here. The running times don't match. And we received the final elements too late to try tricky editing and branching. Sorry, gang."
When asked why a separate US version wasn't included (either AIP-TV or SFE):
"There are a couple of reasons it wasn't included. First, bit rates. We've gone to the trouble of remastering the film and it's considerably more vibrant and colorful than ever before. So to lower the bit rate to accommodate a lesser-quality version would simply be unacceptable. Which leads to the second reason. We did not have a visual master for the Americanized version. So we would've needed to have paid someone else's master of the film to have included it as a separate piece. And it wouldn't have looked nearly as good, because the transfer was bad. So in order to the English dub, you have to watch a low quality version of the film. Doesn't seem fair, does it?"
I don't know how people can say that they'll keep their faded, dupey, pan & scan, 16mm film-chain transfers of the US versions, instead of picking up these amazing-looking HD transfers that look night and day (and are superior to Toho's transfers of films from the same period. Seriously.).
Brian on the quality of Shout's GAMERA VS. BARUGON:
"I can say, however, that this movie has never looked better, including when it was first projected. This transfer is GORGEOUS. The audio commentary is easily as informative as the one on the first release. And August Ragone is joined by Jason Varney this time around, so it might just be doubly informative! The publicity galleries are lovely, as always."
With this being said, Shout! is actively working on including the English tracks (either AIP-TV or SFE or both, for the successive releases). Stay tuned for more details as they develop...
August Ragone
Showa GAMERA Special Features Producer
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