by lhb412 » Thu Jul 25, 2019 2:44 pm
Wow. You know, the lack of most of the English language versions is massively disappointing... but still, this is a massive accomplishment on the part of Criterion.
Listing the Japanese version of King Kong vs. Godzilla as an extra with the American version as the main feature must be a result of the deal with Universal. The fact that so many of the International dubs are missing must be the result of the pulling teeth-like nature of getting stuff from Toho. I mean, why else would the Godzilla vs. Gigan dub be missing? Luckily, we already had that preserved on a great previous Blu-ray release. The most important dub, the Glen Glen produced one for Astro Monster, I'm assuming is the one included since whatever other International dub was done has fallen off the face of the Earth and thats the one Criterion has been providing for streaming already. Not as many new extras as I was hoping, but the ones listed sound really intriguing, especially the unused effects stuff. The wording on some of those listings is a bit vague, are they referring to a lot of smaller programs or a few linger from ones? Whatever the case, there's apparently enough new extras to comprise an entire extras disc!
I think the package looks phenomenal. Love the individual artists. Sophie Campbell and Monarobot have done so much great fanart over the years it's great to see their work on an official release! Like the Zatoichi set, this looks like something that, when you have it in your hands, you'll just feel like you're holding something special.
I know I'm picky, but they have really done the impossible with this set within the limitations of dealing with all these parties.