Godzilla 1985 - Red Menace Reconstruction 35mm hybrid v1.5 AVAILABLE NOW

[GFAN198423]

Any luck with the 1080p file?

[goji1986]

Any luck with the 1080p file?

It's been available for a few months now! Check the Red Menace Tumblr.

[sherberttcat]

Has anyone encoded these to a smaller filesize?

[omgitsgodzilla]

I'm sure plenty of you saw this on Twitter already, but a new version of this reconstruction featuring new US material scanned from a 35mm print is available now! Check the OP for details.

[airforce111]

holy crap! where did the 35mm scan come from!? this is great news for american scenes, all it needs is some color correction and restoration! looks amazing!

[goji1986]

Checked it out, and while I will hold off on downloading it for now I am VERY excited for the potential here. The 35mm print looks to be in fairly good shape, but definitely needs some restorative work with colors, scratches, and stabilization. You definitely got your work cut out for you

Thanks to this I never realized that Steve Martin wrote a book about the original Gojira called "Cairo via Tokyo"...fantastic callback!

I just got my hands on Star Wars Project 4k77 and 4k83 -- dunno if you've seen them or not, but -- is that your overall goal?

[omgitsgodzilla]

holy crap! where did the 35mm scan come from!? this is great news for american scenes, all it needs is some color correction and restoration! looks amazing!

Servanov got in touch with me shortly after G-Fest last year saying he'd found a collector who owned a print and a technician who could scan it -- since then it's been a matter of time and money, but we should be getting a proper 4K scan sometime soon, which we intend to then clean up and release.

Checked it out, and while I will hold off on downloading it for now I am VERY excited for the potential here. The 35mm print looks to be in fairly good shape, but definitely needs some restorative work with colors, scratches, and stabilization. You definitely got your work cut out for you

Thanks to this I never realized that Steve Martin wrote a book about the original Gojira called "Cairo via Tokyo"...fantastic callback!

I just got my hands on Star Wars Project 4k77 and 4k83 -- dunno if you've seen them or not, but -- is that your overall goal?

That is more or less the plan -- Servanov will be handling most of the cleanup and color correction, as he knows a lot more about photo restoration than I do, while I'll be finishing it up and assembling various audio tracks and so on for the final release.

[Pkmatrix]

I downloaded this right after it was uploaded, I haven't had a chance to give it a proper watch up looking over the newly scanned stuff looks awesome! Great work, unbelievable work!

[Shokara]

I finally found some time to sit down and watch your v1.5 reconstruction from beginning to end. To both you and Servanov, great job! Even at only 720 resolution and before any greater restoration work, the 35 mm footage puts all the footage you used from the Monsters HD broadcast in your previous reconstruction to shame. I can hardly wait for the eventual v2.0, but the wait will be worth it!

[canofhumdingers]

I’ve got to pay more attention to this section. Just discovered your update the other day (I actually saw it on OT.com first) Haven’t had time to watch the whole thing but I skimmed through a few minutes of the 35mm footage. This is so exciting! I can’t wait to see what y’all are able to do with the whole thing, but in the meantime I’m looking forward to giving this a proper viewing soon!

[airforce111]

any plan on releasing the 35mm scan itself uncompressed or atleast a high def bluray encode of just the scan in its original "un-cleaned" form? like on archive or somewhere? or do you plan to only upload the red menace version with cuts from the toho versionl?

[Shokara]

any plan on releasing the 35mm scan itself uncompressed or atleast a high def bluray encode of just the scan in its original "un-cleaned" form? like on archive or somewhere? or do you plan to only upload the red menace version with cuts from the toho versionl?

From what I understand, the eventual v2.0 of the reconstruction will primarily be a color correction and other restorative work of the 35mm film scan within the best of omgitsgodzilla's and Servanov's abilities. Very little to no other footage sources will be used, and the ultimate goal is to make the whole film scan look as clean and vibrant as possible while still being faithful to how the colors are supposed to look. I've heard nothing about any plans to release the complete uncompressed film scan sans any clean-up/restoration.

[omgitsgodzilla]

Releasing the raw scan uncompressed would take an ungodly amount of storage space. There will absolutely be a Blu-ray compatible encode, though, along with some neat extras -- possibly a grindhouse version, definitely open-matte US scenes as well as the leaders at the beginning and end of each reel.

[Shokara]

Releasing the raw scan uncompressed would take an ungodly amount of storage space. There will absolutely be a Blu-ray compatible encode, though, along with some neat extras -- possibly a grindhouse version, definitely open-matte US scenes as well as the leaders at the beginning and end of each reel.

Now that sounds like one heck of a nice package. That's a Blu-ray disc I can hardly wait to write/burn.

[airforce111]

Ah of course, how big are you planning on making a bluray encode? I feel like this new scan should be worthy of a full disc encode if we could get the print as pristine as we can, this is like something that would go into archives for sure and incredibly important for the comunity!

[G-MAN]

Ah of course, how big are you planning on making a bluray encode? I feel like this new scan should be worthy of a full disc encode if we could get the print as pristine as we can, this is like something that would go into archives for sure and incredibly important for the comunity!

Completely agree I think this is something that should be preserved in the highest quality encode possible. And am curious to know what is the state of things and if you will are going to keep an open matte release for 1080p and a matted release? Or what is the current plan/state of things?

[Servanov]

Completely agree I think this is something that should be preserved in the highest quality encode possible. And am curious to know what is the state of things and if you will are going to keep an open matte release for 1080p and a matted release? Or what is the current plan/state of things?

I can answer this one. To keep with the intent of the filmmakers and to stay true to how the film would have been projected in a theater in 1985, for the final encode of the film itself we will not be presenting the American footage open matte for the main film. As the rest of the film will be, it will be presented in the original intended aspect ratio of 1.85:1. However, as we know the demand for the HD open matte scenes is high, and we consider it to be, at the very least, interesting to watch, we will definitely be including the open matte scenes as extras, among other bonus features. And yes, Bambi vs. Godzilla will be one of those bonus features.

To get it out of the way, the bonus features RedMenace and I know for sure as of now we will be including are:
- American scenes and titles presented open matte in HD
- The heads and tails of all the reels
- Bambi vs. Godzilla

[G-MAN]

Completely agree I think this is something that should be preserved in the highest quality encode possible. And am curious to know what is the state of things and if you will are going to keep an open matte release for 1080p and a matted release? Or what is the current plan/state of things?

I can answer this one. To keep with the intent of the filmmakers and to stay true to how the film would have been projected in a theater in 1985, for the final encode of the film itself we will not be presenting the American footage open matte for the main film. As the rest of the film will be, it will be presented in the original intended aspect ratio of 1.85:1. However, as we know the demand for the HD open matte scenes is high, and we consider it to be, at the very least, interesting to watch, we will definitely be including the open matte scenes as extras, among other bonus features. And yes, Bambi vs. Godzilla will be one of those bonus features.

To get it out of the way, the bonus features RedMenace and I know for sure as of now we will be including are:
- American scenes and titles presented open matte in HD
- The heads and tails of all the reels
- Bambi vs. Godzilla

Sounds perfect and definitely a great idea to include them in open matte as an extra. Cannot wait for this release and I'm curious how is the progress shaping up so far? And any chance we could get a full version in 1080p for bluray that is before all the color adjustments and clean up work is done? As I would very much be done for that for preservationists sake as I know it's white common and popular for fans to release the completed and untouched up versions of their restorations as sort or a grindhouse grade of sorts? Would very much love that to be a thing that happens

[WaverBoy]

Any update on progress? This just rocketed to the top of my most wanted list!

[omgitsgodzilla]

We have the 4K scans of the first three reels. Servanov is working on color correction, stabilization and so on now while we wait on the last two.

Right now, I think the plan is to do as much cleanup as we can on the print with the resources currently available to us. The biggest issue at the moment is that we don't currently have access to any tools that could adequately deal with the numerous vertical scratches on the print. The best option we can find would require us to ask people for more money, which I don't think either of us is thrilled about, but I suppose we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Once we've done whatever we end up being able to do, I'll be taking the result and assembling the final package, including extras.