Which film (Half Human or Varan) is the most different

[o.supreme]

Greetings All,

Based on discussions in other threads I wanted to open this up to fans who have seen the americanized versions of most of Toho's earlier films. Obviously Godzilla -King of the Monsters set the standard. However a couple of other Toho films where changed to an even more severe degree when being imported to the United States. This trend seemed to happen to a lesser degree, and ultimately eliminated (for good or ill) by the mid-late 60's.

The two films I have in mind are: Half-Human (known in Japan as: The Human Snow Beast ) & Varan The Unbelievable (known in Japan as: Great Monster Varan). Both films recieved by far more changes than the original Godzilla. But which film do you think in essence was MORE removed from the original? This thread is not to debate which version (American or Japanese) is better but more about how the severe differences created essentially different films. Enjoy, and all comments are appreciated.

[eabaker]

I'm hesitant to comment, as I've never seen the Japanese version of Half-Human, but my impression is that the alterations to Varan are a bit mroe extensive, but, it being a shallower movie, are less thematically significant. So, Varan is the more different, but Half-Human is the more changed.

[Tamura]

HALF HUMAN and VARAN THE UNBELIEVABLE are new productions constructed around several Japanese-shot set pieces. Both are farther removed from the source material than Godfrey Ho's cut-and-paste epics. The original soundtracks are missing and they aren't even dubbed. I know it's customary to call them US versions, but that's kind of generalized... they are no more versions of the Japanese films they lift shots from than TURKISH STAR WARS is a version of STAR WARS (though that is probably an even more dramatic example). However, I'll give it to VARAN because it doesn't even credit the Japanese production team or cast.

[o.supreme]

^ Hey Tamura, would you say any of your referrences however are as bad (or akin to) the 1988 South African film "Space Mutiny" which used stock footage from Battlestar Galactica for its space battles? (as seen in Season Eight of MST3K)

[Rody]

I've only seen the Japanese version of VARAN, and I haven't seen any version of HALF HUMAN, so I can't say.

Isn't HALF HUMAN banned, or is that only in Japan?

[o.supreme]

Half Human was only banned in Japan. The American version was released by Rhino on VHS in 1990

[Terasawa]

It's not "banned". Toho just won't release it because a big portion of the movie is politically incorrect.

[eabaker]

It's not "banned". Toho just won't release it because a big portion of the movie is politically incorrect.

Right, it's a case of self-censoring.

[Terasawa]

So it is really offensive or does Toho just think it is?

No, it's offensive. You have a tribe of natives living in the Japanese alps and just about every one of them has some sort of physical deformity (implied inbreeding). They're also depicted as being superstitious, abusive people (the village leader repeatedly beats a woman for rescuing a Japanese character). And while the tribe in the film is fictional, it's supposedly based on a stereotype of a real-life tribe.

[Arbok]

No, it's offensive. You have a tribe of natives living in the Japanese alps and just about every one of them has some sort of physical deformity (implied inbreeding). They're also depicted as being superstitious, abusive people (the village leader repeatedly beats a woman for rescuing a Japanese character). And while the tribe in the film is fictional, it's supposedly based on a stereotype of a real-life tribe.

That tribe is the often persecuted Ainu people.

Supposedly, Guy Tucker told me Varan had very brief but similar references to the tribe in that film that would relate to Ainu stereotypes, but that a few quick edits were made for the home video versions to remove these.

[Pkmatrix]

So either the filmmakers were racist or just making a monster movie and Toho got touchy after the fact and are now trying to stay out of trouble. Wasn't Latitude Zero banned for some time or what is another one?

I don't know, it doesn't feel right for Honda to be that mean spirited.

The American example of what happened is Disney's Song of the South, which is similarly self-banned: it was a different time and attitudes were a lot less racially sensitive, so what was seen as acceptable then became highly offensive and insensitive by the 1980s/1990s. This is why Song of the South hasn't been acknowledged by Disney or released on video since the early '80s: they'd rather bury the movie and pretend it doesn't exist, than potentially offend anybody. Same story with Toho and Half-Human.

[o.supreme]

^Actually the film (Song of the South) has never been offifically released on home video in North America, but it has in the UK and other countries (I got a PAL transfer to NTSC VHS). Also I actually remember seeing this movie in the theater although it must have been sometime between 1979-1982 at the latest. I think it's odd that Disney tries to ignore the film, but they built a whole theme park ride (Splash Mountain) around the film. Songs from the film (like Zip-a-dee-do-da) have been released on childrens sing-along VHS in the past and aired occasionally on the Disney Channel.

[Pkmatrix]

^Actually the film (Song of the South) has never been offifically released on home video in North America, but it has in the UK and other countries (I got a PAL transfer to NTSC VHS). Also I actually remember seeing this movie in the theater although it must have been sometime between 1979-1982 at the latest. I think it's odd that Disney tries to ignore the film, but they built a whole theme park ride (Splash Mountain) around the film. Songs from the film (like Zip-a-dee-do-da) have been released on childrens sing-along VHS in the past and aired occasionally on the Disney Channel.

Eh, poor ordering of my words: I meant that it has not been released on video, and hasn't been acknowledged sinced the 1980s. As far as I'm aware, it's seen some releases elsewhere, but I don't know if that's happened any time recently. But, yeah, Disney wants to pretend that movie doesn't exist - they were hit pretty hard by accusations of racism in the early '80s because of the depiction of African-Americans in that movie. I think there might've been a VHS release of just the animated Brer Rabbit parts as a series of shorts in the '80s (I vaguely recall seeing something like that once as a kid), but I'm not sure. Since then, not even that has been made available.

I think that movie is a candidate to become a de facto "lost" film over the next few decades - not actually lost, but so difficult to find by the general public due to a lack of official releases it may as well be lost.