Criterion streaming Godzilla films + Criterion Showa Box Set

[Space Hunter M]

A foreign Asian version of Kong would only be useful for the frames that are missing during every cut between the OCN and the trimmed shots.

[Kaiju no Kami]

So I watched the CM DVD to War of the Gargantuas and I forgot how awful the subtitle translation is. I hope that is fixed when Criterion releases it on BD.

[Godzillian]

So I watched the CM DVD to War of the Gargantuas and I forgot how awful the subtitle translation is. I hope that is fixed when Criterion releases it on BD.

I hope they fix the lighting, the Japanese cut is so dark it's impossible to see anything

[Kaiju no Kami]

So I watched the CM DVD to War of the Gargantuas and I forgot how awful the subtitle translation is. I hope that is fixed when Criterion releases it on BD.

I hope they fix the lighting, the Japanese cut is so dark it's impossible to see anything

Is that not how it was filmed?

[omgitsgodzilla]

Well they can't change the lighting per se, but the brightness on the DVD transfer of the Japanese version is notoriously low. The US version's levels are a lot better.

[Joseph Goodman]

The master of the Japanese cut used on the Classic Media WoTG is actually the old laserdisc master; the version on Starz doesn't have any issues with murkiness. In fact, it looked a lot better than the other Toho-sourced HD masters.

Added in 2 minutes 24 seconds:

A foreign Asian version of Kong would only be useful for the frames that are missing during every cut between the OCN and the trimmed shots.

What I've parsed from Google-translated articles about the KKvsG 4k restoration is that some elaborate frame interpolation methods were used to fill in missing frames at the cuts. I recall one cut having 12 missing frames that had to be filled in.

[LegendZilla]

The master of the Japanese cut used on the Classic Media WoTG is actually the old laserdisc master; the version on Starz doesn't have any issues with murkiness. In fact, it looked a lot better than the other Toho-sourced HD masters.

Thank fucking god...

[Goji]

Yeah, why CM wasn't provided with the Toho DVD transfer of WOTG for their release is anyone's guess.

[Joseph Goodman]

It's really a head-scratcher; the Japanese version of Rodan on the CM set is also the old laserdisc master, not the Toho DVD master.

[LegendZilla]

^When War of the Gargantuas first received its theatrical release in Japan, was the lighting low to begin with?

[Space Hunter M]

It's really a head-scratcher; the Japanese version of Rodan on the CM set is also the old laserdisc master, not the Toho DVD master.

This is not true. Rodan and Gargantuas are both the DVD masters with gigantic color alterations (and Gargantuas' already vertically cropped video is squashed to 2.35).

Rodan's 90s LD is far superior color-wise than anything afterwards in any case.

[Joseph Goodman]

I stand corrected on Rodanhttp://www.avsforum.com/forum/150-blu-r ... st17233721, but the Classic Media WoTG has the same murky and vertically stretched look as my old laserdisc-sourced Video Daikaiju VHS.

[Goji]

Interesting. The only LDs I've collected are the U.S. ones, so I'm not familiar with the Toho LD transfers. I too had always heard that Japanese WOTG transfer was sourced from the LD, but it's surprising to know that the Toho DVD was apparently just as bad. Yikes.

[Godzillian]

It's way better on the Japanese bluray of WOTG. I'm sure that Criterion will give us the best release they can, the company is all about quality

[Goji]

Well, yeah, the Blu-Ray utilized a brand new transfer.

[Space Hunter M]

I stand corrected on Rodanhttp://www.avsforum.com/forum/150-blu-r ... st17233721, but the Classic Media WoTG has the same murky and vertically stretched look as my old laserdisc-sourced Video Daikaiju VHS.

LD master:


Toho DVD:


CM DVD:

[GodzillaBurgh]

I've noticed that the subtitles for RODAN and MOTHRA VS. GODZILLA on the Starz/Encore VOD have more detailed translations than on the 2006/2007 Classic Media DVDs.

[LegendZilla]

For those of you in the States who also have Starz, could you please post screencaps of the HD streams of Godzilla films and compare them to past renditions, whether it be on VHS, Laserdisc or DVD?

[mikelcho]

All they had to do was borrow one of those prints from one of those countries, make many quality copies of that print (to make sure that what happened before doesn't happen again), return the print to the country it came from, keep the prints that had been made from it and voila! A Japanese-language print would've been available and we wouldn't be in the fix we're in now! Correct me if I'm wrong, but is this a good idea, or what?

You know that the recent 4K restoration reinstated most if not all of the trimmed scenes that have only existed in horrible quality since the '70s, right?

No, I didn't know that. I knew that they'd been found, but not that they'd been used to that extent. Thanks for telling me.

[Joseph Goodman]

I stand corrected on Rodanhttp://www.avsforum.com/forum/150-blu-r ... st17233721, but the Classic Media WoTG has the same murky and vertically stretched look as my old laserdisc-sourced Video Daikaiju VHS.

LD master:


Toho DVD:


CM DVD:

Weird. Somewhere along the way, someone took extra steps to make a Toho transfer look worse.