Talkback Thread #6: Invasion of the Astro Monster (1965)

[Tamura]

I've always thought it would be really interesting if there were an additional fourth international Godzilla dub by Frontier attached to this film almost nobody has heard before. I think those cartoony voices really suit the mid and late 60s films. Burr Middleton (Akira Kubo's dubber in Destroy All Monsters) probably would've dubbed Kubo, Nick or Takarada. I could see Bud Widom dubbing Jun Tazaki, who he also dubbed in DAM.

To find this hypothetical dub would involve international credits turning up or the body of the film turning up with different English dubbing - Toho must have anticipated a U.S. version of this film since it was a co-production with Benedict Pictures, so if one of Toho's old brochures shows that they were offering a dub, that doesn't help us because it could be either an international dub or Benedict's version, for all we know. However, I have no idea what countries Benedict had the rights to export their version to besides the U.S. It's not clear when Toho had been given elements for the Benedict version to distribute to the rest of the world themselves, but it did happen at some point, as I'll discuss soon.

The German and French versions appear to be based on the uncut Japanese version, not on an English dub (crowd foley in at least one of those two versions is from the Japanese version), but many European and Latin American countries' publicity materials mimic Toho's English posters and title font. In fact, for a film without a confirmed international dub, Toho appeared to have put a lot of effort into their in-house English material - just look at the spiffy (albeit ungrammatical) "Invasion of Astro-Monster" title font consistently appearing prominently on most materials, the fabulous international poster artwork, trailer and color lobby cards. The potency of all these materials isn't enough to make me believe with complete certainty that an international dub existed, but they create an atmosphere around the film's export history that makes the idea that it didn't have an international dub hard to except.

The fact that Toho's current international prints of this film are simply the US dub padded with all the footage that had been cut from it suggests to me that an international dub either didn't exist anymore and they found a way to replace it, or that one never existed in the first place and they just wanted to offer uncut English prints for the first time, but didn't feel like commissioning their own dub.

[GodzillaFanatic2001]

Does anyone know what dub is on this Swedish VHS? The box has the international poster art and title, and I'm pretty sure another Walthers release (Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla) had the International dub, so does anyone know?

[Space Hunter M]

The Walthers tapes have the conformed "Astro-Monsters" version.

[GodzillaFanatic2001]

Wow, thanks for the speedy reply!
If UPA had a dub of Monster Zero ready in 1970, I wonder if any international dubs of Invasion Of Astro Monster would have been able to be released to home video. After all, home video only really became popular in the late 70's early 80's. I'm thinking that any international dub probably wouldn't have been able to get a home video release before it was replaced by the Invasion Of The Astro Monsters version.

[Tamura]

Thanks to Star Hunter M's detective work (with a tiny bit of help from me), home video and TV broadcasts in much of Western Europe proving an old international dub have been ruled out. No international credits or fragments of such a dub have been found in any copies known to exist. Home video releases and TV copies in Eastern Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa are still pretty poorly explored territory, though. Stay tuned, a completely new old Godzilla dub could turn up within a few years.

[GodzillaFanatic2001]

It seems that you and him have done a lot of work! Were you the ones who originally found the WoTG International dub? If so, I'd just like to say thanks for finding it! Have you ever found any other interesting versions of Toho's films out there?

[Terasawa]

The Walthers tapes have the conformed "Astro-Monsters" version.

Doesn't look like the same as the PolyGram transfer, at least from the screenshot, but I'm guessing there's nothing different in this content with this one.

[miguelnuva]

So for any WWE fans out there, the fastlane main even was a triple threat of Brock Lesnar vs Roman Reigns vs Dean Ambrose. Reminded me of what Godzilla and Rodan vs King Ghidorah would look like if it were people fighting instead of monsters.

[Tamura]

It seems that you and him have done a lot of work! Were you the ones who originally found the WoTG International dub?

Neither of us found it originally. The dub was in the hands of only a few English-speaking fans for a while, but eventually I and a few friends negotiated DVDs from one of those fans. From there I'm happy to take credit for "Robin Hooding" it, so now it's considerably less rare than it used to be, and Space Hunter M did a really good job syncing it to the Japanese Blu-ray transfer and spreading that, too.

As for other interesting versions, too many to name really, Space Hunter has found the vast majority of them though, mostly European and Latin American theatrical, TV and video dubs and evidence for a few lost international dubs, like the international dub of Magic Serpent and an earlier dub of Mechagodzilla II. Great avatar, by the way.

[Godzillian]

Use to hate this one as a kid. I thought it was boring and didn't really have the patience to sit through it with such long stretches of no kaiju. Now that I'm older I really enjoy it and it's becoming one of my favorites

[GodzillaFanatic2001]

Use to hate this one as a kid. I thought it was boring and didn't really have the patience to sit through it with such long stretches of no kaiju. Now that I'm older I really enjoy it and it's becoming one of my favorites

I have to agree with this. I remember being really bored with this one when I was little, but now, looking back on it, it's quickly becoming one of my favorites!

just look at the spiffy (albeit ungrammatical) "Invasion of Astro-Monster" title font consistently appearing prominently on most materials, the fabulous international poster artwork, trailer and color lobby cards.

Would it be possible to link some images of these lobby cards, I've never seen them, and they sound really interesting!

[Tamura]

Here's the first one with lower resolution but better color:

[GodzillaFanatic2001]

Wow, those really are impressive! Did Toho create English lobby cards for any of their other films?

Also, one other thing I noticed is that, on the International poster, even the tag line is a bit Engrish. After all: "It Went Unobserved By The Astronauts, But... THE MOST GIGANTIC MONSTER EXPLOSION OF THE SPACE AGE NOW BEING BLASTED ON TO FILM" doesn't necessarily flow the best!

[Tamura]

Wow, those really are impressive! Did Toho create English lobby cards for any of their other films?

Yup! Here's a set for Admiral Yamamoto:



Judging by this Japanese MZ lobby card, the English variants were based on the Japanese originals:

[Godzillian]

Those promo pics show Ghidorah with one of his original art schemes before they settled on Gold.

[GodzillaFanatic2001]

Judging by this Japanese MZ lobby card, the English variants were based on the Japanese originals

Wow, that's almost the exact same card, just translated into English, even down to the colour of the text at the bottom. It's interesting that almost all of Toho's lobby cards have the same type of formatting going on.
It's interesting that Toho has used the same format for their lobby cards since at least Mothra vs Godzilla, and all the way up till Terror of Mechagodzilla. Makes me wonder if the English variants lobby cards for all those films follow the same format as these ones.

[Great Hierophant]

So, why four and a half years between the finished version of the film, with Nick Adams and the release to theaters stateside? UPA did not need to dub Adams, which lessened the dubbing workload considerably. The film was not considerably altered and the dubbing was done locally. War of the Gargantuas, released on the double bill with "Monster Zero" only suffered a four year delay, but there was a somewhat better excuse there because Russ Tamblyn was required to dub himself. I believe the best explanation was that UPA had a falling out with AIP and had serious difficulties finding a replacement theatrical film distributor for some time. Still, it must have irked Henry Saperstein, the head of UPA because he contributed money to both of these films (probably Adams and Tamblyn's salaries) and had to wait years for any kind of return on his investment.

[GodzillaFanatic2001]

I've always felt it had something to do with how most kaiju films at the time were being released. After all, Godzilla vs The Sea Monster and Son Of Godzilla were released directly to television, as were most kaiju films at the time. I'd assume no distributor wanted to release the film theatrically, the way Spaerstein probably wanted, so the film probably just sat on a shelf for a while.
Then, in 1969, AIP released Destroy All Monsters to theatres, and made a good profit. I'd assume this showed distributors that kaiju films are still theatrically viable, and quickly picked up the long waiting and completed Monster Zero for release the following year. At least, that's my theory.

[ebirahsmeg1]

Those promo pics show Ghidorah with one of his original art schemes before they settled on Gold.

Yup, those lobby cards/promo pics are stills of the Mosu-Goji suit and KG from GTTHM. As I posted in the GTTHM thread, Ghidorah was originally blue, then his wings were rainbow color, before deciding on a solid gold color scheme shortly before filming commenced.

On a completely unrelated note....

I remember seeing GvsMonster Zero for the first time on TBS "Super Scary Saturdays" (man, those were the days ). However, the entire scene of Godzilla & Rodan fighting KG on Planet X (along with some key character development scenes of the astronauts and Xiliens surrounding these same scenes) was completely cut for time. So for years I never even knew of this battle scene, and was blown away when I watched the uncut film years later Anyone else who had a similar experience?

[GodzillaFanatic2001]

Not something similar exactly, but when I first saw footage from Godzilla vs. the Wolfman, I somehow missed the Maser Cannon footage, so when I found the actual completed the scene, I was astounded to see the Maser footage! Also, I watched Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla 93 for the first time last weekend, and I have no memory at all of the Godzilla vs Rodan fight on that island. I can't remember it even happening. Strange.