Comprehensive Guide to Toho's English Versions

For discussions covering more than one Toho film or show that span across more than one “era.”
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Piranhatron3000
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Re: Comprehensive Guide to Toho's English Versions

Post by Piranhatron3000 »

This thread is amazing! I've been stalking this site for years, and I didn't know this was here for so long. Thank you guys for all your hard work! This has been an excellent tool for tracking down and capturing many elusive oddities and rarities.

Also, I thought I'd make a note about Rebirth of Mothra 3. The version that was formerly available on Crackle.com was the full international version, while the version shown on television was missing about 8 minutes of footage, even with the full credit sequence. Presumably this truncated version was an edit for cable time slots. This shortened version was even shown on premium channels like Encore Action, despite the lack of commercial interruption.

Which means, the now offline Crackle.com presentation was the only place to get the full English dub. I haven't done a full comb through to figure out which lines were cut from the more common TV edit, but most of them seem to be brief, 3-5 second shots. As far as I know, no major scenes are missing, though I might be mistaken.

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Re: Comprehensive Guide to Toho's English Versions

Post by Tamura »

Replaced the version of the guide that's been sitting here for a few years with the most up-to-date version my online chums edited in my Facebook dubbed fan group, with a few quick updates.
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Re: Comprehensive Guide to Toho's English Versions

Post by Chrispy_G »

Interesting stuff. In general for the Godzilla films I find the US versions to be net-losses. I think 'King of the Monsters' and the US version of Godzilla 2000 are the only two with genuine 'lasting value'...in the case of all of the rest, I'd much rather stick with the original Japanese cuts. Godzilla 1985 might be worth having as well, as it received a theatrical release here in the states.

But in the cases of pretty much every 'Americanized' Godzilla film from the Showa era...it is just a matter of the negative changes outweighing the positive. Chopping out minutes of footage, dropping in new/stock footage, replacing the score, changing the naming of certain monsters...it is all generally weak stuff.

I would be interested in a version of 'Mothra vs Godzilla' that is the Japanese cut of the film, but with the Frontier Missile sequence included, no other changes.

I'd be interested in ALL of the Godzilla films getting releases that are the original Japanese cuts, but with new US dubs that have a bit more in the 'accuracy' and 'quality' department.
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Re: Comprehensive Guide to Toho's English Versions

Post by Space Hunter M »

Chrispy_G wrote:I'd be interested in ALL of the Godzilla films getting releases that are the original Japanese cuts, but with new US dubs that have a bit more in the 'accuracy' and 'quality' department.
So, revisionism. Nice.

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Re: Comprehensive Guide to Toho's English Versions

Post by Chrispy_G »

Would new, accurate dubs really be "revisionism", and is revisionism in that sense so terrible? Since when do even the 'original English dubs!' have an elitist fanbase? Of all the things for people to get sticks up their butts about....

I never figured people would be fervently defending cuts that replace a ton of the music and chop out scenes throughout the film. New English dubs wouldn't be 'revising' anything, just providing the original Japanese cuts of the films fairly faithful translations. Why should we gladly accept or adhere to the often criticized weak 'international' dubs?

I get a feeling that on a long enough timeline, all of the 'US versions' outside of King of the Monsters, G2K and MAYBE King Kong vs Godzilla are going to be lost to the ether anyway. If any company ever gets around to giving US home market releases for Toho's new 4K restored versions of the films...do you think any of them are going to take the time/effort to restore the US edits to such a degree? In some cases we'll be left with the original Japanese cut and perhaps NO English audio option.
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Re: Comprehensive Guide to Toho's English Versions

Post by Goji »

Your posts here aren't really adding anything.. Your first post was just you essentially snubbing your nose at the mere existence of other versions of these films, and making it abundantly clear that preservation of them is something you couldn't give two shits about.
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Re: Comprehensive Guide to Toho's English Versions

Post by OurBladesAreSharp »

Chrispy_G wrote:Would new, accurate dubs really be "revisionism", and is revisionism in that sense so terrible? Since when do even the 'original English dubs!' have an elitist fanbase? Of all the things for people to get sticks up their butts about....

I never figured people would be fervently defending cuts that replace a ton of the music and chop out scenes throughout the film. New English dubs wouldn't be 'revising' anything, just providing the original Japanese cuts of the films fairly faithful translations. Why should we gladly accept or adhere to the often criticized weak 'international' dubs?

I get a feeling that on a long enough timeline, all of the 'US versions' outside of King of the Monsters, G2K and MAYBE King Kong vs Godzilla are going to be lost to the ether anyway. If any company ever gets around to giving US home market releases for Toho's new 4K restored versions of the films...do you think any of them are going to take the time/effort to restore the US edits to such a degree? In some cases we'll be left with the original Japanese cut and perhaps NO English audio option.
New dubs tend to sound like crap, sounding way too new for films made in 50s, 60s and 70s. Media Blasters' The Mysterians dub is a good example of this and what these "new dubs" you suggest will sound like.

The US versions will around for longer than you'd think, thanks to fans like us, as MST3K likes to say, circulating the tapes.

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Re: Comprehensive Guide to Toho's English Versions

Post by Terasawa »

Chrispy_G wrote:...it is just a matter of the negative changes outweighing the positive. Chopping out minutes of footage, dropping in new/stock footage, replacing the score, changing the naming of certain monsters...
Nearly all of that is done in the US version of Godzilla 2000, which, according to you, is one of two Americanized Godzilla films with "genuine lasting value." :?
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Re: Comprehensive Guide to Toho's English Versions

Post by Chrispy_G »

Well I'm sorry, but not all americanized versions are created equally. G2K shook 9 minutes out of the movie and had additional music that ultimately complimented and improved the film.

They didn't call Godzilla the wrong name the entire time, give him an incorrect roar, they didn't refer to Mothra as 'the thing' most of the time, they didn't REPLACE MOST of the score, they didn't chop out huge chunks of the film and drop in chunks of entirely new footage.

G2K was essentially just a 'tweaked' version of the original film, not an overzealous edit job done to some of the 60s films.
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Re: Comprehensive Guide to Toho's English Versions

Post by Space Hunter M »

Chrispy_G wrote:G2K was essentially just a 'tweaked' version of the original film, not an overzealous edit job done to some of the 60s films.
Depends on your definition of "overzealous". Godzilla 2000 threw out the entire original sound design and severely muddled important expository bits throughout the entire dubbing script. It's tonally a completely different experience because of the alterations. I happen to like the Japanese version equally, and that's your problem: You don't understand that films can exist in multiple versions peacefully.

You'd rather have every film exist in a concise, uniform version, and erase how these films were originally presented and integrated into American popular culture for decades.

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Re: Comprehensive Guide to Toho's English Versions

Post by Chrispy_G »

I'm actually quite a fan of having 'options' for different films...it is just in many cases I think the Americanizations went a bit too far, and in other cases they didn't...and that in some cases like King of the Monsters, the American version does have 'historical value' in a way that an Americanization of Ghidorah, the Three Headed Monster simply does not.

It would be nice to have dub options that don't require an entirely alternate version of the film.
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Re: Comprehensive Guide to Toho's English Versions

Post by Goji »

So basically, because you think that they "went a bit too far", they're not worthy of any kind of attention whatsoever except for a handful of films that you've cherry picked for arbitrary reasons? Okay.

Re-dubbing these movies isn't something Toho is ever going to do. They have elements for all their preferred dubs/versions, and they'll continue to use them well after we're all dead and gone. The new dub to The Mysterians from a few years ago was pitiful, and makes even Toho's worst international dubs seem top tier in comparison. The only 'new dubs' would come from U.S. companies willing to fork over the money to completely re-dub them, and 99% of the time, they're just going to go for what Toho has on hand. If it's nothing (in the case of Varan; where they had no materials for the U.S. version, and no longer had elements for the international dub), then they're more likely to just release the Japanese version only; or find an old analog source of the U.S. version/dub and slap it alongside the JP version.

All of the U.S. versions of these films have "historical value", whether you like it or not. If you choose not to recognize that, than that's your prerogative, but don't be surprised when people aren't keen on your suggestion that they should just 're-dub them all' just because the U.S. versions, which introduced all of us to these movies, aren't your cup of tea.
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Re: Comprehensive Guide to Toho's English Versions

Post by OurBladesAreSharp »

Many of these movies are primarily aimed at children. About 90% of the tokusatsu genre is basically children's entertainment and most children under 10 do not have the patience nor focus to watch anything with subtitles. So for that purpose alone, dubbing is necessary. Disney movies are dubbed when they are released internationally and so are tokusatsu movies.

Most of these "Americanizations" were simply done because American culture is different from Japanese and aspects that won't play as well with US audiences were usually cut.

So by making it so non-Japanese children can watch these largely child-oriented films and altering the films so they play better in the West and attract a larger audience, apparently they were pissing on Ishiro Honda's artistic integrity, notwithstanding that he was a journeyman director for hire who made children's films he was assigned and ordered to make at a Japanese studio.

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Re: Comprehensive Guide to Toho's English Versions

Post by omgitsgodzilla »

I honestly wouldn't really care to watch most of the US versions of these movies, except maybe once out of curiosity, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be preserved or at least documented. There's a difference between being really strongly interested in seeing something and believing based on general principle that it ought to be preserved. In my opinion, it wouldn't be a monumental loss if these versions disappeared, but that doesn't mean they should.

The various edited versions of Star Wars, for instance, aren't something I'm especially interested in watching, but I think it's good that fans are preserving them in the highest quality they can manage. The special editions and subsequent altered versions are interesting cultural artifacts and raise questions about auteurism and the authority of a film's director or owner, and in that sense they're valuable.

The same can be said for these edited versions of Godzilla movies. They might not be of much interest to me or you personally in terms of simple entertainment value, but they're of some historical value if nothing else.
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Re: Comprehensive Guide to Toho's English Versions

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Worth noting that the American version of Godzilla 2000 was made in a situation where Toho approved every change...I highly doubt that is the arrangement made for prior US versions of the films.

So while G2K has similar types of changes to some earlier US versions...it was all sanctioned by Toho. Maybe for some people that doesn't matter, but for me, the original creators of a film approving of the changes is much more legitimate than what was done in the 50s and 60s

Added in 17 hours 43 minutes 41 seconds:
Okay...I've really gotta vent here a bit. But outside of pure 'historical context'....it is very hard to see the true value of the vast majority of the US versions.

King of the Monsters, Godzilla Raids Again, King Kong vs Godzilla, Godzilla vs The Thing, Ghidorah The Three Headed Monster, Godzilla 1985, Godzilla 2000. Quite different versions of the films. Noticeably different(for better or worse)...legitimate "alternate cuts".

But I have a hard time thinking of Invasion of Astro Monster, Godzilla vs The Sea Monster, Son of Godzilla, Destroy All Monsters, All Monsters Attack, Godzilla vs Hedorah, and Terror of MechaGodzilla as genuinely having "alternate cuts"

The changes to most of those films are insignificant. Astro Monster is like a 70 second difference between the US and Japanese version. Sea Monster has 4 minutes shorter, so ultimately has just some rather minor editing....Son of Godzilla deletes a part of the opening scene, Destroy All Monsters has very minor edits, AMA and Hedorah each just have a different piece of opening music...practically no other differences in the cut of the films. Terror of MG just adds a prologue.

These strike me more as 'tweaked' versions than truly alternative versions...and I have a hard time seeing why anyone would care about versions of the films that are BARELY different from their original counterparts.
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Re: Comprehensive Guide to Toho's English Versions

Post by Mr_Goji_and_Watch »

Chrispy_G wrote: These strike me more as 'tweaked' versions than truly alternative versions...and I have a hard time seeing why anyone would care about versions of the films that are BARELY different from their original counterparts.
People care about them because that's the version of a movie the majority of the fandom has seen growing up. No matter how insignificant the differences may be to you, people want to know about the different cuts and want them preserved.
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Re: Comprehensive Guide to Toho's English Versions

Post by Goji »

The ship has sailed, "Chrispy". Stop whining.
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Re: Comprehensive Guide to Toho's English Versions

Post by Chrispy_G »

As long as the people that "grew up with these versions" on TV or VHS realize that they are a dying breed.

Nostalgia for 'the one I watched growing up' is clouding perspective. Sea Monster, Son, Destroy All Monsters, and Hedorah....those alternate versions are going to be lost in the ether. That ship has sailed. Stop whining.

For better or worse 1985 is suffering the same fate. Time will tell if the films with rights held by Classic Media ever get Blu Ray releases with dual versions.

Meanwhile KK vs G might be stuck in the opposite fate where we NEVER get the proper, original version here in the US.
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Re: Comprehensive Guide to Toho's English Versions

Post by Goji »

They'll never disappear as long as the as the internet exists, but somehow, something so painfully obvious, isn't obvious to you.

Seriously though, **** you. Stop whining and stinking up this topic with your ignorant rhetoric.
UltramanGoji wrote: Cranky because you got mad I implied GFW isn't a good movie aren't you
Chrispy_G wrote:I'll say it one last time, Trump wins in a landslide.
I'll gladly eat crow if it doesn't turn out that way....but at this point it feels painfully obvious, as it has for months.

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Re: Comprehensive Guide to Toho's English Versions

Post by SpaceG92 »

Goji wrote:They'll never disappear as long as the as the internet exists
^ I mean, this goes for practically anything lol.
Goji wrote:Seriously though, **** you. Stop whining and stinking up this topic with your ignorant rhetoric.
Let's please not cuss out members. If someone is derailing a thread, or the conversation is starting to go off course or <reason to report here>, hit the report button instead of telling a user to go fly a kite.

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