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The first of Tristar's 2004 October releases comes
Godzilla vs. Hedorah, which is easily Godzilla's
strangest outing to date. Tristar continues to improve
on their Godzilla releases, with their latest batch
of DVDs being slight improvements compared with the
company's March release of Godzilla
Against Mechagodzilla. In general, Godzilla
vs. Hedorah has a great video and audio presentation,
although it still falls short in terms of extras.
Video:
Overall, the video presentation on Godzilla vs. Hedorah
is excellent, arguably the best the film has ever looked
on home video. The best aspect of this DVD is easily
the very vibrant colors; Hedorah's crimson eyes and
Godzilla's sun basked entrance look stunning on this
transfer. Unfortunately, the brightness level isn't
so perfect, as the film looks darker than it should
here. This is most noticeable during the movie's two
night battles in which some details are hard to make
out, such as Hedorah's Land Form sloshing his hand around
in the sludge at his feet. Digital inconstancies are
handled well here, with the film looking very sharp
with hardly any signs of pixilation. The print used
in the transfer is the International version of the
film, with the only change being to the title which
now has the ® and ™ characters added (was this
really necessary?). The print used could have been in
a little better condition though, with there being a
few scratches and a lot of grain near the start of the
film, although this improves as the movie goes on. There
is a bit of light shimmer, a unnatural fading from light
to dark often appearing on the edge of films, on this
release, which occurs during some of the scenes involving
the TV when there is a image superimposed on it. The
film's original aspect ratio of 2.35:1 is maintained
on this DVD as well.
Audio:
Tristar opts to maintain the film's original audio format
here, as opposed to trying to create a stereo track
for the movie. As standard for Tristar's Toho releases
now, and a very appreciated feature, this disc contains
both the original Japanese audio track and the English
International dub track (sorry, no "Save the Earth"
song). The Japanese track here sounds flawless, given
the limitations of the mono track, and is very faithful
to how the film was intended to be heard. The English
dub track is handled well too, although the dialogue
seems to overpower the other background noises in terms
of the volume levels. The audio is complimented here
with both English and French, removable, subtitles that
correspond to the Japanese track. However, the subtitles
aren't 100% faithful, but in general they are pretty
accurate.
Extras:
Godzilla vs. Hedorah is another disappointing
Godzilla release, from the extras perspective. This
disc does contain the original, Japanese, teaser trailer
for Godzilla:
Tokyo S.O.S. though, and for those of you counting
that would, sadly, make this the best Godzilla region
1 DVD in terms of extras since Tristar's Godzilla 2000
release four years ago. There are five other trailers
included here on this disc, one of which is for the
DVD released for the Godzilla the Series - Monster
Wars and another for the Toho distributed Anime
Steamboy (alas, just a redone US trailer). What's
annoying though is that these trailers play automatically
once you stick the disc into a player, forcing the user
to skip past them in order to get to the main menu.
On a final note, the film's menus are, for a lack of
better words, ugly. It's a real step down from the great
menus created for Tristar's Godzilla
Against Mechagodzilla too, a really a shame.
Overview:
Bottom line is that this is another solid release from
Tristar, and one that should belong in any Godzilla
fan's collection, unless they already forked over for
the expensive region 2 release of the film.
This disc is also featured in the DVD box set(s): Godzilla
DVD Collection (3 pack), Godzilla
DVD Collection (5 pack)
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