While the Godzilla King of the Monsters Blu-Ray release has visual issues, factual errors regarding the franchise, and the same low budget menu design from past MonsterVerse releases among other faults, there’s still a lot of interesting things on this release.
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The video quality is somewhat of a reverse of what happened on the Godzilla 2014 home release. That is to say, where on that release, the film itself was darkened and in the special features, the films clips were of normal visible quality, it’s almost the reverse here. Below is an example (top is a screenshot from the movie, bottom is a screenshot from the special features):
While the film itself looks ok for the most part, the colors are crushed throughout the film and is particularly noticeable with the color red and the part of the film in the arctic looks to be a little brighter than it should be. The transfer also looks to be free from artifacting. The special features have some artifcating but it’s not very distracting. The DVD version has a softer image and artifacting is visible but not to a distracting level.
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This movie sounds GREAT with the Atmos TrueHD mix, and has a great mix! However, there are a few times where the sound effects drown out the music which was a problem some fans had when it was in theaters. Overall, it sounds great!
| Extras: |
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The menu for this release is the same generic design as the last two MonsterVerse releases: blown out numbered thumbnails for the appropriate chapter stops which are just numbered with no scene descriptions like say, another WB/Legendary release, “Detective Pikachu”. It makes me wonder why whoever designs the disks feels that this is the way to go. Even the DVD menu looks like it came from one of those budget “My First DVD” programs from 20 years ago. It’s almost like it’s a bootleg version of the film.
There’s a lot to unpack in these special features but there are a few things missing. Gone are the cool “Monarch Conspriacy” videos which I enjoyed from the past two releases. What’s also missing is a sense of history and background for Mothra, King Ghidorah, and Rodan. These characters haven’t been on theater screens (big release style) in the USA in 40+-50+ years and there’s no real mention of their first appearances, inspiration behind their creation, what makes them so popular, or their film appearances. Box office wise, I’ve seen people partially blame the “so-so monetary box office take” on audiences being unfamiliar with Rodan, Mothra, and King Ghidorah. This release doesn’t help that much in that regard.
Also missing is background on Bear McCreary’s scoring of the film which introduced classic Godzilla themes to the series. WB’s WaterTower Music YouTube channel has a small three minute piece on the recording and it would be nice if it were presented here for those who haven’t seen it and an interview with Bear McCreary discussing his work on the film would have been nice - especially with all the hype. Another thing I would have liked to have seen is an interview with E Squared, the sound design team behind the film and how they brought the new monster roars to life.
For what’s on the disk, the special features are pretty nice for the most part. One thing that really comes across is that everyone who is interviewed really loves and is really proud of their work on the film. No one interviewed is just there because it’s just another job before they move on to the next one.
The special features, however, don’t contain the most accurate information about the franchise. For example, in the audio commentary, director Mike Doughtery states during Mothra’s death scene "it's a long held tradition that Mothra will tend to sacrifice herself for Godzilla".
In the entire history of the franchise, Mothra has never sacrificed herself for Godzilla. There are other inaccuracies about the franchise in the audio commentary (which are few and far between) that fans will likely catch, but the overall experience of watching the film with the commentary is a great experience. Michael Doughtery, O’Shea Jackson Jr., and Zach Shields all give great insight on what it was like to make the film.
Four (actually three) trailers are included here with a few alternate names: “Life” which was the SDCC trailer, “Supremacy”, from Feb 18th, 2019 (the only trailer to keep its original name), “Over the Rainbow” which was the final trailer, and “Wonder Rumble”, which was the five minute Wondercon footage/trailer which later showed up briefly on HBO in a slightly abbreviated form. If you didn’t know the background of this particular piece, you’ll probably be wondering why a portion of the arctic scene with King Ghidorah’s emergence and Godzilla’s arrival and the different music combined with the quick cut editing makes no sense. It would have been nice to have preceded this clip with at least a title card with background information for those unfamiliar so they would know what they were looking at.
For the much anticipated deleted scenes, well, there’s just not that much here. In interviews prior to release, director Michael Doughtery mentioned the possibility of at least six deleted scenes on the Blu-Ray release.
What’s included on the release are just two deleted scenes “Mark’s Flashback [Extended Version]” and “Scenes 100-102 Boxing Practice, Argument, and Radio Room”. While they’re interesting, I would have preferred the addition of the scene with Ghidorah’s tooth that I saw on my set visit and which was also mentioned more in detail in the “Art of Godzilla King of the Monsters” book and the scene with Chief Warrant Officer Barnes saying goodbye to his family, which was mentioned in my interview with actor O’Shea Jackson Jr.
In addition, the digital code that comes with the release doesn’t include any extras like the past two releases did. All you get is just the film - I redeemed the film via my VUDU account, although I have heard that if you use the digital code on a Movies Anywhere account you get an extra, but I can’t verify that information.
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While the release itself isn’t the best it could be - or that the film deserved (and I hope that a greater attempt for a better release for Godzilla vs. Kong’s Blu-Ray release happens) - I definitely recommend it if you loved the film in theaters, love the franchise or are new to the franchise. If you’re new and liked the monsters you saw in the film, do yourself a favor and go check out their original Toho appearances. You’ll be glad you did!
***This review was for the Blu-Ray and DVD versions*** |
