One of the most infamous Toho DVDs on the
region 1 market, as ADV's first attempt at bringing
Toho's films to DVD would be a shaky one, although
ADV has never really been known for quality
releases in the first place. Released in 1998,
ADV's Destroy All Monsters! is severally
lacking in a number of areas, including a poor
video presentation, a single audio track (the
horrendous International English dubbing), and
literally no extras to speak of. |
The video presentation found on this disc
is rather poor, with the only really positive
thing to be said is that it maintains the
film's original 2.35:1 aspect ratio. It would
appear that two prints were used for the transfer
to DVD: one an international print used for
scenes, like the opening credits, that would
have displayed Japanese text which is replaced
with English, and the other a well restored
Japanese print. The end result is English
title sequences which contain numerous scratches,
with the rest of the movie containing only
a minor number of scratches. Changing between
the two prints, during the course of the movie,
isn't very noticeable, with the exception
of the ending sequence when the colors change
from overly blue to overly yellow as the International
print is used for text in this scene. The
Japanese print used isn't flawless, though,
and contains an annoying problem during most
scene changes in the film where a white bar
appears at the bottom of the image (seen here);
it's a minor distraction, but one that remains
consistent during the entire movie.
Like the prints used for the transfer, the
colors are a mixed bag here as well: the film
does contain vibrant colors, most noticeable
in the yellow and red outfits of the Moonbase
personal, but the coloring is off here, and
appears far more blue than it should. Edge
Enhancement, and other digital inconsistencies
added during the transfer to DVD, are distracting
as well. The film appears rather blurry, although
pixilation isn't bad on this release. Shimmering,
a distortion of fine details which give off
a ban of multiple colors, are very noticeable
on this release, with the most obvious occurrence
being the spikes on Anguirus' shell when he
is seen at a distance.
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The audio presentation on this release is,
like everything else about this DVD, lacking.
The DVD contains a English 2.0 mono track
of the, horrendous, International dubbing.
In general, the audio quality is good, ignoring
the limitations of the mono format, although
it does gets scratchy around the 73 minute
mark when King Ghidorah first appears.
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As previously mentioned, this disc contains
no extras; in fact, it still remains the most
bare bones release of a Toho DVD on region
1. This means no chapters, no menus, nothing;
a video track with a English dub track, and
no subtitles, is all that one will find on
this DVD.
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Bottom line, the video quality is passable,
which for some will probably be enough with
the its $15 price tag. If one doesn't have the
soundtrack, though, it would be suggested to
forego this release and get the DVD and Soundtrack
double pack, released as Destroy
All Monsters - 50th Anniversary Special Edition.
However, due to the added digital inconsistencies,
ADV's VHS release of the film actually has a
better video presentation then their DVD release. |
-Anthony Romeros
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