Extras |
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Menus (English) |
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Chapters (28/28) |
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Trailers: Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah, Godzilla
vs. Mothra |
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Captures |
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Review |
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Anthony
Romero |
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The first "Double Feature" Toho
disc from Tristar, the Godzilla vs. King
Ghidorah/Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for
Earth DVD is one of the earliest Toho
entries to enter the market. I'm sure that
some, who first purchased the disc back in
1998, can also recall that it used to retail
for the unreasonable $35-40 price range. Essentially,
consumers were paying for the fact that they
were getting two films, despite that they
were sandwiched on only one disc. Thankfully,
the price has gone down significantly since
it first debuted, as the title now retails
in the $20 range. However, early titles to
the format often don't fare well when compared
to their more modern counterparts, and this
DVD is certainly no exception. In fact, the
video, audio, and extras all fail to entice
on this release. |
Video: |
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Depending on one's standards, this disc's
video might be acceptable or not, although
without question there is a great deal of
room for improvement. First off, yes, this
disc is a heavily cropped full screen, or
1.33:1, presentation of the two films. At
the time this was nothing out of the ordinary,
in fact the Godzilla
vs. SpaceGodzilla/Godzilla vs. Destoroyah
DVD made headlines for the simple fact that
the movies weren't presented in full screen.
In retrospect, though, full screen really
doesn't fly anymore, as the DVD
format has moved in the direction of standardizing
the movie's original formats, which in this
case was 1.85:1.
This aspect of the video aside, the presentation
here is generally decent for a disc this age.
Like Tristar's much later Godzilla
vs. Mechagodzilla II release, this
DVD does suffer from a very significant amount
of grain, beyond what I would consider normal.
On the bright side, this disc is nearly void
of digital inconsistencies, though, as even
edge enhancement, which would become a favorite
method by the firm in later years, is unnoticeable.
As for the colors, they are acceptable. Although
Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah appears more
muted in this regard than Godzilla vs.
Mothra, which has a far deeper shade of
black and other notable depths of color. |
Audio: |
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The audio quality, for both movies, is
acceptable. There is only one audio track
present for each film, which is a 2.0 stereo
presentation of Toho's International dubbing
for the two movies. To Tristar's credit, neither
track features any distortion, as the audio
comes through crystal clear. Speaker distinction
is a little on the weak side, but nothing
severe. Of course, it goes without saying
that it's unfortunate that neither of the
original Japanese audio tracks are to be found
on this release.
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Extras: |
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There are two trailers present on this
disc, which are the original Japanese trailers
for the two features, and in their original
aspect ratios of 1.85:1 none the less. Unfortunately,
these trailers feature the same extremely
loose subtitling that is found on the GODZILLA
DVD. To give a quick idea of how bad these
are, most should be able to spot the sequence
where Miki mentions Biollante in the Godzilla
vs. King Ghidorah trailer, yet her name
is never mentioned in the subtitles. Most
discs don't even bother to subtitle the Japanese
trailers, though, and the incredibly loose
translations wouldn't be that bad if they
could be toggled off, which unfortunately
they can't. What makes this depressing, though,
is that these measly two trailers easily trumps
the extras found on most, with only a few
exceptions, of Tristar's subsequent Godzilla
discs.
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Overview: |
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Bottom
line, the disc represents the only chance
for most US fans to get either film presented
here on region 1 DVD. So, this release will
likely make its way into most kaiju fans collections,
regardless of the quality. However, I would
advise bargain shopping for this one, as even
at $20 it's not a great deal, especially in
contrast with the more recent Universal King
Kong set for the two Toho films.
This disc is also featured in the DVD box
set: 50th
Anniversary Godzilla Collection. |
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