Monster Zero HD G-MAN Reconstruction "AVAILABLE NOW"

[G-MAN]

After finishing my last reconstruction I was going back and forth on what should be next. As I've been jumping all around the Showa era with the films I've done so far. And since I already got one element need provided by Ultrase7en. And with this being my sixth project I figured what better film than the sixth Godzilla film.

So while this film already has an HD Reconstruction by Red Menace. I figured like with my Godzilla vs the Thing reconstruction I could improve upon their work with my project. Especially as the main source isn't riddled with as many compression issues. Though the Criterion source itself is far from perfect.

Sources being used are as follows.

VIDEO
Main source is of course the Criterion bluray disc. Which will be given a much healthier bitrate and encode than featured on the official release. Aside from that I was going to use the simitar footage as was previously used by Red Menace. And while I did manage to get the footage the footage from that version to appear without any blockiness.

The footage itself is still quite compressed and very soft. So I decided that for the opening scene of text after the titles, I would instead use the Classic Media disc. And while yes it is more cropped than the simitar disc the quality is better looking and more filmic than the Simitar footage. Would prefer it to be more accurate. But not much is really lost at least. Nor is it worth the severe drop on quality. Thankfully the end credits appear to be more in tact on the Classic Media release.

For the opening titles I will use the one featured in Red Menace's reconstruction as I think it looks really good and is to date the best recreation of the English titles. The only other real thing I'm still playing with is the acne with the black and white stills being used. As I could play with the Simitar and Classic Media disc for those. But I might see if I could just do a bit of a recreation of them.

AUDIO
Sources of course be it used will be the Simitar and Classic Media disc.

While I'm in the beginnings of this reconstruction I will update as I go along and of course as always I'm open to suggestions or any ideas people may have for this upcoming project.

*Update*

Film is finished and uploaded and ready to be shared. And there a few changes to what I originally planned to do with this project. The sources are still the same mostly.

VIDEO
The main source of course is the lackluster but still currently best source consistent quality wise. And the few exclusive scenes were filled in using portions of Red Menace's Reconstruction for the opening titles and the scene using black and white stills. The English text after the opening credits, Namikawa's letter in English, and the ending titles were used from the Classic Media release. Did alot of work on the simitar source and was able to be the macroblocking issues to not be a real problem but the severe drop in quality wasn't really worth sacrificing for the two scenes in my opinion.

The video also wasn't touched as much on the Criterion source. As again it's not perfect but the colors look better than I first thought. And again I don't want to over saturate the image like Red Menace did in places with theirs. Nor do I think the current presentation given the source is really bad. I think the colors are pretty good considering everything. I did however adjust the colors on the first insert from the Classic Media footage so it wasn't so bright and blue.

And for the Lake Myojin and Washigasawa text I did something similar with my FCtW reconstruction.

Audio
Sources of course were the Simitar and Classic Media discs.

Would like to of course than Ultrase7en for providing me with a copy of the Simitar disc as it was the one source I didn't already own a copy of.

Hope everyone enjoys the film and can't wait to hear what you all think while I decide on what is next. Feel free to pm or comment for the link

[G-MAN]

I should also state I plan to only do this version of the film at the moment. Invasion of Astro Monsters would be an incredibly easy reconstruction after this one. But as it's not that much different and would mainly be an audio fix of the criterion disc with English titles I'll save that one for later on.

Which honestly I find kind of sad Toho either wouldn't allow Criterion to fix the moment in the dub on their disc so it doesn't drop drastically in quality. Or maybe Criterion didn't care to bother with it. Either way it would've been an easy fix and I'm surprised they couldn't compromise on it. But at least the official release had some version of the dub.

[G-MAN]

Ok slight update on a few things.

So far I'm about two thirds or so through the main edit. And hopefully I will have the first pass rendered out tomorrow if I blow through it or sometime this week.

And a few things should be mentioned as there are gonna be somethings people might not like or enjoy. But trust me it is all being done for the sake of consistency and quality. First being that pretty much none of the Simitar footage will be used. Was going to try and do what Red Menace had done and combine the elements from both simitar and Classic Media releases. The reason im not being that the quality is too much of a drastic drop for me personally. Especially with how soft and jaggy some of the moments are in the Simitar Footage. So again the Namikawa letter scene and the opening text after the credits, will both be sourced from the Classic Media disc. They will be the same aspect ratio. But will be cropped comparatively, but not in a way that ruins the scenes. As nothing major is being lost in my opinion. If a better source was available, I wouldn't use the Classic Media disc.

For the Lake Myojin and Washigasawa aren't going to be as accurate as in Red Menace's Reconstruction. It's not hopefully going to be jarring but again wanted to stick with consistency and quality. So I did the titles for those a bit differently to cover the burnt in Japanese titles.

And again for both the titles and the text scene after the people from Planet X announce rheir plans will be sourced from Red Menace's Reconstruction of the film as he did such a great job on those and there wasn't anything I could do at the moment to improve upon them myself.

Lastly I will be adjusting the contrast and saturation of the film slightly. This is a first for a released reconstruction of mine. As I noticed with an attempt I made awhile back and adjusting the colors for Rodan and it's Toho master. That being that you can get some nice colors from the source but it tends to add a bit of yellowing to some shots. And while that's not the case here so far. I did notice it cropped up a few times in Red Menace's. Again not bashing just pointing out. The contrast being the main thing I wanted to touch though as unlike previous Criterion discs I've sourced. The contrast seems to be not as properly adjusted from the provided master. Since the film kind of has a bit of a washed out look at times.

Both aren't being drastically messed with as I don't want the film to appear more dark than it should or too warm and colorful. But it should be an improvement on the Criterion disc that's for sure.

[MAX Studio]

Question, if you like what you get from your contrast and saturation touches, will you go back and readjust on your recons? Also, any chance of PM me your Rodan? Thx and good luck.

[G-MAN]

Question, if you like what you get from your contrast and saturation touches, will you go back and readjust on your recons? Also, any chance of PM me your Rodan? Thx and good luck.

It depends on the film as I feel Megalon and Godzilla vs the Thing look honestly pretty good color wise considering the source used. Actually just watched Godzilla vs the Thing tonight. And while it could of course be tweaked. I don't see the need to mess with it at the moment. Nor do I want to go too far with the contrast of the film like Red Menace did on theirs. As the film can come off pretty dark at times. Where i think theres a pretty good balance on mine. I will of course take a look at the other films I've done and see if any are in need of it. But I feel those films looked pretty decent to good with the contrast levels on the disc.

Just for whatever reason Criterion didn't do as much work that was needed for their Astro Monster release. Like I said the colors appear a bit washed out at times and the skin tones look a bit too pale as well. And it was something I noticed right away as I began to edit the film and pay close attention to it. Won't want to go too far with them as I looked at the colors on Red Menace's Reconstruction and I don't want to push it too far to where the yellowing creeps in on white objects or just on scenes in general. But even by just adjusting the contrast a little bit so far the colors don't look as faded in clothing and objects. But I'm still testing saturation levels.

As for Rodan I have no real plans to upload that file at the moment. As it needs more focussed work on it as it suffered from the yellowing I mentioned earlier. As it wasn't a scene to scene color corrected attempt. Just a base setting that I applied to the whole film. Plus with the rights being held by Criterion at the moment. I wouldn't want to do any real work on Rodan until their transfer comes out on disc. As I'm hoping it won't be so DNR ridden like the Toho bluray.

[G-MAN]

Apologies for radio silence. Work has been exhausting and haven't had really much time to do much on this project until the last two days. Currently working on it as I'm typing this and should have a preliminary render done by tonight. Hope everyone is staying safe and well.

[ultrase7en]

Awesome! We can’t wait to check it out.

[Gorka the Vampire]

Hi “G”

Looking forward to seeing Monster Zero plus all the other goodies you have planned.

[G-MAN]

Apologies for the delays guys work has been crazy as usual during all this and the film is done. Just need to do a couple viewings to make sure no glitches or errors pop up during the render. And then the easy stuff comes afterwards.

As a side note I noticed someone on eBay was bootlegging some reconstructions that myself and others on TK have worked on and while I don't support anyone paying for these. I have reported his listings though. And I know whoever it is that is selling them has to be from TK most likely

[G-MAN]

Happy to announce the project file is being converted so it's bluray ready. Very pleased with how things turned out though there are some differences from my initial post.

First off I did play with contrast and saturation adjustments. And while they weren't bad. I decided for this first release to stick pretty close to how it looked color wise on the Criterion release. Mainly due to how the film looked in the preview window while editing was an error with how the settings in the program. But I did adjust the levels in the footage take from the Classic Media dvd.

I was mistaken as it had been awhile since I had popped the disc on to watch in on my tv. So I'm happy that was an oversight on my part. As I had looked at what Red Menace had done with his and wanted to avoid the colors being too saturated to the point where there is a lot of discoloration throughout the film.

Not entirely sure what's next but I know what I get to Son of Godzilla it's going to be interesting to see what I can do with that ugly yellow color the film has throughout it.

Conversion should be done sometime tonight or early morning after which I will upload the finish film for distribution.

[G-MAN]

Upload in progress and hopefully unless Mega messes up and starts over it should be up by tomorrow morning and I can share the link while at work.

[Terasawa]

Are there screenshots of these? I’ve seen them on a certain private tracker but I’m not interested in dropping 25GB sight unseen.

Also honestly kinda dismayed that the goal here does not seem to be to create as accurate a presentation as possible.

[G-MAN]

Are there screenshots of these? I’ve seen them on a certain private tracker but I’m not interested in dropping 25GB sight unseen.

Also honestly kinda dismayed that the goal here does not seem to be to create as accurate a presentation as possible.

No I haven't had the chance to upload any yet but I've been thinking about doing some screenshots the last couple of weeks.

And that is the goal with all of my reconstructions. But I'm also choosing to working with the best quality possible. I'm not going to sacrifice the quality of the image to add a bit of extra image info that looks out of place because of how compressed and jaggy the source is. That in the grand scheme of things doesn't add anything to the two scenes where that applies.

[Gorka the Vampire]

Hi “G”

Long time no hear. I was just curious how your Monster Zero reconstruction turned out.

[G-MAN]

Hi “G”

Long time no hear. I was just curious how your Monster Zero reconstruction turned out.

pm'd