Return of Godzilla - the British dub

[spottedming]

So as most of you know most of the english speaking godzilla dubs have been done in the US, some are comical... well lets face it they're all comical, and thats no exception with Return of godzilla, especially witht he added scenes with raymond burr in the "85" version. However I have a tape that I had as a kid that was distributed by a company called CARLTON where it was dubbed uncut without the extra raymond burr scenes, however the accents keep slipping from american to slightly british sounding, Alot of the actors pronounce godzilla as "godziller" and they tend to draw out lines very slowly to try and match with the japanese actors lips, its very awkward. This is what the cover of the tape looks like http://www.mechagodzilla.de/cover/video ... uk-big.jpg im curious if anyone else has seen this oddity and know of other strange english dubs?

[G-Matt]

I own that UK VHS. The dub you're speaking of isn't exactly British; it's the rarely heard Toho's international dub commissioned in Hong Kong.

[spottedming]

I own that UK VHS. The dub you're speaking of isn't exactly British; it's the rarely heard Toho's international dub commissioned in Hong Kong.

oh right, thanks for clearing that up

[The Killer Meteor]

The UK VHS has the audio variations (including Godzilla's final scream) not present on the dub on the Kraken BD.

[shadowgigan]

Wow. Never knew this existed, need to get my hands on it.

[Terasawa]

Wow. Never knew this existed, need to get my hands on it.

Do you have the Kraken DVD or Blu-ray? Because if so, you essentially have this already. The only difference is that the original export version was a monaural soundtrack and Kraken created and released a 5.1 remix, which explains the alterations Meteor mentioned.

So as most of you know most of the english speaking godzilla dubs have been done in the US

I know this post is nearly five years old, but for the record, this isn't true. Most English Godzilla dubs were recorded in Hong Kong (including the RoG dub which is the subject of this thread). At the time this post was created (2015), there were 13 dubbed versions of Godzilla movies recorded in the U.S. (now there are 17); at least 19 were recorded in Hong Kong from 1971 to 2004.

[canofhumdingers]

Wow. Never knew this existed, need to get my hands on it.

Do you have the Kraken DVD or Blu-ray? Because if so, you essentially have this already. The only difference is that the original export version was a monaural soundtrack and Kraken created and released a 5.1 remix, which explains the alterations Meteor mentioned.

Perhaps I read it wrong but I thought he was saying he wanted to get the alternate international dub with the variations (including the final “death scream”) that’s not included on the Kraken disc.

I don’t remember by whom or where I saw it posted. I always assume it was “H-man” on YouTube (which I always forget if that’s you, Tamura, or someone else) though I might be wrong. At any rate, someone made it known that there is indeed a slightly different version of the international dub that includes a few audio differences (such as the scream at the end of the US dub) from the more common Return of Godzilla dub.

[Terasawa]

I don’t remember by whom or where I saw it posted. I always assume it was “H-man” on YouTube (which I always forget if that’s you, Tamura, or someone else) though I might be wrong. At any rate, someone made it known that there is indeed a slightly different version of the international dub that includes a few audio differences (such as the scream at the end of the US dub) from the more common Return of Godzilla dub.

Yeah, I'm YouTuber "The H-Man" but those videos were uploaded by SpaceHunterM, who will hopefully chime in here to explain the differences in better detail than I can.

However, the basic explanation for the differences between the Carlton and other Euro analog video releases (which are all more or less the "standard" Toho export/international version) and Kraken's release is that Kraken created the 5.1 remix by coupling the stems from the dubbing session with the other soundtrack elements (sound effects, foley, music) that Toho assembled for its 5.1 remix of the Japanese soundtrack in the early 2000s.

And of course, naturally, Toho's original export version had English visuals, whereas Kraken used a transfer of the Japanese version of the film.

[canofhumdingers]

Ah, SpaceHunterM. I knew it was one of you guys!

That’s interesting, I didn’t realize Kraken put the dub stems into Toho’s 5.1 mix. So it’s technically a brand new mix that recreates the international dub in 5.1?

I do wish I better understood the historical differences between the two versions of the international dub. Is it something similar to Star Wars (1977) where the mono, stereo, and surround mixes each had some unique audio differences (the most famous being the “close the blast doors” line and a few of Threepio’s lines only appearing in the mono mix). Or is it something different altogether?

I remember being amazed that the death scream was actually from Toho and not unique to the US cut! It makes me wonder, was that scream in any of the theatrical versions shown in Japan? It’s not on the old import laserdisc I used to watch over and over.

[Space Hunter M]

Ah, SpaceHunterM. I knew it was one of you guys!

That’s interesting, I didn’t realize Kraken put the dub stems into Toho’s 5.1 mix. So it’s technically a brand new mix that recreates the international dub in 5.1?

I do wish I better understood the historical differences between the two versions of the international dub. Is it something similar to Star Wars (1977) where the mono, stereo, and surround mixes each had some unique audio differences (the most famous being the “close the blast doors” line and a few of Threepio’s lines only appearing in the mono mix). Or is it something different altogether?

I remember being amazed that the death scream was actually from Toho and not unique to the US cut! It makes me wonder, was that scream in any of the theatrical versions shown in Japan? It’s not on the old import laserdisc I used to watch over and over.

The Japanese rumor mill alleges the monaural mix originally accompanied 16mm prints. I can't find the source of that anecdote anymore.

Resources:
http://humanreceptacles.blogspot.com/20 ... rical.html

[Terasawa]

Space-chan sniped me but here's what I had written anyway:

That’s interesting, I didn’t realize Kraken put the dub stems into Toho’s 5.1 mix. So it’s technically a brand new mix that recreates the international dub in 5.1?

Correct, the English track on the Kraken discs is a remix done in 2016. Anthony interviewed Matt Greenfield (producer) for the main site prior to the disc's release. From that interview:

Romero: It's mentioned that the film will include an English dubbed version. Will this be the International dubbing that was done back around the film's release, or will this be a new dubbed track?

Greenfield: It's the international track. At least, it's the dialog tracks that are in the international track, but we received them as separate elements and it won't be the exact same mix you've heard before.

Romero: Would it also be possible to know what type of audio to expect on the release? In Japan, there have been 5.1 surround releases, 2.0 channel stereo releases and also a mono release, which contains the famous "death cry" when Godzilla falls into the volcano at the end.

Greenfield: Actually, they're still working on it and as I've been knee deep in directing the dub for the English language version of Den-noh Coil, I haven't had time to sit in on it as much as I would like. We're working on 5.1 versions of both tracks, but we've got the 2.0 versions as a fallback.

Link to said interview.

I do wish I better understood the historical differences between the two versions of the international dub. Is it something similar to Star Wars (1977) where the mono, stereo, and surround mixes each had some unique audio differences (the most famous being the “close the blast doors” line and a few of Threepio’s lines only appearing in the mono mix). Or is it something different altogether?

I remember being amazed that the death scream was actually from Toho and not unique to the US cut! It makes me wonder, was that scream in any of the theatrical versions shown in Japan? It’s not on the old import laserdisc I used to watch over and over.

The Star Wars comparison is an apt one. In Japan, all of the Heisei Series Godzilla films were produced with 2-channel stereo soundtracks. The export versions up through the initial version of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II, however, were mono mixes which usually differed in some ways from the stereo mixes heard in most Japanese theaters. (The second English version of MGII --the one we're all familiar with-- is a stereo mix. So too are the GvSG and GvD dubs. According to someone who worked on those dubs, these three were recorded in 1997/98. They were the first English Godzilla dubs mixed and released in stereo.)

Somewhere in his sub-chapter on G85 in Japan's Favorite Mon-Star, Steve Ryfle quotes one of the U.S. crew, saying something like "Toho wasn't able to furnish us with stereo separations for the film, so we had to use mono elements." Although New World made plenty of alterations to the film's sound design, there are still obvious similarities to the mono export dub, including the Godzilla scream you mentioned. That sound effect isn't in either of the 2.0 or 5.1 mixes on Japanese video releases. (The Japanese 5.1 mix was created for the film's initial DVD release in Japan.)

The SW comparison for the English audio heard on the Kraken discs would be like one of the later video/LD/DVD mixes of SW, Empire, or Jedi, although that's not exactly a 1:1 comparison.

[Space Hunter M]

Slight correction, but the 5.1 mix(es) on the Kraken BD differs from the Toho Video DVD/BD mix.

It's an independent mix made from the music and effects separations of the Dolby mix (which are REALLY starting to show their age from all the flutter. yikes!), with the dialogue/foley track from the stems of the "B". The Toho Video mix also uses the "B" mix stems for the dialogue/foley channel (e.g. no directionality for the stuff over the P.A. during the Soviet submarine sequence).

[Terasawa]

^ This is why I was hoping you'd drop in here, thank you. I'm out of my depth when it comes to all the minute differences between the various home video mixes.

[canofhumdingers]

Fascinating stuff! Thanks to both of you!