Criterion Collection

[Ben]

Good to know Dan, and thanks.

Yeah, if I went all in on Bergman this would be the way to go. I have a few, but only off-air while I waited to see what Criterion would do. And my concern now would be trying to get an undamaged box, which looks like it could be prone to much denting, going by the bulk of it, on the way to not-so-jolly olde Engerland. Which then also makes importing it a bit of an expensive option!

Think I’ll pick up the Demy set soon and reserve Bergman for a headache to work out later, though knowing all the extras are there (so basically replicating the previously - where done - released discs?) at least means only one big box to have to try and bring into the country safely!

[Randall]

Hey, Ben, I packs your stuff real good. The big issue would be packing it properly and still try to pretend that it's under $25 in value!

[Ben]

Oh yeah, meesa knows this! For surely okay! Worry would be making sure one got to you in the first place, but I guess you could send back if it was damaged.

And, hey, once it's "yours", who’s to say you wouldn’t want to gift it to me so, theoretically, the value is whatever we say it is...!

Maybe I should bite and get this to you now, to bring over...or would that weight the plane down!? No, even I think that might be going a bit too far right now...!

[Dan]

Criterion announced what will encompass spine number #1000.

The Showa-Era Godzilla Films



Godzilla (Plus The "Americanized" Godzilla, King of the Monsters)
Godzilla Raids Again
King Kong vs. Godzilla
Mothra vs. Godzilla
Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster
Invasion of Astro-Monster
Ebirah, Horror of the Deep
Son of Godzilla
Destroy All Monsters
All Monsters Attack
Godzilla vs. Hedorah
Godzilla vs. Gigan
Godzilla vs. Megalon
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla
Terror of Mechagodzilla

[EricJ]

Criterion announced what will encompass spine number #1000.

The Showa-Era Godzilla Films
Godzilla (Plus The "Americanized" Godzilla, King of the Monsters)

And inheriting most of the Good Stuff from Classic Media's DVD releases (except for Sony's good-looking restorations of Son of, Ebirah and Hedorah, and a newly remastered Megalon), including all the dubbed versions, AND the cool historian commentaries.

[Ben]

This does actually look pretty nice!

I think perhaps the looney Destroy All Monsters could be my favorite, especially in the English dub I grew up with. With even just that entry, this has made a fairly big blip on my radar!

[droosan]

Destroy All Monsters is absolutely my favorite of the series .. followed closely by both 1970s 'MechaGodzilla' films. I'm also fond of Rodan.

I'm pretty happy with my standard-def DVD collection of the entire Godzilla franchise .. which took me many years to assemble -- piecemeal -- from various home video releases. I have all of the films from both the Showa & Heisei eras; most of them in both japanese and english. I'm not sure I really feel the need to 'upgrade' to 1080p, for these. But it's cool to see Criterion make it widely available, via a single purchase..!

[Randall]

The new set does NOT contain all the dubs, which is making some fans upset, as so many English speakers grew up watching the terrible dubs. However, those are on the earlier DVDs or Blu-rays, so I'm okay with it. I'll gladly hold on to all previous discs for unique dubs and bonus features. I was only missing Son of, and am glad to have them all in one box.

The HUGE news for me is that the original Japanese version of King Kong vs. Godzilla is finally coming to disc outside of Japan. That alone makes the new set totally worthwhile. And I love the hardcover book, too. Simply a thing of beauty. The next B&N sale is already spoken for.

[Ben]

Looks like it contains six dubs, with Destroy All Monsters and the two Mechas all accounted for, so I’m fairly happy.

But, yeah, I can see why fans are upset...why not just include any and all dubs? And I have to say the list of supplements didn’t seem too extensive at first, until I noticed the plural on a couple of the bullet points.

Have we seen the packaging yet? Im assuming the discs sit in that "book", which looks an odd combination for eight discs...surely it should be four and four...but what about the whole shebang? If that *is* a digibook style pack, then it looks a bit flimsy, with only a few pages of mondo style art (that I’m not particularly a fan of).

Do you think they’ll include this in the B&N? Not sure they’ll put this out in late October and then allow a 50% discount a week later. I can see either a delay or having to wait until the June sale, making impatient fans pick it up at full rate first! $112 isn’t bad for this, though. I’ll probably go for one whenever Rand orders his.

[EricJ]

Looks like it contains six dubs, with Destroy All Monsters and the two Mechas all accounted for, so I’m fairly happy.
But, yeah, I can see why fans are upset...why not just include any and all dubs?

Probably because the UPA dubs on the '11 disks were also alternate cuts (eg. King Kong vs. GZ), which required the 60's dubs to be separate films on the disks. Except for the three Sonys, which were just new dubs for disk.
On closer check, sounds like Criterion doesn't want to fool around with the UPA versions--except Raymond Burr, for posterity--and just wants one English audio track with no branching. I'm not sure if Toho commissioned "International dubs" later, or if Sony created their own to distance themselves from UPA's copyright, but at least it's an understandable loss.

Now my bad-dub-raised childhood is wondering how Minilla is going to sound on "Godzilla's Revenge", or the "Godzilla talks!" moment from "Vs. Gigan". What would those be WITHOUT the bad UPA dubs?

[Dan]

I'm guessing, from first glance, the packaging will be loosely similar to either the Bergman set or the Zatoichi set. It's probably moreso like Zatoichi as they fitted 25 films into 9 discs while the Bergman set had a large chunk of films with their own discs, 39 films over 30 discs. So the Godzilla set will probably be a slightly oversized book format package with the discs inside sleeves.

And I'm pretty sure the set will be sold at B&N, even if it's just right before the sale starts. Pretty much what they did with Zatoichi when it first came out (and that was the dual-format set) as they did last year with the 100 Years of Olympic Films set (that one released right in the middle of the sale).

Pictures courtesy of Criterion (Lemme know if this doesn't work):

The Godzilla set


The Bergman set


Zatoichi set

[Randall]

Right, even titles released the month of the sale go on 50% off, so this set should qualify for a November sale easily, assuming we get that sale again this year.

The word is that it was Toho that nixed the old dubs, maybe figuring they were not as well done. They do like to protect their property and their image.

[EricJ]

The word is that it was Toho that nixed the old dubs, maybe figuring they were not as well done. They do like to protect their property and their image.

That's very likely: Originally Japan was slow to adopt DVD (since Laser had never lost popularity), which caused problems by '99-'00 when Ghibli's "Princess Mononoke" went to US disC, and ADV wanted to release "Destroy All Monsters".
Toho realized they were falling behind, and had to hobble both US disCs to stop the risk of Reverse importation by Japanese buyers--"Destroy" originally had to be released dub-only, bare bones, and without chapter stops.
When DVD caught on, Toho circled the wagons on their Zilla-verse, and it's possible we may have gotten new dubs commissioned, from the same industry that was creating the new Heisei-era dubs. (Which are okay, but just serviceable and not as lovably UPA-bad.) Haven't heard them, though.

On the "GZ vs. Mothra" disC, the commentary goes into depth about the dubbing industry in the late 50's/early 60's, which basically didn't exist for Japanese material as much as today--There was one industry that dubbed all the Italian and Mexican movies, and the monster movies and cute kiddie animateds coming out of Japan was just one more.

[Daniel]

Nice to see Godzilla getting some love. Having all the Showa movies in one box set is pretty awesome, especially with that Criterion-tier restoration...

However, not having all the dubs is a deal breaker. I grew up with those, that's how I was introduced and fell in love with the G Man! Yes, they are pretty bad... in a way it adds a certain charm. I don't care much for subs in general, for Godzilla at least it doesn't seem to add much. Better acting and voices yes, that's about it. It's not like, say, the first three Pokémon movies where the background music is completely different. Think there's only one G flick that suffers mildly in that department. I've tried watching a few subbed and its just not as fun...

I'm not wild about the packaging either. The Pop art style is not my cup of tea. The original Classic Media disc were magnificent! Thought it was pretty cool how they used the official Japanese posters. Made them feel more regal. This way kinda makes it feel kiddy-ish.

The set is VERY tempting and if you don't already own the movies it's sweet to get it all in one go. For me, I already own what's included. High-Def is all well and good, without dubs what use is it to me? With a heavy heart I think I'll be passing.

[Daniel]

Closer look at the Bonus Features. Sounds nifty. Tidbit about the Japanese version of King Kong vs. Godzilla "featuring a lusher and more exciting score" Intriguing.