Uchujin65 wrote:
The AIP dub is of course better and on par with the Japanese version if not in some ways better thanks to a grindhouse/drive-in/Saturday morning TV nostalgia. I think its a shame that we can't just get a letterboxed print of the Titra dub. I hear there's some weird rights entanglements involving the "Save the Earth" song.
I believe the rights issue has nothing to do with the song as it was copyrighted to AIP. Rather, the rights issue is mainly towards who owns the rights to the American cut. In this case, since it was AIP, which in turn reverted to Filmways/Orion and was eventually bought out by MGM. However, when I mentioned the possibility of MGM having the rights, Keith mentioned that the AIP versions might be destoryed. MGM claim they don't have any of the AIP-Toho releases in the vaults, but who knows...maybe the film cans are mislabeled or the labels fell off or they are stuffed behind some other films. But for now, it seems we won't be able to see them anytime soon.

Keith goes into more insight about the contracts at this link: http://monsterkidclassichorrorforum.yuku.com/topic/17982?page=8