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Does anyone recall the quality of GOJIRA during the ercent theatrical showings a year or so ago?


I have a copy of Rialto's version and it's about the same. That's simply how the movie looks these days.

When GODZILLA was first made Toho did not put a lot of effort into preserving the original materials and they've never done a restoration of the film. A few years back Koichi Kawakita (special effects director for the Heisei Godzilla films) requested that GODZILLA and THE MYSTERIANS be restored for the Japanese R2 DVDs and Toho refused. If Toho's not going to do a restoration for their own DVDs, they're certainly not going to do it for a foreign release.

As Classic Media explained on their website: "Gojira is over 50 years old, and a half century of wear and tear has left some dirt, marks, and scratches on the film. To present the film in the highest possible quality, Classic Media’s DVD features a Native High Definition master from a brand-new 35mm Fine Grain Print struck by Toho. The print was transferred to HD on the state-of-the-art, full resolution, Dual Link Da Vinci Color Correct System. The end result will be the best DVD presentation of the film to date."

Classic Media made the most of the materials Toho had, and the result looks as good or better than Toho's R2 DVD, Madman's R4 Australian DVD, Rialto's US theatrical release, and BFI's R2 British DVD. There won't be any radical improvements until Toho gives the film a thorough restoration, and I doubt that will be happening in the near future.

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Also, for those who have the DVD, is the GODZILLA print improved in anyway?


The US version is the same as previous video releases, except that the long-missing original end credits (taken from a print provided by Ed Godziszewski) have been restored.

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Is it letterboxed or cropped?


Toho didn't start making widescreen science fiction films until THE MYSTERIANS in 1957 so GOJIRA/GODZILLA are presented in the original Academy aspect ratio (approx. 1.33:1), same as on the Japanese, British, and Aussie discs. The B side of the 1998 R1 DVD from Simitar has a widescreen version, but it's nothing but the regular version with the top and bottom of the picture cropped off.

Toho did the same thing when they released the Americanized GODZILLA KING OF THE MONSTERS theatrically in Japan in 1957. There's a clip from that "faux widescreen" version on Toho's 40th anniversary laserdisc, so if that's the disc you have you can see for it for yourself.
Keith