You keep hearing that new versions of this will be coming, but they never materialize.

I have an old out of print version from lowly (and I believe defunct) Simitar that's surprisingly good - in fact, I have a real great Godzilla collectible, the 40th anniversary Laser box set from Toho that a freind bought for me in Japan for $200 in 1994. It has GOJIRA and the '54 American version, and the Simitar print looks almost identical to that one (minus Japanese subs)!

I think this same version was later on some Sony discs after Simitar lost the rights or whatever - that's probably the one in the box set you're referring to. It's not bad if you can find it as a stand-alone. No legal releases I know of on DVD with extras, but that Laser box has awesome stuff with it - repro's of the complete storyboards, Japanese promotional materials and original program, etc.

I've never seen the Japanese footage look all that great - I saw the 35mm of GOJIRA last summer, and it was pretty grainy. You can always see how much sharper the Burr footage is in the U.S. version prints I've seen.

SAM33