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Why did Classic Media release those as pan & scan only?


Classic Media was mainly marketing the discs towards kids, not Godzilla fans or DVD enthusiasts. Their plan was to make bare-bones DVDs that could be sold cheaply. Most 8 year olds don't care about letterboxing, and a parent probably won't complain about spending $6.99 on a Godzilla movie for their kids.

The Godzilla DVDs CM released in 2002 sold very well but also got a lot of complaints from older fans. Once Classic Media realized there was a market for these films that wanted better DVDs they started working on a new batch of discs.

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I was glad they ended up releasing the titles of that set on their own, as it let me pick up RODAN on DVD. I had the rest from Simitar's boxed set.


The Simitar discs were licensed from Henry Saperstein's UPA, which owned US rights to a handful of Toho films (Saperstein co-produced some of Toho's films like MONSTER ZERO and FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD). After Saperstein died, UPA's library was sold to Classic Media have they have renewed UPA's deal with Toho for most of those same films.

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(Although, for some reason, Simitar only put TERROR OF MECHAGODZILLA out in pan & scan. No clue as to why.)


Because that was the only print UPA had at the time. Classic Media has renogiated with Toho for new materials so they now have the uncut widescreen version of TOMG.

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For the money, if you can find it, GoodTimes was putting out four disk sets of similar-themed DVDs (Lone Ranger, Little Rascals, Three Stooges, etc.), showing up at K-Mart for only $9.99. One such set was DINOSAURS, and included GODZILLA (not a bad print, either)


GoodTimes released that DVD without paying for rights to GODZILLA KOTM from either Toho or Classic Media (the DVD crops the copyright info off the title card of the movie). Toho shut them down fast.

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This past Halloween, some K-Marts were selling a number of the GoodTimes DVDs individually, for around $2.99 in their bargain bins, so that might help until a decent GOJIRA/GODZILLA DVD does finally see the light of day.


I'd say the Simitar or Classic Media GKOTM discs are the best bets for GKOTM until September. For a great copy of the original Japanese version of GODZILLA, I recommend the UK DVD discussed in this thread: p075.ezboard.com/fmonster...D=80.topic
Keith