I perused through Sony's Icons of Sci-Fi: Toho Collection which includes Mothra, The H-Man and Battle In Outer Space and came away greatly impressed with the picture quality on all three movies.
Keeping in mind that the three are in the 50-year-old range, the producers of these discs did a bang-up job in restoring/correcting/cleaning the images. The vibrant colors of Mothra was very impressive in particular. Just gorgeous!
I've a copy of Battle In Outer Space already and this edition surpasses that by a good mile. With one exception...
The only drawback to the discs is that dub-titles were used (Sony should have learned their lesson from the experience of GMK of a few years ago) on Battle In Outer Space. Battle is clearly the weakest movie of the collection with basically uninteresting characters, except for Yoshio Tsuchiya's.
The packaging of the set leaves a whole lot to be desired. Stacking all three discs on one post is asking for scratches. What was Sony thinking? Talk about going the cheap route! Also, the cover art was horrible enough and it wasn't helped any by the way it was printed. It looks like someone just printed it on a poor inkjet printer in someone's basement.
There are no "extras" to the discs except for the commentaries (we're not going to go there) and there's no insert booklet with liner notes (August Ragone would have done some excellent liner notes for free, but we won't go there either). It would have been nice if trailers or some tidbits of historical interest were included (such as posters, lobby cards, production photos, etc.).
Still, the most important thing is (or is it 'are'?) the movies, and here Sony did a great job on two of three, with the one marred by the dub-titles.
My grade A-.
7 comments:
There's a particularly egregious example of nonsense in the commentary track for Mothra: when Bulldog and the lady photographer are visiting Hiroshi Kouzumi, the commentary notes how as a woman, she is obligated to light Bulldog's cigarette. Did they even watch the scene? If you're paying the slightest attention, you will notice that after failing to get Koizumi's photo, she puts down her camera and takes out the cigarette lighter. Bulldog notices this, and takes out his cigarettes. She lights his cigarette, then very obviously uses the "lighter" (it's a miniature camera) to snap Koizumi's picture unobserved. Her subterfuge is revealed at the end of the scene. In short, the scene is the exact opposite of what the commentary infers, as the woman has taken the initiative to get the picture and Bulldog just follows her lead!
Such an obvious and silly error to my mind brings all of the commentary "observations" into serious question.
- Archie Waugh
My biggest complaints are the cheesy artwork (which one would come to expect from the Sony releases), and the shoddy way the discs are lined up in the case.
I always thought the lighter/camera trick was a pretty sneaky way to get a photo of an uncooperative subject. And this was a year before the first ("Dr. No") James Bond movie! Now you know why I rarely listen to commentaries by fans.
Steve and Ed, to my mind, are a little more than just "fans"...more like "professional fanboys"...after all, they've published a lot of good research over the years. Still, the error I pointed out strikes me as sheer laziness, as if they prepared most of their notes from old material, and didn't really sit down and carefully observe what is happening in the films, but rather used the occasion to try (unsuccessfully) reinforce their own prejudices. The idea that the women in Honda's films are merely subservient is ridiculous on the face of it, and totally rebuffed by the scene cited in the commentary. I wish the folks doing these tracks would stick to facts about production and special effects, and leave the analysis to the viewer...I think we are smart enough to draw our own conclusions without such misguided prodding. More info about some of the supporting actors and the other technicians would be appreciated. "Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts" please!
- Archie Waugh
I didn't want to use the term "fanboy" in my reply. It was concerning commentaries by fans, fanboys or "professional fanboys" in general and not directed specifically to Steve or Ed.
I finally checked the scene with the commentary track on and confirmed what Archie said. The Bulldog followed her lead. She was in control of the situation in order to get the photo of Koizumi. The commentary at this point mischaracterized the scene. This should go into the "Are We Watching The Same Movie? File"
Just got this package. So far, I've only watched BATTLE IN OUTER SPACE, but I'm really pleased with the quality. Best print I've ever seen. Never seen all those wires on the spacecraft before...
Probably will watch MOTHRA tonight; have to get to the commentary points later on...
In general, I'm pleased as hell that we've got these movies, nicely restored. Doesn't seem like all that long ago when the very idea seemed absolutely improbable.
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