If This Were Wall St., People Would Be Jailed

If This Were Wall St., People Would Be Jailed

by Armand Vaquer

Regular readers of this blog are aware of a controversy concerning the commentary extras on Sony's Icons of Sci-Fi: The Toho Collection. This collection includes Mothra, H-Man and Battle In Outer Space. (Go here to refresh yourself on the controversy.)

Sony's Michael Schlesinger, as you may recall, intended that prominent G-fans and historians from all sectors would be participating in the set. However, that did not come to pass as the person in charge of putting together the set selected Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski to provide the commentaries in this set. August Ragone and others, in good faith, relied upon Schlesinger's advice on participating.

But the cards were already stacked, pretty much from the start.

As far as anyone can tell, the set was announced in July 2008 in a blog by Ian Friedman when he interviewed Schlesinger:

MS: "The set is penciled in for ’09. It will contain those three plus REBIRTH OF MOTHRA 3 (1998), which somehow got overlooked for DVD. The intent is to have the uncut versions with Japanese tracks as well as the English dubs. MOTHRA and BATTLE IN OUTER SPACE are done; THE H-MAN is proving to be a bit trickier, but it should be completed in time."

This week, an interview of Ryfle and Godziszewski by Richard Pusateri was posted at Sci-Fi Japan. In it, Steve Ryfle is quoted as saying:

We lobbied for the job for nearly two years. Through our friend Oki Miyano, I was able to meet with Michael Friend, who supervised the restoration project, in April 2007.

This is interesting because as of March 13, 2009, Schlesinger was not even aware of any decisions concerning extras on this set and had invited people to submit their proposals. And people in general weren't aware of this set being planned until about June 2008. Yet Ryfle and Godziszewski now admit they were actively lobbying for the commentaries and other extras since April 2007.

This sounds very much like "illegal insider trading" in Wall Street (which is, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission,"Illegal insider trading refers generally to buying or selling a security, in breach of a fiduciary duty or other relationship of trust and confidence, while in possession of material, nonpublic information about the security. Insider trading violations may also include "tipping" such information, securities trading by the person "tipped," and securities trading by those who misappropriate such information"). Martha Stewart was sent to prison for illegal insider trading.

So, through Oki Miyano, Ryfle and Godziszewski were given "insider access" to Michael Friend. This was access that no one else was equally privileged to receive. At that point (April 2007) nobody knew that this set was even planned.

As the title of this article states, "If This Were Wall St., People Would Be Jailed." Fortunately for those involved, this wasn't Wall Street and, as far as I know, no laws were broken. But it certainly, at the very least, calls to question people's ethics.

A stacked deck is still a stacked deck.

Icons of Sci-Fi: Toho Collection

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-.

Sony's Toho Collection

The final artwork for the Sony's Toho Collection DVD set has been announced.

To quote former President Lyndon B. Johnson on a portrait of himself he didn't like: "That's the ugliest thing I ever saw!" Here it is without text:



It appears the actors on the cover aren't impressed with it either. They seem to be looking at something more interesting.

The synopsis for the DVD's features has also been revealed on Sony's website. Here it is:

Synopsis

Mothra: Members of a Japanese expedition to a heavily-radiated island find two tiny, beautiful girls and take them home for observation. When the girls are taken off the island, a mysterious egg hatches, producing a gargantuan moth which destroys everything in its path as it searches for the girls. H-Man: The Tokyo sewer system is an oozing mess after a radioactive liquid turns people into slimy blobs that float down the drains following a rainstorm. To add to the havoc, the gelatinous masses then begin to reproduce. The blobs are ultimately destroyed in a fire that lights up the city. Battle in Outer Space: A series of mysterious catastrophes sweep the globe, causing world's scientists to conclude that beings from another planet are attacking earth. Two earth space ships damage attackers, giving the world time to prepare for gigantic battle in outer space.

DVD Features
Commentary with Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski
DVD Details
Genre: Action, Sci-Fi
CC: English (US)
Sub: English (US)
Color/B&W: Color

Who the hell wrote those? The "two tiny girls" weren't "taken home for observation," they were kidnapped by the villain so he could exploit them in his Tokyo nightclub! Yeesh!

Danny Tokarz on the Monster Zero message board said it best about the synopsis:

Jeez, a kid at G-Fest could have written a better synopsis for these films than what Sony just did.

And Sony could've had the services of August Ragone for virtually nothing! Mind-boggling!