Gamera: The Complete Collection (1965-2006)

[omgitsgodzilla]

Originally Posted by PowellPressburger

As far as the english dubs go, is their a preference over the AIP \ Daiei dubs?

Well, there's a lot of variation within the Daiei/AI-TV dubs themselves. Daiei's dubs for Barugon and Gyaos were done in Hong Kong, while Guiron was done by Pedro in Tokyo. Meanwhile, AI-TV's dubs for Barugon and Gyaos were done by ELDA in Rome, while Viras, Guiron, and Jiger were done by Titan Productions in New York.

Titan (formerly Titra) is generally held in pretty high regard, and their work on the Gamera films is definitely up to their usual standard of quality. I'm fond of the Hong Kong dubs, but your mileage may vary. Amusingly, the Rome dubs sometimes sound even more British than the HK ones.

[Hydra Spectre]

I really love this Gamera collection and I think this is what the Godzilla Showa Era box set should have been, if it weren't for Toho meddling with the Criterion box set just because Toho loves messing with export versions.

But my gripes are:
1. No MST3K episodes included even when Shout! Factory helped with this box set so it was possible that the MST3K episodes can be included with the collection.
2. Gamera the Brave is only in DTS-HD MA 2.0 and 5.1 24/48 when the Limited Memorial Edition DVD in Japan had a DTS-ES 6.1 mix and the Tokyo Shock Blu-ray had a 24/192 Hi-Res Audio mix in 5.1.
3. No 4K UHD of the Heisei Trilogy. I can understand that it was because the Arrow box set came out before the Japanese 4K UHD release, they could've delayed the box set so it won't come out after the Japanese 4K UHD and Arrow can still release an international complete box set with 4K UHDs of the Heisei Trilogy but nobody wants that. Such a shame since the Japanese 4K UHD includes Dolby Vision HDR, the original Dolby Stereo mixes, the LaserDisc 5.1 remixes and new Dolby Atmos remixes. Let's just hope that the Heisei Trilogy would be re-released in 4K UHD by Arrow. Too bad the trilogy SteelBook was only in 1080p and not 4K UHD even though it came out three days before the Japanese UHD release. It was a perfect opportunity to double dip the Heisei Trilogy with 4K UHD rather than just the previous discs repackaged.

[Killer Meteor]

Originally Posted by Hydra Spectre

But my gripes are:
1. No MST3K episodes included even when Shout! Factory helped with this box set so it was possible that the MST3K episodes can be included with the collection.

Shout no longer has the rights to those episodes.

[Partyslammer]

Originally Posted by Killer Meteor

Shout no longer has the rights to those episodes.

Didn't Shout just do a repress of the MST3K Gamera dvd box set right around the time of Arrow's box release? I bought the MST3K box the same week as the Arrow box from SF's web site.

[sb5]

Originally Posted by Partyslammer

Didn't Shout just do a repress of the MST3K Gamera dvd box set right around the time of Arrow's box release? I bought the MST3K box the same week as the Arrow box from SF's web site.

Yeah, the MST3K episodes went back in print and back up on streaming right around that time.

[starsteam]

Arrow considered including the MST3K episodes but decided the box set already had enough on it and the Shout Factory DVD was already good enough. You're basically asking for them to include the complete content from a $60 DVD set on a already expensive Blu-ray set.

But Arrow did do a deal with Shout so they could bring back the MST DVD set back into print (as a ShoutFactory.com exclusive) and streaming.

[gbm82]

Originally Posted by starsteam

Arrow considered including the MST3K episodes but decided the box set already had enough on it and the Shout Factory DVD was already good enough. You're basically asking for them to include the complete content from a $60 DVD set on a already expensive Blu-ray set.

But Arrow did do a deal with Shout so they could bring back the MST DVD set back into print (as a ShoutFactory.com exclusive) and streaming.

I think it's often forgotten that extras cost the label money, which either has to be eaten or passed onto us...

[bigshot]

Personally, I'd prefer it if labels dropped extras altogether and charged less.

[dwk]

Originally Posted by bigshot

Personally, I'd prefer it if labels dropped extras altogether and charged less.

I might be edging close and closer to this opinion.

It is hard, though, because a healthy slate of special features can push me over on a title I am not 100% sold on the need to own, but I now almost never watch extras because they almost always end up so similar (if you've watched one making of interview, you've watched two dozen making of interviews) that it seems like I'm not getting anything new.

Truthfully, most of what I watch now are titles expiring off the Criterion channel, which has saved me a ton of money on discs I might have blind bought and then, maybe, watched once, if at all.

[Killer Meteor]

Originally Posted by Partyslammer

Didn't Shout just do a repress of the MST3K Gamera dvd box set right around the time of Arrow's box release? I bought the MST3K box the same week as the Arrow box from SF's web site.

Boy, I have not been paying attention!

[monwobbbo]

Originally Posted by bigshot

Personally, I'd prefer it if labels dropped extras altogether and charged less.

So you buy the movies to have the movies? Crazy talk. Lol

I won't buy just because of extras. Very rarely do I find a specially feature I get excited about. The vast majority are 1 and done in terms of watching and more often then not go un watched. I do like to have the trailers for old movies when trailers were an art form themselves though.

[Jlouisbarrett]

Originally Posted by dwk

I might be edging close and closer to this opinion.

It is hard, though, because a healthy slate of special features can push me over on a title I am not 100% sold on the need to own, but I now almost never watch extras because they almost always end up so similar (if you've watched one making of interview, you've watched two dozen making of interviews) that it seems like I'm not getting anything new.

Truthfully, most of what I watch now are titles expiring off the Criterion channel, which has saved me a ton of money on discs I might have blind bought and then, maybe, watched once, if at all.

I’m almost completely over “making of” interviews and featurettes... they’re nearly ALWAYS exactly the same, unless you’ve got a film with a unique production history or an incredibly frank interview subject (such as Corey Feldman on Shout’s Bordello of Blood release). Seriously, I don’t think I can take another actor talking about how they got the part (“I read the script, auditioned for the role and they hired me!”) or how wonderful and amazing the director was to work with.

Shout! Factory is getting worse in this arena these days... they’ve developed this nasty habit of throwing like a dozen uncut interviews on the disc, mostly with random crew members, and they’re all around 30-50(!) minutes long and detail the interview subject’s entire career. Their recent list of extras for Event Horizon almost makes me not want to buy the disc.

With that said, I do miss Shout’s older style of creating a nicely edited, 30-50 minute making of documentary. Those I can still get behind, for the most part.

But, ultimately, the only extras or bonus features I genuinely care about these days are critical analyses/appreciations. Just give me Kim Newman or Stephen Thrower analyzing the history and themes of a film, and I’m good.

[starsteam]

I love making-of features for older films but they're a bit scarce. Ones for today's films though, it's basically just showing off what can be done on a computer. Just another reason why practical effects are so much more magical - they're still interesting off the screen too.

I still watch almost all bonus features on a disc at least once and obviously I want my favorite films to have plenty. But I can't say I'm a fan of extras there just for the sake of having extras. All of the good bonus features on the new Friday the 13th set were archival content ported from past releases. I don't think I'd have a desire to revisit any of the newly produced stuff on that set.

I want archival content to be collected on disc. Deleted scenes, trailers, etc. I'd rather read a interview than listen to the person speaking it. Much quicker.

This Gamera set did a fairly decent job of collecting as much archival content as it could even if there wasn't much quality new material produced. I really didn't mind, and frankly my favorite extra is the book.

[Hydra Spectre]

My biggest gripe is that Gamera the Brave is only in 5.1 when the Memorial Edition DVD had a DTS-ES 6.1 remix.
And the film was originally in Dolby Digital EX 6.1 so the 6.1 mix is the original mix, but the Blu-ray has the usual oopsie of flagging DTS-HD MA 5.1-ES (6.1 matrix) as plain 5.1, very common among Fox and Disney Blu-rays like The Terminator, Die Another Day, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Treasure Planet and Pirates of the Caribbean 1.
If I were asked, I would include the 2.0 and 6.1 matrix tracks as well as the 6.1 discrete track, all in DTS-HD MA 5.1.
That or I could just turn on DTS Neural:X and turn off the height speakers to get a 7.1 upmix.

And the Tokyo Shock Blu-ray, while not in 6.1, was in 24-bit 192kHz Hi-Res Audio, but it's probably a fake digital up-res rather than actual Hi-Res Audio like AKIRA.

[bigshot]

Originally Posted by Jlouisbarrett

Just give me Kim Newman or Stephen Thrower analyzing the history and themes of a film, and I’m good.

Kim Newman? No thank you. He blathers on about movies he doesn't really know. He's like that guy at the cocktail party who talks to much but never seems to say anything. I can get more than that out of a simple google search. The only person I'm interested in hearing speak about a film is the person who made it. And that is only if the film maker feels that they have something important to say that you might not get by just watching the film.

[Jlouisbarrett]

Originally Posted by bigshot

Kim Newman? No thank you. He blathers on about movies he doesn't really know. He's like that guy at the cocktail party who talks to much but never seems to say anything. I can get more than that out of a simple google search. The only person I'm interested in hearing speak about a film is the person who made it. And that is only if the film maker feels that they have something important to say that you might not get by just watching the film.

Newman does tend to sound like he’s reciting an IMDb page sometimes, but I usually enjoy everything else he says. But if you think there’s no value in hearing the perspective or analysis of a third party on works of art then idk what to tell ya.

[bongozoid]

My biggest gripe will always be the subtitles.
Don't care about the rest or the MST3K stuff.

[landow]

Was not sure whether to post this in the Deals thread or not, but there are a handful of the UK complete sets up on Ebay now from rarewaves-europe at a very fair price. If you missed this set on the first go round this may be your chance. Probably won’t last long.

[illmaticdragon]

Any reason why the Showa era films were only transferred in 1080p and not 4k? Are there diminishing returns on trying to transfer them to 4k because of how old the material is or is it because they didn't have access to the original negatives? I'm not sure if it's easier to transfer to 4K if you have the negatives versus the prints. Or was Arrow, or whoever did the transfer, just trying to save money? I've seen other old stuff restored to 4K, so I'm kinda confused and still trying to wrap my head around all this stuff. Any info would be appreciated, sorry if this has already been asked but trying to read through 100 pages is...daunting to say the least lol.

[starsteam]

Originally Posted by illmaticdragon

Any reason why the Showa era films were only transferred in 1080p and not 4k? Are there diminishing returns on trying to transfer them to 4k because of how old the material is or is it because they didn't have access to the original negatives? I'm not sure if it's easier to transfer to 4K if you have the negatives versus the prints. Or was Arrow, or whoever did the transfer, just trying to save money? I've seen other old stuff restored to 4K, so I'm kinda confused and still trying to wrap my head around all this stuff. Any info would be appreciated, sorry if this has already been asked but trying to read through 100 pages is...daunting to say the least lol.

Kadokawa already restored the Heisei films to 4K. Arrow just used those.