The MST-HD Remaster Project Vol. 001

Episode 213 - Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster

Released!

Trailer below. PM me for link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLZmhf49-hA&ab

Pretty straightforward idea here: put the MST3K silhouettes in front of the latest HD version of the movie being riffed. The host segments remain, but when we move into the theater the film is playing in the best possible quality and in the original aspect ratio.

I plan on starting with three MST episodes. For anyone who wants to keep the series going, I can provide a how-to package with project files. I’ve chosen Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster to begin with since it was a favorite of mine growing up. And since it’s one of the few MST3K episodes that hasn’t had an official release - and since there’s such a gorgeous print of the film in the Criterion collection - I though it’d be the perfect candidate to bump up to HD.

The gist:

-First it’s a matter of lining the HD movie up with the movie in the episode. Most movies on MST3K were cut down either by the show or by the distributor they licensed the movie from (or some combination). I used Criterion’s version of Ebirah, Horror of the Deep from the Godzilla Showa Era box set.
-Next the silhouettes from the episode were taken from the D.A.P. VHSrip, which was deinterlaced and upscaled to 1080p by Riffling. Silhouettes were placed over the footage and extensively tweaked to eliminate VHS tracking bumps and isolate only the shape of the main characters. More theater seats are added to fill out both sides of the screen.
-Silhouettes aligned and movie cropped or zoomed where necessary to make it so that each time Joel or the bots interacts with the movie, they’re hitting the same marks on the screen.
-For the countdown doors I’ve composited out the hole in the last door so I can have it open and close on the new HD theater.
-I also had to work around the fact that Joel and the bots walk in and out of the theater through an invisible door in the middle of my new wider frame:

I employed a few different workarounds. First is to let the last countdown door cover them up until they’re all through “the invisible door”. On the segments where they walk in or out, but there’s no countdown door I’ve added a greenscreen red curtain effect that opens/closes to start/end the segment. Video sample below:

-For this episode I replaced the Film Ventures International credits with recreated Walter Reede titles (done by youtuber SpaceHunterM⚧). This is probably the biggest change from the original episode. Since the theater sits empty for 45 seconds while the FVI credits run, I felt the Walter Reede titles were a much quicker and more suitable way to get the show going.
-As Joel and the bots walking into the theater after the credits, I actually did a few seconds of animation to extend their walk to account for the extended theater seats.
-For whatever reason, during the big explosion at 1:29:47 the screen flashes a solid lime green. I replaced this with what I felt was a more fitting orange gradiant to match the explosion.
-Cleaned up/replaced the silhouettes while the MST3K Info Club address appears.
-All host segments were taken from the officially released ‘Satellite Dishes’ bonus DVD, which includes host segments for all the episodes Shout! Factory was unable to secure the right to. Riffling upscaled these as well and I did some light saturation/contrast boosting.

I have two other episodes in the works as well (a Mike and another Joel) but I don’t want to reveal them yet since I want the focus to be on Vol. 001 and celebrating this episode. PM me for a link.

-SeaCom