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I sat down to watch version 0.5 yesterday and was again awed by the seamlessness of the presentation. Having never seen the US version in its entirety before I found it a fresh take on the original film, and the editing tightened up the narrative quite a bit. I enjoyed it immensely, and a welcome change to the Return of Godzilla international version I’ve been accustomed to until now.
On the tech side, these are the things I noticed:
- The wobble on the opening credits. Would be nice to have that stabilised.
- Was there an on-screen caption when the sub first appears? Looks like there was a square patch on the bottom part of the screen. (There was one more instance of a noticeable patch, but I can’t remember where I saw it.)
- The upscaling of the US footage was very good, but I wonder if it couldn’t do with a grain layer overlay to make it appear sharper and better match the surrounding footage. I can only imagine the difference becoming even more pronounced when you start using the Kraken Blu as source material.
Still, a stellar presentation and if it wasn’t for the station bug this would be just fine as it is. I can only imagine what the final full HD version will be like.
I might try stabilizing the credits a bit for the full HD version. Normally I don’t mind a bit of wobble, but there is a bit much for my taste. Ordinarily I’d worry about losing information on the edges, but in this case I think it’s what George C. Scott would call modest and acceptable casualties.
And there was a caption on the wide shot of the sub; that shot’s been frustrating me too. I think the white from the caption sort of bleeds a little and illuminates the rest of the image slightly, which is why there’s a hiccup in the brightness when it appears that makes the masking really obvious. I might just replace that shot entirely with the MHD, since I can’t seem to get around that. I had to do the same for one shot during the montage of military ships and aircraft. Thankfully, both of these shots are low enough in fine details anyway (the latter being stock footage) that it shouldn’t be too noticeable.
If you do remember where that other patch was, do let me know. I adjusted some of them for v0.6 after watching a test render on my TV and noticing that a few of them were far more obvious on that screen than they were on my laptop. I think the main ones I had to touch up were the one covering the caption when the Soviet ambassador arrives, the one when the Soviet sailor asks the colonel what he’s doing when he’s using the satellite control panel, and the one over the first establishing shot at Mt. Mihara when Ken goes to see the geologist Minami.
The grain overlay is a good idea; I’ll have to look into that. I don’t think the 720p to 1080p upgrade is going to be a revelation as far as image detail goes, considering that it’s a Toho transfer, but there might be some more visible grain, so it would make sense to try and adjust the image on the MHD footage to match.
And finally, I have to agree on the editing job. New World’s editing does really help the pace, and the work done on the initial test of the frequency generator is especially brilliant. Thanks to some quicker cuts and a shot taken from Godzilla’s second fight with the Super X, Godzilla goes from a lethargic, vaguely dangerous large animal who happens to get distracted by a maser tank to an aggressive, menacing creature who would’ve completely obliterated the lab if the tank had fired a moment later. This project has really given me a strong appreciation for what New World did with the original version.
