It wouldn't be a proper Japanese movie if the lips were synced with the dialogue.
El Rey X-Mas Kaiju Marathon
- Thread starter Mr. Adventure
- Start date
The white actors usually have the worst delivery. 
Of course, the G movies are better than the kung fu movies I grew up with where dozens of movies seemed to be voiced by the same three guys. "Say, your kung fu is no good."
Of course, the G movies are better than the kung fu movies I grew up with where dozens of movies seemed to be voiced by the same three guys. "Say, your kung fu is no good."
But it's interesting how much written and spoken English there is in the original Japanese versions of movies like Mechagodzilla II and Final Wars. It's a reminder that the Japanese, like most nationalities, are more bilingual than Americans tend to be.
And notice that in the English-language signage in the G-Force movies, Godzilla's name is actually spelled "Godzilla," not "Gojira" -- and the characters who speak English in the original soundtracks pronounce it in the American way as well, as God-zil-luh. So that's actually the approved English-language rendering of the name, not a corruption of it as a lot of people assume. (Basically, "Godzilla" is a variant of how the name would've been romanized using the system popular in the '50s -- it would've been go-zi-la or go-dzi-la -- while "Gojira" is how the same syllables are rendered in the romanization scheme that's more popular today. And they're both about equally imperfect renderings of how it's pronounced. It's like Peking vs. Beijing.)
On the other hand, note that the English dub of Mechagodzilla II renders Radon's name correctly rather than changing it to "Rodan" as in the older movies. Radon is short for "pteranodon," but it was changed to Rodan in English because Radon was the brand name of a laundry soap at the time or something.
And notice that in the English-language signage in the G-Force movies, Godzilla's name is actually spelled "Godzilla," not "Gojira" -- and the characters who speak English in the original soundtracks pronounce it in the American way as well, as God-zil-luh. So that's actually the approved English-language rendering of the name, not a corruption of it as a lot of people assume. (Basically, "Godzilla" is a variant of how the name would've been romanized using the system popular in the '50s -- it would've been go-zi-la or go-dzi-la -- while "Gojira" is how the same syllables are rendered in the romanization scheme that's more popular today. And they're both about equally imperfect renderings of how it's pronounced. It's like Peking vs. Beijing.)
On the other hand, note that the English dub of Mechagodzilla II renders Radon's name correctly rather than changing it to "Rodan" as in the older movies. Radon is short for "pteranodon," but it was changed to Rodan in English because Radon was the brand name of a laundry soap at the time or something.
Wow, are you some kind of pteranodon enthusiast?
Try a super-carcinogenic gas.
There is a Radox soap out there, perhaps that is what is meant?
EDIT: Thinking about it make sense that Radon might not be trademarkable because of the element but Rodan would be which seems a likely reason.
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Yes, obviously, but that public health hazard wasn't well-known at the time we're talking about, in the late 1950s when Radon was released and then renamed Rodan! The Flying Monster! in the US.
By the way, last night El Rey showed a different kind of giant-monster movie, the 1982 Q: The Winged Serpent, produced, written and directed by Larry Cohen and featuring a stop-motion bird-lizard thingy preying gorily on New Yorkers while cops David Carradine and Richard Roundtree try to find it and a very annoying two-bit hood played by Michael Moriarty finds its lair and blackmails the cops into giving him immunity, while in the meantime there's an underdeveloped subplot about a Aztec human-sacrifice cult that's nebulously responsible for all this in a way that's never really explained. It's a pretty terrible, extremely gory movie and I'm not sure why I sat through it -- mainly because it was interesting to see the parts filmed inside the spire of the Chrysler Building.
But it did prove that those disclaimers El Rey runs at the start of its movies about them being graphic and uncut is quite accurate. This film had tons of graphic violence and profanity and even a topless scene, and none of it was cut. And yet somehow the rating given for it was TV-14 instead of TV-MA.
Meanwhile, last week I finally got around to watching my recording of Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack, and it still holds up really well. It's one of the three darkest and most allegorical Godzilla films (the others being the '54 original and '84 revival), and it's got two of the best lead characters in the gung-ho reporter Yuri and her father the colonel.
But it did prove that those disclaimers El Rey runs at the start of its movies about them being graphic and uncut is quite accurate. This film had tons of graphic violence and profanity and even a topless scene, and none of it was cut. And yet somehow the rating given for it was TV-14 instead of TV-MA.
Meanwhile, last week I finally got around to watching my recording of Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack, and it still holds up really well. It's one of the three darkest and most allegorical Godzilla films (the others being the '54 original and '84 revival), and it's got two of the best lead characters in the gung-ho reporter Yuri and her father the colonel.
ElRey does an "after hours" thing where the movies are uncut, but not during the day.
I seem to remember it being mentioned a few hundred times during the Gojira marathon.
I seem to remember it being mentioned a few hundred times during the Gojira marathon.
Yes, I noticed, but I wasn't sure just how far they'd take it on a non-premium commercial network. Like, maybe they'd only show movies rated PG-13 and under, or avoid movies with nude scenes and f-bombs, or something. So I was surprised that they'd actually show a full-on R-rated movie like that. And as I said, it's odd that they'd run it with a TV-14 rating.
Makes me wish I'd taped Terror of Mechagodzilla when they showed it. I've read that the Japanese version of that film has a brief topless scene, and when I saw the disclaimers, I wondered if they might've included it -- though it seemed unlikely, given that most of the movies they showed were English dubs.
Reminds me of being 14 and having Cinemax (late night) and Playboy Channel.
With all the Godzilla movies they aired using the Japanese opening cards, were they the Japanese versions dubbed, or the U.S. versions? A lot of the U.S. versions had added scenes right?
With all the Godzilla movies they aired using the Japanese opening cards, were they the Japanese versions dubbed, or the U.S. versions? A lot of the U.S. versions had added scenes right?
All I had as a teen were scrambled pay-cable channels where I could hear the soundtrack and occasionally see a distorted, green-tinged image of a naked woman if I adjusted the horizontal and vertical hold just right. Although eventually I got a video store card...
They were apparently the English-dubbed international versions put out by Toho. Rather few Godzilla films in the past two decades ever had American theatrical releases.
Only a few, mostly the early ones. Godzilla, King of the Monsters! was practically a parallel movie running alongside the original film and telling its events from an American observer's perspective, aside from one scene that made it look like Raymond Burr talked the female lead into a choice that she made on her own in the original. Godzilla Raids Again was retitled Gigantis, the Fire Monster and had a major subplot cut out and assorted stock footage from educational films cut in. King Kong vs. Godzilla was massively and dreadfully altered, with a ton of boring footage of English-speaking news anchors addressing the camera and "covering" the events of the film as if the whole thing were a live TV newscast. There was a non-Godzilla kaiju film called Giant Monster Varan that was adapted Power Rangers-style into the American film Varan the Unbelievable, with only the special-effects footage spliced into an entirely new story with an American cast. It was done less often in later movies, in part because Toho started incorporating English-speaking American actors into the movies to begin with. The last one I know of to be heavily altered for America was the '84 Return of Godzilla, adapted as Godzilla '85 with new Raymond Burr footage added and various scenes altered or deleted -- including a number of changes to make the Americans in the film more heroic and the Soviets more evil, when in the original they were both equally imperialist and self-centered superpowers that the Japanese Prime Minister refused to be bullied by.
I think some of the early 80's cable boxes could be de-scrambled with a magnet, but I'm sure I don't know anything about that, especially because we had those channels available. I really don't know what Mom was thinking.
I've been confused by all the Godzilla movies, Japanese vs U.S. releases, remakes, etc. I wanted to buy the 2 per blu-ray ones at Wal-Mart, but seem to have missed my chance. I wish, regardless of era/studio/whatever, they would get a set type release.
I've been confused by all the Godzilla movies, Japanese vs U.S. releases, remakes, etc. I wanted to buy the 2 per blu-ray ones at Wal-Mart, but seem to have missed my chance. I wish, regardless of era/studio/whatever, they would get a set type release.
Yeah, I'm disappointed that there are some I haven't been able to see in the original version. I've only managed to see the awful American recut of King Kong vs. Godzilla, for instance.
Unfortunately, the original Japanese versions of King Kong vs Godzilla and Return of Godzilla are unavailable in the United States, due to various rights issues. A few years ago someone uploaded a subbed version of KK vs G to Youtube and I was able to watch it before it got taken down. More recently, I found this site that details all the differences between the two. Probably the biggest advantage to having the Japanese version is that you're able to hear the original Akira Ifukube score. The American edit replaces it with stock material from Univeral's catalog.
I wish I could hear the original score to KKvG. I think I read once that the Mechagodzilla theme in the Heisei Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II, which I quite liked, was based on the KKvG theme.
You can hear the soundtrack here. I've read that Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II was originally intended to be a remake of KK vs G, but Toho was unable to get the rights. So, the score might have already included themes for Kong, and they were left unchanged.
Edit: I did a little research and found that the reused themes are from King Kong Escapes (also by Ifukube.)
Edit: I did a little research and found that the reused themes are from King Kong Escapes (also by Ifukube.)
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Hmm, it doesn't seem like the main MechaGodzilla/main title theme from GvMG2 is recycled from either King Kong film. Maybe they were talking about other themes. For instance, the "Godzilla's Resurrection" cue in KKvG includes a motif that's a prototype of the main title theme of Mothra vs. Godzilla, which in turn was revived in GvMG2 (for instance, in the "Godzilla vs. Rodan" cue). And I just sampled bits of the KKE score, but there was a "love theme" sort of string cue that did sound familiar.