Toho Godzilla Blu-ray Double Features Review

I could not possibly do a better job reviewing Godzilla movies than Witney Seibold did during his Summer of Godzilla project last year. However, the new Godzilla movie has warranted the release of a slew of Heisei and Millennium era Godzilla films on Blu-ray in double feature editions, so it was a good way for me to catch up on the franchise. I will link back to Witney’s in-depth reviews, while offering a capsule on each film myself. First, some overall thoughts.

I never realized how different each Godzilla film could be, and this was my first taste of the diversity. Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth is part Indiana Jones movie, and Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah is a time travel movie. The monster battles always deliver, but what really sets them apart are the scenarios that surround them. I can now tell Godzilla movies apart, which was not something I could claim before watching these eight films.

These films are also good reminders that it doesn’t matter if it’s guys in rubber suits. If the editing is good, they can make it suspenseful and exciting. The miniature work is great, and the blending of different old school visual effects techniques is more effective than all CGI films. A background shot of Godzilla stomping a miniature set blended with a foreground of real humans in a full sized city does the trick. Periodically cutting to military control rooms explaining Godzilla’s methodology helps create dynamic momentum to the scenes too, as long as you don’t cut away from the monster action too many times.

Most of the Blu-rays look great. Particularly the ‘90s movies have a tangible quality, where the transfers are clear but you see the grit of practical sets and costumes still. Some of the ‘00s films are a bit grainier, perhaps because as the effects got more complicated, the layers degraded by a higher number of generations. Final Wars is the grainiest. Some of the films have behind the scenes bonus features where you can see the Japanese crews at work on miniature sets. Some are straight B-roll, some are subtitled, but the work speaks for itself. All films have trailers with some fun promotional hype to go along with the previews.

The order of the collections follows below in pairs of two:

Overall Rating:

Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Best Episode Ever and The Shelf Space Awards. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.