A last gasp for the original Showa Godzilla series, the majority of the original team reunites for this final attempt to salvage a franchise that immeasurably went downhill. While Terror of Mechagodzilla still carries some of the carelessness Godzilla films had become known for, with only a month to complete the entire thing, director Ishiro Honda pulled out every stop to produce a fun, colorful, destruction-filled finale for the Japanese icon. This is one of the best of the “versus” Godzilla movies, and easily the standard for the ‘70s.

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Classic Media brings the film to DVD with care, and this is unquestionably the best of the three DVD releases of the movie to date. Notably, this is the first widescreen presentation, critical to the framing of the special effects and fight sequences. This isn’t even the same movie when cropped.

That said, both prints here (Japanese and US) are remarkable. Aside from the tacked on introduction for the US cut, the prints are free of defects. There’s not a scratch to be found. The US version is presented slightly softer as a whole, but still manages to produce striking color, and the explosions are beautiful. The Japanese version (which the below score reflects) is sharper, producing better color reproduction. Compression is never noticeable, and the details that come through are a sight to behold.

Sadly, the same care hasn’t been taken to increase the audio quality. While the official Toho discs contain remixed 5.1 tracks, this is sadly stuck with a typical mono effort. It tends to strain at the highest points of Ikira Ifukube’s masterful soundtrack. Mechagodzilla’s theme is a consistent problem, resulting in a distorted sound at its peak. The mix is thankfully free of hissing or popping, and dialogue is clean.

The Women of Godzilla is a 12 minute feature on the female characters throughout the series and their impact. This begins the extras which offer a solid package. A photo gallery offers up various posters with text providing various facts.

A commentary from Keith Aiken and Bob Johnson (both of the Sci-fi Japan website) is informative and insightful. While they’re obviously reading from a text at some points, they do a fantastic job of staying active for the entire film, and deliver in terms of interesting facts. This is only available on US version.

It’s interesting to note that the US version included here is the Henry G. Saperstein version. This includes a rarely seen prologue that destroys the canon of the franchise with narration that makes no sense over footage of other Godzilla movies. The cuts needed to make a G rating for the theatrical release are not present, which was released as Terror of Godzilla. The version here is the TV edition, released not long after the theatrical.