A book could be written on how wrong this entire project went, including hiring people like Devlin who had zero interest in the series to begin with. The critical panning it rightfully deserved prevented any sequels from seeing light, while a spin-off animated cartoon series would turn out to be at least mildly entertaining. It's a real shame the same can't be said for the feature film that inspired the cartoon. (No stars)
On UMD, Godzilla suffers on multiple levels. Notable is the cropping of the picture, cut down from 2.35:1 to 1.78:1 to fit the screen. Being a dark, dreary, and rainy film, crucial black levels miss the mark. Compression is exceedingly heavy, especially on the actor's faces at times. It's watchable for the format when you make some excuses, but it had plenty of potential to show off what UMD could do. ![]()
On the other side, we have the audio. While average UMD's show off some nice stereo effects, Godzilla goes above and beyond by finding a way to simulate surround channels. Helicopters, flipped cars, bullets, and missiles sound like they're coming from the appropriate direction. Bass could use a slight boost since the DVD version is a benchmark, though it still packs a decent blast when needed. ![]()
Godzilla on UMD has nothing in the way of features. It doesn't even have a scene selection menu, and the audio for the main selection screen is terrible. (No stars)
It's interesting to note that when the studio executives approached Toho with the idea for this updated version, Toho only approved with stipulations. Aside from Godzilla having three sets of spines on his back, they didn't seem follow any of them. Even his famous fire breath was only added in late into the process when fans spoke out.







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