Godzilla vs the Thing HD G-MAN Reconstruction Now Available

[G-MAN]

To start off with I love Red Menace restoration's work, but thought there were some areas thst could be improved by another go and a better source being used for the main video. That being the recent criterion release. Which still isn't ideal being the hi-vision Toho transfer. Along with it too being quite compressed. But it at least doesn't have so many noticeable artifacts and macroblocking as the source red menace used was a boot.

Now I'm not knocking his work at all. I love all the restorations that have been released so far. And actually it was originally gonna be comprised entirely of their Godzilla vs the Thing restoration aside from the Frontier Missile sequence. But after noticing the issues it had I figured to try and give a full restoration a good. Which I use that word lightly as it was mainly just an edit of the Japanese version as there wasn't any major color correcting.

What lead me to even do this was the recent Anolis German dvd release. As they were allowed to recreate their German Theatrical version which allowed them to scan some of the scenes exclusive to that version. And that included the famous Frontier Missile sequence. And while it definitely has some issues namely being an sd source and having some color issues. It is still the sequence in its original aspect ratio. So no more having to rely on much more subpar sources to restore that scene thankfully. I should again mention that I was originally just going to insert my restoration of this scene into the Red Menace restoration of the film.

Breakdown.
*Used the Red Menace restoration along with the simitar and classic media dvds as a template.
*Video sources were the Criterion disc for the majority of the film. Red Menace restoration for the opening titles as they are by far the best looking in the original aspect ratio available. Simitar for the newspaper sequence, Anolis DVD for the frontier sequence, and the classic media dvd for the ending titles.
*Audio sources were the simitar DVD along with the Red Menace restoration.
*Some work was done on the opening titles and all the other insert shots to upscale them to an HD reaolution and remove as much artifacting and macroblocking as possible. As even the Anolis dvd source had instances of it.

If anyone would like a link to the MKV of my restoration feel free to pm me for it. It's all ready to go for watching or being muxed in TSMuxer if you want to burn it to a bluray as I made sure it's bluray compatible.

And it goes without stating that this is not a diss or me bashing red menace. I love their work and look forward to everything else they have in the works. I just know that with any fan restorations there will always be things that can be improved upon. As I know there are things that can be done with mine that I have in mind for a second pass at it. Not to mention seeing how an upcoming foreign release of the film on bluray stacks up to the Criterion disc. Though doubt it will be much of an improvement as they too are using the 2008 HD master. But it's always good to be on the look out for official sources for restorations whenever possible.

*Update
As noted below there were some sync issues towards the end due to an edit and render mistake. The fixed version is now uploaded and ready for download. If you would like the fixed version and already got the previous version just pm me and I'll send you the link.

[G-MAN]

All uploaded and ready to go. Edited the OP but just reiterating that it is now available and comment or pm for the link

[GodzillaBurgh]

I would like a download link if it's in MP4, please.

[G-MAN]

I would like a download link if it's in MP4, please.

Unfortunately I only have it in MKV format at the moment. But I could make them available in MP4 in the future. But if you have VLC it will play just fine. If you're still interested in a link just pm me

[GodzillaBurgh]

I would like a download link if it's in MP4, please.

Unfortunately I only have it in MKV format at the moment. But I could make them available in MP4 in the future. But if you have VLC it will play just fine. If you're still interested in a link just pm me

OK, sure. I have VLC. I can work with that.

[G-MAN]

I would like a download link if it's in MP4, please.

Unfortunately I only have it in MKV format at the moment. But I could make them available in MP4 in the future. But if you have VLC it will play just fine. If you're still interested in a link just pm me

OK, sure. I have VLC. I can work with that.

Sounds good and link sent

[ultrase7en]

The recon looks great! Thanks for putting it together.

[G-MAN]

The recon looks great! Thanks for putting it together.

Glad you enjoyed it. And of course definitely wanted to try my hand at this seeing as there are much better sources as of late.

[GodzillaBurgh]

Looks so much better without the black bars in Red's version of the Frontier Missile scene. The ending where the main characters seeing the Mothra Larvae swim away featured bits of footage from the Japanese version and the music seems off-sync.

[Gorka the Vampire]

Just watched your Godzilla vs. the Thing HD reconstruction. Overall...an excellent job...I’m impressed. One can see you had much better elements to work with bc of the Criterion blu. The only thing I noticed was that you left a short clip in of the larvae swimming away at the end which made the music at the end go slightly out of sync. In the US version the music covers the entire “An American International Picture” title card. It’s probably easily fixed and that’s the only thing that I noticed.

Godzilla’s Revenge looked excellent!

I’m hoping you’ll do other films using the Criterion transfers.

[G-MAN]

Just watched your Godzilla vs. the Thing HD reconstruction. Overall...an excellent job...I’m impressed. One can see you had much better elements to work with bc of the Criterion blu. The only thing I noticed was that you left a short clip in of the larvae swimming away at the end which made the music at the end go slightly out of sync. In the US version the music covers the entire “An American International Picture” title card. It’s probably easily fixed and that’s the only thing that I noticed.

Godzilla’s Revenge looked excellent!

I’m hoping you’ll do other films using the Criterion transfers.

Thanks I appreciate it and yeah I just wish we could have seen what the films would have looked like without the compression going on with this and some of the other films. As it surprisingly is still better than the toho disc. Just wish toho would allow someone to preserve the frontier missile sequence in HD as Anolis wasn't allowed to include the remaster of the scene on their bluray either. And yes I noticed that I messed up in my render there and am working on uploading a fixed version that has the music fixed and proper scene.

Yeah I'm in between which one I want to work on next. I'm not sure if I want to work on Ghidrah next or if I'm gonna work on reconstructing the UPA cut of terror of Mechagodzilla. I'm also toying with the idea of a reconstruction/fan Edit of Destroy All Monsters and Son of Godzilla. Along with turning the mst3k Godzilla episodes into rifftracks for their corresponding films.

[G-MAN]

Looks so much better without the black bars in Red's version of the Frontier Missile scene. The ending where the main characters seeing the Mothra Larvae swim away featured bits of footage from the Japanese version and the music seems off-sync.

Yeah like I said the sequence was my main reason for wanting to do this and glad to be able to share that restored sequence for others to see it in full and in the correct aspect ratio. And yeah again sorry for the issue with that will update the post once the fix is uploaded

[Gorka the Vampire]

I’d love to see you do a re-do of Son of Godzilla. Red Menace did a pretty good job, but even he admitted in one of his video postings on his site, that he was kind of stuck with less than stellar elements and had to make compromises on that project.

Any possibility of doing HD reconstructions of the US versions of some non-Godzilla Toho titles like Frankenstein Conquers the World and/or War of the Gargantuas?

Also, Arrow Video is expected to release the entire Gamera series on blu ray this summer? Any possibility that you might tackle the AIP-TV US versions of those?

[kamilleblu]

comment or pm for the link

Commented!

[G-MAN]

I’d love to see you do a re-do of Son of Godzilla. Red Menace did a pretty good job, but even he admitted in one of his video postings on his site, that he was kind of stuck with less than stellar elements and had to make compromises on that project.

Any possibility of doing HD reconstructions of the US versions of some non-Godzilla Toho titles like Frankenstein Conquers the World and/or War of the Gargantuas?

Also, Arrow Video is expected to release the entire Gamera series on blu ray this summer? Any possibility that you might tackle the AIP-TV US versions of those?

Yeah I'm actually interested in doing some reconstructions on WOTG and FCTW. As I have both official toho blurays already. One of the things I need for at least FCTW is a rip of the anolis German dvd of it as it includes some American exclusive scenes. And a copy of the film with the complete dub intact as for the dub I just have the media blasters disc and the toho R2 disc that has the films cropped to a more 16x9 aspect ratio. If you know anyone who has access to wither sources definitely pm me about it. As those are two films I've been wanting to do before I got a hold of the dvd that allowed me to fix this film in my opinion.

If I'm not able to get access to a more complete rip with the dub or a uncompressed rip of the anolis dvd I might see what I can do with what I already have as far and frankenstein conquers the world. And for WOTG I will just have to do some tests on some of the American exclauiv e scenes to see what I can do with them

And if I do son if Godzilla it's admittedly gonna be a fan edit as well ad a reconstruction just in the sense of what I add in from the international dub/Japanese cut. And yeah my main issue with the red menace reconstruction was just the vhs sources used were really distracting for me personally. Though I think they did the best with what they had.

Another one I would love to take a crack at is Godzilla Raids Again. But my main issue with that is it has quite a few edits and scenes that are exclusive to it that would be a bit tricky to integrate with the toho HD master. But I feel I might tackle that at some point using what is available if a better source doesn't come out in the mean time.

But thanks for reminding me of HD reconstructions of those two films as they totally slipped my mind and was my main reason for buying the toho blurays. Though I am curious to see what criterion is going to do with that as it really seems odd to me that they still have not announced any plans about what they are going to do with WotG or Rodan. And it would be interesting to see if they get FCTW as I don't think anyone has the rights to it currently in the states.

And yes I'm extremely excited for that arrow release and plan to preorder it once it goes live regardless of if it's region locked or not. But I'm gonna wait and see what they have in it before commuting to doing anything with the gamera films as I wouldn't be surprised if they included the AIP dubs like shout factory did for some of their releases that had inserts for where the AIP version wasn't dubbed.

[G-MAN]

comment or pm for the link

Commented!

Working in uploading the updated version and will pm you the link once it's done and will update the OP

[ultrase7en]

I'd love to see a recon of the UPA version of Terror of Mechagodzilla with the added prologue.

[G-MAN]

I'd love to see a recon of the UPA version of Terror of Mechagodzilla with the added prologue.

That is one I have in mind actually. Main thing would just be editing the prologue sequence so I might work on that one a bit later. But still one I would love to attempt as it is my favorite way to watch the film ever since I got the classic media set

[m0nster01]

I'd love to see it too!

[G-MAN]

Updated the OP but as stated there the fixed version is available for download and fixes the Japanese footage being shown and the sync issue during the credits at the end.