Re: Upcoming BCI Ultraman DVD is pretty suspicious . . . NOT!
I wasn't ever planning on writing up anything regarding this DVD set, but after reading all of the misinformation being spread about this DVD release -- and then seeing it spread here onto the HTF -- I just couldn't let it sit. So here goes…
First off, let me say that I have been wishing for a domestic
Ultraman release for a long time -- since the early laserdisc days -- desperately hoping someone would have the balls to release the original Japanese version (properly subtitled, of course). The Japanese laserdiscs were far too expensive (and too plentiful) to even consider purchasing. And I flat out refused to buy any of the bootleg tapes (or in recent years DVDs) due to the horrendous video quality. So in the interim, I've just had to settle for the few new shows that made it to Los Angeles TV, the various Ultra-toys I have in my collection (especially my ultra-cool 1989 2-foot tall
Ultraman figure that greets all visitors to our house), and my memories.
And thus it was with great anticipation that I awaited the release of BCI Eclipse's
Ultraman: Season One Volume One. Sure, it took over 20 years, but it looked like that dream was finally going to be fulfilled. Or was it…
On the one hand, I'm a big fan of the show. But on the other hand, I have also been following the
Ultraman series debate for quite a long time now. I know more than I ever wanted to about the Tsuburaya/Chaiyo legal disbutes, and have followed to some degree the heated debates regarding this Region 1 release, and the demands and attempts by some fans to legally halt its release in some manner.
However, unlike many other so-called "fans" of the show/series, I do not have any pre-existing bias towards BCI Eclipse on this matter. Back when I was officially reviewing laserdiscs for a living (and later DVDs) -- and now that I'm officially retired -- my one main criteria has always been to judge a disc fairly based solely on its own individual merits. It doesn't matter to me who the company is, or their past history, or their legal problems, or anything else for that matter (although a certain LD producer did come very close!). And this
Ultraman DVD is no different from any other DVD release as released in this country -- it must be given a fair and proper chance to stand on its own merits. And I think I've done a fairly good job in doing just that.
As far as I'm concerned, BCI Eclipse has done an
outstanding job with their first
Ultraman set. Simply put, I found it to look far better than I ever expected, and I can't wait to see future releases of this series from them.
For a 40-year old TV show that was filmed in 16mm (not 35mm as many people assume), these transfers are simply stunning. These are easily the best transfers I have
ever seen of these episodes in any format. You will immediately notice how spotless they are, as there is no print-related damage or defects to speak of, nor any other type of debris for that matter. No dirt, no scratches, no specks, no spots, no hairs, nothing. Because of the utterly flawless nature of this DVD transfer, it's fairly obviously that BCI Eclipse was given masters that utilize the restored
Ultraman source materials. Contrary to what various other die-hard fans have been claiming around the net (plus one certain claim on this forum) not one single episode in my set from any "strobing motion" or "freeze-ups" or any other video-related problems -- this is just more internet "b.s.", as the episodes look fantastic.
Back around 1998 or so, a huge restoration project was begun in Japan on the various "Ultra" series. The episodes were painstakingly restored frame-by-frame to removing any damage while enhancing details in the original 16mm frame. These stunningly-restored versions of the 1966 series were first released on DVD in Japan under the "Digital Ultra Series" banner beginning in December 1999.
As far as the audio goes, the Japanese also restored to the best of their abilities, and the original monaural audio remixed to Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo. For the Japanese DVD releases, 10 random episodes (equating to 1 episode per DVD volume) were remixed to Dolby Digital 5.1.
But with regard to this BCI Eclipse edition, I am utterly shocked at the wildly ludicrous misinformation being spread regarding the transfer quality and the English dub issues-- supposed "shoddy manufacturing" and "disc errors" causing the players to haphazardly and/or randomly switch audio tracks on the fly... indeed. That sort of thing simply doesn't happen, unless your own DVD player has major defects (or your cat is sleeping on the remote).
To reiterate the "problem": When listening to the English dubbed soundtrack, it will temporarily revert to Japanese (with English subtitles) for a few seconds during some episodes. This is NOT a defect, or a mastering issue, or a manufacturing defect -- but was a deliberate and unavoidable decision.
The main intent of this DVD set is to showcase the original Japanese version of the 1966
Ultraman series -- to that end, the DVD is mastered from the completely uncut original Japanese versions of the episodes. However, since this set was being released in America, BCI Eclipse also wanted to include the original 1970's English-dubbed soundtrack -- partially as an incentive for new viewers (or for those folks who hate reading subtitles), and partial to cater to those nostalgic fans who grew up watching the show after school on our local crappy UHF station (for me, Los Angeles Ch. 52, woohoo!).
Although BCI's intentions were commendable, they ran into quite a few problems with this. First off, they had an extremely difficult time even locating some English-dub tracks to use for this project. BCI initially attempted to locate the original master tapes/tracks, but discovered that they no longer existed in the United Artist vaults. They eventually learned that Tsuburaya had the only existing copies of the foreign language dubs -- made from the original masters -- but obviously could not obtain them because of the Tsuburaya/Chaiyo licensing dispute mess.
Just as an FYI, in an interview with BCI over at Henshin! Online, H!O reported the following:
Quote:
| "Just for the record, in the early 1990s, when United Artists Television's rights elapsed, Tsuburaya Productions' former Los Angeles office, Ultracom Inc., located all of the original masters and returned them to the Tokyo office. These included the English, Spanish and French tracks produced by Peter Fernandez at Titra Studios. If I remember correctly, the English tracks were transferred to DAT by Brad Walker of Tsuburaya Productions' International Department." |
In other words, the only existing QUALITY copies of the English dub soundtrack are locked way in Tokyo and completely inaccessible. Therefore, with much difficulty, BCI eventually the English-dub tracks to use for this set -- but the copies were problematic and the quality was generally poor, especially in comparison to the quality of the Japanese audio. The English tracks have a lot of hiss, distortion and other problems, and that was for the better copies! Although they cleaned them up as best they could, there is only so much they could do with the poor source tracks they had no choice but to use -- it was either this or no English at all. Obviously, had BCI been able to obtain copies of the original English dub master tapes from Tsuburaya, the quality would be vastly superior, but that was not an option. (Actually, the poor English dub audio quality sounded even more nostalgic for me, since it really emulates the sound quality of the crappy speakers on my parents ancient Zenith TV I was stuck watching as a kid. Too bad I didn't have a 40" Sony Wega or an in-home surround system back then...).
As if BCI didn't already have enough problems just locating English dub tracks to use, they are now taking a lot of heat from the way they present the English dub track on the DVDs. In every episode, there are a few sections lasting several seconds long for which there is no corresponding English dub track -- this is because those segments had never been recorded in English in the first place.
When the series was being prepped for its initial American syndication in the early 1970s, the episodes were edited down slightly -- sometimes to remove a bit of perceived "excessive violence" or a "confusing" moment, but mainly to speed things up to allow for more commercials, as was standard operating procedure at the time. (These uncut episodes average 25m15s each, and the UHF channels back then really depended on those extra advertising dollars.) Obviously, the subsequent English-dub recording sessions would conform solely to the edited syndicated version of the series, not the original uncut versions -- no production would waste valuable time or money to record dialogue for cut footage that would never be seen or "heard" (or so they thought at the time).
So, rather than leave those unrecorded English-dub segments completely silent on the DVD, BCI purposely inserted the audio from Japanese soundtrack into the gaps in the English track.
In many instances, the replacement audio on the English dub track will go by unnoticed by most viewers. This is because many edits were originally made during segments which had no dialogue -- only background sound effects and/or music -- so the replacement is fairly seamless. (I noticed most of the audio-only inserts, if only because the music/soundfx suddenly had much better definition than the poor, hissy and/or distorted audio I was listening to just before the change.)
However, the replacement audio IS quite noticeable to all English dub listeners whenever a segment appears with dialogue cut from the U.S. syndicated version. Again, rather than leaving these sections complete silent on the English dub track, BCI inserts the audio from the Japanese soundtrack, and ensures that the accompanying English subtitles appear onscreen so you understand what's being said. (BCI Eclipse is not the first company to have done this -- several other DVD releases from other companies have also inserted the original-language soundtrack into their edited English-language dubs rather than leave them "silent". Even MGM has done this with a certain major spaghetti Western release…)
Something else most people don't notice -- or realize -- it that there are two different English subtitle tracks on the DVDs:
- Subtitle Track 1 -- The full translation track which accompanies the Japanese soundtrack
- Subtitle Track 2 -- A partial translation track which accompanies the English dub track.
Upon standard playback, all of the discs DEFAULT to the English dubbed soundtrack + Subtitle Track 2. Also, whenever "English" is selected via the languages set-up, Subtitle Track 2 is automatically selected as well. This is NOT a defect, but simply a way to ensure that there are no gaps in the edited English soundtrack.
So for the last time, if you suddenly hear Japanese (and see English subtitles) when listening to the English dub track, it is
not caused by the disc suddenly switching tracks back and forth, or a manufacturing defect, a bad disc, a DVD player problem, space aliens, magnetic disturbances, global warming… or any other ridiculous excuse these folks attempt to create or accuse BCI Eclipse of. (That's simply their own paranoia working against them…). In reality it was caused by a certain production company 40 years ago who decided to edit footage out of a certain show… and a certain DVD company trying to fill in the gaps in the soundtrack in the only feasible way they could 40 years later.
So there you have it -- BCI did a FANTASTIC job with this show! They were able to use the masters made from the pristine restored (16mm) negatives for their R1 releases. The original Japanese soundtrack sound better than I expected for a 16mm TV production of that era, and the subtitle translations are quite good. And though far from perfect, we even got the original English-dubbed soundtrack we remember from our "younger" days. All in all, BCI Eclipse must be commended for their work on this set -- and those of you willing to give this set a proper and fair chance will likely enjoy what it has to offer as well. Also, for those viewers only interested in listening to the English soundtrack -- I really urge you to give the Japanese original a chance. Sure, the
Speed Racer team did the dubbing, but they also rewrote and changed much of the original storyline. Those original Japanese storylines (and voice artists) are vastly superior in every respect, and the stories are written in a more "adult" (i.e. "less juvenille") manner than one would believe with this type of show.
As I stated earlier, I love the
Ultraman series, especially this 1966 version. But I'm also not a "biased extremist" who would immediately dismiss this DVD set out of hand simply because of the Tsuburaya/Chaiyo licensing dispute. And I absolutely would NEVER concoct completely false statements about video and/or audio problems, or defective mastering issues, that simply DO NOT exist.
Do I wish there wasn't a Tsuburaya/Chaiyo licensing dispute? You bet. I wish Tsuburarya had full control over the licensing of their own shows here in the USA -- but thet DON'T. Even BCI has gone on record by stating they wished they could have dealt with Tsuburaya directly… they even attempted to, but were TOLD by Tsuburaya representatives to contact Chaiyo.
But that is neither here nor there.
The fact remains, no matter what you, or I, or anyone else "wishes" or "demands" was true, the rights lie where the rights lie, and I'll leave that up to individual Japanese companies, their lawyers and the Japanese courts.
My only concern in any of this lies with the final repesentation of the
Ultraman DVD set that as it was released in this country, and in giving that set a proper and fair chance to stand on its own merits. And I think I've done a pretty good job in doing that. I sincerely wish BCI Eclipse the best of luck with their release, and I look forward to the next volume in the series, and hopeful additional series after that.
Enjoy!
