Today Criterion has announced their long-rumored GODZILLA release and it’s a doozy. The Blu-ray and DVD sets will include new high-definition digital restorations of both 1954’s GOJIRA and the 1956 Raymond Burr Americanized version GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS. If that weren’t enough alone to order the discs ASAP, there’s also a wealth of special features for fans of Man-on-Suit-on-Japan action.
– New high-definition digital restoration (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
– Audio commentary by David Kalat (A Critical History and Filmography of Toho’s Godzilla Series)
– New high-definition digital restoration of Godzilla, King of the Monsters, Terry Morse’s 1956 reworking of the original, starring Raymond Burr
– Audio commentary for Godzilla, King of the Monsters by Kalat
– New interviews with actor Akira Takarada (Hideto Ogata), Godzilla performer Haruo Nakajima, and effects technicians Yoshio Irie and Eizo Kaimai
– Interview with legendary Godzilla score composer Akira Ifukube
– Featurette detailing Godzilla’s photographic effects
– New interview with Japanese-film critic Tadao Sato
– The Unluckiest Dragon, an illustrated audio essay featuring historian Greg Pflugfelder describing the tragic fate of the fishing vessel Daigo fukuryu maru, a real-life event that inspired Godzilla
– Theatrical trailers
– New and improved English subtitle translation
– PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic J. Hoberman
GODZILLA will set you back $32 for the Blu and $24 for the DVD and the Criterion Collection discs will be available on January 24.