Sadly, most people have never seen Godzilla movies in their original letterboxed format and subtitled, in glorious "Tohoscope" colour (where applicable).

Instead they get dross like this DVD boxed set which loses stars for:

(A) Really poor quality images (sratched and grainy)
(B) Being panned and scanned (as oposed to letterboxed)
(C) Risable dubbing and general poor quality audio
(D) Some of the films are edited "for content" (Terror of Mechagodzilla for exmaple).
(E) Lack of DVD extras

it gets that for the packaging (excellent), the fact that the Raymond Burr version of Godzilla is actually quite well done and the US vesion of Godzilla vs Mothra does include the Frontier Missile sequence not included in the Japanese version. Oh and actually having "Rodan" on DVD for the first time.

But how much better if some care had been put into the movies. Instead this smacks of a cheapie, rushed release, the attitude of "oh its just a Godzilla film, they're all crap anyway, the Japanese make them like this on purpose".

But this boxe set *only* if you really need to see some of the movies, no matter what the quality. If not, save your dosh for companies who have released Japanese films in a much more respectful way - support them and give shoddy garbage like this a miss.

Don't buy this boxset, the only ones worth getting are Godzilla, King of the Monsters and Rodan.. since they were filmed fullscreen. I highly recommend tracking down the out of print widescreen DVDs issued by Simitar.

The problem however, is when one opens the box and plays the individual DVDs themselves. The first hint that one notices there is something wrong is the absence of any booklets or additional information, the case containing only the DVD itself.

Then there is the information stored on the DVDs. Unlike the Simitar DVDs, there are no extras, no trailers, no trivia questions, save for a promo for the new Nintendo Game Cube; Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters game. As for the quality of the films, they are the same old pan and scan transfers as the old Paramount/Gateway home video releases of the late 1980s, and suffer from numerous scratch marks. The forced surround sound audio tracks have even more echo and tinny sound than the Simitar versions. Worst of all, Terror of MechaGodzilla is the same edited version fans have had to suffer through for years.

About the only saving grace is the inclusion of Rodan in the set; representing the first time this film has seen a DVD release. Conspicuous by its absence however is Monster Zero, which was originally included in the Simitar box set. Its absence is probably due more to the fact that Monster Zero's copyright in North America is held by Henry Saperstein's UPA Productions than Sony's decision to release Rodan (a box set containing all 5 Godzilla film plus Rodan could have been released).