Omni Productions

Omni Productions is a Hong Kong-based dubbing company founded by Rik Thomas and hired by Toho to dub at least five of the kaiju films they produced in the 1990s into English. Omni Productions is not credited in any of these films; the only evidence of their involvement comes from internet posts made by voice actor Craig Allen, as well as further correspondence with him by kaiju historian Steve Ryfle. All of their dubs for Toho's kaiju films are included on the U.S. home video releases of the films, with the exception of Godzilla 2000: Millennium.

Films dubbed

According to the descriptions of Craig Allen, who began working for the company in October of 1995, Omni Productions was responsible for dubbing the following films:

• Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla (1997)
• Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1997)
• Rebirth of Mothra (1997)
• Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1998) ["repairs"]
• Godzilla 2000: Millennium (2000)

According to Brian Culver, echoing correspondence between Allen and Steve Ryfle, Omni was responsible for "The three Rebirth of Mothra films and all the Heisei Godzilla films since Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah." This is also seemingly corroborated by Allen in a 2021 interview with Brett Homenick, in which he stated, "I did every Toho Godzilla movie of the 1990s and a couple of Mothras." However, while Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah and vs. Mothra share some of the same Hong Kong voice talents as confirmed-Omni dubs, Allen is not heard in either, and their releases in fact predate his tenure at the company. Neither these films nor Rebirth of Mothra 2 and 3 have been definitively confirmed to have been dubbed by Omni. In his initial posts, Allen also alluded to recording "repairs" to the English dub of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II, resulting in the version included on TriStar's video releases of the film. The film's previous dub, while also recorded in Hong Kong, is not known to have been done by Omni Productions and never saw release in the core Anglosphere.

Moreover, it has been speculated that Omni were responsible for dubs of Godzilla vs. Biollante, Orochi, the Eight-Headed Dragon, and/or the Millennium Godzilla films post-Godzilla 2000, due to their employing of voice actors previously used by Omni, including Rik Thomas himself. However, the identity of the studio(s) responsible for these films' international dubs have never been confirmed. To complicate matters further, the English dub of Godzilla Final Wars, for which Rik Thomas provided voice work, was recorded by a studio called Red Angel Media, confirming that Thomas was involved with dubbing of the Godzilla series outside of Omni.

Voice actors employed

• Craig Allen
• Henry Coombs
• Sharon Crose Szmidt
• Andrea Kwan
• Gemma McClean
• Jack Murphy
• Martin Pachy
• Darren Pleavin
• Warren Rooke
• Rik Thomas

Alterations

Toho had minimal contact with Omni Productions after commissioning each dub. As voice actor Craig Allen explained:

“

I will plead guilty to charges of lack of familiarity of with the story of each film. All the English script-writer gets is a translation of the Japanese; there's no briefing on the background or history of the stories, or anything like that. So sometimes he doesn't fully comprehend what's supposed to be happening, and sometimes we have to make last-minute changes to the script in the studio...I know we sometimes get the details wrong.

„

As a result, there are numerous moments throughout Omni Productions' dubs where names and dialogue are significantly altered.

Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II

• Rodan is referred to as "Radon," his Japanese name, despite the character's correct English name being used in the end credits. This alteration was carried over from the initial dubbed version, produced by an unidentified Hong Kong company.
• BabyGodzilla is said to be a "Godzillasaur" rather than a Godzillasaurus.
• Kazuma's conversation with Azusa when he enters the room with BabyGodzilla's enclosure with his Pteranodon Robot is changed. Originally, when he enters the room, Aoki calls Azusa "Miss Ah" (あちゃん,   A-chan), and Azusa asks why he called her that. Kazuma explains "Your name is Azusa, I'll call you Miss Ah," and Azusa responds with "Our relationship is not that close." In the dub, however, Kazuma says "Hey, babe!" Azusa asks "What is that?," referring to the Pteranodon Robot, and Kazuma responds with "This is my new limousine." Azusa then says "And you can cut out the babe business!," and Kazuma apologizes.
• In the film's ending, instead of telling Miki to use the plant's music to make BabyGodzilla understand that he must go home with Godzilla, Azusa tells Miki to use her telepathy to make Godzilla understand that he must take BabyGodzilla away with him.

Godzilla vs. Destoroyah

• Destoroyah is called "Destroyer."
• Meru Ozawa tells Miki Saegusa that she is a paleontologist, while in the Japanese dialogue, she says her American ESP school "dragged us to a lot of dinosaur sites."
• Sho Kuroki's line "Our budget for next year is zero yen. Then again, there might not be a next year." is replaced with "Let's go freeze that overgrown lizard. This is gonna make my day."
• When Kenkichi suggests allowing Godzilla and Destoroyah to fight each other in the Japanese dialogue, Commander Aso shoots down his idea and Kunitomo tells him that he'd better be sure of his plan before he feels comfortable risking people's lives. This prompts Kenkichi to berate both of them. In the English dub, Aso calls his plan preposterous but Kunitomo says, "Maybe it's not so preposterous. Maybe he's got something there." Despite this, Kenkichi still impertinently tells them that they must put this plan into motion, with Kunitomo now suddenly having a change of emotion when he asks, "Yes, but how are we going to get them to fight each other?"

Rebirth of Mothra

• Mothra Leo is referred to as female. Garugaru is referred to as "Gagaru," while Moll is called "Mona."

Videos

Compilation of Rik Thomas roles Compilation of Craig Allen roles

Trivia

• According to Mike Schlesinger, who supervised the U.S. release of Godzilla 2000: Millennium, TriStar Pictures was provided with Omni Productions' English dub of the film, but he felt it was so bad it was unusable and opted instead to completely re-dub the film with different actors. Omni Productions' dub has never been released in any format.
  • When TriStar began including the original Japanese audio tracks with their DVD releases, the English subtitles they included were usually just taken directly from Omni Productions' dubs, often referred to as "dubtitles" by fans, rather than using actual translations of the Japanese audio. This can become obvious when characters speak English in the films, while the subtitles feature different dialogue than what is said onscreen, or when subtitles are included for lines of dialogue that only appear in the dubs. Sony later corrected this for some of their later Blu-ray releases of the films, including all-new translations of the Japanese audio.

References

This is a list of references for Omni Productions. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: ^[1]

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