Omni Productions

Omni Productions is a Hong Kong-based dubbing company founded by Rik Thomas and hired by Toho to dub the majority of the kaiju films they produced in the 1990's into English. Omni Productions is not credited in any of these films; the only evidence of their involvement comes from correspondence between kaiju historian Steve Ryfle and voice actor Craig Allen. 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 and their first rendition of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II.

Omni Productions may have dubbed Godzilla vs. Biollante and Orochi, the Eight-Headed Dragon, as well as the Millennium Godzilla films from Godzilla vs. Megaguirus to Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S., as some of the company's voice actors are included in these dubs, but these titles have yet to be confirmed. Rik Thomas has since sold the company to an unknown party and retired to Penang, Malaysia.^{[citation needed]}

Films Dubbed

Godzilla Series

• Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991)
• Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992)
• Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993) [two dubs; original version unreleased]
• Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla (1994)
• Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995)
• Godzilla 2000: Millennium (1999) [unreleased]

Mothra Series

• Rebirth of Mothra (1996)
• Rebirth of Mothra II (1997)
• Rebirth of Mothra III (1998)

Voice Actors Employed

• Craig Allen
• Simon Broad
• Jack Murphy
• John Culkin
• Chris Hilton
• Andrea Kwan
• Darren Pleavin
• Rik Thomas
• Pierre Tremblay
• Sue Brooks
• Warwick Evans
• Warren Rooke

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. Mothra

• When Mothra uses her scales against Godzilla, in the Japanese dialogue, Takuya Fujita says "Mothra's reflecting Godzilla's beam," to which the Cosmos reply "That's Mothra's final attack." In the English dub, Takuya says "It looks like he's been brought under control," with the Cosmos responding "Yes he has! Mothra is winning!"

Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II

• Rodan is referred to as "Radon," his Japanese name, in both English-dubbed versions despite the character's correct English name having been used in the end credits.
• 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.

Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla

• Birth Island is referred to as "Bass Island," or "Baas Island" as the subtitles on TriStar's DVD for the film spell it.

Godzilla vs. Destoroyah

• Destoroyah is called "Destroyer."
• As in the English dub for the previous film, Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla, Birth Island is called "Bass Island."
• 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 Kenichi 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 Kenichi 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, Kenichi 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 I, II, and III

• Mothra Leo is referred to as female in the first film, male in the second, and female again in the third. Garugaru is referred to as "Gagaru." Moll is referred to as "Mona."
• In Rebirth of Mothra II, Ghogo and Dagahra are referred to as "Gorgo" and "Dagarla," respectively. These spellings are also used for the characters in the end credits of the English version and as such may have reflected Toho's intended English names.

Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack

• A man wishes mobilizing JSDF soldiers good luck. A woman next to him then sarcastically exclaims "Yes, good luck everyone! You're going to die!." In the original Japanese dialogue, the man speaks Cantonese, and the woman merely interprets the man's speech into Japanese.
• When King Ghidorah is accidentally struck by a D-03 Missile intended for Godzilla, Lieutenant Miyashita strangely shouts "Got it!” in the English dub, rather than an expletive equivalent to "Shit!" or "Fuck!" as in the original Japanese dialogue.

Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S.

• Kiryu is referred to as "Mecha G." This change also occurs in Toho's English subtitled prints of the film, and was likely deliberately done to avoid confusing viewers who had not seen Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, which established this Mechagodzilla's name as Kiryu.

Videos

Compilation of Rik Thomas roles Compilation of Chris Hilton roles Compilation of Craig Allen roles

Trivia

• Omni Productions recorded two English dubs for Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II, with their second attempt recorded in 1998 being featured on TriStar Pictures' home video releases of the film, and the majority of the original dub never seeing release.
• 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.
• Some of Omni Productions' voice actors, including company founder Rik Thomas, appear in the international dub for Godzilla: Final Wars, however the company credited for dubbing the film into English is Red Angel Media.

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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