Colour stills for the original Ultraman pilot, The Birth of Ultraman, have been unearthed by a fan after purchasing an SD card from Japan.
Reddit user ginodom449 posted a collection of colour stills from the original stage production to the Ultraman subreddit, claiming that they had arrived on an SD card he ordered from Japan. He advised that he received the SD card and was shocked to see what was on it so made them public immediately.
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| A colour version of the title card was posted in the comments by ginodom449 |
As users from the subreddit asked for more information on how the photos came to exist, ginodom449 said:
“The seller told me that in 1981 they were hired by TBS to junk film reels affected with Vinegar Syndrome (when film starts curling on itself & smelling like vinegar). Surprisingly 1 of the films in the junk pile was the master copy of Episode 0 which was in colo(u)r. TBS let him keep it as was going to otherwise be thrown out. They were unable to convince TsuPro to take it as said they didn't want it because of it being on nitrate film (which in case you didn't know is highly flammable). So they held on to the copy until he decided to in 2016 save a few frames of the only known colo(u)r copy as a test of his flatbed scanner & he forgot to remove the files before selling me the SD Card.”
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| Birth of Ultraman was a stage production filmed and aired on Japanese television |
It’s incredibly lucky that these images ended up in the hands of an Ultraman fan that could share them for preservation purposes. Ginodom449 also confirmed that he is still in contact with the original seller and attempting to get a copy of the full colour pilot from them.
The importance of a
colour version of The Birth of Ultraman cannot be understated.
Originally a stage production, Birth of is the first time audiences
got to see Ultraman on screen. Filmed and edited down to a
pre-premiere special, Birth of Ultraman was aired a week before the
release of the very first Ultraman episode and remains a core part of
Ultraman history. The airing of the show on July 10th has
lead to the day being known as "Ultraman Day" worldwide.
The special aired a week beore the first episode of Ultraman
Currently, the only
way to view Birth of Ultraman in western markets is via the Mill
Creek release of Birth of that includes the originally aired
black and white scan that people know and love today. The Mill Creek
release of Birth of Ultraman is presented with the original Japanese
dub and English subtitles along with a select few English dubbed episodes of
the Ultraman TV series.
User ginodom449 is in contact with the seller attempting to get a copy of the complete footage
