Speaker 1: You're listening to an airwave media podcast.
Speaker 2: Hey, this is Blake Smith from Monster Talk.
Speaker 3: Why why are you calling at this at this time?
Speaker 2: Well, you told me you'd help me inject some science
Speaker 2: content into my episode about Kaiju, and I wanted to
Speaker 2: ask for your thoughts about some claims that many people
Speaker 2: have been making that in nineteen fifty four, the city
Speaker 2: of Tokyo was attacked by a giant radioactive mutati dinosaur.
Speaker 3: Nobody's claiming that it's just that's just a film.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay? Well what about the claims at nineteen fifty
Speaker 2: five that same monster returned to attack Japan? Yet again,
Speaker 2: also just a film. Well, can you address the many
Speaker 2: sightings of a giant moth that engaged in battle with
Speaker 2: this same giant radioactive dinosaur beasts sixty four?
Speaker 3: Again, that is just it's a film, Blake.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay. What about the alleged incident that took place
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty two when this mysterious reptile was forced
Speaker 2: into combat with what many claimed was a giant eight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was based on an actual incident, a thing
Speaker 3: that actually happened in ninety fifty one.
Speaker 2: Really, no, not really?
Speaker 3: That was also just a film.
Speaker 2: Look, I called you for some science and I had
Speaker 2: to say, this is not very helpful.
Speaker 3: You said you were going to ask something sensible about
Speaker 3: Big four or something.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, okay, here's when it sounds very scientific. How
Speaker 2: about the alleged case of a giant three headed monster? Then?
Speaker 3: Oh, I don't think you're getting it. Just a film?
Speaker 2: Dang it. Now, who am I going to get to
Speaker 2: help me talk about Godzilla? Giant monsters for the show.
Speaker 2: It's actually quite unlike anything we've ever seen before. A
Speaker 2: giant hairy creature.
Speaker 4: Part eight, Part mat in Luckness, a twenty four a
Speaker 4: mile long bottomless lake in the Highlands of Scotland.
Speaker 5: Get the creature known as the Luckness Monster.
Speaker 2: Monstertal. Welcome to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters.
Speaker 2: As you may have guessed based on the intro, this
Speaker 2: is a special episode about Godzilla and other giant monsters.
Speaker 2: I'm Blake Smith and together with Karen Stoles Know, we
Speaker 2: examined the legends and facts behind legendary monsters, but sometimes
Speaker 2: we like to take a look at purely fictional creatures
Speaker 2: and that's what we're doing today. A special thanks to
Speaker 2: Darren Nash of the tetrapod Zoology blog and the tet
Speaker 2: Zoo podcasts. Darren wrote a wonderful piece on the biology
Speaker 2: of Godzilla back in twenty ten, and I'll put a
Speaker 2: link to that in the show notes. Because of the
Speaker 2: length of this episode, I'm going to keep the intro short,
Speaker 2: but this is a topic I really love and I
Speaker 2: hope you enjoy listening to it. I want to give
Speaker 2: a quick reminder that we're a podcast created by science
Speaker 2: advocates and skeptics, but we love monsters and we always
Speaker 2: like to remind people that anybody can have a weird experience,
Speaker 2: even hardcore skeptics. To really illustrate this point, my co
Speaker 2: host Karen has put together an anthology of real life
Speaker 2: stories of at occurrences by some of the most prominent
Speaker 2: skeptics out there. I really encourage you to go to
Speaker 2: Amazon and check it out a link to her book,
Speaker 2: Would you Believe It? Mysterious Tales from people you would
Speaker 2: least expect. It is available in paperback and e reader. Now.
Speaker 2: One note, As sometimes happens, we had some issues with
Speaker 2: the audio and I had to recover from a backup
Speaker 2: copy and the interview was spread across two recording sessions,
Speaker 2: which ended up with wildly varying audio quality the two segments.
Speaker 2: I've done my best to minimize that, but apologize to
Speaker 2: any audio files out there. Morenstertle. Today we're talking to
Speaker 2: Michael Keller and Ed Gotchassky. Michael is the co editor
Speaker 2: of Monster Attack Team magazine along with the founder Edward Holland,
Speaker 2: and the upcoming co host of an Area forty two podcasts.
Speaker 6: And we'll put links to that in the show notes.
Speaker 2: Monster Attack Team dot com and then the Area forty
Speaker 2: two podcasts. I assume we'll be available in whatever podcast
Speaker 2: aggregator you use, but again when that goes live, we'll
Speaker 2: get the show notes updated to have the active link
Speaker 2: for that. And Ed is the publisher of Japanese Giants magazine.
Speaker 2: He's the author of the illustrated Encyclopedia of Godzilla. He's
Speaker 2: a producer and writer of the documentary Bringing Godzilla down
Speaker 2: to Size. He has provided DVD commentary for Coho Films
Speaker 2: along with Steve Rifle, and is the co author, again
Speaker 2: with Steve Rifle, of Ashiro Honda, A Life from Godzilla
Speaker 2: to Karrosawa, which is due to be polished in October
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen. Thank you for joining us on Monstar.
Speaker 7: Guys pleas to be here. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: So this is a big topic, obviously, and it's one
Speaker 2: that I've been wanting to talk about for a while.
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of time on monshok we deal
Speaker 2: with cryptids, but we do like to talk about folklore
Speaker 2: and pop culture monsters as well. And I think it's
Speaker 2: hard to overstate the impact of giant monsters on pop culture.
Speaker 2: They're just they're everywhere. They're in advertising, they're in stories,
Speaker 2: they're in movies, they're in aletry.
Speaker 5: Around two that I'm calling it all the way back
Speaker 5: to mythology.
Speaker 6: You know, that's a very good point. Yeah, it's excellent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I kind of want to focus on the
Speaker 2: impact of Japanese cinema, but it's really a global phenomena,
Speaker 2: as you say, and it's.
Speaker 8: It's gone with the Japanese, didn't it.
Speaker 2: Well, it depends on how you classified. I guess I
Speaker 2: kind of think of King Kong as the first giant
Speaker 2: monster movie, although I think The Lost World actually predates that. Well.
Speaker 5: King Kong, I think was the first giant monster movie
Speaker 5: where the monster was unique. Lost World was just dinosaurs.
Speaker 5: But yeah, the plot of it, the plot of the
Speaker 5: Lost World did was almost exactly the same as King Kong,
Speaker 5: except instead of having a giant ape, you had and
Speaker 5: a patosaurus that filled that role and it didn't get
Speaker 5: hooked up with any blonde checks.
Speaker 8: Yes, the first question is what is a kaiju or
Speaker 8: what archaiju?
Speaker 5: If I'm not mistaken, I think the literal translation of
Speaker 5: the Japanese word kaiju is strange creature, and I think
Speaker 5: colloquially it means monster. And if you had a diet
Speaker 5: to that, die kaiju that means giant monster. I'll welcome
Speaker 5: edge and put on that.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, there's there's any number of ways that
Speaker 1: you can translate that particular word, but yeahs as Mike
Speaker 1: has pointed out, the popular translation is.
Speaker 7: Really weird creature.
Speaker 1: But yeah, in the case of monster movies in Japan,
Speaker 1: and kaiju has been the word that is attached to
Speaker 1: this particular genre.
Speaker 5: There's also another word that has not been made as
Speaker 5: popular over here, but is used in Japan called kai jin.
Speaker 5: That's ji n as opposed to jayu, and that's used
Speaker 5: for monsters that are of the same size.
Speaker 7: As human beings.
Speaker 5: In the television shows such as Common Writer and other
Speaker 5: superhero shows, they use the word kai jin, But we
Speaker 5: don't really use that over here yet.
Speaker 2: From a historical perspective, do I guess when you think
Speaker 2: about I assume Godzilla is the first of these, but
Speaker 2: I might be wrong on that. So if Godzilla was
Speaker 2: the first of the giant Japanese monsters, were they calling
Speaker 2: them kaiju back then?
Speaker 5: Or oh yeah, yeah, that word was used from the beginning.
Speaker 5: Supposedly there were two movies about King Kong that came
Speaker 5: out in nineteen thirty three, or they'reabouts in Japan that
Speaker 5: are now completely lost forever and that nobody has any
Speaker 5: hope of ever see again. I have seen supposed synopsis
Speaker 5: of those that have come to light recently where it
Speaker 5: turns out that there may not have been monsters in
Speaker 5: them at all, just some guy in a monkey suit
Speaker 5: playing King Kong. But I that that's the extent of
Speaker 5: what I know about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've only seen I've only seen a picture of
Speaker 1: from one, and no footages have her surface on these
Speaker 1: that I'm aware of.
Speaker 2: Maybe it will though, that's one of it. That's like
Speaker 2: the the Thomas Edison version of Frankenstein's one of those
Speaker 2: famous lost cinema and I think a little bit of
Speaker 2: that footage is still around.
Speaker 5: But the whole movies, the whole movie has been found.
Speaker 7: It's on YouTube. You can see it neat.
Speaker 2: So I knew they had recovered some of it far
Speaker 2: that had gone. And what was the lot Cheney one?
Speaker 2: Was that like London after midnight?
Speaker 7: I think after midnight?
Speaker 5: Yeah no, but yeah, that's completely lost.
Speaker 2: And then they did a Turner Classic Movies did a
Speaker 2: presentation where they basically put it together with a series
Speaker 2: of production stills and made sort of a here's what
Speaker 2: it would have looked like, which was pretty interesting. Why Godzilla,
Speaker 2: I guess, is what I'm curious about. I mean, where
Speaker 2: does this come from? And how did it impact Japanese culture?
Speaker 2: I mean, I know how it impacted the American culture,
Speaker 2: but maybe just talk about the story of Godzilla, how
Speaker 2: it came to be and the American distribution and why
Speaker 2: there's a difference in the versions.
Speaker 7: Well as far as the first film.
Speaker 1: The popular story that has been put forth by the
Speaker 1: producer Tomyo Vi Tanakos that he came up with it
Speaker 1: while he was on a plane coming back from Indonesia,
Speaker 1: where one of his major co productions with the Indonesian
Speaker 1: government had fallen through, and he was suddenly without a
Speaker 1: big blockbuster that he was looking to produce for that
Speaker 1: for that time period of nineteen fifty three, and he's
Speaker 1: flying out over the over the ocean back to Japan
Speaker 1: and looks down at the ocean and he comes up
Speaker 1: with the idea of, you know what if some kind
Speaker 1: of giant creature from under the ocean were to appear,
Speaker 1: And you.
Speaker 7: Know, this is kind of like his popular myth that
Speaker 7: he created.
Speaker 1: But basically, you know, at that time, the Beast from
Speaker 1: twenty thousand Fathoms had just come out in America and
Speaker 1: was a huge success. So, you know, being one of
Speaker 1: the top producers at Toho in Japan at that time,
Speaker 1: I mean, he's he's very well aware of the box
Speaker 1: office trends of what's.
Speaker 7: Going on.
Speaker 1: In the world of cinema, and so I think he
Speaker 1: took a look at that and said, well, why don't
Speaker 1: we do.
Speaker 7: The same thing.
Speaker 1: And at the same time, I believe King Kong had
Speaker 1: just been reissued in Japan around that time and had
Speaker 1: done very well, So it seemed like the time was good.
Speaker 7: Timing was good for a giant monster film. If I'm
Speaker 7: not mistaken.
Speaker 5: The Beast from twenty thousand Fathoms was made because King
Speaker 5: Kong had just come on television in the US in
Speaker 5: nineteen fifty two for the first time, and that ended
Speaker 5: up being a big hit.
Speaker 7: Do you have any remembers of that?
Speaker 1: I mean, I hadn't heard that story before, but I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be at least bit surprised at that, So that.
Speaker 7: Was correct me.
Speaker 2: If I'm wrong, that's the version. That's the Harry Housen
Speaker 2: film that was based on the Lighthouse short story by Bradberry.
Speaker 2: Is that right? Yes?
Speaker 7: Okay, so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know that those two had been huge fans
Speaker 2: of King Kong. In fact, Harry Housen had done work
Speaker 2: with was It Willis O'Brien to learn how to do
Speaker 2: some of the stop motion stuff. So I know those
Speaker 2: guys love dinosaurs and love giant monsters. I'm sure they
Speaker 2: were thrilled at the opportunity to produce one on screen.
Speaker 2: But that was still a story about an ancient creature
Speaker 2: that was just still alive somehow, right, I mean there's
Speaker 2: no atomic factor there, right?
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, yeah, yes, absolutely there was an atomic factor.
Speaker 2: Oh there was Okay, Oh was it atomic bombs at
Speaker 2: the beginning that woke it up?
Speaker 5: Yes, if we're talking about the Beast from twenty thousand fathoms.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, because I was trying to figure out with
Speaker 2: Godzilla what the tie in was.
Speaker 6: I mean, obviously thematically, there's the big.
Speaker 5: As a matter of fact, I've heard, and well directly
Speaker 5: from the man himself, Harry Housen was very resentful of
Speaker 5: Godzilla because he thought it was a one up attempt
Speaker 5: on the Beast from twenty thousand fathoms. So he didn't
Speaker 5: he didn't care for Godzilla at all.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know that Harry Housen resented the fact
Speaker 1: that they made something similar in a similar vein to
Speaker 1: the Beasts some twenty thousand fathoms. I think what he
Speaker 1: really resented was the technique that they used to create
Speaker 1: the monster. He just felt that man in the suit
Speaker 1: was a cheap and not very effective way to create
Speaker 1: special effects.
Speaker 5: I had heard him say that himself.
Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, okay, well anyway, that's that topic story that
Speaker 1: I always read about. But in any case, uh, you
Speaker 1: know that the origin of Godzilla still you know, goes
Speaker 1: back more to current events at the time and right
Speaker 1: around the time that they were looking to produce the film,
Speaker 1: uh we had the Lucky Dragon number five incident where
Speaker 1: a Japanese fishing boat wandered into one of the atomic
Speaker 1: bomb test zones accidentally and the crew got exposed to
Speaker 1: radiation and they came back and were very sick, and
Speaker 1: it caused a huge uproar in Japan at that time
Speaker 1: that Japanese citizens again were subject to the effects of
Speaker 1: radiation from the the atomic bomb. And it was that,
Speaker 1: you know, that kind of book that also Tanaka seized
Speaker 1: on that there was some a topical event that they
Speaker 1: could use to tie in to this monster film and
Speaker 1: give it some political relevance.
Speaker 7: At the time. So they, you know, they put together
Speaker 7: a crew.
Speaker 1: Agent Sobriiah was a very famous special effects guy in
Speaker 1: Japan and he's been wanting for many, many many years
Speaker 1: to do some kind of a monster film because he
Speaker 1: was such a great admirer of King Kong, and this
Speaker 1: gave him his opportunity.
Speaker 7: And they.
Speaker 1: So Sobria was was signed to the project, and they
Speaker 1: picked a director who was available named Shiro Honda, who
Speaker 1: had worked with Sobriia the year before on Eagle of
Speaker 1: the Pacific, a big special effects extravaganza. So given the
Speaker 1: fact that those two had worked together successfully, Handa seemed
Speaker 1: like the ideal candidate, although from what I understand, he
Speaker 1: was not the first choice for directing Gods of Love.
Speaker 1: They had picked instead one of his friends and colleagues,
Speaker 1: and Kichi kind of gucci to do that. But he
Speaker 1: didn't want to go anywhere near something like a giant
Speaker 1: monster film because like a lot of people, you know,
Speaker 1: they feel like if you work on that kind of
Speaker 1: a project, you're going to get pigeonholed, continue that kind
Speaker 1: of thing, and professionally, that's not a direction a lot
Speaker 1: of people wanted to go. Thought, Handa thought that this
Speaker 1: was a really great opportunity to make a statement about
Speaker 1: nuclear energy and the atomic momb and so he very
Speaker 1: eagerly signed on to the project.
Speaker 8: What about the American takes on Kaiju? What can you
Speaker 8: tell us about films like a Cloverfield and Colossal and
Speaker 8: Pacific Rim.
Speaker 5: A lot of them do freely reference the Japanese films
Speaker 5: as influences, especially in Pacific Rim where they used to
Speaker 5: They go out of their way to use the word kaiju,
Speaker 5: so that it's a very it's very in your face
Speaker 5: in that case.
Speaker 2: Yes, with giant robots too. So I don't know enough
Speaker 2: about Japanese culture. Is there a special name for giant
Speaker 2: robot movies as opposed to giantlanster movies?
Speaker 5: No, but to two other words, Well, at least one
Speaker 5: other word that might be important would be tokasatsu, which
Speaker 5: is the Japanese word for live action special effects films.
Speaker 5: And that would not just cover the kaiju aga or
Speaker 5: monster movies, but also space operas and anything. Any type
Speaker 5: of Japanese sci fi and movies with giant robots would
Speaker 5: be considered tokusatsuega, and television shows would be called tereby tokasatsu.
Speaker 8: Okay. And so you said that there were some American
Speaker 8: films that had that similar theme of radiation created creatures.
Speaker 8: What are some of those ones them?
Speaker 5: About the giant ants from radiation? I think the Deadly
Speaker 5: Mantis was caused by radioactivity or was awoken. We've already
Speaker 5: mentioned The Beast from twenty thousand fathoms, and there was
Speaker 5: a British film called The Giant Behemoth which was radioactive, okay.
Speaker 8: Were they influenced by any events that took place in
Speaker 8: the States or just the Japanese style films.
Speaker 5: I think it was just the Cold War and the
Speaker 5: duck and cover culture that was going on at the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in the fifties that they were still doing atomic
Speaker 1: bomb testing in the desert in the Southwest, and that's
Speaker 1: pretty much directly referenced in especially in them that that's
Speaker 1: really the reason why these mutated ants were created. But
Speaker 1: just the fact that the atomic age was just something
Speaker 1: that was really in the news and there was testing,
Speaker 1: and the.
Speaker 7: Cold War was going on.
Speaker 1: Where people were feeling the nuclear threat that became. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that became a very easy cook for science fiction filmmakers
Speaker 1: to grab onto.
Speaker 7: And radiation was kind of like the magic ingredient to.
Speaker 1: Explain way a lot of the giant monsters and science
Speaker 1: fiction terms of that era.
Speaker 5: I think that had something to do with finding vegetation
Speaker 5: that was extremely large that happened after some of these
Speaker 5: atomic tests, and I believe that's where that idea came from.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been actually trying to track that down with
Speaker 2: a little bit more precision, and I unfortunately haven't found
Speaker 2: a case zero if you will, but I'd like to.
Speaker 2: But I think you can draw a really nice story
Speaker 2: of where you've got these twenty thousand fathoms with a
Speaker 2: nuclear bomb, and then Godzilla and then in the same
Speaker 2: year you get Them, which.
Speaker 6: Is absolutely radiation based giantism.
Speaker 2: And once that's become established as a successful trope, movies
Speaker 2: after that don't really have to explain it. They just say, oh, radiation,
Speaker 2: and everybody's oh, of course, radiation, right.
Speaker 8: They paved the way.
Speaker 5: Another one would be The Amazing Colossal Man and it's yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: War of the Colossal Beast.
Speaker 2: My son is a huge giant monster fan, and we've
Speaker 2: got a pretty extensive collection of these films, including some
Speaker 2: pretty obscure ones.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and started right, Oh, absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 2: You gotta be a good parent, right, It's like, I
Speaker 2: don't know that they're gonna like monsters when they grow up,
Speaker 2: but they're sure going to be educated about them, so
Speaker 2: we do.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The one of the things that I found really interesting though,
Speaker 2: is that we had the good opportunity to go see
Speaker 2: the original I'm going to call it go Jira.
Speaker 5: Uh, that's one of mine. That's one of my pet
Speaker 5: peeves right there. Explain Oh, I'm sorry I said before
Speaker 5: when I mentioned that was one of my pet peeves.
Speaker 5: What I was referring to was the pronunciation of Godzilla's
Speaker 5: Japanese name, because everybody always says gojurra, but that that's
Speaker 5: not correct. It's it's Gojira with the accent on the
Speaker 5: go rather than the jurra.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 5: The word Gojira was made from the Japanese words gorira, gorilla,
Speaker 5: and kujira, which is well, so God's Gojita is literally
Speaker 5: a gorilla.
Speaker 2: Wal The original Japanese version, not the American release, was
Speaker 2: quite different. The American release, and I'm sure you guys
Speaker 2: can talk about this more accurately, but the American release
Speaker 2: was heavily edited and inserted Raymond Burr, who was never
Speaker 2: involved with principal filming anyway, right, his character Martin was
Speaker 2: just not a part of the original story. And the
Speaker 2: American version, if you ever get a chance to compare
Speaker 2: it to the actual Japanese version, is a watered down mess.
Speaker 6: It's a it's just ridiculous.
Speaker 2: And the original I found, I mean again, i'll let
Speaker 2: you guys talk about your thoughts on it, but I
Speaker 2: found it to be an incredibly serious film and not
Speaker 2: at all the sort of silly uh you know guy
Speaker 2: that you know monster costume that that it sort of
Speaker 2: Godzilla became recognized that as later. You know, it's just
Speaker 2: a very dark, serious film. It would have been an
Speaker 2: awesome anime, honestly. But but for what it is, I
Speaker 2: thought it was very successful.
Speaker 5: Well everybody who has seen it thinks that, except for
Speaker 5: Roger Ebert, well yeah, before.
Speaker 1: Aside, you know, I think still, I mean, they the
Speaker 1: American version gets gets a lot of grief and a
Speaker 1: lot of hate. But honestly speaking, I think, uh, you know, under.
Speaker 7: The circumstances, if the American version hadn't been.
Speaker 1: Made the way it was, that film probably would have
Speaker 1: never been released over.
Speaker 7: Here, and this phenomenon may not have taken place that time.
Speaker 1: At that period in time, you know, exploitation films were
Speaker 1: all the rage, and.
Speaker 7: You know, this was just a you know, one one
Speaker 7: new commodity that the.
Speaker 1: Producers in Hollywood could tap and say, okay, well we
Speaker 1: have already made film here. But gee, that has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with America. There's nothing that people can really
Speaker 1: relate to. And you know, there's no stars, there's there's
Speaker 1: there's nothing. But if we you know, add little footage
Speaker 1: of our own and you know, put it out there.
Speaker 7: We'll go see it. Because it's a it's a you know, monsters.
Speaker 1: Monsters were selling at that time, but they needed a
Speaker 1: way to sell it in the in the States, so
Speaker 1: they made a version that could sell here, and that's
Speaker 1: what really opened the door not only for giant monster
Speaker 1: films from Japan, but basically for it introduced Japanese cinema
Speaker 1: to the Western world. I mean, you can talk all
Speaker 1: you want about, you know, Ardhouse projects like Machaman and
Speaker 1: that that we're getting seen in the West, but that
Speaker 1: was just you know, a pimple on.
Speaker 7: The face of the box office.
Speaker 1: Nobody there was no box office being generated by those
Speaker 1: kind of films.
Speaker 7: It was Honda's films.
Speaker 1: That really made money for the Western world and introduced
Speaker 1: the world to Japanese cinema.
Speaker 2: So, you know, I.
Speaker 1: Believe that, you know, it was the right decision and
Speaker 1: it was the right way to go. I don't believe
Speaker 1: that it's so terribly watered down that it's that it's
Speaker 1: a bad film and the way it was made, and
Speaker 1: in fact, I think in some ways it's very genius
Speaker 1: the way they they you know, put into it. Because
Speaker 1: it took me many years before I really recognized what
Speaker 1: they had done with it. And how they had had
Speaker 1: masked the fact that he was not part of the
Speaker 1: original production. You know, right now, it's easy for us
Speaker 1: to see that because we have the convenience of video
Speaker 1: where you can go back and watch the same film
Speaker 1: one hundred times at your convenience.
Speaker 7: But you know, way back in.
Speaker 1: The fifties and sixties and seventies, and it was nothing
Speaker 1: like that. I mean, if you're lucky, you saw it
Speaker 1: on TV once every couple of years, and people weren't
Speaker 1: able to sit there and overanalyze films like you can today.
Speaker 1: And so for the time, this was I believe the
Speaker 1: right decision for them to make, and it was quite
Speaker 1: effective in getting these films held for the public and
Speaker 1: opening the door for all these other films to come
Speaker 1: to America.
Speaker 8: Talked to us a little bit about the various film
Speaker 8: periods that are surrounding Godzilla and his kin, like a
Speaker 8: millennium and.
Speaker 5: Showa, Yeah, Showa period is usually the period of Japanese
Speaker 5: film that's supposed to coincide with I believe the life
Speaker 5: of Emperor Hirohito is that corrected? Yes, yes, and that
Speaker 5: officially ended.
Speaker 2: What year did he die?
Speaker 1: I think it was eighty eighty or eighty nine, take
Speaker 1: a must in eighty nine.
Speaker 5: Right, But when we get into the into Toho and
Speaker 5: into Kaijuega and Terror b tokasats of films, when we
Speaker 5: and we break them up into these different series, the Shoah,
Speaker 5: the Heyse and the Millennium, they don't really coincide exactly
Speaker 5: to what those specifically are. I mean, for instance, the
Speaker 5: show a period for Godzilla films is considered to end
Speaker 5: in nineteen seventy five with Terror of Mega Godzilla, and
Speaker 5: the next film would be Godzilla nineteen eighty four, which
Speaker 5: over here was Godzilla nineteen eighty five, and that's considered
Speaker 5: the start of the Heyse series. But literally, but that
Speaker 5: literally was a show of film too, because here here
Speaker 5: that was still alive.
Speaker 1: Well, as far as far as I know what I've
Speaker 1: seen in Japan, I don't see anybody considering the eighty
Speaker 1: four film as being a Heyse film. It's story wise,
Speaker 1: it's it's part of it you could consider as part
Speaker 1: of that series.
Speaker 7: But I mean, even if you.
Speaker 1: Look at books that come out that call themselves Heysey
Speaker 1: period eighty four is not included in that.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well, fandom over here though, they.
Speaker 7: Pretty stuictly stick.
Speaker 1: To the emperor's naming convention, you know, the Heyse Emperor
Speaker 1: being Urahtha, right.
Speaker 5: And so literally we're still in the hay Say period,
Speaker 5: although again for fandom over here, the Heyesay period is
Speaker 5: considered to end with Godzilla versus destoria In or Destroyer
Speaker 5: or however you're going to pronounce it when nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 5: and I think after that we had a lamentable American
Speaker 5: version in nineteen ninety eight. And yeah, then Toho started
Speaker 5: back up in nineteen ninety nine with Godzilla two thousand
Speaker 5: and those series of films through Godzilla Final Wars in
Speaker 5: two thousand and four are the Millennium series, although as
Speaker 5: is to pointed out, technically they're they're still part of Hayse. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and I remains yet to be seen if we're going
Speaker 5: to assign a new moniker to the films that are
Speaker 5: coming out in the wake of shing Godza.
Speaker 7: Well, you know, I honestly this is what you want
Speaker 7: to talk about. Pet peeve.
Speaker 1: For me, one of the pet peeves is, you know,
Speaker 1: why why do people in especially in this country. I
Speaker 1: think it's ridiculous that they refer to these films as
Speaker 1: shoa and heyse because those terms have absolutely no meaning.
Speaker 7: To people here.
Speaker 1: Uh, you know, to me, it's easy enough to say
Speaker 1: original series, the nineties series, and the you know, two
Speaker 1: thousands of the.
Speaker 7: Meletis to me, see, to me, it makes much more sense.
Speaker 1: It's just like it's just like using you know, other
Speaker 1: other you borrowed words from Japanese to describe what there's
Speaker 1: a perfectly valid translation.
Speaker 7: For in English.
Speaker 1: I you know, I think it's probably just like, you know,
Speaker 1: a fandom thing that people like to do that, like
Speaker 1: it's a way to you know, somehow own this in
Speaker 1: a different way than you know, or distinguish it from from.
Speaker 7: Other kinds of genres. But I don't know.
Speaker 1: To me, it just never made that a whole lot
Speaker 1: of sense why people would do that, other than they're
Speaker 1: you know, maybe trying to you know, sound more Japanese
Speaker 1: or something, well like kaiju is you know, kaiju means monster.
Speaker 1: So I really never quite got the idea of why
Speaker 1: do we have to refer to monsters as kaiju because
Speaker 1: they're monsters we you know, we don't call because there's
Speaker 1: a perfectly valid and a translation for it. When when
Speaker 1: you have words that there is no translation for I'm
Speaker 1: sure I can. I can easily see uh using a
Speaker 1: Japanese term for that. But in case especially like something
Speaker 1: like monsters, I always thought, why why would people even
Speaker 1: use that?
Speaker 2: Well, so it's funny that you bring that up. This
Speaker 2: is not one of our prepared questions. But there is
Speaker 2: the whole thing about within fandom. You know, you you
Speaker 2: end up with something kind of like the word they
Speaker 2: use the shibbaleth, right. You get these.
Speaker 6: Words that are kind of in group out group code words.
Speaker 2: Right, So when you know the words, it's a way
Speaker 2: to tell other people that you have a mastery of
Speaker 2: this subculture, right, or at least that's my thought, but
Speaker 2: I am I.
Speaker 8: Would agree with you with that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's going on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean people in fandom get really really involved
Speaker 2: in all the nuances of minutia, both of the stuff
Speaker 2: that happens inside these fantasy and fictional products properties and
Speaker 2: outside culturally, with like the stories about the actors and
Speaker 2: the directors and the trivia. And as a fan myself,
Speaker 2: I don't know why I get so excited about that information,
Speaker 2: but I love knowing more about it, and I hope
Speaker 2: our listeners are enjoying this.
Speaker 1: I like, especially like the idea that people want to
Speaker 1: be interested in the information, because all too often, I
Speaker 1: think in fantom especially, people are far more interested in
Speaker 1: toys and merchandise than they are about the actual films themselves.
Speaker 7: I mean, that's unfortunately.
Speaker 1: That's why I have suspended publication of my magazine, because
Speaker 1: I make this magazine and I research all the materials
Speaker 1: and stuff to try and put together an interesting set
Speaker 1: of articles. But people aren't that interested in buying magazines
Speaker 1: because they have to read and learn, and it seems like,
Speaker 1: you know, a piece of a hunk of vinyl that's
Speaker 1: shaped vaguely in the shape of a monsters is a
Speaker 1: hundred times more interesting to people.
Speaker 7: So that kind of is a little bit depressing.
Speaker 1: So it's nice to hear that there are people who
Speaker 1: are interested in learning about the films, But you know,
Speaker 1: to go back to the terminology, I guess the thing
Speaker 1: I that that takes me back from that too is,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's almost like a way too, you know,
Speaker 1: as you say, maybe it's like your your badge of
Speaker 1: honor for being a fan or something. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, I also always feel that you know, people
Speaker 1: who aren't that familiar with this but are interested in
Speaker 1: the subject. It's a kind of way to exclude people
Speaker 1: from from really sharing in the fandom.
Speaker 7: You know, when when we have put.
Speaker 1: Together our DVD commentaries and especially in writing the Honda book,
Speaker 1: we go out of our way to not use those
Speaker 1: kind of terms, because not everybody who's going to be
Speaker 1: listening to our commentaries or reading the book are familiar
Speaker 1: with that, and we're hoping that they will become familiar
Speaker 1: and become fans.
Speaker 7: But if you.
Speaker 1: Start out talking kaiju and aga and terms and took
Speaker 1: not to films like that or terms like that, you
Speaker 1: wind up confusing and basically excluding people who aren't intimately
Speaker 1: familiar with it. In an effort to try and get
Speaker 1: everybody interested in this subject.
Speaker 7: You know, we actually, Steve and I have gone out
Speaker 7: of a way to kind of avoid using those kind
Speaker 7: of terms.
Speaker 8: Then you probably get people who complain thinking that you
Speaker 8: should be using them.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's which, which to which I always answer,
Speaker 1: just what I told you is that I don't feel
Speaker 1: it's it's it's not something I think that we should
Speaker 1: be looking at as an exclusive club.
Speaker 7: It's something that I'd.
Speaker 1: Like to welcome everybody and I mean a lot of
Speaker 1: the things that we do in terms of our research
Speaker 1: is to point out to people that these are not,
Speaker 1: according to popular myth, you know, cheap, cheesy, lousy films
Speaker 1: that they didn't care about, that they just you know,
Speaker 1: made on the fly just to just to make a
Speaker 1: great buck. No, they're there are films that people pour
Speaker 1: their hearts and souls into making, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of stories behind these people, and that's what you really
Speaker 1: want to bring bring out to know the general public,
Speaker 1: to give them an appreciation for the craftsmanship and the
Speaker 1: work and the dedication of all these people to put
Speaker 1: these films together.
Speaker 7: Doing this.
Speaker 1: The Honda biography is a perfect example of that.
Speaker 7: I mean, Honda.
Speaker 1: You could talk to general film critics who are always
Speaker 1: very dismissive of science fiction, and you'll bring up God's Luver,
Speaker 1: any of these Japanese science fiction films, and they're always
Speaker 1: very dismissive, Oh, that guy was a hack, he's you know,
Speaker 1: he's nobody. They're just you know, turning out product. They
Speaker 1: don't really care. Well, nothing could be farther from the.
Speaker 5: Truth, as you'll find out when you read a biography
Speaker 5: on Honda. In fact, it's in the title of the
Speaker 5: book goes, it's from God Dilah the kursaal Honda's I
Speaker 5: think probably even I might it was far to say
Speaker 5: that Honda's best friend in the world was a cure
Speaker 5: at Curasaw, would you say.
Speaker 7: That, ed, Yeah, that wouldn't be an accurate statement of
Speaker 7: those two. They were like oil and water, their opposites,
Speaker 7: but they became best friends.
Speaker 1: And you know, the most famous and revered filmmaker in
Speaker 1: Japanese center history is Corrosawa. But Grosawa, you know, he
Speaker 1: always deferred to Honda, and he trusted his judgment implicitly
Speaker 1: and felt he was everybody as talented a filmmaker as
Speaker 1: he was. Just they worked on different projects and they
Speaker 1: had different styles of working.
Speaker 7: Once, once Honda had retired.
Speaker 1: And Corrasawa was was struggling getting some film projects off
Speaker 1: the ground, they kind of renewed their friendship that they
Speaker 1: had struck up when they were both, you know, apprentice
Speaker 1: filmmakers back at you know, when Tamba was first starting,
Speaker 1: and they just said, you know, let's get together and
Speaker 1: let's let's go back to the old days and and
Speaker 1: just make movies the old way.
Speaker 7: And that was what they did.
Speaker 1: And they didn't really even see that there was much
Speaker 1: of a dividing line between their duties. You know, Handa
Speaker 1: was a very modest guy, so of course he always
Speaker 1: uh deferred to Courtisawa and let him, you know, be
Speaker 1: the lead man.
Speaker 7: But behind the scenes he was everybodys and went on
Speaker 7: these films as Corsawa was.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to imagine Godzilla versus Tashira Mafuni, so could
Speaker 2: he withstand the Samurai attack? I don't know.
Speaker 5: One one of the actors who was inside the Godzilla costume,
Speaker 5: Keempaturo Toshira Mafune is his favorite actor, And I don't
Speaker 5: really have anything else to add to them.
Speaker 6: But there's so many monsters now that are in the
Speaker 6: Godzilla verse.
Speaker 2: Now, is there some uh? I sayd Godzilivers all the time,
Speaker 2: But is there some Japanese name for that sort of
Speaker 2: collection of those creatures in Gira's rode a Mathra Madre,
Speaker 2: that sort of thing.
Speaker 7: I just call it the rogues gallery. I don't have
Speaker 7: rogues gallery.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I was curious, is there could you talk
Speaker 2: a little bit about how all these auxiliary monsters went
Speaker 2: from being their own little feature film characters to becoming
Speaker 2: part of this bigger shared universe, because I mean this
Speaker 2: kind of in a way predates the sort of Marvel
Speaker 2: shared continuity with It's like the I don't know of
Speaker 2: any other property where they've done so much crossover.
Speaker 5: Well, they kind of did in the old universal Monster
Speaker 5: films Frankenstein, Wolfman, and Dracula. Throughout the nineteen forties, those
Speaker 5: characters would end up in films together, and of course
Speaker 5: that had been done in literature before too, like everything
Speaker 5: that Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote that all existed in the
Speaker 5: same universe, and he wrote a.
Speaker 2: Lot of stuff.
Speaker 5: But how though, like how they all ended up in
Speaker 5: the same universe together. I don't know if there's a
Speaker 5: particular story about that. I just think that they made
Speaker 5: some of these movies separately, and then they decided to
Speaker 5: make movies where these two of these creatures would appear
Speaker 5: in the same film together, and it worked. They had
Speaker 5: the movies made money, so they kept doing it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think it was really by design. It
Speaker 1: was you started out in the fifties and they had
Speaker 1: all these separate property or separate films that they were making.
Speaker 1: There was never any idea of any particular continuity. It
Speaker 1: had Godzilla, Rodin Mathra, various films like that that were made,
Speaker 1: and then at a certain point, as the box office
Speaker 1: started getting decreasing a little bit and television started eroding
Speaker 1: the market for.
Speaker 7: Films, they're still looking to make more films.
Speaker 1: And they could have continued trying one off properties, but
Speaker 1: you know, as King Congressus Godzilla showed them bringing back.
Speaker 7: An old character.
Speaker 1: And in the case of Godzilla, Godzilla hadn't.
Speaker 7: Appeared for what seven years since you know, the previous film.
Speaker 1: When they brought Godzilla back for King con Versus Godzilla,
Speaker 1: that made money. So you know, being smart producers, they
Speaker 1: see what makes money and they decided to continue down
Speaker 1: the same.
Speaker 7: Path, and that meant, you know, making more Versus movies.
Speaker 1: And one of the best or easiest ways for them
Speaker 1: to do that was to rely on established characters which
Speaker 1: we already had out there, and you know, on occasion
Speaker 1: adding new ones in so things like King Gidra appeared
Speaker 1: and were added. But basically it's it's you know, I
Speaker 1: think it was just a matter of judging the market
Speaker 1: of what what was selling at that time and going
Speaker 1: forward with that.
Speaker 8: So can you talk to us a little bit about
Speaker 8: some of the common kid misconceptions and the falsehoods that
Speaker 8: are around.
Speaker 5: Well, moll no no alas I already mentioned, was the
Speaker 5: pronunciation of a gojira. But uh, yeah, there's there's one
Speaker 5: that's uh that was around for a very long time
Speaker 5: that there were two endings to King Kong versus Godzilla,
Speaker 5: which was never true.
Speaker 7: There's only one ending of that film.
Speaker 8: I wonder how that got started then.
Speaker 5: Well, supposedly it was made popular and famous monsters of
Speaker 5: film Land magazine. But I don't think Forrest j Ackerman.
Speaker 7: Made it up.
Speaker 5: I got because I met him once and I asked
Speaker 5: him about it. I got the impression that he still
Speaker 5: thought it was true. So I think that he misheard
Speaker 5: something or somebody else told him, And I don't know
Speaker 5: who that would be, maybe somebody at the at Universal.
Speaker 5: Something that's interesting about that, though, is that there are
Speaker 5: some movies that actually do have two endings, and including
Speaker 5: Japanese monster movies. One of them is Frankenstein Conquers the World,
Speaker 5: but only both of those endings are on the DVD.
Speaker 5: But I only think one of them ever actually was
Speaker 5: shown theatrically. Yes, that's correct, which ending was shown Theatrically,
Speaker 5: it's the one that has the giant Frankenstein monster killed
Speaker 5: them Unster Barragon and then shortly thereafter there's a landslide
Speaker 5: and he's buried.
Speaker 2: Yep, that's what I say.
Speaker 5: Okay, In the the alternate version, right after Frankenstein kills Barragon,
Speaker 5: a giant octopus crawls up out of the ocean and
Speaker 5: grabs Frankenstein and pulls him under the water, actually out.
Speaker 1: Of the lake because they're up in the mountains in
Speaker 1: the Fuji area, which is very strange because generally octopus
Speaker 1: don't don't live in lakes, much less up in the mountains.
Speaker 7: But it was very motivated. Yeah, but you.
Speaker 1: Know that that was the American side, who was co
Speaker 1: funding the production, had asked, or at least the story
Speaker 1: goes that they had asked that CD film, and ultimately
Speaker 1: when they saw it, they realized it didn't make any sense,
Speaker 1: so they didn't use it. So you got the footage
Speaker 1: that was made specifically for the American version that was
Speaker 1: never shown in America and eventually only gout wound up
Speaker 1: seeing in Japan.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the that's a strange film, But I do
Speaker 2: like this sort of pulp kind of feel that it
Speaker 2: has where you start out with the Nazis bringing the
Speaker 2: heart of the frankeanstin Monster to Japan during World War
Speaker 2: Two and atomic exposure. It's a brutal film, it's got
Speaker 2: an American in it. Nick Adams, who's appeared in He
Speaker 2: appears in several Japanese productions.
Speaker 5: When Monster zero, and I think he was also might
Speaker 5: have been in some Japanese films that weren't Monster films.
Speaker 2: You know much about his involvement with Japanese cinema, Like
Speaker 2: how why Nick Adams, I mean, I mean, like how
Speaker 2: did he get that gig and become the American guy
Speaker 2: for these Monsters?
Speaker 1: Well, they were looking for American things to sell these
Speaker 1: films overseas, and one of the things that they can
Speaker 1: used for that purpose was to get, you know, a
Speaker 1: well established Western actor, and Nick Adams happened to be
Speaker 1: the guy that they got.
Speaker 7: I think the story goes that originally they were trying.
Speaker 1: To get somebody like David Janssen to do the part,
Speaker 1: but he turned it down and Nick Adams, whose career
Speaker 1: wasn't going all that well at the time, decided to
Speaker 1: sign on. And Nick was kind of like a much
Speaker 1: more of a professional actor that you know, regardless of
Speaker 1: when these were a high bunch of Hollywood films or not,
Speaker 1: he still gave it us all and he did a
Speaker 1: good job at what he was given to do. And
Speaker 1: at least in Japan, among the staff and the director
Speaker 1: Handa and all his crew and the fellow actors, Nick
Speaker 1: was a very popular guy because he really took it
Speaker 1: seriously and gave a good effort and everything he did,
Speaker 1: unlike Russ Hamblin, who would follow in his footsteps and
Speaker 1: do only one film in Japan, because he pretty much
Speaker 1: thought everything about the profession was beneath him, and he
Speaker 1: treated the whole thing with a great amount of disdain
Speaker 1: and as a result was never asked back because nobody
Speaker 1: liked him there.
Speaker 2: Nick Adams his career was cut pretty short. He was
Speaker 2: still very young when he died, and I think it
Speaker 2: was to me it looks I mean, well, I'm not
Speaker 2: a policeman, but he was. He died of a drug overdose,
Speaker 2: if I remember correctly, But there some of his I
Speaker 2: think it was Forrest Tucker said he always thought he
Speaker 2: was murdered, but it seemed like a pretty obvious drug
Speaker 2: overdose to me, But who do I know? Nick was
Speaker 2: in Die Monster Die, which had Boris Karloff in it
Speaker 2: and also was based on an HP Lefcraft story. But
Speaker 2: where I first saw Nick and loved his work was
Speaker 2: he did the movie version of No Time for Sergeants
Speaker 2: with Maybe Griveth, which is just a fantastic movie.
Speaker 7: Well, he was the uple Johnny Immo he was.
Speaker 2: He was. I've never seen that show, but I knew
Speaker 2: that that was where he was. He got most of
Speaker 2: his pop culture popularity, and he was apparently good friends
Speaker 2: with James Dean but or at least claimed to be. Anyway,
Speaker 2: died too young and is in a lot of films
Speaker 2: that are in my collection that I like a lot.
Speaker 2: So any other misconceptions of falsehood do you want to
Speaker 2: talk about?
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know if it's necessarily falsehoods, but false impressions,
Speaker 1: you know. Again, Japanese films tend to get a bad rap,
Speaker 1: especially the film some of the films from the fifties
Speaker 1: that were brought over here, and that they're not cheap ye, Well,
Speaker 1: the way they are americanized in many cases especially I'll
Speaker 1: use Giantis, The Fire Monster and Battle and Outer Space
Speaker 1: as prime examples, the companies that brought them over here
Speaker 1: didn't really treat them with a whole big amount of respect,
Speaker 1: and they they gave them what I would a laughable
Speaker 1: dubbing tracks, which are not the fault of the the.
Speaker 7: Company that produced the movie. It's it's the company that's
Speaker 7: releasing over here. Their their their production of the American
Speaker 7: version was basically really poor, and unfortunately the films themselves
Speaker 7: lined up suffering by that association you have. You know,
Speaker 7: like in Gigantis, you have one of the characters being
Speaker 7: in a basically a Yogi bear voice and some really
Speaker 7: terrible trite dialogue that they write for the for the
Speaker 7: dubbing script.
Speaker 1: Uh, they you know would change out music, uh put
Speaker 1: into you know, library music, or things that just weren't
Speaker 1: particularly appropriate.
Speaker 7: So Japanese films also kind.
Speaker 1: Of got a bad rap uh at that in the
Speaker 1: early stages, just because of you know, some very poor
Speaker 1: dubbing jobs. Things that were like the voices wouldn't match
Speaker 1: the character on screen, the timing of the dubbing was.
Speaker 7: Bad, but the voice actors were extremely.
Speaker 1: Poor, and all that kind of stuff unfortunately rubs off
Speaker 1: on the film itself, and film's got a bad rap.
Speaker 7: Because of that, I.
Speaker 8: Was gonna ask why do you think they did that
Speaker 8: to the movies again?
Speaker 7: You know, in the case of some of these films,
Speaker 7: these are you know, the.
Speaker 1: Producers and people who were bringing these products into the
Speaker 1: US market at the time. They're all just looking for
Speaker 1: a quick buck some kind of product to fill the
Speaker 1: double features up.
Speaker 7: With at that time. And some of them took a
Speaker 7: lot of careen doing that.
Speaker 1: Some of them just found the cheapest way to do
Speaker 1: it possible, right, So, I mean that really varied company
Speaker 1: by company. In the sixties, it was really like the
Speaker 1: best situation because of the company by the name of
Speaker 1: American International picked up a lot of these films, and
Speaker 1: the studio that they had dubbing the films, Tytris Studios,
Speaker 1: did a fantastic job. They got real voice actors and
Speaker 1: they wrote you know, professional dubbing scripts for these things,
Speaker 1: and they did.
Speaker 7: A fantastic job. Those those films sound really good.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, those soundtracks are mostly lost today because American International
Speaker 1: went under and writes writes on some of those films
Speaker 1: reverted to to and too will not use those dubbing
Speaker 1: tracks any longer.
Speaker 7: So you have films like the Storal Monsters.
Speaker 1: Which I think original version and original American version is terrific.
Speaker 1: But you hear the dubbing track that Tovo uses on
Speaker 1: their video releases now, that was a track that was
Speaker 1: produced by them over in Asia, and it's atrocious and
Speaker 1: it makes the film. It makes the film sound sounded
Speaker 1: look laughable. In comparison, it's really not the same film.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 1: The Storial Monsters is the film I love. I think
Speaker 1: after seeing the version that's out on video now where
Speaker 1: they use the Toho's international dubbing track, bad version is
Speaker 1: so terrible that if I had seen that version first,
Speaker 1: I probably wouldn't like that movie at all.
Speaker 2: So I'd like to talk about shin Godzilla, which some
Speaker 2: people call Godzilla Resurgence. I guess that's the international title.
Speaker 7: I think that was the official international title.
Speaker 2: Do you know the story of how that movie came
Speaker 2: to be? Because it seems quite different from the American version,
Speaker 2: So this was like a new American version that they
Speaker 2: recently did twenty fourteen. But there is a big divergence
Speaker 2: in all these timelines, and I guess that's really where
Speaker 2: this question is going.
Speaker 9: Is is there an overarching timeline or how you know,
Speaker 9: it's not like a reboot, but there's this weird shared
Speaker 9: universe or multiverse of Godzilla properties, and how does Shin
Speaker 9: Godzilla fit into that?
Speaker 2: Or is anyone trying to make a canonical sort of
Speaker 2: encapsulation of all these properties. How does that work?
Speaker 5: Well, Shin Godzilla is its own entity, and as of
Speaker 5: right now, it's the only film that exists in that universe,
Speaker 5: which is kind of unique because every time that they've
Speaker 5: rebooted the series before, they've always incorporated the first film.
Speaker 5: They always said, like, nothing else happened except for the
Speaker 5: first movie. But this time this is completely starting over
Speaker 5: from scratch, so it's a remake in the sense that's correct.
Speaker 2: The tones really interesting. I mean, the original Godzilla was
Speaker 2: very very serious, as we talked about earlier, this one
Speaker 2: seems more political in nature. Could you talk a little
Speaker 2: bit about what the theme is or I mean, I
Speaker 2: don't want to spoil the movie. I mean, in some sense,
Speaker 2: it's almost like you can't spoil giant monster movies if
Speaker 2: the point is to watch giant monster smashing stuff. But
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot going on in this film.
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, there is a lot of political satire and
Speaker 5: it almost like Doctor Strangelove. I don't want to put
Speaker 5: it in the say it's on the same level as
Speaker 5: Doctor Strangelove. You know, it's not anywhere close to being
Speaker 5: that good, but it's it's in.
Speaker 7: It's kind of doing the same thing. A friend of
Speaker 7: mine who didn't like.
Speaker 5: It compared it to a bad episode of The West
Speaker 5: Wing with a monster in it.
Speaker 2: It was a divergent not just in the history, but
Speaker 2: like the the way Godzilla appears, the Godzilla doesn't just
Speaker 2: appear the way he appears at the end of the film.
Speaker 2: There's there's some things happening to his physio physical representation
Speaker 2: throughout the course of the film.
Speaker 1: You know, in the Kawakita era, Kawakita was really keen
Speaker 1: on showing different phases of all the different monsters, so
Speaker 1: you'll see, outside of Godzilla, just about every other creature
Speaker 1: had multiple forms. That was his way to just get
Speaker 1: more more creatures in a film. And even with Godzilla,
Speaker 1: you had the progression from baby to the whole to
Speaker 1: Junior too vibe Godzila after the parent melted down, So
Speaker 1: that's not unusual to see that in these films, But
Speaker 1: for having Godzilla himself go through any kind of changes.
Speaker 7: This was certainly a unique thing. You should say who
Speaker 7: Kalakita is.
Speaker 1: Kalakita is the special effects director for the films that
Speaker 1: were made during the late eighties in the nineties. You know,
Speaker 1: if I could just for a moment go back to
Speaker 1: the political thing, because one thing I really want to
Speaker 1: mention about that is I yues the you know shin
Speaker 1: Godzilla itself is actually a very political movie, and in
Speaker 1: some ways that's one of the things that I do
Speaker 1: not appreciate about it because it kind of stands on
Speaker 1: the head of what Honda had intended to do with
Speaker 1: Godzilla and why Godzila was created. You know, Godzilla has
Speaker 1: never been, at least in my opinion, has not been
Speaker 1: a political symbol, or the movies haven't really been political.
Speaker 1: They've been about themes that are kind of universal humanistic things.
Speaker 1: And the fact that they would take Godzilla and use
Speaker 1: it for blatantly political means in this film, I find
Speaker 1: that a little bit disturbing to me. Maybe I take
Speaker 1: it a little differently because I'm so closely associated with
Speaker 1: this the Honda book and so interested in on the
Speaker 1: career and his intentions for these films, But it kind
Speaker 1: of bothers me that the film is used in this
Speaker 1: way not so much to political satire, because I mean, well,
Speaker 1: that's that's kind of like the In fact, I don't
Speaker 1: think that that's particularly special or particularly good feature of
Speaker 1: this film, because it's such an easy thing to do.
Speaker 1: You know, the Japanese got and is famous for being
Speaker 1: very slow and very bureaucratic, and so that's, you know,
Speaker 1: pretty much like low hanging fruit. And I think that
Speaker 1: anybody could make a pretty clever satire of the Japanese government.
Speaker 1: But the thing that bothers me much more is the
Speaker 1: highly nationalistic viewpoint that this film takes. You know, that
Speaker 1: pretty much promotes the idea that Japan should disregard the
Speaker 1: constitution and change it and make the military in Japan
Speaker 1: pretty much.
Speaker 7: Independent and able to do what they want. And I.
Speaker 1: Think, back up, and I can't tell that mister Honda
Speaker 1: would have thought about that, but I would think that
Speaker 1: he'd be highly disappointed that, you know, his the the
Speaker 1: film property that he created for an entirely different purposes
Speaker 1: now being used for this kind of political It's story
Speaker 1: full with the points because Godzilla is never about politics, is.
Speaker 7: Always about uh, you know, the.
Speaker 1: Optimism for for human beings cooperation, warning against nuclear energy
Speaker 1: and all the dangers that it has inherited it, but not,
Speaker 1: you know, not for making a latantly political statement such
Speaker 1: as this film does.
Speaker 7: That's one of the things that really disturbed me about it.
Speaker 5: I said before that I would probably like the film
Speaker 5: more if it were not Godzilla in it.
Speaker 7: If it had been.
Speaker 5: A completely original film and they made up an entirely
Speaker 5: new monster, I'm much more prone to to enjoying the film.
Speaker 5: Although we should make the point here that whatever we
Speaker 5: think of it, the movie has done gangbuster business in Japan,
Speaker 5: and in fact won several awards, including Best Picture in
Speaker 5: the Japanese Academy Awards.
Speaker 1: That's very true, and I think, you know that at
Speaker 1: least the way I look at this film is, and
Speaker 1: why I think it wound up being so popular in Japan,
Speaker 1: is that it's Godzilla for people who don't.
Speaker 7: Care about Godzilla.
Speaker 1: It's uh, you know, it's focus is not very much
Speaker 1: on Godzilla himself. It's on all this political satire, and
Speaker 1: then they kind of sneak in the you know, the
Speaker 1: nationalistic bent towards the end of the movie. A lot
Speaker 1: of you know, a lot of people who don't normally
Speaker 1: go see these kind of films want to see this film.
Speaker 7: That's why I looked at wound up being so.
Speaker 1: Popular and in my company because I am My business
Speaker 1: is headquartered in Japan, so I have multiple trips there
Speaker 1: each year, and you know, a lot of people in
Speaker 1: the office in Japan know that, you know, I'm really
Speaker 1: interested in Gonzulla, so they've they all went to see it.
Speaker 7: They were all interested to talk to me about it.
Speaker 1: And almost to a person, everybody thought that, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the reasons they really liked this film was
Speaker 1: because it shows Japan supposedly acting on their own and
Speaker 1: solving their own problems, and you know that kind of
Speaker 1: and of course they also enjoyed making fun of the government.
Speaker 1: But you know, the only thing that they didn't talk
Speaker 1: about was Godzia. They didn't really seem to really care
Speaker 1: about that because Godzilla was just the reason for that
Speaker 1: for all this political satire, and that was what in general,
Speaker 1: at least in the small sample size of the people
Speaker 1: that I talked to are in Midway fans, That's what
Speaker 1: people were kind of really latching onto as far as
Speaker 1: what made it popular for them.
Speaker 2: I find it really interesting how Japan has changed. I
Speaker 2: mean since like before World War Two, you know, hugely
Speaker 2: imperialistic military power, and so since World War Two they're literal,
Speaker 2: I guess legally mandated behavior has been more pacifistic, and
Speaker 2: you know, they've been more involved, and I think people
Speaker 2: tend to think of it more as a technological, capitalistic,
Speaker 2: you know, culture than as a political military power, right,
Speaker 2: and that's because of how efficient they were, and my goodness,
Speaker 2: they were really good at being a military imperialistic government.
Speaker 2: They were very effective. But so to see this is
Speaker 2: quite a shift. As you say, I guess the themes
Speaker 2: of the older film for more about the dangers of
Speaker 2: that everybody faces, all countries face with the nuclear power,
Speaker 2: nuclear bombs, and I imagine that Godzilla in the Godzilla verse,
Speaker 2: there have been other sort of overarching human problems that
Speaker 2: I mean right now, I find Godzilla versus Hetera to
Speaker 2: be more effective message about the dangers of pollution than
Speaker 2: the crying Native American from the commercials in the seventies.
Speaker 2: So I mean, when I think about using Godzilla for
Speaker 2: our using Kaiju in general, as these would that the
Speaker 2: symbolic archetype type of things. Can you think of some
Speaker 2: other cases where any kaiju have been used this way.
Speaker 5: I think you're asking where, how, in what various ways
Speaker 5: the films have been used to address social and political
Speaker 5: issues other than hetero which you just mentioned. Another film,
Speaker 5: Godzilla's Revenge or also known as All Monsters Attack. It
Speaker 5: gets a little bit confusing because a lot of these
Speaker 5: movies have multiple titles, so we're not always sure about
Speaker 5: what movie we're talking about. But this is the nineteen
Speaker 5: sixty nine film where pretty much all the monsters are
Speaker 5: just imaginary in this kid's head, and that film was
Speaker 5: used to address the latch key kid phenomenon that was
Speaker 5: going on in Japan at that time, if I'm correct again,
Speaker 5: another social issue that that's again it's kind of I
Speaker 5: don't really think gill has.
Speaker 7: Ever been used for political purposes of tilis.
Speaker 1: But another example would be ban which is warning against
Speaker 1: the ages of biotechnology.
Speaker 2: Oh that's when the Monsters is crossed with a rose bush.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: All Monsters Attack is strange because it's probably my least
Speaker 2: favorite of the films from the storyline perspective, but it
Speaker 2: has so many awesome monsters in it, right, So you
Speaker 2: know that's the is that the only film with Kumonga
Speaker 2: it maybe oh no.
Speaker 5: No, no, In fact, that was stock footage Kumonga also
Speaker 5: known as Spiga. That's that's another thing that changes names
Speaker 5: a lot, A lot of these monster names changed. But uh,
Speaker 5: it was from Son of Godzilla, and I think the.
Speaker 7: Island in that movie is Soulgill Island.
Speaker 2: Yes, I need to rewatch that, so Senat Godzilla.
Speaker 10: Is Minya yet And also I think also that monster Kumonga, Spiga,
Speaker 10: whatever you want to call it, is also in Destroy
Speaker 10: All Monsters Briefly, but I think that's stock footage too.
Speaker 2: And I guess does he show up or she? I'm
Speaker 2: not really sure if it's a girl, but that is
Speaker 2: in Final Wars Part one or two, I don't remember.
Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, and I assume it's is she just because
Speaker 5: it's a spider. But yeah, also in the also in
Speaker 5: Final Wars.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I assume that. Again, this is me making
Speaker 2: an assumption that may not be quite right. The there
Speaker 2: is a there's a very similar monster in Kong Skull
Speaker 2: Island that certainly looks, if not directly supposed to be
Speaker 2: kamong it looks very similar spider. Yea very cool Uh yeah,
Speaker 2: so I just got I finally got to see I had.
Speaker 2: I had to see that movie twice to see it
Speaker 2: completely because we had a little family emergency come up
Speaker 2: in the middle of the first attempt. So I now
Speaker 2: have that successfully under my belt. And if listeners managed
Speaker 2: to go see the film, if you like giant monsters,
Speaker 2: I highly recommend it. I don't know if you'll like
Speaker 2: the plot, but boy howdy, they do some fun giant
Speaker 2: monster stuff in there, and you stay to the end credits, right,
Speaker 2: great fun there at the end.
Speaker 1: Yes, please don't tell me one of those guys I
Speaker 1: haven't seen it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm pleased with the way that the legendary monster
Speaker 5: versus panning out there.
Speaker 7: I don't like everything.
Speaker 5: That's been done in those two films, but for the
Speaker 5: most part, I like them more than not.
Speaker 2: They're very expensive to make, and I guess now they're
Speaker 2: more expensive. But you know, CGI looks fantastic now in
Speaker 2: ways that it didn't before. It used to be very
Speaker 2: flat looking in a three dimensional world. The new stuff's
Speaker 2: looking better. But you know, the way TV definitions are increasing.
Speaker 2: When you watch these movies at home, sometimes it's for
Speaker 2: me at least, it's hard to enjoy CG work compared
Speaker 2: to practical effects, and so I like to watch old
Speaker 2: movies sometimes in these Blu ray releases and then surprised.
Speaker 2: I'm always surprised when the old practical effects look phenomenal.
Speaker 2: I mean, it just looks so good, and then the
Speaker 2: CG looks clunky. It's almost problem.
Speaker 7: The CGI for me is nothing.
Speaker 5: No other effect ages as poorly as CGI, and something
Speaker 5: that was done even as recently as five years ago
Speaker 5: can age really bad, whereas you don't have that problem
Speaker 5: with stop motion or suitmation or virtually anything else.
Speaker 2: And I don't know what it again, is a cost issue, imagine,
Speaker 2: but I mean people, as More's law takes effect and
Speaker 2: computers get more and more powerful, it becomes possible to
Speaker 2: do some really incredible rendering on less expensive machines, and
Speaker 2: copyright kind of prevents this. But I maybe in my lifetime,
Speaker 2: and they've extended it so long, but maybe some of
Speaker 2: these films will get some really nice, you know, fan
Speaker 2: based touch up work or something. Maybe it's not within
Speaker 2: the power of these movie companies to put together the
Speaker 2: funding to like fix and I would I'm very hesitant
Speaker 2: an artistic question. These guys were doing the best they
Speaker 2: could with what they had, but it's also this incredibly
Speaker 2: rich treasure trove of material that some you know, young
Speaker 2: people today may not even want to bother with because
Speaker 2: the effects don't look as good. So now my kids
Speaker 2: have really enjoyed them. But I don't know if it's
Speaker 2: universal because some people were like, oh, that looks lame,
Speaker 2: and they never really get in and enjoy the film.
Speaker 2: You got to get past the disbelief part, I think
Speaker 2: to really get a good experience here. There's an animated
Speaker 2: Godzilla project in the works.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it was just announced that at least in
Speaker 1: our market, it's going to be on Netflix.
Speaker 2: Oh interesting, okay, and this is going to be direct
Speaker 2: to Netflix, Like, do we know how many episodes there
Speaker 2: are going to be?
Speaker 7: Thing? It's supposed to be a feature film.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, So it's a feature film, but it's done
Speaker 2: in a is it computer animated style or traditional.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm not sure yet what they call it
Speaker 1: computer graphic animation, but I really don't know what it's
Speaker 1: going to look like. If it's going to be something
Speaker 1: like Final Fantasy kind of thing where they trans render everything,
Speaker 1: you know, or whether it's just going to be your
Speaker 1: traditional cell animation augmented by computers. I mean that's until
Speaker 1: we start seeing something, you know, some some actual frames
Speaker 1: from it, it's hard to say what it's going to be.
Speaker 2: Like.
Speaker 5: The company responsible is called Polygon Pictures. They're the same
Speaker 5: people who did the Clone Wars TV show, and I
Speaker 5: think they exclusively do three D animation, although some of
Speaker 5: the stuff that they've done looks a lot like cell
Speaker 5: animation interesting, which I would be very pleased if that's
Speaker 5: the route they went if if they if it, the
Speaker 5: more it looks like cell animation rather than three D,
Speaker 5: the happier I'd be.
Speaker 7: I think it would be a much better choice. I
Speaker 7: would agree with that.
Speaker 2: And when you say three D, you don't mean like
Speaker 2: put on the glasses, you mean three D style, whereas
Speaker 2: like it's got depth to it. Okay, yeah, yeah, we
Speaker 2: don't really have a term around here exactly at my house,
Speaker 2: but my son is really when we talk about an
Speaker 2: animated film, he always wants to know if it's going
Speaker 2: to look more like a flat you know, two D
Speaker 2: or a three D rendering. But he's we're a little
Speaker 2: unclear what the best term for that is. But I
Speaker 2: like that. I mean, it just gets confusing when people
Speaker 2: think you need to put on glasses versus not but
Speaker 2: fully rendered spaces versus celle base rendering. It's it is
Speaker 2: amazing what can be done. It just surprises me how
Speaker 2: expensive it is because there the it seems like, no
Speaker 2: matter how much people are able to do at home,
Speaker 2: the price the movie studio claim for the cost of
Speaker 2: producing these things keeps going up and up and up,
Speaker 2: and you know, fans and amateurs can do such astonishing work,
Speaker 2: and I just I'm always confounded that it's so expensive
Speaker 2: in such a lengthy process to bring these things out
Speaker 2: to the market when you know the demand is always
Speaker 2: going to exceed the ability to produce.
Speaker 11: I suppose the thing this company has done that I
Speaker 11: think looks the best with something called Knights of Sidonia
Speaker 11: that also is supposed to be That's exactly what I said.
Speaker 11: It's a three D animation, but.
Speaker 5: It looks like it's sell animation, so I'm happy with it.
Speaker 5: Is that s id or seed s I d o Nia.
Speaker 2: That's interesting. I wonder if it's related to Mars in
Speaker 2: some way. There's that whole Sardonia that's where the face
Speaker 2: on Mars region is. So there's a new sequel coming
Speaker 2: out to the Godzilla twenty fourteen that looks like it's
Speaker 2: going to somehow tie into what's being done with Kong
Speaker 2: on Skull Island.
Speaker 5: Supposedly in a new film, or Godzilla King of the
Speaker 5: Monsters as they're calling it, that's going to have Rodin,
Speaker 5: Matra and King Geedra all. So all four monsters supposedly,
Speaker 5: which I'm not sure that's such a great idea to
Speaker 5: do so soon, I think spread out over a couple
Speaker 5: of films. I mean, when in the original Geezer the
Speaker 5: Three Headed Monster, you also had all four monsters, but
Speaker 5: most of the monsters had already been established in previous movies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean. So from a
Speaker 2: storytelling perspective, it's it's probably more acceptable to your brain
Speaker 2: to ease yourself into a world with these giant monsters
Speaker 2: rather than they said, lee, there were not and now
Speaker 2: there's a look at this, you know, here's all of them.
Speaker 2: You know. Well.
Speaker 1: One of the problems, one of the problems I've seen
Speaker 1: to that is that you wind up just kind of
Speaker 1: escalating things so quickly that you need yourself no room
Speaker 1: to go on a feature.
Speaker 7: Because I used.
Speaker 1: To always told people when I saw the First Adventures,
Speaker 1: It's like, Okay, well that was really great, but where
Speaker 1: do you go from there? Because I don't know, how
Speaker 1: are you going to top that in terms of the
Speaker 1: spectacle at the end. And sure enough, I mean what
Speaker 1: you got with the second film is pretty much exactly
Speaker 1: the same thing, the big giant battle with lots of
Speaker 1: minions from the other side that you have a big, long,
Speaker 1: extended battle with. But you really can't go too much
Speaker 1: farther beyond that. And if you do something like this
Speaker 1: where you're going to start adding three four extra monsters
Speaker 1: in it and having a big battle with them, then
Speaker 1: I mean, what's next. You have to have ten monsters
Speaker 1: in the next month and fifteen in the next month.
Speaker 1: It just you just set yourself up for not being
Speaker 1: able to top yourself, or if you do try to
Speaker 1: top yourself, you wind up taking something that that just
Speaker 1: winds up starting to get ridiculous because because it's to
Speaker 1: be like overblown. So that's that's that's my concern with
Speaker 1: them going this far this fast.
Speaker 2: And also it comes into the thing about in the
Speaker 2: reboot of Godzilla, they introduced the idea of Muto's and
Speaker 2: that's what the I don't know if you'll call them
Speaker 2: the villains of the film were, but these are massive
Speaker 2: unidentified terrestrial organisms. The thing is, though, that's like UFOs, right,
Speaker 2: It's it's a it's a classification of an unknown phenomena.
Speaker 2: But the monsters themselves represent only one of basically any
Speaker 2: class of unknown monster that's going to appear after this.
Speaker 2: So until you identify it, it's a muto, no matter
Speaker 2: what it looks like. Right. So it's a strange approach
Speaker 2: because they make reference to that in the Kong film,
Speaker 2: and I'm curious if that happened, and this is this
Speaker 2: is just me being an herb, but what's going to
Speaker 2: happen to the two creatures we saw in the first
Speaker 2: Godzilla film. If Muto's are an entire class, those things
Speaker 2: will need their own specific name, right, so to sort
Speaker 2: of differentiate them from all the other unknown Course, the
Speaker 2: new ones, we already know what they are, at least
Speaker 2: in the sense that, as you say, these monsters are
Speaker 2: going to appear in the next Godzilla film. I find
Speaker 2: it really interesting because I like all of these monsters
Speaker 2: and I like to see them, and it's always been
Speaker 2: a problem with these from a narrative perspective that most
Speaker 2: humans are only concerned with humans for storylines, right, So
Speaker 2: the drama comes from what happens to people, So they
Speaker 2: always have to tack on a human story to make
Speaker 2: us enjoy the monster story, or at least that's what
Speaker 2: the people who produce these seem to believe. I'm not
Speaker 2: sure it's true. I feel pretty comfortable that I could
Speaker 2: watch a movie with just a bunch of monsters doing stuff.
Speaker 2: I don't necessarily need to have a love interest and
Speaker 2: a human villain and all those other complications to enjoy
Speaker 2: the films. But since they won't get made unless somebody
Speaker 2: is willing to dump millions of dollars into it, and
Speaker 2: those approvals are always going to require those basic, basic
Speaker 2: narrative tools, I guess I'm out of luck until I
Speaker 2: get the ability to or until fans were able to
Speaker 2: do these sort of things on their own.
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Is that Do you ever just sort
Speaker 2: of wish that they could just do monster movies with
Speaker 2: giant monsters and not instually have to have people.
Speaker 7: I don't know if I ever thought that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, negative, Actually, that's probably another one of the
Speaker 1: reasons I didn't care about for shing guys, well, because
Speaker 1: pretty much there is no human story in that, and
Speaker 1: there's it's almost I guess in a way, they try
Speaker 1: to make it more like a documentary because there's really
Speaker 1: no characters or no people you get to know, where
Speaker 1: people who have any story behind them. They're just kind
Speaker 1: of like they're there and they're reacting and okay, that's it,
Speaker 1: but there's really no particular story to it.
Speaker 2: Well, I feel like we're about to enter what could
Speaker 2: even be a renaissance or a disaster, and we won't
Speaker 2: really know until it happens.
Speaker 7: I don't know that that's gonna be any new.
Speaker 1: I think this you know again, you guys will, to
Speaker 1: me strikes me as a one off effort. Okay, So
Speaker 1: I don't know that it's necessarily going to lead and
Speaker 1: be the leader in a certain direction or not. I
Speaker 1: think it would be very difficult for them to follow
Speaker 1: up and continue that storyline, especially since Donald was not
Speaker 1: interested in going further with it. So I think probably
Speaker 1: it's going to be a lot like the uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the millenniums millennium films, where the next film is just
Speaker 1: going to be yet again somebody else's take on the
Speaker 1: same thing.
Speaker 7: Well, if you.
Speaker 2: Could see them redo any of these other properties that
Speaker 2: haven't already been scheduled, what what what other monster movie
Speaker 2: would you be interested in seeing them revisit?
Speaker 1: Well, honestly, I just aid see somebody try something new
Speaker 1: instead of constantly going after remaking and remaking and remaking.
Speaker 5: Well, I mentioned that I'm fond of the British monter Gordo,
Speaker 5: so I'd like to see that again.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think my favorite, just as far as standalone films,
Speaker 2: might have been Rodin. And I don't want to spoil
Speaker 2: it for anybody, but I love the I think they've
Speaker 2: had time to see it though, right, don't you so?
Speaker 2: I could? I loved it? How in the In the
Speaker 2: story the the there's something happening in this mine and
Speaker 2: they're not really clear on what's going on exactly, and
Speaker 2: then they find out there's these giant worm monsters and
Speaker 2: they're like, oh no, these giant worm monsters are you know,
Speaker 2: it's causing earthquake type effects. It's killing minors, and you're like,
Speaker 2: that's horrific. They're so big and dangerous. And then you
Speaker 2: find out that those are just the things that Rodin eats.
Speaker 2: That's just his food for baby Rodin. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: and there's more than one. So that's the kind of
Speaker 2: almost love crafty and level shocker that just blew me
Speaker 2: away when I was a kid. And you know, and
Speaker 2: I think it, you know, it suffers from the special
Speaker 2: effects don't hold up so well. But I love that
Speaker 2: story and I would love to see that kind of
Speaker 2: level of surprise in a monster film, and that's very
Speaker 2: unusual for them to It's hard to come up with surprises,
Speaker 2: I guess.
Speaker 5: So that's one of the few films where I would
Speaker 5: say a case could be made for saying that the
Speaker 5: American versions actually superior to the original Japanese version.
Speaker 2: Oh really, what's the difference of Rodin?
Speaker 5: Well, in both films you have two Rodin monsters, but
Speaker 5: in the American version, the second monster is introduced much
Speaker 5: much earlier, and in the Japanese version it's just like
Speaker 5: thrown in there almost at the last minute, very nonchalantly,
Speaker 5: almost like an afterthought.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it kind of comes out of nowhere, like well,
Speaker 1: like what's that? Why did that happen?
Speaker 2: So that's how I got that's just looked at one
Speaker 2: choice they made, or did the Americans do reshoots.
Speaker 1: No, no reshoots, but yeah, they just using reversed footage
Speaker 1: and changing a few of the events in the film.
Speaker 1: They just made the second one show up much earlier.
Speaker 2: Wow, I never noticed that. So that's I've only seen
Speaker 2: the American version based on what you just told me.
Speaker 2: That's that's interesting. So and I was always I really
Speaker 2: enjoyed that film. Lots of people get eaten, it's good stuff.
Speaker 5: So too, though, is that in the American version there's
Speaker 5: a there's a visual faux pas that only happens in
Speaker 5: that version of the film, and it's not in the
Speaker 5: Japanese one. One scene where they're at an airport and
Speaker 5: you look out the window, and what ends up happening
Speaker 5: is that they were this was just a film footage
Speaker 5: of an airport that was being projected behind them for
Speaker 5: some reason, because they obviously they were shooting is in
Speaker 5: the studio, so they're not really at an airport, so
Speaker 5: they just have film footage behind them. But there's one
Speaker 5: part where in the American version it starts looping over,
Speaker 5: so like you see a vehicle moving and then all
Speaker 5: of a sudden, it starts going backwards.
Speaker 7: Well I think.
Speaker 1: That that's because they you know, they wanted to extend
Speaker 1: the dialogue in that scene, and they just they just
Speaker 1: you know, loop the footage backwards rather than cut the
Speaker 1: dialogue down at the scene. And I can't say for
Speaker 1: sure if that's what happened, but I mean, I can't
Speaker 1: imagine any other reason why that would would happen, because
Speaker 1: they don't. I'm sure they didn't have these separate elements
Speaker 1: of Matt shot in order to redo that. So I'm
Speaker 1: sure that they just rewound the footage back just to extend,
Speaker 1: you know, like I said, just to extend the dialogue,
Speaker 1: so that what you know, the American people had done
Speaker 1: for that particular scene.
Speaker 5: We haven't talked all about gam or Diamond Gin or
Speaker 5: Gotha Orgilala.
Speaker 2: That's true. How does Gamera fit into this in real history?
Speaker 2: How does Gammera fit into the Japanese cinema history? Like
Speaker 2: was he a direct response to Godzilla or well?
Speaker 5: In short answers, yes, it was just yeah, nineteen sixty five,
Speaker 5: Die wanted some of that dikaiju money action that Godzilla
Speaker 5: was getting because these films were popular in the sixties.
Speaker 5: They weren't the only type of Japanese film that was popular,
Speaker 5: but because they were also like the Zatoichi film Samurai,
Speaker 5: you know, movies, there were comedies, there were lots of
Speaker 5: films that were popular, but Dyke Giant monster movies were
Speaker 5: a type of film that were popular. So Die wanted
Speaker 5: some of Toho's actions, so they made their own monster.
Speaker 2: And Gamera has spawned quite a few sequels. I think
Speaker 2: I'm guessing a lot of our listeners will have seen
Speaker 2: them primarily through Mister Science Theater eight thousand, but they
Speaker 2: seem to be more kid focused, or that's my take
Speaker 2: on it. I mean, is that they deliberately targeted children, Yes,
Speaker 2: very intentionally. So.
Speaker 5: Noriaki Yuasa, who made most of those movies, just really
Speaker 5: liked kids and he wanted to make movies that were
Speaker 5: friendly for kids. So that's why Gammer became the friend
Speaker 5: of all children, which.
Speaker 1: Is kind of ironic because when you look at those
Speaker 1: old films, they couldn't be more bloody and violent, right exactly,
Speaker 1: which I always thought was very peculiar. That yes, I
Speaker 1: meansa was really totally interested in, you know, making these
Speaker 1: films for very small kids, but at the same time
Speaker 1: he put images in there that were particularly gruesome. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, guys getting his head chopped off, and there's
Speaker 1: always Amma's blood is flowing like water, because actually it
Speaker 1: is water. And you know, things like that happened, which
Speaker 1: which at the same time as Toho that was something
Speaker 1: that Sobriah was munutely against you showing Godzilla leading on
Speaker 1: leading that kind of thing like that kind of violence.
Speaker 1: So it was that was that was kind of an interesting,
Speaker 1: uh contradiction that was in.
Speaker 7: Those the old Gamera films.
Speaker 1: And then think about it too, and then what so
Speaker 1: what happened is those films, for whatever reason, were popular
Speaker 1: enough that and finally with Godzilla's Revenge, it kind of
Speaker 1: prompted Toho to answer back. And I think Gozila's Revenge
Speaker 1: was their answer back to a film that could target
Speaker 1: the same audience. And that's why you got after the
Speaker 1: Stromal Monsters. They kind of you went backwards and kind
Speaker 1: of went to a very simple, low cost uh type
Speaker 1: of production. And what that production wound up being was,
Speaker 1: you know, like I said, the directly wants to die,
Speaker 1: and I think that in doing so, they'd be die
Speaker 1: at their own game.
Speaker 2: That's interesting. That reminds me of the sort of few,
Speaker 2: not really few, but the parallels between Hammer and Amicus films.
Speaker 2: It's like Amicas went so far as Steved use a
Speaker 2: lot of the same actors, you know, so.
Speaker 7: Right, same type.
Speaker 5: And we should mention that for a long time, fans
Speaker 5: of the genre have considered the Gamera films to be
Speaker 5: just inferior copies of the Godzilla movies. But an interesting
Speaker 5: thing happened in the nineteen nineties when Gamera was rebooted
Speaker 5: and they had this this trilogy of new Gamera films
Speaker 5: that were a complete remark, and Godzilla movies were being remade,
Speaker 5: you know, they those Godzilla movies in the nineties were happening.
Speaker 7: At the same time.
Speaker 5: But the general consensus seems to be that the Gamera
Speaker 5: films of the nineteen nineties are not only are they
Speaker 5: better than the Godzilla films of the nineteen nineties, but
Speaker 5: they are among the best giant monster movies and more
Speaker 5: monster movies period ever made.
Speaker 2: They're very popular here at my house. Yeah, I think
Speaker 2: gets more rewatched, but I think there's in general. I
Speaker 2: enjoy watching those, and my kids like them quite a bit,
Speaker 2: so I don't know that's anecdotal, but I like the
Speaker 2: special effects in them, in the they have a nice
Speaker 2: story arc. I am curious though, like Gamera is such
Speaker 2: an odd creature because he bleeds, so he seems to
Speaker 2: be biological, Yet he flies through space and shoots flames
Speaker 2: out of his leg holes. He's he's an odd cat.
Speaker 2: I don't know what his story is exactly, you know, people,
Speaker 2: And we'll even do it for this episode. I'll talk
Speaker 2: a little bit about the why these kuyd you are
Speaker 2: biologically impossible. But you know, trying to explain that about
Speaker 2: Gammera just as silly. I mean, he's clearly not. He's
Speaker 2: more of a fantasy creature, I guess.
Speaker 5: And even Gammera seems realistic compared to some of the
Speaker 5: things that crop up in Japanese television shows.
Speaker 12: Wow, and there's been a lot of that too, you know,
Speaker 12: the uh so I would imagine that Ultraman and Spector Man,
Speaker 12: these also were sort of kicked off by the Kaiju films.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well pretty much everything you know in the mid sixties,
Speaker 1: that was the Kaiju boom when uh, you know, we
Speaker 1: had that little version of the thing either, the three headed monster.
Speaker 1: So theatrically those films were doing very well and producing
Speaker 1: a few other films at the same time Dogara Atrinon
Speaker 1: and then at the same time Subrai had started up
Speaker 1: ultra Q and Ultraman. So all around this time period
Speaker 1: there was the big boom and monster films in monsters
Speaker 1: in Japan, TV was starting to get away at it.
Speaker 1: But you had not only Di went in with Gambra,
Speaker 1: and then the following year you had Gapa from uh
Speaker 1: Because and you from show Cheq. So everybody was kind
Speaker 1: of getting on the bandwagon at that point, and unfortunately,
Speaker 1: very quickly it all started to fall apart as TV
Speaker 1: started to suck the life out of the feature feature
Speaker 1: film business. It was a lot easier for you kids
Speaker 1: to stay at home and watch monsters on TV for
Speaker 1: free than it was to you know, mom and dad
Speaker 1: take into the theater and pay to see pretty much
Speaker 1: the same thing. Quality wise, it wasn't really the same thing,
Speaker 1: but you know, for especially for younger children, that was
Speaker 1: probably pretty much the mindset. So unfortunately, the proliferation of monsters,
Speaker 1: especially as far as it goes to TV, started sounding
Speaker 1: the started started the monster film industry on the down swing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's unfortunate, but I did get some great memories
Speaker 2: from that. I liked In America, it was called Space Giants,
Speaker 2: but I guess in Japan it was The Ambassador Magma.
Speaker 2: That's just such a it's a trippy show. But I mean,
Speaker 2: it's got a family of robots, with the father being
Speaker 2: I don't know what is the fifty feet tall, hundred
Speaker 2: feet tall something like that.
Speaker 5: He's really big, hundred feet tall in the translated version,
Speaker 5: I don't know how.
Speaker 2: Well, it's got shape shifters and aliens and giant monsters
Speaker 2: and it's it's awesome, and it's long. It's like fifty
Speaker 2: two episodes. Yeah, so I you know, there's just a
Speaker 2: tremendous amount of fun material out there. So I know,
Speaker 2: unfortunately we're running out of time here, but I wanted
Speaker 2: to ask the question, and we always like to ask
Speaker 2: our guests, but we're going to modify it just a
Speaker 2: little bit because before we even did this interview, I
Speaker 2: know you've expressed some reservations about picking a single favorite monster,
Speaker 2: So so I'm gonna I'm gonna ask it this way. Yes,
Speaker 2: what are some of your favorite monsters? And what do
Speaker 2: you think your favorite Kaiju film is?
Speaker 7: Shall I go first? Go ahead?
Speaker 5: Mike got Yeah, Well, obviously there's only one king, so
Speaker 5: that that's going to be my favorite monster in second excellent.
Speaker 2: Pong excellent, right, America.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So to spell it out for people, either, yeah,
Speaker 5: Goddilla takes first place. Second place, I would put King
Speaker 5: Guidora or King Giedra or Gidra however you're going to pronounce,
Speaker 5: and he can proounce it.
Speaker 7: All those ways are all correct.
Speaker 2: H one name for each head.
Speaker 5: Yes, but unfortunately I don't think he's been done justice
Speaker 5: since the nineteen sixties. And in third place, I'll throw
Speaker 5: a curveball and put in the British monster Gorgo and
Speaker 5: his mother nice Yes, uh huh, And I guess.
Speaker 6: That huge show notes on this episode.
Speaker 5: Right, and they I don't really have any any of
Speaker 5: that fall into line after that.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: I like Angulus, I like Malthra, I like rode In.
Speaker 5: I guess I like rode In more than Angulus and Malthra.
Speaker 5: So we'll book road In a number four and we'll
Speaker 5: just put We'll put Malthra at number five.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, I mean obviously Godzilla, without a doubt is
Speaker 1: number one. I mean, Godzilla is the reason that all
Speaker 1: of this got started, and it's the probably the most
Speaker 1: iconic monster character that ever came out of Japan. It
Speaker 1: would be hard to pick against Godzilla, But beyond Godzilla,
Speaker 1: I would have.
Speaker 7: To agree with Mike that King Dedra is probably the
Speaker 7: second on my list.
Speaker 1: It's just, you know, such an impressive looking design, and
Speaker 1: you just I can I can still think back to
Speaker 1: the the day that I saw that film in the theater,
Speaker 1: giving a three headed monster, and how overwhelming that experience was,
Speaker 1: and seeing that that creature on the screen the first time.
Speaker 7: It's something that I'll never forget.
Speaker 1: So I would put Giras as a second, and probably
Speaker 1: my third favorite, the giant monster would.
Speaker 7: Would be author.
Speaker 1: Author is just again it's a kind of iconic figure,
Speaker 1: and I like the idea of the simplicity.
Speaker 7: Of its design. I think that, you know, it's all
Speaker 7: too often.
Speaker 1: You know, people get a little especially today, you know,
Speaker 1: when people are designing creatures and spaceships and stuff, they
Speaker 1: go overboard on detail and making it look complicated.
Speaker 7: I'm kind of the opposite approach, you know that.
Speaker 1: I think simplicity is but there's beauty and simplicity, just
Speaker 1: like in spaceships.
Speaker 7: Uh, take the enterprise.
Speaker 1: Take the enterprise over everything else, because the enterprise is
Speaker 1: just a couple.
Speaker 7: Of simple minds, and it's it's.
Speaker 1: Basically frozen motion looks beautiful the way it is, and
Speaker 1: I'll apply the same kind of thinking to Matha. Mathra
Speaker 1: has that that simplicity of design that is elegant and
Speaker 1: very impressive.
Speaker 2: I shouldn't ask any more questions because I know we're
Speaker 2: out of time. But I god Zuki or scrappy Do,
Speaker 2: god Zukier scrappy Do, who's the worst?
Speaker 7: Well?
Speaker 5: I will actually watch the Hannah Barbara Godzilla and hate it.
Speaker 5: And uh, the scrappy Do I just won't even watch.
Speaker 2: So that is scrappy Do is worse.
Speaker 7: And death is not an option? Are we talking about
Speaker 7: for the characters?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just I every time I might hear god Zuki,
Speaker 2: hear and god Zuk.
Speaker 7: And then don't stop.
Speaker 2: You can't.
Speaker 6: All right, Thanks so much for coming, guys, Thank you
Speaker 6: so much.
Speaker 7: You're welcome. We love it great. Thanks guys, monster.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters.
Speaker 2: Today you heard Blake Smith and Karen Stolsno interviewed Michael
Speaker 2: Keller and Ed got Yrschsky about Godzilla and other giant monsters.
Speaker 2: Please check out the show notes at Monster Talk dot
Speaker 2: org for links to their work. We appreciate their sharing
Speaker 2: so much of their time with us to talk about
Speaker 2: these awesome monsters. Monster Talk is an official podcast of
Speaker 2: Skeptic Magazine. The opinions you heard today were those of
Speaker 2: ourselves and our guests and do not necessarily reflect the
Speaker 2: opinions of Skeptic Magazine or the Skeptic Society. I'm not
Speaker 2: even sure the Skeptic Magazine has an official position on Godzilla. Heck,
Speaker 2: they probably don't even believe it's a real fret.
Speaker 6: We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Monster Talk. Each
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Speaker 2: Boy, how doy They do some fun giant monster stuff
Speaker 2: in there.
Speaker 7: And you stay through to the end.
Speaker 2: Credits right, great fun there at the end.
Speaker 1: Yes, please don't tell me one of those guys I
Speaker 1: haven't seen it yet.
Speaker 2: No, no, I wouldn't tell you. But but I'm just
Speaker 2: saying Matthew. I'm just saying Matthew broderck Steele looks great.
Speaker 2: He's aged so well. That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 7: What I'm not sure if the banana was necessary
Speaker 2: It was important to the plot, Okay,