Official godzilla knowledge thread part 1

Huge-Ben

Hello and welcome to the official godzilla knowledge thread part 1, I am your host bigbadben. This will be a monthly thread that i myself, gman2887, and if lucky chris picard will be covering. Despite us covering these topics, we felt the need that many of you are wanting to further your knowledge with all things godzilla and if some of you have some information that we may not know, feel free to let it fly because this is the purpose of these monthly threads that will be popping up, sharing and learning all information on godzilla that we can provide. :)

So that being said, looks like i will get things going. Tomoyuki Tanaka the executive producer of many godzilla films was working for the company TOHO and was one of the few people who got to witness first hand on the destruction of the atomic bombs. While working for TOHO he had wanted to create a movie evolving around the atomic bombs, rumor has it while traveling in a plane over the pacific ocean, an idea had came to his mind. What if there was a giant prehistoric animal that was reawakened by the atomic bombs?

While godzilla was in early production, the original title for the movie was actually called "project G" Which the g stood for giant at the time being. One of the employees working for TOHO suggested that they name the movie "GOJIRA" Which come to find out was the stage name of a comedian. Godzilla was heavily influenced by the films King Kong 1933 and the beast from 20,000 fathoms. Eiji Tsuburaya was the man responible for creating, designing, and film making the special effects for godzilla. Akira Ifukube scored the music, and Ishoro Honda directed the film.

 If Tsuburaya had done the same stop motion as King Kong, the film would have taken seven years to make, but tsuburaya knew of an actor who could pull things through in the three months they had to work on the film. Harou Nakajima was given the job as the suit actor and as a back up suit actor, Katsami Tezuka was also given part of the job as well.

In summer 2004, 50 years after its debut, the japanese classic gojira played in cinemas all across the united states for the first time ever. Not the heavily re-edited version starring Raymond Burr, but the original picture that first unspooled in tokyo on november 3, 1954, and had rarely been seen outside of japan since then. The critics called it a revelation, and praised the film's thinly veiled depiction of a nuclear holocaust, its do***entary-style realism, its overpowering sadness, and of course its monster-mash entertainment value. So in other words gojira is the most emotionally resonant fake monster movie ever made.

When comparing hollywood's vintage giant monster movies to that of TOHO's, the godzilla movies possess an alluring and mysterious quality that made hollywood's just plain dull in comparison.

Ok, now then since this is just a start to what is to come, please feel free to share your knowledge as well. :)

JRR

Godzilla whas heavilli inspired by beast of 20000 phatoms, it originally whas tittled The Giant Monster from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and whas gonna have a ligthhouse scene simillar to the one in beast of 20000 phatoms.

t also whas originally planed to use Stop motion to make the speciall efects, but they where to expensive and time consumming

Huge-Ben

@catzilla,

Dude i am still updating this thread.

The King of the Monsters

Very insightful, the only untrue part of that post is the origin of Godzilla's name. There are many stories about how the name "Gojira" was created, most of them just urban legends. The true story according to Ishiro Honda, was that the original design for the creature supposedly looked like a cross between a gorilla and a whale. The words for gorilla and whale in Japanese are "gorira" and "kujira" respectively. They named the creature "Gojira" by combining these two words. The final design for Godzilla does not resemble a gorilla-whale hybrid, but they kept the name because Godzilla was strong and powerful like a gorilla, and was massive and spent the majority of his time underwater like a whale.

Huge-Ben

^That maybe true, however through commentary on the classic media dvd release of the original gojira film by ed godziescki says different. It's all higly debateable and like i said this is for all of us to come together here, through knowledge of godzilla. :)

JRR

if i rememebr correctly in a do***entary Honda's wiffe said her husband didn't name it for a person

G. H. (Gman)

^I'm honestly to the point where I think we'll never really know the true origins of Godzilla's name. Enough legends and myths around that have stiffled the air that it seems like something lost to myth-- Not entirely untrue, just perhaps glorified.

Huge-Ben

@catzilla,

Tsuburaya also wanted to do a monster film as well ever since he watched king kong. I would like to know about this do***entary that you speak of as well. ;)

Huge-Ben

That's the thing gman2887, they might have just pulled it out of thin air for all we know, like you said there are many rumors around that issue.

JRR

i alwhays wonder if we will ever see those 2 lost toho king kong movies

Huge-Ben

^I doubt it.

Sci-Fi King25

I like the idea of this being a monthly thread.