Ishiro Honda and Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster (???)

[MouthForWar]

So I just started reading Peter Brothers' book Mushroom Clouds and Mushroom Men: The Fantastic Cinema of Ishiro Honda. During one section in the book he mentions that Ishiro Honda had brief involvement in Godzilla vs Hedorah. Now, this is all news to me and I thought I'd ask what you guys think. I know behind the scenes info on these films is hard to find in the English language, which is why I'm not disputing any of the claims Brothers makes in the book. But there aren't any quotes or any mention of where the info came from, so hopefully Ed, Norman, August or someone else can come in and shed some light on this.

Anyway, the story according to Brothers is that when Tanaka was in the hospital he called Honda (who had at this point left Toho) and asked him to visit the set of Hedorah and check on Banno's progress and view a rough cut of the film. When Honda came back to Tanaka and told him that he thought a few scenes should be redone, Tanaka asked Honda to do some reshoots. Banno didn't like this idea and asked Honda to basically lie to Tanaka and tell him only a couple changes needed to be made. Brothers then says that Tanaka saw the final cut of the film and hated it and Tanaka felt the whole "debacle" could have been prevented had Honda supervised Banno's film more carefully.. Brothers then says its unknown if Honda did any reshoots or which scenes he would have done. But he theorizes that the scene of Hedorah interrupting the jam session on the mountain, the scene of the aerobics class, and the scene of Ken reacting to the remains in the street were all directed by Honda.

Now, AGAIN, I'm not trying to call Brothers out or dispute this information, its just that I've NEVER even heard a peep of this before and the story doesn't really make much sense to me (why would Tanaka call Honda instead of just ask someone else on staff to keep tabs on Banno?). I know English language info about this stuff is hard to come by. So I'm hoping a well versed expert like August, Ed, etc. can verify this.

What do you guys think? I thought this would be an interesting topic.

[Giganfan]

Very interesting. I can't shed any more light on the subject than you already have, MouthForWar, because I, too am just learning this as I read your post.

I will say this though. I have always felt that Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster would have been a perfect film for auteur, Honda. The environmental aspect was right up his alley, and I think that even though the series was headed in a more juvenile direction (Honda proved he could make a mini-masterpiece of a kid's movie with the previous Godzilla adventure), Honda could have made some really profound commentary with this story. At any rate, I'm almost positive that we wouldn't have been subjected to Godzilla tucking his tail between his legs, and flying a**-backwards. A scene that I've always found oddly amusing, but that infuriates most serious Godzilla fans.

I love Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster the way it is. However, it's interesting to think of the "what if" scenario of Ishiro Honda having anyhting to do with that particular film. Nothing there looks to have been shot by him, so I highly doubt he actually "ghost-directed" at the request of Tanaka, even if Tanaka did ask him to. But then again, you never know.

I look forward to learning more, and will be watching this thread closely.

[kiryugoji04]

[MekaGojira3k]

[ebirahsmeg1]

Very interesting comments from Banno regarding Honda giving advice on the set of GvstheSmogMonster....never heard this before.

By the way, I had no idea Brett Homenick moved to Japan...when did this happen? Regardless, kudos to him...I was always interested in learning Japanese and visiting the Japan, but never could during my University and early business/career years...I made the decision to leave all that behind and start fresh in Japan, and haven't looked back since...I strongly recommend it to others who are stuck in a rut in their lives and are looking for a change...this is the perfect place to do it, especially if you're interested in Japanese culture via Godzilla/daikaiju films...

[Cookie]

[ebirahsmeg1]