TALKBACK #5: Ghidorah, The Three Headed Monster

[ebirahsmeg1]

[Jared]

^Sounds great, I just wish that Classic Media would port all of that over with subtitles...

Hybrid Gojira - there was only one King Ghidorah suit used in the 60's and 70's, just with various modifications over the years.

[jellydonut25]

I wish Classic Media would release blus. Their DVDs have a lot of interlacing issues.

[Jared]

Classic Media's DVDs have great presentation (extras, menus, packaging, etc), but the video and audio quality range from mediocre to terrible. It's a shame, considering they have five of the best films in the series.

[Russzilla]

[jellydonut25]

[Henry88]

[lhb412]

^CM put out that Gojira Blu-Ray several years ago, and if y'all remember the company who they got to do the HD master didn't do a good job and it was lambasted by critics and fans. It was kind of a boondoggle of a release, and since then they've been reluctant to do any rereleases.

[H-Man]

I wonder if Classic Media mastered its "restored" American versions in SD or HD. If all they have are SD elements and transfers then I'd bet that they would rather include the upscaled SD transfers than spend resources on updated versions. That or leave the English versions off altogether as they did with the 2009 Gojira Blu-Ray.

[Dr Kain]

[ebirahsmeg1]

I purchased the LEGENDARY MONSTER MAKER: KEIZO MURASE book a few months back (More info can be found at this link on August Ragone's blog:
http://augustragone.blogspot.jp/2015/08 ... 6.html?m=1) which has numerous rare, never before seen photos from Murase's career, spanning from Showa to Heisei eras.

One particularly interesting and rare photo that stands out is a blue King Ghidorah still:





My Japanese girlfriend translated to text caption. According to her, it is said in Japanese folklore that Yamata no Orochi was a greenish color. Drawing inspiration from Yamata no Orochi, they initially decided to go with a blu-ish color for KG(For those who are not familiar with Japanese culture, older Japanese texts, writings, and literature have always blurred the lines between the colors "blue" and "gree"n, with green often being lumped into "blue". For example, green traffic lights are often referred to as "blue" over here, and and Haiku poet Basho often described "the blue grass and blue trees" of spring. There was no real distinction between blue and green until crayola/crayons started appearing in the country in the early 1900s...very strange cultural tidbit.

[Mac]

Appreciate the picture, and the blue/green story.

Keep it up, ebirahmeg1!

[lhb412]

That's a really neat find.

Kind of off-topic, but I've heard the theory that the human perception of the color blue might be a fairly recent one (as in thousands of years) and that some cultural confusion or anomalies about blue may be traced back to that.

[lhb412]

The Walter Reade Organization, which released this one Godzilla film in the '60s and no other kaiju films, always seemed like this big question mark to me. Their Americanization gave Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster a unique feel among the movies of the era and even as a kid I knew something was a bit different about this one, at least as far as the dub was concerned. I only just realized they released another major monster movie: they originally distributed George Romero's Night of the Living Dead!

In fact, they're the ones who accidentally deleted the copyright notice and made that hugely successful movie public domain! What a bunch of morons!

[Benjamin Haines]

^ Since they released GT3HM on a double bill with Harum Scarum, would that also make this the only Godzilla movie to ever play as part of a Godzilla/Elvis double feature in American theaters?

[H-Man]

Walter Reade also released Godzilla versus The Sea Monster and Son of Godzilla, though obviously those went straight to TV.

[lhb412]

^They did? Totally different dubbing crew (the Hernandez folks) and approach to the Americanization. I always lumped them together with the AIP and UPA stuff.

[H-Man]

[lhb412]

Ha! So it was *impersonates Mike Nelson doing a fake Italian accent* "BELLUCCI PRODUCTIONS!"

[Giganfan]

If there is a "Rushmore Monument" of Toho's giant monster gallery, it is the four kaiju that appear in this, my very favorite Godzilla movie, and I'm over-the-moon that Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra and King Ghidorah will be headlining the next installment of the Legendary "Monsterverse".

[jellydonut25]

[Giganfan]

I'll give you Mechagodzilla most certainly belongs in the discussion. Not only has MG appeared in all four Godzilla time-lines (anime included), didn't Steven Spielberg's new movie feature A Mechagodzilla of some sort? Mechagodzilla has always been one of the very popular of Godzilla's opponents. But, I still say "the four titans" of Toho's monster gallery will always be the best. To see King Ghidorah come to life in this, and Monster Zero is what makes the suspension of disbelief it requires to watch these movies so much easier. The design, with it's attention-to-detail is perfect, and along with the man in the suit, I wonder how many teams of grips it took to operate the three heads, two wings and two tails, because I'm sure it was no picnic. It's a credit to Eiji Tsuburaya and his tokusatsu team that the result was such a homerun.

Sorry, that was just a random melding of things I wanted to say, that all kinda run together in a sloppy manner. Brain-farts, I guess lol!

[Kailem]

I think if it had to be only four, personally I probably would leave Mechagodzilla off and keep Rodan on. Rodan was an established classic monster for several years and many movies before MG debuted, despite how much of an undeniable A-lister he then went on to become. Plus I've always just preferred "real" monster characters to mechs/robots etc., so I've got some bias there.

But......it'd be a damn difficult decision.

[jellydonut25]

[Kailem]

Yeah but nobody remembers any of them like they remember Rodan.