Monster Zero x SciFi Japan - Archive Only

I'm just curious to be honest, why do you think Ishio Honda is important, or was he? What did Honda do for film? And lets just write off the answer 'He made "Gojira".' What was so important about that in the grand scheme of filmmaking and what influences did his hand have on the industry (Japanese or otherwise.) I'm intrested to hear some opinions on this.

Ummmm making Godzilla is the important thing he did. Obviously the influence he had was inventing the post 1954 kaiju genre. Yeah,there had been monsters before,but when you see a post 1954 monster film,it's usually patterned after Godzilla,not King Kong.

Well, the Godzilla films, as well as other films like the Mysterians, Rodan, Mothra, Matango, Monster Zero, Destroy All Monsters, War of the Gargantuas, etc. influenced people like Steven Spielberg (Jurassic Park and Jaws are pure Honda style film making), George Lucas, Martin Scorsese (who would later become a friend of Honda's), Quentin Tarantino, Stan Winston, Tim Burton, John Carpenter, etc. when they were young and really helped them get into film and special effects. Akira Kurosawa was also best friends with Honda and a big fan of the kaiju movies. These are some of the most important film makers of our generation, so I think that's pretty damn important.

His films have a real flare for great "every day" characters and the scripts always flow very well with what's on screen. Honda's films have a very natural flow and progression to them and are very character driven.

I maybe one of the few only people that feels there more good kaiju films with in-depth messages and symbolisim than just the original Godzilla. The movie represents the horrors Japan went through with the nuclear bomb. Terrible thing to happen but when you consider what Japan has done in the past and the fact some of them still live in this delusional world were they are victims, everybody else are the aggressors, it's hard to fully sympathize with them. All I can is how awful the bomb must of been but that's about it. Not enough to make damn America and its awful creation.



Ishiro Honda cleary was a man against war and I admire him for that. Does anybody what ''inccidents'' or ''battles'' he was in WWII or if he ever went to a prision camp?

Honda was merely a very good director (one of my absolute favorites). He was a huge part of the birth of the Japanese sci-fi and fantasy genre, as a whole. But aside from having a significant influence on Akira Kurosawa's later films (and Stray Dog), I don't think anything he's done was all that important to film, in general. Aside from being a great film, the original Godzilla is a strong political statement/personal commentary on war, etc., and arguably Honda's best film. It spawned a genre, and supposedly inspired a truck-load of film geeks that went on to become successful in their own right (where the hell is Steven Spielberg and George Lucas when everyone else is dogging these movies? I thought they were SO INSPIRED by Honda, Tsuburaya, etc.). As great as films like Matango and Rodan are, however, they are only great films. Two of many, many, MANY great films that have been made over the years. Ishiro Honda is one of filmdom's great craftsman (not artists, although there are similarities between the two), but it's not like he ever changed the world with anything he did, the film world or anything else, for that matter.

Alright, well I have never read, or heard any of these guys say anything about these movies, so that is my mistake. And no, I do not expect them to "stand on a soap box," and defend the Godzilla films. However, when George Lucas talks about Star Wars, and its influences, he brings up Saturday morning TV serials, like "Flash Gordon," and he talks about Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress. Where is Battle In Outer Space (you KNOW that's not just a coincidence how similar both BIOS and SW's fight scenes are)? Is he afraid of being ridiculed? Probably not, but I wouldn't be surprised if he made a point to leave that one out.

^ But that's why he doesn't give credit. The films are TOO similar and he doesn't want to seem like a copycat. The same reason he won't acknowledge that he's watched StarBlazers.

What about the mysterians? The first thing that popped into my head when I saw Kenji Sahra's character break into the dome was Star Wars.

The Mysterian Dome is the Death Star! The Mysterian Leader is Darth Vader! What's wrong with you people? Dammit, can't you people see that!? j/k

But seriously, for a more Japanese fantasy film connection to STAR WARS, sit down, watch and pay attention to the plot of THE MAGIC SERPENT. Seriously.

Ishiro Honda is important, because he took the material — the concept of a monster attacking Japan — and came up with the idea that the film should be approached as a documentary style: "What if this event happened in the real world?" So, he wrote the screenplay and directed the film in that manner. Much like Shusuke Kaneko did with his GAMERA trilogy some forty-one years later.