Gaiking

[king_ghidorah]

[Shonokin]

[king_ghidorah]

[Shonokin]

Yeah, just something about this reads like an episode of Balloon Boy or LA Prius Guy. You know, something about how it's written just ring false all the way through. It's all vague and full of "I know a guy that knows a guy who works with a guy... etc".

As for nicely produced pranks, don't forget about trailer.

I'd love to see a live action movie like this. But think it's problematic sell to an American film industry to say the least. Especially with the failure of Astroboy and the relative obscurity of "Shogun Warriors" to a contemporary young adult audience. A very hard sell indeed.

[AVERY GUERRA]

Now...he says more will be put up on Monday.....I guess we'll see then if this is just an elaborate April Fool's Day joke. Now I hope it is true but....

The early concept teaser trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS6E-Nu3xsg

[August]

HD Teaser/test footage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS6E-Nu3xsg

[Baltan II]

I have my doubts, but not so much the viability of the film's existence or production on some level. We still got that Imagi Tetsujin 28 clip even though the film itself never made it to fruition. I'm looking at this project being a lot like that. Look forward to more info on Monday, preferably stuff such as how multiple life-size robot models are supposed to be funded. It's not impossible, but that gives me more pause than the licensing involved.

If this is an April Fool's joke, nice as it looks, I wouldn't be surprised, but I certainly wouldn't be laughing.

[August]

This is an international co-production between Toei Animation and several foreign investments (GAIKING and the other Super Robots are huge in Europe and South America to this day, with big fan bases). The production was officially announced yesterday at the Tokyo International Anime Fair:

http://gigazine.net/index.php?/news/com ... ng_making/

Building full scale robot props, is hardly impossible. Hollywood has been building massive sets for years, and this is no different. The only question is money. For 1967's Bond film, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, they build the largest set, ever for the series:

Ken Adam's volcano set was constructed at Pinewood Studios outside London and consisted of a movable helicopter platform, a working monorail system, a launch pad and a full scale rocket mock-up that could simulate lift-off. 700 tonnes of structural steel and 200 miles of tubular steel were used. Adam once said that the set used more steel than that used for the London Hilton Hotel. The set also used 200 tonnes of plaster, 500,000 tubular couplings and over 250,000 square yards of canvas were all employed in the construction of the set which cost just over $1 million.

The set stood The 45 meters (120′) tall. Just about the size of a super robot...

Never say never...

[AVERY GUERRA]

I'm excited as this is mos def gonna rock! Anime News Network had the jump on A.I.C.N.;


http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/20 ... king-films

[Baltan II]

[August]

[king_ghidorah]

[Baltan II]

[August]

[August]

[king_ghidorah]

[August]

[king_ghidorah]

[ultrazilla2000]

The Gaiking trailer looked fantastic! I hope this will do well, and maybe open the doors for a Mazinger Z movie, and maybe even a team up film someday. I love these old school bots.

I'm not so sure about the whole "life size robots" being built though. Would they just be a giant, unmovable statue to pose as the robot in resting phase? Would it be movable? A movable one seems highly unlikely, and BOTH seem far too expensive for this film. I just don't see it happening. I mean, WHY?!? The CGI scenes in the city looked perfect, and are a hell of a lot more cost effective! Ugh...I'm just calling BS on that one. At least they dream big.

[mr.negativity]

From /film:


From Heat Vision:

[quote="Borys Kit"]
Heat Vision: What can you tell us about the genesis of the "Gaiking" movie?

Jules Urbach: It came out of our work with Fincher. We were talking about doing something for "Heavy Metal."

At the time, it was Kevin Eastman and a few other guys that were going to do a bunch of shorts for him, and he said to me, "I can give you seven minutes if you come up with something cool." And being such a huge fan of these properties, I had been touch with Toei for years. Going back to 2002, I've been asking them to the rights of "Captain Harlock." And it turned out that the rights to "Gaiking" were more or less available.

So when Fincher's project came up, I said I want to do a super robot short. And he said sure, but you got to pick two "Heavy Metal" songs. So I picked Nightwish's "Dark Chest of Wonders" and "Planet Hell," and went ahead planning out a seven-minute "Gaiking" short with Toei's blessing.

But "Heavy Metal," it was at Paramount at one point, it was at another studio, then Cameron got involved, and it lost its home. We ended up taking "Gaiking" and just worked on it and worked on it, and it kept building and building.

And at some point, Toei said, "Wait a minute, you guys can do a whole movie now at this quality." They backed us and then other people came on board and we were able to turn this into a pretty big film.

HV: "Transformers" is pretty huge. and there's a "Voltron" movie in the works. Is there room for something like "Gaiking" that isn't that well known here?

Urbach: "Voltron" really took off because of the great cartoon. "Gaiking" never had that and neither did "Shogun Warriors" as a whole. The only thing we had was "Four Spies" here in the U.S. And that was only shown on the East coast for a little bit. I can only imagine how this property would have been perceived if we had a normal cartoon.

In France or Italy, this is bigger than Spider-Man. Toei understands this will do very well in Europe, where the cartoon is well-known. They approached us because they wanted somebody outside Japan to take a crack at this.

Our goal was to figure out a way that would be appealing to an American audience. And while there's a lot of people who played with the toys, we are not counting on any of that. For most people, this will be completely new.

And I think we did a good job introducing it, even from that little teaser. It's just been exciting to be introducing it to a lot of people and seeing their reaction.

HV: Are you worried about the title being a little inaccessible? Why not go with "Shogun Warriors"?

Urbach: We wanted to introduce one robot and thought it should be the focus of the film. It's like you want to introduce Superman before you introduce the Justice League, right?

The title is something that we're still looking at. It's in the mix. We are very aware of the possible limitations. I can't speak for Toei, so I can't speak how it will be used in the marketing of that film. We just want to use it wisely.

HV: There was a time when there were a lot of giant robot cartoons. And now with special effects technology being where it is, we're poised for a movement in movies. What do you think is the appeal of giant robots?

Urbach: Gaiking and those kinds of robots, you're talking about giant robots that are piloted by humans. You're not talking about Transformers, where they are their own characters. These robots are the extension of the pilots; they are really like giant suits of armor. So it's really the people inside them that are the characters. That is a huge differentiator. Gaiking is one pilot. It's really the pilot expressing himself through this giant mecha.
[b]
HV: So what's the status of “Gaikingâ€

[mr.negativity]

[klen7]

[king_ghidorah]

More news everyone!!!

I'm sorry, but for some reason this teaser. concept video gets me more amped than Pac Rim...

http://collider.com/gaiking-live-action ... ore-218726

Hell. The Always 2 Godzilla stuff gets me more amped than the Pac Rim teaser...

[MekaGojira3k]

Cool. I think I like it more than Pac Rim because I like this design, so I tend to care more about seeing it in motion.

[jellydonut25]