How Godzilla 2014 Should Have Begin

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As much as I love the new “Godzilla” movie, I never liked the official trailer where the story was about a distraught husband who loses his wife and seeks revenge on the monsters. The distraught husband (and father) bites the dust about 30 minutes into the movie, setting up the adult son to save his wife and child from the monsters. When How It Should Have Ended did their video re-take for Godzilla, the conceit from the trailer got dispatched immediately. Tossing in the Jaegar from “Pacific Rim” and Superman from “Man of Steel” was a nice touch.

Big Wow Comicfest 2014 – New Godzilla Movie

Big Wow Comicfest 2014 Godzilla PosterWith the Big Wow Comicfest 2014 and the new “Godzilla” movie converging on the same weekend, it was no surprise that special screenings were held at the Camera 12 Cinemas. Special guest appearances included Kenpachiro Satsuma (Godzilla 1984-1995), Bin Furuya (Ultraman) and Daisuke Ban (Kikaidia & Inazuman) from Japan, and introductions by author August Ragone, who became the teenaged Japanese film and Godzilla expert to Bob Wilkin’s “Creature Features” and “Captain Cosmic” TV shows in the 1970’s.

My friend and I went to the Friday night showing. Surprisingly, it was in theater 12. Last year we saw a special showing of “Star Trek Into The Darkness” at the AMC Cupertino Square with an enthusiastic crowd (i.e., screaming, shouting and hollering), and at the Camera 12 with a less enthusiastic crowd (i.e., deader than zombies) during a Saturday afternoon break from the comficfest. A huge difference. The Godzilla crowd that night was enthusiastic. One guy who stood in line behind us had seen the new Godzilla movie three times already, showing pictures of his expensive Godzilla toy collection on his cellphone, and swapping stories about past Godzilla movies with my friend.

Ragone welcomed everyone to the special Big Wow screening and introduced his Japanese guests. Satsuma asked everyone to stand up to go through the motions of being Godzilla without the rubber suit. Furuya had everyone do the signature hand-and-arm gestures of Ultraman. They didn’t stay for the Friday night showing, as they just arrived straight from the San Jose International Airport from Japan. They did see the Saturday night showing. At the Sunday morning Godzilla panel, Ragone reported that Satsuma gave his approval to the new Godzilla movie with a hearty chuckle (unlike the Chicago showing of the Godzilla 1998 movie which he didn’t approve at all).

As for the movie itself, it was a lot better than I expected. I feared that the new movie would follow Godzilla 1954 too closely, revealing all of Godzilla only until the last 18 minutes of the movie. Hints of Godzilla as a force of nature from the World War II atomic bombings of Japan to the Cold War nuclear tests in the South Pacific to a nuclear power plant disaster in Japan got sprinkled liberally throughout the first half of the new movie. When the new monsters make their full appearances in the second half, Godzilla wasn’t far behind them to kick some monster ass in the San Francisco Bay Area. This being a Silicon Valley audience, we hooted and hollered at many familiar landmarks.

My friend and I skipped the “Creature Features” presentation of “Night of The Living Dead” with former host John Stanley and the Saturday night showing of Godzilla. (We saw “Horror Express” with Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Telly Savalas at last year’s “Creature Features” presentation.) Driving over to Century Theatre at Pacific Commons in Fremont, we saw Godzilla on the larger XD screen in Dolby Atmos surround sound. I saw more details and heard more sounds at this theater than I did at the Camera 12. A better viewing experience for an awesome Godzilla movie.

Big Wow Comicfest 2014 – North Korean Monster Movie (Video)

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One of the stranger stories to come out of Big Wow Comicfest 2014 (May 16-17, 2014) was the true story of a South Korean movie director, Shin Sang-ok, being kidnapped by the North Korean government to produce a 1985 monster movie called “Pulgasari” (available on Youtube with English subtitles), reportedly because the son of Kim Il-sung was a huge Godzilla fan, and later escaped from the regime. From what I read elsewhere on the Internet, the movie was so awful that it’s pretty good.

Big Wow Comicfest 2014 – Godzilla Dances (Video)

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A Godzilla cosplayer dances to the Rock Band video game rendition of “Godzilla” by Blue Oyster Cult at Big Wow Comicfest 2014 (May 16-17, 2014). The first time I used my new iPhone 5C for recording a video. The most obvious mistake was recording in the vertical position, which required downloading a plugin for iMovie to flip the video and add black bars to either side. I won’t be making that mistake again.

Big Wow Comicfest 2014 – Pictures

With the 60th anniversary of “Gojira” and a new film coming out on the same weekend, Godzilla was king of the monsters at Big Wow Comicfest 2014 (May 16-17, 2014).

 

When Godzilla Comes To San Francisco

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According to this Snickers candy bar commercial, Godzilla is a regular guy. (I’m assuming that Godzilla is a “guy,” although the 1998 American movie with Matthew Broderick turned “him” into an asexual iguana.) He flirts with the girls at the beach, rides an ATV on a dirt course, can slam down a Ping-Pong ball like a Japanese master, and becomes the center of the party. Unless he gets hungry, grows to skyscraper height, and starts trashing the place. His friends unwrap a Snicker candy bar to throw into his mouth, returning him to regular guy size and everyone watches him go water skiing.

With the new Godzilla movie coming out in May, I’ve been trying to avoid any pre-release news (i.e., I’ll see the trailer if it appears at the movie theater). Alas, my roommate is the biggest Godzilla fan in the world. Any Godzilla-related news that hits the Internet gets repeated to me within minutes. This week’s news trend is what the brand new Godzilla toys say about the forthcoming movie.

The synopsis for the movie has Godzilla traveling from Japan, stomping through San Francisco, and getting wasted in Las Vegas. When he does come to San Francisco, we can give him some Snickers and send him down to Los Angeles for a thorough stomping. Las Vegas is only a short stroll through the desert from the burning City of Angles.