Godzilla’s 70th birthday is right around the corner, and fans attending New York Comic Con are getting to celebrate a little bit early. With Bandai designating a whole section of their booth to Godzilla and many vendors selling Godzilla art and merchandise, love for the Big G is very prevalent and impossible to go unnoticed.
While many con attendees made their way to afterparties on Saturday evening, Godzilla fans made their way to Room 409 for the “Godzilla vs NYCC: 70 Years of the King of the Monsters” panel where Toho International sat down with director Takashi Yamazaki to commemorate the anniversary and dive into the filmmaking process of Godzilla Minus One.
The panel started off with the first-look at “Godzilla: 70 Years Strong”, a tribute video that highlighted Godzilla’s best moments and the impact he’s had on cinema from his first film in 1954 to Godzilla x Kong and everything in between (except Godzilla 1998). This tribute not only instilled the monster’s legacy, but assured that “Godzilla’s journey is far from over”, and with the influx of people filling the panel room to capacity, this statement is sure to age extremely well.
After this sentimental retrospective, that personally had me on the edge of tears, Yamazaki was introduced. With a golden Godzilla figure in hand, he received a standing ovation before the moderator, Mike (who also served as our translator), could even finish calling him out to the stage.
Mike and Yamazaki began the panel with general discussion about Minus One’s production,promotion, and, of course, the Best VFX win at the 96th Academy Awards. Yamazaki explained his biggest memories from the Oscars and how he was 50/50 on whether or not the movie would win.
“I figured it was better to be safe than sorry, so the day before the awards, I drafted a speech in Japanese and had Mike translate it to English for me through a text. Since I was unsure if I would win, I couldn’t really go all out, so I just kept it casual and just doodled Mike’s translation onto a piece of paper. Come the day of the Oscars, we won. I took out my speech and I couldn’t read my handwriting. So here I am on stage, I’m nervous as heck, Shibuya whispers ‘You have 45 seconds’, and I can’t read my own writing. But I did my best, and we got through it.”
We also got insight on what it was like for Yamazaki being the writer, director, and VFX supervisor for Minus One. “For me, whenever I create something, I don’t necessarily see those different disciplines as different per se. It’s all filmmaking to me.
It’s one process throughout the production of a film. And this happens sometimes where I’m on set, I’m directing, and I’ll look at the screenplay going, ‘Who the heck wrote this screenplay?’ And then when I’m the VFX supervisor, I look at the shots in post-production and go, ‘What director thought I could VFX this shot?’”
As we all know by now, Godzilla Minus One will return to theaters on November 1st. This news was revealed with the release of a brand new poster designed by Yamakzaki, which each attendee of the panel was able to take home.
“For the rerelease, I was told that they were going to make a new poster, and I thought, hey, can I make some suggestions? And I began doodling.”, Yamazaki explained. “There is this poster for the North American IMAX release where Godzilla is battling the battleship Takao. I thought it was a really cool poster, but in my mind, the size ratio between the Battleship and Godzilla didn’t make sense, Godzilla’s way too big. In my initial concept, I created a poster that showed the scale of the size between Godzilla and it’s a Takao, so I sketched it out, but it lacked that certain impact. So I made him a little bigger, and then a little bigger, and then a little bigger again, until I came up with what you see here. He’s actually twice the size of what he should be, standing at around 100 meters tall in the poster.”
Aside from that, fans were also fortunate enough to get a sneak peak at a new movie theater exclusive video that will play during the rerelease and feature never before seen behind the scenes of the VFX process.
Following the new behind the scenes video, Mike and Yamazaki did a giveaway in which 3 lucky and knowledgeable fans got to take home a NYCC limited edition gold Godzilla figure from Bandai for
correctly answering trivia questions about Minus One.
Godzilla © & TM Toho Co., Ltd.
The lights then dimmed again as another video was played to commemorate Godzilla’s 70th anniversary featuring some special messages from members of the Godzilla fandom. One would think we would get a first look at the video Toho is putting together featuring fan submitted videos talking about what Godzilla means to them, but that was far from the truth. Instead, this video included messages from the likes of Minami Hamabe (Godzilla Minus One), Shinji Higuchi (Dir. Shin Godzilla), Lucasfilm Creative Director Dave Filoni, Yumiko Shaku (Godzilla X Mechagodzilla), O’Shea Jackson Jr. (Godzilla: King of the Monsters), Jordon Vaught Roberts (dir. Kong: Skull Island), Masaaki Tezuka (dir. Godzilla vs. Megaguirus), and video game designer legend Hideo Kojima.
To close things off, the panel was open up to questions from the audience, with everyone immediately raising their hands, eager to ask Yamazaki a question. During the Q&A, we learned about Yamazaki’s admiration for a certain smog monster, the backstory of the Godzilla shoes from the red carpet, and how Yamazaki got emotionally invested in the character.
Q: “If you can remake or see any previous Godzilla movie be remade, which would it be and why?”
Yamazaki: “Godzilla vs. Hedorah. I think that for its time, Hedorah was a very cutting-edge kaiju, and thinking about the type of visual expression we can do with technology and how far it’s come today – I’m imagining how it would move, and I think that would be a really cool remake.”
Q: “The Godzilla shoes you wore to the Oscars, whose idea was that and who designed them?”
Yamazaki: “It was one of the producers on the film. His name was Shida. He had done a similar collaboration on a different film, but he figured it could be done for Godzilla also. Initially, it was only made for myself and very select cast members, and it was done by a designer in Japan named Hazama. When we saw Minus One starting to become a big thing and we made the Oscars, Hazama said, “You know what, let’s make more of these.” So that’s why we were all able to wear them to the Oscars. And now you can actually purchase them online, which is really cool to see – how it started from an idea, all the way to a released product.”
Q: “When my son and I went to see the film, we had differing opinions on whether or not Noriko should have died. Was there any draft of the script where she didn’t survive?”
Yamazaki: “Truth be told, the very first draft, Noriko dies. So I read it over and over again, and I thought, “Can we really do that to Shikishima? After all those journeys, all the hills and mountains he had to climb, defeating Godzilla, he’d come home, and there was no one? That would just be too tragic.”
Q: “What got you emotionally attached to Godzilla?”
Yamazaki: “When I saw Godzilla for the first time as a child, it was terrifying. But being scared in a way is an emotional reaction that moves your heart, so I think I was so scared of Godzilla that I kind of fell in love with him.”
After that final heartfelt answer the panel came to a close with another standing ovation. Attending this panel that celebrated the 70 years of Godzilla will forever be etched in my mind and will always have a special place in my heart. Not only was it a great outlet to indulge in my love of Godzilla, but it reminded me why I love Godzilla. Sitting there with hundreds of fellow fans, watching the retrospective videos, hearing Yamazaki passionately talk about what it was like to make Minus One, it really embodied Godzilla’s legacy and how the franchise brings people together and inspires them. I was moved, I was hyped, and sitting there front row only 15 feet from Takashi Yamazaki was such a thrill. “Godzilla vs NYCC: 70 Years of the King of the Monsters” has taken its rightful place as the best convention panel I have ever attended.
