#kaijusaurus

[kaijusaurus]

Remember the Kaijusaurus Podcast? You won’t find it on your podcast provider anymore, but the entire series is archived on YouTube for your listening pleasure!

[astoundingbeyondbelief]

As the proud owner of a Yaoi Hands Gigan, I'm pretty delighted to see people rediscovering one of the strangest of all bootleg Godzilla toys. Some lore:

First documented by @mr-x-the-psychotic-fanatic on July 7, 2014, as part of a figure set based on the Godzilla: Kaiju World Wars game pieces. Some were sold loose, others packaged. @misscouchpotatobew just unearthed a gold variant of Yaoi Hands Gigan as well.

I apparently coined the Yaoi Hands Gigan name, although I'd have to boot up my old desktop to find the original message (Skype didn't store chats on the cloud until 2017).

The bootleg Kaiju World Wars figures weren't on eBay for very long, but @kaijusaurus miraculously found a loose Yaoi Hands Gigan for £4.99 in a Glasgow store called Geek-aboo and presented it to me at G-Fest 2016.

The figure can rotate its head, arms, and tail 360 degrees.

[raffleupagus]

GODZILLA vs. THE LAST GARGANTUA — episode 1 of the Kaijusaurus Podcast’s Godzilla Unmade mini-series, is out now!

Return to the Showa era of Godzilla movies with a new full-cast audio production, written and directed by Steven Sloss.

[daikaiju-yuki]

Listen to the end for an exclusive preview of the Pharaoh of Eels audio experience!

[a-dream-seeking-light]

[man-creates-dinosaurs]

ESSAY: JURASSIC CITY* Recently the hosts of the @kaijusaurus podcast covered the film GODZILLA VS MECHAGODZILLA II (Dir. Takao Okawara). Unfortunately Stephen and Ross didn’t think much of it. I, however, have always been a fan of this film (really there isn’t a Godzilla film I’m not a fan of, so maybe that’s not a fair metric by which to judge) so I wanted to offer a different perspective on the movie. GODZILLA VS MECHAGODZILLA II was released in 1993, the same year as JURASSIC PARK (Dir. Stephen Spielberg). As a result of their close production schedules it seems unlikely that either film was directly influenced by the other in any real way. Nevertheless one of the things which I find fascinating is how thematically similar the two films are. As noted by David Kalat, in the revised edition of his book A CRITICAL HISTORY AND FILMOGRAPHY OF TOHO’S GODZILLA SERIES (2010), the theme of GvsMG2 is “life verses artificial life” as articulated by MechaGodzilla pilot Lt. Berger (Sherry Sweeney). In the film we are introduced, for the first time, to G-Force; a United Nations scientific-military organization dedicated to the eradication of Godzilla and other monsters like him. To this end, G-Force has constructed two weapons: MechaGodzilla and Garuda - the second being a souped up fighter jet that can attach itself to MechaGodzilla’s back to provide the robotic doppelgänger with extra fire power. As a unit MechaGodzilla and Garuda stand in opposition to the dinosaurian-kaiju Godzilla and Rodan. The reason for their tussle? G-Force has recently come into the possession of (i.e. kidnapped) a baby Godzillasaurus which they want to study in order to build more effective anti-Godzilla weapons. As any viewer well versed in the genre of dinosaur and kaiju movies can tell you, taking a baby away from a parent is never a good idea. Didn’t work out in GORGO (1961, Dir. Eugène Lourié). Or in GAPPA (1967, Dir. Haruyasu Noguchi). Or in BABY: SECRET OF THE LOST LEGEND (1985, Dir. Bill L. Norton). And it isn’t going to work out here. As Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) would later say in THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK (1997, Dir. Stephen Spielberg) the only thing you succeed in doing in such an instance is making “mommy very angry.” As is to be expected, despite a tough battle, in the end Godzilla and Rodan triumph over man’s machines. As Kalat writes, the moral of the story is clear, “Humans cannot hope to build anything superior to what nature can create.” Thus organic life triumphs over artificial life. This sentiment has always struck me as being, in spirit, similar to Ian Malcolm’s pronouncement in JURASSIC PARK that “life finds a way.” If you don’t see it perhaps it’s necessary to back up and consider the bit of dialogue right before this, spoken by Malcolm to Jurassic Park’s creator John Hammond, after being told that the resident scientists are fully capable of completely controlling the park’s dinosaurs… “John, the kind of control you’re attempting simply is… it’s not possible. If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it’s that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh… well, there it is.” Just like the scientists in Jurassic Park, the scientists and soldiers working for G-Force are attempting to control nature; symbolized here by dinosaurs. Both in their capture and exploitation of the baby Godzillasaurus but also in their attempt to create better (i.e. artificial) versions of living creatures in the form of MechaGodzilla/Godzilla and Garuda/Rodan - this is an idea that the Jurassic Park franchise would not fully explore until the recent film JURASSIC WORLD (2015, Dir. Colin Trevorrow) which, as film critic and horror author Kim Newman observed, breaks the mold of previous JP films by bringing a certain “kaiju feel to the game.”** Of course in both cases mankind fails. The dinosaurs - whether they be Godzilla and Rodan or T. Rex and Velociraptors - break free, expand into new territories and crash through buildings, often violently. Despite our most advance technology - be it robotics or genetic engineering - mankind has yet to triumph over nature.                    *This is actually the title which GODZILLA VS MECHAGODZILLA II was released under in Hindi speaking markets. Clearly someone saw the connection between these two movies before me. **I both agree and disagree with Newman here. I agree that JURASSIC WORLD is far more like a kaiju movie then any previous JP film. I disagree however that it was the first film in the series to do this. In fact I would argue that the entire JP series owes a certain debt to the kaiju genre. The whole idea of Jurassic Park was anticipated 25-years prior by the Godzilla film DESTROY ALL MONSTERS (1968, Dir. Ishiro Honda) and Spielberg himself cited the original GODZILLA (1954, Dir. ishiro Honda) as a key influence on the first Jurassic Park. He also said that the climax of the second JP was added - it wasn’t a part of the original screenplay - because it fulfilled his lifelong desire to make a Godzilla-type film.         

[nuclear-warrior]

This arrived in the post today from good friend @stevenscrivello / @kaijusaurus! I am blown away by your generosity, Steven. Thank you so much!

[bluescarabguy]

It's really gratifying to hear this guys sing the praises of Godzilla 2000, my first movie in the series and still one of my favorites. Makes me want to rewatch the Japanese cut again, perhaps reevaluate my opinions on the two cuts.

Listening to the Kaijusaurus podcast. They just suggested that Shin Godzilla 2 should be all the alternate versions of Godzilla all team up and I am 100% on board.

[stevenscrivello]

Post-podcast dinner.

[astoundingbeyondbelief]

Kaiju Week in Review (February 19-25, 2023)

Those of you who've been around here for a while may recall the Kickstarter campaign for a documentary called Kaiju Gaiden, which aimed to interview directors of underseen independent kaiju films. I stress the campaign because despite clearing its $25,000 funding goal, the documentary was never completed. Director David Hall apparently took the money and ran, and while producer Mark Jaramillo vowed to finish the film, his last update was in 2018. Jaramillo also stopped posting on his personal Facebook page the same year. Myself and pretty much everyone else who gave the project a backwards glance figured he had simply given up and withdrawn from fandom to avoid further embarrassment. Or perhaps something had happened in his personal life that was more pressing than chronicling the adventures of a wolfman and some funny lizards. Kaiju Gaiden entered the (alarmingly voluminous) annals of kaiju vaporware, alongside the likes of Godzilla Zero Hour and Colossal Kaiju Combat.

Well, something did happen in his personal life. Fucking hell, did it happen. As Jules L. Carrozza revealed last Saturday, Jaramillo was in prison until recently for distributing child pornography online. I've been in touch with someone who's looked into this horrid story beyond what's available through Google (i.e. PACER), and they've confirmed that this is no case of mistaken identity. They also shared excerpts from the sentencing report. I will spare you the vile details. Suffice to say the man is a monster of the kind I wish only existed in the movies. He had started posted on Facebook again in October like nothing had happened, and I'm extremely grateful Carrozza came forward before he could stage some triumphant return at G-Fest or another con.

I aim to have Wikizilla's Kaiju Gaiden page updated by early next week; I feel bad for taking so long, but I want our citations to be unquestionable and can't search PACER myself until Monday. I also regret not including all this in the last week in review, since it did fall under its scope, if only just. Truth be told, I didn't know how the hell to present it alongside more routine kaiju news, Godziban especially.

I also wanted to give good old @kaijusaurus time to complete his Edward Snowden act. Back at G-Fest XXIII in 2016, Jaramillo transferred to him a bunch of indie tokusatsu obscurities and asked him to keep them to himself. Well, suffice to say that promise is off, and he's deposited the lot on archive.org and (when possible) YouTube. Give them a watch and let their lo-fi simplicity remind you why you fell in love with this stuff.

I'm glad they can be out in the world. Kaiju Gaiden ultimately made many of them less visible than they could have been until now. If you couldn't make it to G-Fest, you were shit out of luck. For those of us who could, those memories are thoroughly tainted. Mark Jaramillo didn't make any of them, and they don't deserve to be associated with him. His most enduring contribution to the kaiju genre will be playing a CIA agent in the excruciating God Raiga vs. King Ohga: War of the Monsters... alongside David Hall. Good fucking riddance.

[raffleupagus]

@kaijusaurus boys & me in Glasgow

[dabibabi]

rrrick:

kaijusaurus:

Mothra

[daikaiju-yuki]

Outrigger trailer for the story from the Scythian Frost anthology.

This short excerpt was made during the recording sessions for the Pharaoh of Eels audio version. Consider it a proof of concept for the style used in that production.

Narrated by Steven Sloss, written and featuring music by Raffael Coronelli.

[stuking]

I get that losing a loved one does make you a dick for a little while, right, but you didn't need to go making a fucking genetically spliced plant monster.

@kaijusaurus

Thank you for the best laugh of my evening.

[marc-anthony-macon]

@fuxkpizza @hokeoutsider @polyprog @frogfilm1999 @rollership @kaijusaurus @wormyorchids @imnotespecial @zimzott @hatingongodot

[stevenscrivello]

Future Kaijusaurus Podcast co-hosts back in the Spring of 2010.