The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies: The Lost Films
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The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies: The Lost Films
I picked up The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies: The Lost Films last week and have been pouring over it. ^_^
Lots of it things I sort of knew but never in much detail, and quite a bit that I thought I knew but turned out to just be rumors I first heard about in ‘90s issues of G-Fan.
Of the unproduced movies, I think my favorites are:
- The Volcano Monsters (1957) - What can I say? I’m a sucker for ‘50s giant monster movies, and this sounded like a cool idea for one.
- Batman meets Godzilla (1966) - My God, could you just IMAGINE??
- Two Godzillas: Japan S.O.S.! (1967) - You know, I can see how we got from this really cool concept to the much smaller scale (but also very fun) Son of Godzilla, but…geez, can you imagine how different the history of this franchise might’ve been if they introduced a Showa Godzilla Junior in Son of Godzilla instead Minilla? This would’ve been one of the very few solo Godzilla outings, with the only other kaiju being Junior and the two Godzillas battling the Japanese military. Probably my favorite of all the unproduced films I read in here, this one really captures my imagination.
- Tokyo S.O.S.: Godzilla’s Suicide Strategy (1973 - 1978) - The book seems unsure when this was supposed to be made, but either this was an alternative to what became Godzilla vs. Megalon or was the original intended follow-up to Terror of Mechagodzilla. Either way, I think it would’ve made for a really fun film!
- Godzilla vs. the Mysterians (1990) - This was a new one to me, I’d never heard of it before but it definitely sounds like an entertaining take - a better idea for a spoof kaiju film than It Ate Cleveland! at least (though I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t love It Ate Cleveland! if they’d actually made it).
- Godzilla Reborn (2001) - Geez, what a missed opportunity!
Has anyone else read it? What are your thoughts?
Lots of it things I sort of knew but never in much detail, and quite a bit that I thought I knew but turned out to just be rumors I first heard about in ‘90s issues of G-Fan.
Of the unproduced movies, I think my favorites are:
- The Volcano Monsters (1957) - What can I say? I’m a sucker for ‘50s giant monster movies, and this sounded like a cool idea for one.
- Batman meets Godzilla (1966) - My God, could you just IMAGINE??
- Two Godzillas: Japan S.O.S.! (1967) - You know, I can see how we got from this really cool concept to the much smaller scale (but also very fun) Son of Godzilla, but…geez, can you imagine how different the history of this franchise might’ve been if they introduced a Showa Godzilla Junior in Son of Godzilla instead Minilla? This would’ve been one of the very few solo Godzilla outings, with the only other kaiju being Junior and the two Godzillas battling the Japanese military. Probably my favorite of all the unproduced films I read in here, this one really captures my imagination.
- Tokyo S.O.S.: Godzilla’s Suicide Strategy (1973 - 1978) - The book seems unsure when this was supposed to be made, but either this was an alternative to what became Godzilla vs. Megalon or was the original intended follow-up to Terror of Mechagodzilla. Either way, I think it would’ve made for a really fun film!
- Godzilla vs. the Mysterians (1990) - This was a new one to me, I’d never heard of it before but it definitely sounds like an entertaining take - a better idea for a spoof kaiju film than It Ate Cleveland! at least (though I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t love It Ate Cleveland! if they’d actually made it).
- Godzilla Reborn (2001) - Geez, what a missed opportunity!
Has anyone else read it? What are your thoughts?
Last edited by Pkmatrix on Thu Jul 11, 2019 3:40 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies: The Lost Films
Fantastic book, it's a real treat for kaiju fans. Shame not many people seem to be talking about it
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Re: The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies: The Lost Films
Its a real fun book. Bride of Godzilla? and A Space Godzilla would have been insane.
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Re: The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies: The Lost Films
Maybe owners of this book could help update the main page with information?
*Looks at GKOTM’s box office numbers*
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Re: The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies: The Lost Films
On the one hand Bride of Godzilla sounds like a troll prank. Other hand...it sounds like it was basically split apart to make future Toho creatures like the proto Rodan.
Interesting how if Daiei had made that rat monster movie we might never have gotten Gamera.
Interesting how if Daiei had made that rat monster movie we might never have gotten Gamera.
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Re: The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies: The Lost Films
Did the book mention anything about Godzilla vs. Gargantua in it?
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Re: The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies: The Lost Films
There's a very brief mention, if I recall. It doesn't sound like it really was anything more than a suggestion by Saperstein, but when I get home I'll find the page and share what it says.mikelcho wrote:Did the book mention anything about Godzilla vs. Gargantua in it?
Added in 9 months 11 days 22 hours 11 minutes 42 seconds:
Let's...uh...pretend it hasn't been nearly a year, eh?mikelcho wrote:Did the book mention anything about Godzilla vs. Gargantua in it?
Here's the page it's mentioned (I've bolded the relevant part):
So, sadly, it seems if it ever existed at all it was nothing more than a mere idea.During the Godzilla Revival period of the late the late 1970s, not surprisingly Henry G. Saperstein threw his hat into the ring. However, details on just what Saperstein was for certain involved with is hard to confirm and is mostly relegated to the rumor mill.
One of the most far-fetched of these was entitled Godzilla vs. the Devil. First reported in issue #5 of Japanese Giants, the film was said to be a co-production between Henry G. Saperstein’s UPA and Toho with a proposed budget of $4 million and a screenplay by Reuben Bercovitch with an estimated running time of 110 minutes. In the proposed story, Godzilla would fight three demonic manifestations (somehow created by “the evil of mankind") in the form of a fish, a spider, and a bird before finally taking on the devil himself in the climax. Some fans later remarked that this three phase monster idea was remarkably similar to 1980's Godzilla Resurrected, which features the transforming monster Bagan who has a fish form, a flying form, and an ape form before mutating into a final stage comprised of all three. Plus, Tomoyuki Tanaka himself denied the Godzilla vs. the Devil rumors in Japanese Giants #6. For this reason, among others, Godzilla vs. the Devil was "debunked” in recent years in American fan circles. Contrary to this, amazingly Toho Tokusatsu Unpublished Works actually gives one fleeting mention of Henry G. Saperstein working with Toho on Godzilla vs. Devil in the year 1980... the same year that Godzilla Resurrected (aka "Godzilla vs. Bagan") was in development. This makes perfect sense, as many fans have said that "Godzilla vs. Devil” was actually just a working title for "Godzilla vs. Bagan."
Next up in the Saperstein rumor mill was Godzilla vs. Gargantua, a $6 million venture between Toho and UPA. As Saperstein was a huge fan of The War of the Gargantuas, this idea would seem to hold water except for the fact that Saperstein never mentioned this film in his numerous interviews with American fans.
For certain, Saperstein was involved in a script (possibly authored by Shinichi Sekizawa) called The Anger of Godzilla mentioned in Toho Tokusatsu Unpublished Works. The details are sparse but include a mysterious old man living in Aokigahara Forest named Dr. Shiratsuka. He tries to resurrect Godzilla's corpse, and eventually does so. There is also a curious mention of G "battling" a meteorite. Filming locations would have included Hawaii, San Francisco, Alaska, Venezuela, the Amazon, and the Himalayas. Apparently there were revisions on the American end of the production and the Venezuela scene was axed. Other than that, the only other detail known is that Fumio Tanaka would have produced alongside Tomoyuki Tanaka.
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Re: The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies: The Lost Films
Okay, thanks a lot! That helps.
Pity it was never more than an idea, though. It would've been very interesting to see, and it would've definitely placed both of the Toho Frankenstein films firmly into the Showa series (not that Frankenstein vs. Baragon wasn't already firmly in it for obvious reasons).
Pity it was never more than an idea, though. It would've been very interesting to see, and it would've definitely placed both of the Toho Frankenstein films firmly into the Showa series (not that Frankenstein vs. Baragon wasn't already firmly in it for obvious reasons).
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Re: The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies: The Lost Films
Saperstein and Toho definitely made a deal which involved a "Godzilla vs. Gargantuas" movie.
Variety, July 6, 1977: Third project will be another monster entry, "Gojira Vs. Gargantua," in association with Henry G. Saperstein's UPA Pictures. "We were offered more than five coproduction proposals," Tanaka said, "but we decided upon the three listed."
This was also reported in Screen International, July 23, 1977, by Nancy Hata.
Variety, July 6, 1977: Third project will be another monster entry, "Gojira Vs. Gargantua," in association with Henry G. Saperstein's UPA Pictures. "We were offered more than five coproduction proposals," Tanaka said, "but we decided upon the three listed."
This was also reported in Screen International, July 23, 1977, by Nancy Hata.
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Re: The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies: The Lost Films
Does TBBoJGMM mention Godzilla vs the Mysterians?
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Re: The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies: The Lost Films
Except, as the excerpt from LeMay's book said, there doesn't seem to be any hard evidence that the project ever actually existed. It seems to have been nothing more than hearsay that kept being passed around and published as fact since the late '70s. Hell, look at what the excerpt you posted actually says: of these, the only one that anyone is aware was an actual project at any point was the ill-fated Nessie. I've never heard of either The Time Machine Part II or Pender's People before, but I can't find anything on Google so far referencing anything like either project and, as we already know, Godzilla vs. Frankenstein never happened but the way this is worded implies that it was an actual released movie.Terasawa wrote:Saperstein and Toho definitely made a deal which involved a "Godzilla vs. Gargantuas" movie.
Variety, July 6, 1977: Third project will be another monster entry, "Gojira Vs. Gargantua," in association with Henry G. Saperstein's UPA Pictures. "We were offered more than five coproduction proposals," Tanaka said, "but we decided upon the three listed."
This was also reported in Screen International, July 23, 1977, by Nancy Hata.
The best explanation for Godzilla vs. Gargantua seems to be that it was an idea that Saperstein had and talked about, but that it never materialized into anything more than that.
There's an entire CHAPTER dedicated to Godzilla vs. the Mysterians!Cryptid_Liker wrote:Does TBBoJGMM mention Godzilla vs the Mysterians?
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Re: The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies: The Lost Films
Nice! I'm dying to know about Hira-Jin!Pkmatrix wrote:Except, as the excerpt from LeMay's book said, there doesn't seem to be any hard evidence that the project ever actually existed. It seems to have been nothing more than hearsay that kept being passed around and published as fact since the late '70s. Hell, look at what the excerpt you posted actually says: of these, the only one that anyone is aware was an actual project at any point was the ill-fated Nessie. I've never heard of either The Time Machine Part II or Pender's People before, but I can't find anything on Google so far referencing anything like either project and, as we already know, Godzilla vs. Frankenstein never happened but the way this is worded implies that it was an actual released movie.Terasawa wrote:Saperstein and Toho definitely made a deal which involved a "Godzilla vs. Gargantuas" movie.
Variety, July 6, 1977: Third project will be another monster entry, "Gojira Vs. Gargantua," in association with Henry G. Saperstein's UPA Pictures. "We were offered more than five coproduction proposals," Tanaka said, "but we decided upon the three listed."
This was also reported in Screen International, July 23, 1977, by Nancy Hata.
The best explanation for Godzilla vs. Gargantua seems to be that it was an idea that Saperstein had and talked about, but that it never materialized into anything more than that.
There's an entire CHAPTER dedicated to Godzilla vs. the Mysterians!Cryptid_Liker wrote:Does TBBoJGMM mention Godzilla vs the Mysterians?
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Re: The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies: The Lost Films
Did you click the link to the Variety clipping I shared (I would have posted the image directly except that it's big and I didn't wanna bother resizing it)? Tomoyuki Tanaka is quoted in the article, in fact, that's the relevant bit I typed out. It even says "projects were disclosed by Tomoyuki Tanaka". I would rate that far more than just "hearsay".Pkmatrix wrote:Except, as the excerpt from LeMay's book said, there doesn't seem to be any hard evidence that the project ever actually existed. It seems to have been nothing more than hearsay that kept being passed around and published as fact since the late '70s. Hell, look at what the excerpt you posted actually says: of these, the only one that anyone is aware was an actual project at any point was the ill-fated Nessie. I've never heard of either The Time Machine Part II or Pender's People before, but I can't find anything on Google so far referencing anything like either project and, as we already know, Godzilla vs. Frankenstein never happened but the way this is worded implies that it was an actual released movie.
The best explanation for Godzilla vs. Gargantua seems to be that it was an idea that Saperstein had and talked about, but that it never materialized into anything more than that.
The second article, published in Screen International, seems to be derived from the earlier Variety piece. And I've mentioned in another thread that the "Godzilla vs. Frankenstein" reference likely stems from the less precise research methods available in the 1970s. Someone working on the piece probably said "let's see if we can pull something from the file on previous Toho and Saperstein co-pros" and ran across one of the literally dozens of articles from the '60s talking about Saperstein/AIP's Godzilla vs. Frankenstein, which was touted at the time as one of AIP's 10th anniversary projects. In other words, someone probably saw that in the archive and didn't know that that film was never made as such.
Just because you haven't heard of the other projects doesn't mean they don't or didn't exist. Bill Warren covers Time Machine, Part II in his 21st century edition of Keep Watching the Skies, even including a brief summary of a plot, although he doesn't mention Toho's involvement. I'm not going to type out the whole thing here but:
Note how similar that is to the Variety summary of the plot.Pal was fond of the picture; it was probably his own favorite film. He often discussed doing a sequel, and had at least one script prepared. In the book The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Never Made, afterword author Harry Knowles reported that during a discussion with Ray Harryhausen, the famed animator casually mentioned having worked for some time on the Time Machine sequel with George Pal. Presumably this meant the movie would have had several large-scale stop-motion animation sequences.
In the first-announced sequel script, the Time Traveler was to go on ever farther into the future, as in the novel; Pal prepared moody sketches of this unimaginably distant time, with the prescribed crabs and the huge, dim sun on the horizon. But he also included giant insects and human beings who hide from them in huge honeycombs. The Time Traveler was to do for these people what he wanted to do for the Eloi. Harryhausen would have been responsible for realizing the crabs and insects, probably other creatures as well.
Warren also cites another Pal interview in Starlog #10. He also writes, "In 1981, Dell Books published the novel Time Machine II by George Pal and Joe Morheim. This was a novelization of the son-of-the-Time-Traveler script...", which of course is after the alleged Pal/Toho co-production was announced in the articles I shared. One could speculate that Pal tried to make his sequel throughout the '70s, at least, trying to link the project to Harryhausen and eventually Toho before it became too impractical to continue, and thus, with help, he published it as a book so as not to let all his work go to waste.
I'm not sure why you're more willing to trust a book published 40~ years after the fact over an article published literally the day after Tanaka and Saperstein inked a development deal, an article which even quotes the President of Toho. You talk about hearsay, and yes, I agree there's an element of hearsay in how "Godzilla vs. Gargantua" has been covered... but I think later works, such as LeMay's book, are probably more prone to that than an article that quotes Tomoyuki Tanaka himself. As far as I can tell, much of the fandom's current knowledge of "Godzilla vs. Gargantua" comes from a thorough piece about Saperstein in Filmfax #45 (July 1994). Scan of one page of the article at the bottom of the page here.
And to be clear, I'm not knocking John or his work. I haven't read his books but I know him (very casually, through another online group) and he's a good dude. But all authors are human and humans make mistakes. Furthermore, there is no easy, openly accessible way to sift through the thousands (millions?) of pages of trade magazines that covered all these films, made or unmade. Everything I share from Variety and BoxOffice and other mags comes from another fan's use of an (incomplete) database intended for educational use. The point is that a lot of information on some of these projects is not going to be on Google because said information exists in the pages of decades-old magazines which are not accessible to most people. No matter how much research any author will do, certain things can and will be overlooked.
We know nothing about the state of production from the Variety blurb but we do know that Tanaka had "set the deals" and Toho was "readying" the co-production. To me that sounds like more than "just an idea". At any rate, the Variety piece provides the "hard evidence" for the project.
(Edited because the original reply came off much harsher than intended. My apologies.)
Last edited by Terasawa on Tue Jul 28, 2020 8:28 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies: The Lost Films
When all's said and done, however...I still say it would've made one swell 1970s Godzilla film.
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Re: The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies: The Lost Films
I actually have Lemay's book right here. Notes Godzilla vs Gargantua:
- Supposedly it was going to be a $6 million project between Toho and UPA. Saperstein claims a treatment was written by Reuben Bercovitch.
- This project was also reported in the Japanese Fantasy Film Journal.
- Saperstein mentioned it to Stuart Galbraith in 1994 and to G-Fan magazine in 1995.
- Lemay quotes a website with a possible story but conveys that its from a website and to take the info with a grain of salt.
- Supposedly it was going to be a $6 million project between Toho and UPA. Saperstein claims a treatment was written by Reuben Bercovitch.
- This project was also reported in the Japanese Fantasy Film Journal.
- Saperstein mentioned it to Stuart Galbraith in 1994 and to G-Fan magazine in 1995.
- Lemay quotes a website with a possible story but conveys that its from a website and to take the info with a grain of salt.
Last edited by Godzilla21 on Tue Jul 28, 2020 8:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies: The Lost Films
Would anyone happen to own the "Mutated Edition" of The Lost Films? If so, how much more content does it have compared to the original release?
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Re: The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies: The Lost Films
...There was a link in your post?Terasawa wrote:Did you click the link to the Variety clipping I shared (I would have posted the image directly except that it's big and I didn't wanna bother resizing it)? Tomoyuki Tanaka is quoted in the article, in fact, that's the relevant bit I typed out. It even says "projects were disclosed by Tomoyuki Tanaka". I would rate that far more than just "hearsay".
*Looks again*
...Okay, I must be dumb. I read that at least three times and each time just thought that was just an underline, it never clicked that it might be a link!
I don't know why NONE of that came up when I Googled it, all I got were articles talking about The Time Ships and some documentary hosted by Michael J. Fox from 1993.Terasawa wrote:The second article, published in Screen International, seems to be derived from the earlier Variety piece. And I've mentioned in another thread that the "Godzilla vs. Frankenstein" reference likely stems from the less precise research methods available in the 1970s. Someone working on the piece probably said "let's see if we can pull something from the file on previous Toho and Saperstein co-pros" and ran across one of the literally dozens of articles from the '60s talking about Saperstein/AIP's Godzilla vs. Frankenstein, which was touted at the time as one of AIP's 10th anniversary projects. In other words, someone probably saw that in the archive and didn't know that that film was never made as such.
Just because you haven't heard of the other projects doesn't mean they don't or didn't exist. Bill Warren covers Time Machine, Part II in his 21st century edition of Keep Watching the Skies, even including a brief summary of a plot, although he doesn't mention Toho's involvement. I'm not going to type out the whole thing here but:
Note how similar that is to the Variety summary of the plot.Pal was fond of the picture; it was probably his own favorite film. He often discussed doing a sequel, and had at least one script prepared. In the book The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Never Made, afterword author Harry Knowles reported that during a discussion with Ray Harryhausen, the famed animator casually mentioned having worked for some time on the Time Machine sequel with George Pal. Presumably this meant the movie would have had several large-scale stop-motion animation sequences.
In the first-announced sequel script, the Time Traveler was to go on ever farther into the future, as in the novel; Pal prepared moody sketches of this unimaginably distant time, with the prescribed crabs and the huge, dim sun on the horizon. But he also included giant insects and human beings who hide from them in huge honeycombs. The Time Traveler was to do for these people what he wanted to do for the Eloi. Harryhausen would have been responsible for realizing the crabs and insects, probably other creatures as well.
Warren also cites another Pal interview in Starlog #10. He also writes, "In 1981, Dell Books published the novel Time Machine II by George Pal and Joe Morheim. This was a novelization of the son-of-the-Time-Traveler script...", which of course is after the alleged Pal/Toho co-production was announced in the articles I shared. One could speculate that Pal tried to make his sequel throughout the '70s, at least, trying to link the project to Harryhausen and eventually Toho before it became too impractical to continue, and thus, with help, he published it as a book so as not to let all his work go to waste.
'Cause this is literally the first I'm hearing of ANY of this! All I've ever heard for 25 years is "Godzilla vs. Gargantua was a movie, maybe, they considered in the '70s or '80s, maybe, possibly in a co-production with Saperstein". That's it. I've never heard anything more or read anything more in G-Fan or anywhere else to suggest anything different so LeMay saying, "sounds like it was just a rumor" just fulfilled my pre-existing expectation that it was nothing more than a rumor.Terasawa wrote:I'm not sure why you're more willing to trust a book published 40~ years after the fact over an article published literally the day after Tanaka and Saperstein inked a development deal, an article which even quotes the President of Toho. You talk about hearsay, and yes, I agree there's an element of hearsay in how "Godzilla vs. Gargantua" has been covered... but I think later works, such as LeMay's book, are probably more prone to that than an article that quotes Tomoyuki Tanaka himself. As far as I can tell, much of the fandom's current knowledge of "Godzilla vs. Gargantua" comes from a thorough piece about Saperstein in Filmfax #45 (July 1994). Scan of one page of the article at the bottom of the page here.
Like, is there a Godzilla vs. Gargantua thread around here somewhere I've never seen?? You're talking as if this is common knowledge when I've near heard ANY of it before!
(And for the record, I'm only vaguely aware Wikizilla exists. I think I've visited it maybe...once? Twice? And I don't think I looked at more than a page or two.)
Thanks for sharing it, but like I said everything you're saying is all new to me.Terasawa wrote:And to be clear, I'm not knocking John or his work. I haven't read his books but I know him (very casually, through another online group) and he's a good dude. But all authors are human and humans make mistakes. Furthermore, there is no easy, openly accessible way to sift through the thousands (millions?) of pages of trade magazines that covered all these films, made or unmade. Everything I share from Variety and BoxOffice and other mags comes from another fan's use of an (incomplete) database intended for educational use. The point is that a lot of information on some of these projects is not going to be on Google because said information exists in the pages of decades-old magazines which are not accessible to most people. No matter how much research any author will do, certain things can and will be overlooked.
We know nothing about the state of production from the Variety blurb but we do know that Tanaka had "set the deals" and Toho was "readying" the co-production. To me that sounds like more than "just an idea". At any rate, the Variety piece provides the "hard evidence" for the project.
(Edited because the original reply came off much harsher than intended. My apologies.)
Wait, where? That's not what it says in my copy... (see the excerpt I posted earlier).Godzilla21 wrote:I actually have Lemay's book right here. Notes Godzilla vs Gargantua:
- Supposedly it was going to be a $6 million project between Toho and UPA. Saperstein claims a treatment was written by Reuben Bercovitch.
- This project was also reported in the Japanese Fantasy Film Journal.
- Saperstein mentioned it to Stuart Galbraith in 1994 and to G-Fan magazine in 1995.
- Lemay quotes a website with a possible story but conveys that its from a website and to take the info with a grain of salt.
The WHAT????GigaBowserG wrote:Would anyone happen to own the "Mutated Edition" of The Lost Films? If so, how much more content does it have compared to the original release?
Last edited by Pkmatrix on Wed Jul 29, 2020 4:31 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies: The Lost Films
You must not have the Mutated Edition. Its all therePkmatrix wrote:
Wait, where? That's not what it says in my copy... (see the excerpt I posted earlier).
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Re: The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies: The Lost Films
I didn't know there even WAS a Mutated Edition! As I posted in the OP, I guess I have the original edition?Godzilla21 wrote:You must not have the Mutated Edition. Its all therePkmatrix wrote:
Wait, where? That's not what it says in my copy... (see the excerpt I posted earlier).
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Re: The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies: The Lost Films
Correct, I believe the Mutated Edition has a different cover. Been tempted to pick it up, but not sure if it has enough new stuff to warrant it... That, and "Writing Japanese Monsters".Pkmatrix wrote:I didn't know there even WAS a Mutated Edition! As I posted in the OP, I guess I have the original edition?
/crawls back under rockMecha M wrote:[after seeing Shin Godzilla's design] Looks like partially cooked carne asada