Why do Heisei Gamera and '94 Tristar Godzilla have so many similarities?

[Desghidorah]

Anyone who's read the script or the script summaries for the original plan for the Tristar Godzilla movie would no doubt notice there are a lot of similarities between it and the Heisei incarnation of Gamera (namely the first film, Gamera: Guardian of the Universe). The title monster being a destructive guardian entity meant to kill an outside threat, created by the doomed civilization of Atlantis or an even older civilization that inspired Atlantis; being chiefest among them. There's also a few similarities with the sequences involving the Probe Bats and young Gyaos between the scripts. It's not like the two stories are one in the same, they most certainly aren't, but they arguably share closer blood than either does to their franchises' other respective outings up to that point.

The history of the Heisei revival for Gamera goes back at least to 1993, but possibly a bit older, with Kazunori Ito's script being known from 1993 (simply titled "Gamera"). The 1993 story had a few similarities to Guardian of the Universe, namely the ancient civilization origin for Gamera and Gyaos (being made by a rival civilization); but it honestly has way more in common with Gamera the Brave than it did GotU. 1993 would also be about when some of the earliest story drafts for Tristar's venture would move forward. What I'm getting as is, from the limited information I got (and please do correct me if you know something I don't), it's actually pretty hard to tell which of these stories came first or if there is any chance the scriptwriters were aware of the other's ideas.

Is there any connection or is it all just one kaiju sized coincidence of creative people drawing from common grounds?

[Dv-218]

I was wondering about this thing on several occasions. Iirc Tristar first got the rights to Goji around 1992, so the earliest treatment would have definitely been around the 1993-1994 range as you said. I'm honestly not exactly sure how many iterations existed before (aside from Clive Barker's Godzilla which never went past the idea stage) but from what I understood the "ancient civilization-made Godzilla fights an alien monster" was the general plot from the very beginning of Rossio's and Elliott's involvement- first with Ghidorah and then the Gryphon.

It's insanely close to the production stages of GOTU but I frankly cannot see a situation where ideas could have been shared to that much of an extent as they were never even in contact with Kaneko and Higuchi's team (as far as I know). So my assumption is that the plot similarities for both were legitimately just a coincidence- albeit a very freakish one. I can imagine that had the 1994 Tristar plot been released as the final product there could have been a debate/controversy surrounding the likeness.

[Desghidorah]

I was wondering about this thing on several occasions. Iirc Tristar first got the rights to Goji around 1992, so the earliest treatment would have definitely been around the 1993-1994 range as you said. I'm honestly not exactly sure how many iterations existed before (aside from Clive Barker's Godzilla which never went past the idea stage) but from what I understood the "ancient civilization-made Godzilla fights an alien monster" was the general plot from the very beginning of Rossio's and Elliott's involvement- first with Ghidorah and then the Gryphon.

It's insanely close to the production stages of GOTU but I frankly cannot see a situation where ideas could have been shared to that much of an extent as they were never even in contact with Kaneko and Higuchi's team (as far as I know). So my assumption is that the plot similarities for both were legitimately just a coincidence- albeit a very freakish one. I can imagine that had the 1994 Tristar plot been released as the final product there could have been a debate/controversy surrounding the likeness.

I mean, coincidences have happened on both sides of the Pacific before. Your Movie Suck's Adam Johnston has done an extremely extensive overview of the whole "Did Disney Rip Off Kimba/Leo the White Lion for Lion King" controversy and found that, while those in production of LK certainly had heard of Kimba; the similarities in the final product were pretty easily explained as coincidence of creative people drawing from common sources.

Both GoTU and '94TriGoji have a similar plot beats of

1. Titular monster is introduced and is seen by some as the threat
2. Second monster makes full appearance
3. Twist is the first monster is actually there to stop the second one
4. In the end, cast is convinced sparing the first monster is the right idea and the antagonist is destroyed

Setting up why the titular monster is the better option vs. letting the second one run wild can only be done so many way without derailing the plot. G'2014 and K:SI did something very similar by having it be where the titular monster is the best chance at keeping the antagonist from spreading. Could just be another means is explaining it via "Oh, this benevolent precursor civilization made the title monster as basically a gigantic guard dog". And the idea of ancient, advanced civilizations was quite popular in the late 1980s into the early 1990s. This was the same era that gave us Stargate.

I just also know that backroom and industry chatter is way more prevalent than many people think. Tristar was working with Toho and Kadokawa Daiei was also working with Toho to distribute the Heisei Gamera films. So I could see it as possible the two productions were at the very least aware of each other, and some details might have been swapped around. As it seems a bit odd that, amongst the other earlier pitches for an American Godzilla film, Tristar's serious effort in 93/94 just happened to have the plot it did; and the massive restructuring for Gamera from the 93 script to the GotU script just so happened to occur around the same time.

[Terasawa]

According to SciFi Japan's excellent four-part series on TriStar's first go at Godzilla, Elliott and Rossio were hired in May 1993 after submitting their story outline. They submitted their first draft on November 10, 1993.

I'm sure nearly everyone involved in the U.S. production wouldn't have known or cared about the Gamera film. Some of the initial FX guys had connections with their Japanese counterparts, but they didn't join the production until after the screenplay had been completed.

Likewise, I really doubt that anyone at Daiei (it wasn't a Kadokawa company until 2002) would have been privy to details of TriStar's film through Toho, that's just too hard to believe for a number of reasons.

[Dv-218]

^This. Even with background chatter such level of information back-and-forths probably did not occur during either production. Toho likely wouldn't have been very open about the Tristar film to anyone other than the Tristar producers looking for approval, and while not entirely unlikely I have doubts they would just give that info to Daiei as they were only distributors. Honestly it could just be a case of drawing from a similar source or idea, as Des said the concept of ancient precusor civilizations was becoming a very popular sci-fi concept. I can def imagine a scenario where two seperate creative teams thought of applying said idea to a Monster vs Monster plot, albeit I will admit that the date lineup is pretty on-the-nose.

[eabaker]

The basic story and structure of Gamera: GotU is easily one of the most influenced by basic Hollywood formulas of any Japanese-made genre entry, so I don't find it terribly surprising that it would have so much in common with how Hollywood screenwriters envisioned the genre playing out in both this case and the script of the 2014 film.

[Desghidorah]

Perfectly logical. I was less convinced there had to be some connection as much as I was aware that hearsay travels fast in the movie making business even with precautions like trying to keep scripts or concepts from leaking. It did seem to be one very big coincidence to me, I just find the timing of them both a bit head tilting; but not impossible. A bit like how hearsay amongst authors and scriptwriters of a mid-80s boom in dinosaurs both created Carnosaur and Jurassic Park's respective novels, which have a few similarities even if Crichton likely never heard of the former novel.

Really it was mostly stuff like the Gamera '93 story treatment getting a complete overhaul at the near same time the Tristar Godzilla script reached its first complete drafts which made me wonder if someone else knew something more about this subject than I.

[Terasawa]

I was aware that hearsay travels fast in the movie making business even with precautions like trying to keep scripts or concepts from leaking.

That's true, but in this case it seems very unlikely that either movie would have been affected this way. Toho isn't a mom-and-pop outfit, it's a massive media conglomerate composed of a number of subsidiaries. The branch that handled distribution of Gamera probably wouldn't have been involved with TriStar on the beginnings of the Godzilla deal, especially when that film was itself so far away from production--let alone distribution in Japan--at the time both films were in early pre-production. Furthermore, because the TriStar deal was so lucrative for Toho, it would have been terribly irresponsible for someone from Toho to share details from the Rossio/Elliott outline with others in a way that it would have quickly influenced another company's Gamera project.

Where's all your info about the beginnings of the GOTU development come from? I've found very little online: the Japanese language Wikipedia entry for the film doesn't reveal much, and in English, what little I can find comes from various interviews with Kazunori Ito, Shusuke Kaneko, and Shinji Higuchi.

[Desghidorah]

I was aware that hearsay travels fast in the movie making business even with precautions like trying to keep scripts or concepts from leaking.

That's true, but in this case it seems very unlikely that either movie would have been affected this way. Toho isn't a mom-and-pop outfit, it's a massive media conglomerate composed of a number of subsidiaries. The branch that handled distribution of Gamera probably wouldn't have been involved with TriStar on the beginnings of the Godzilla deal, especially when that film was itself so far away from production--let alone distribution in Japan--at the time both films were in early pre-production. Furthermore, because the TriStar deal was so lucrative for Toho, it would have been terribly irresponsible for someone from Toho to share details from the Rossio/Elliott outline with others in a way that it would have quickly influenced another company's Gamera project.

Where's all your info about the beginnings of the GOTU development come from? I've found very little online: the Japanese language Wikipedia entry for the film doesn't reveal much, and in English, what little I can find comes from various interviews with Kazunori Ito, Shusuke Kaneko, and Shinji Higuchi.

Oh I fully agree it be irresponsible as hell; but people are people. Coulda been something as small as someone in the division tied to Tristar had lunch with a friend who knew someone involved in Daiei and said conversation just happened to mention the whole Atlantis origin for Godzilla. The inverse could also be true. Again it's less similarities exist that made me wonder if something crossed the wires, and more the fact the two cropped up at nearly the exact same time; along with the sheer number of similarities (I didn't want to get into nitty gritty details both due to number but also because they sound coincidental in singularity, it's massing them together that made me wonder).

Most of my Gamera '93 information comes from LeMay's The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies: the Lost Films, namely the more recent edition. I know no source is perfect, but the outline he details for the early drafts of Heisei Gamera did line up with the interviews I could find. While there are similarities to GotU, mostly with the Atlantis origin and Gyaos being the antagonist, the rest of the outline reads more like Gamera the Brave with angles like following a small child who discovers a baby Gamera, parental issues, and the implied tone.


Another thing I did feel was worth noting is the reason some suspicion was raised is because of just how GotU and Godzilla '94 departed from what their respective franchises were at the time. If one or both already had properties quite similar to the two entries, it just be same old same old; but the fact they departed in very much the same way to break new ground is why I find this either suspect or an absolutely hilarious coincidence.

[Pkmatrix]

Still, the idea of "monster appearing in modern day is creation of lost ancient civilization" is a specific enough idea that I can't help wondering what movie were the writers of both projects inspired by to include it if they came to the same idea independently? Is there anything that came out in the late '80s/early '90s prior to these two scripts being written that could've been the source?

[Terasawa]

Still, the idea of "monster appearing in modern day is creation of lost ancient civilization" is a specific enough idea that I can't help wondering what movie were the writers of both projects inspired by to include it if they came to the same idea independently? Is there anything that came out in the late '80s/early '90s prior to these two scripts being written that could've been the source?

Linking Gamera to an ancient civilization wasn't anything new. It goes all the way back to the 1965 Gamera, in which Dr. Hidaka theorizes that Gamera inhabited Atlantis.

[Desghidorah]

Still, the idea of "monster appearing in modern day is creation of lost ancient civilization" is a specific enough idea that I can't help wondering what movie were the writers of both projects inspired by to include it if they came to the same idea independently? Is there anything that came out in the late '80s/early '90s prior to these two scripts being written that could've been the source?

Linking Gamera to an ancient civilization wasn't anything new. It goes all the way back to the 1965 Gamera, in which Dr. Hidaka theorizes that Gamera inhabited Atlantis.

Yeah but there is a bit of a change from "It lived on the continent of Atlantis" to "it was specifically created by Atlantis to be it's guardian and then left behind to save the future". Pkmatrix does have a point though and I'll get looking. The 1980s had several lost advance civilization stories come out, one could be a common source of inspiration. But all the examples I can think of are pretty lowkey, such as Bagan originally going to be tied to the Nazca lines.

[tbeasley]

Many kaiju have no real explanation of where they came from. Why did you give Gamera a history connected with Atlantis and so on?
“I think that it’s difficult for people to believe that a giant creature like Gamera could fly. I needed some kind of story, based around ancient history, so that it is easier for people to believe in Gamera’s existence and his flying ability.”

So Gamera is biotechnology, not just a monster?
“Yes, biotechnology.”

http://mjsimpson-films.blogspot.com/201 ... aneko.html

[Desghidorah]

Many kaiju have no real explanation of where they came from. Why did you give Gamera a history connected with Atlantis and so on?
“I think that it’s difficult for people to believe that a giant creature like Gamera could fly. I needed some kind of story, based around ancient history, so that it is easier for people to believe in Gamera’s existence and his flying ability.”

So Gamera is biotechnology, not just a monster?
“Yes, biotechnology.”

http://mjsimpson-films.blogspot.com/201 ... aneko.html

Special note to be tagged here. Remember how I said Heisei Gamera and '94 Script Godzilla were big departures from their respective histories up to that point? This is one realm of which I was talking about.

JILL
Marty--can you tell us--what is
Godzilla?

MARTY/ALIEN
|We left it in stasis...created
from dinosaur genetic template.
Alien probe would awaken it...|

Page 77 of the script

To my knowledge, neither Gamera nor Godzilla had an origin as a bio-engineered weapon prior to the respective stories. And yet both wound up with this origin at nearly the exact same time.

[tbeasley]

From Japan's Favorite Mon-Star (Steve Ryfle) -

How did you approach writing the Godzilla script?

Ted Elliott: So we thought, what can you do with Godzilla? There's been a lot of stuff done in comics where they're kind of reconstructing the super heroes to some extent, just cleaning up some of the continuity... There's a comic book writer named Alan Moore who basically restructured Swamp Thing, did a great job. The original Swamp Thing is a great character, and Moore just kicked it up to another level as far as I'm concerned. And our idea was to do basically the Alan Moore version of Godzilla. That doesn't mean Godzilla becomes some sort of tortured character, it's to embrace the really wonderful stuff about Godzilla.

What were some of the other tenets of the Toho-TriStar arrangement?

Terry Rossio: One of the directives that we were given by Toho, one of the 10 Commandments, was that Godzilla's origin must be the result of a catastrophic nuclear accident. Now, having said that, it doesn't mean that we followed that precisely. That was something that we had to deal with.

^ They work around this by having illegally dumped reactor cores outside Godzilla's lair. Godzilla is also described as a living, breathing nuclear reactor, his atomic breath ionizing oxygen around it.

[Desghidorah]

I think part of the funniest part of this comparison and similarities is in relation to Godzilla 2014. That film probably had influence by either one or both of these sources, yet I don't believe it's ever been confirmed as to which one it was. It's not overt, but you can notice plot beats in 2014 that seem to echo ideas in both GotU and 94'Tristar.

Wow this script was absolutely amazing! I wish this would have become a reality instead of what we got instead. I'm talking the potential to be among the best Godzilla movies of all time.

It certainly has some flaws (Godzilla's origin is just kinda given in a exposition and Pike is a very cliche villain), but I do think it would have been quite liked had it been made and there would have been ample time in production to iron out the characterization issues.

[tbeasley]

As far as the origins go I think it comes down to the influence of Jurassic Park - there were a ton of post-JP genetically engineered monster movies (Mimic and The Relic come to mind) so it could largely fall into that. It was just a timely/trendy way of explaining monsters.

[Angilasman]

Convergent thinking.

In addition: when Ultraman was revived in '96 as Ultraman Tiga he was a mystical giant tied to a mysterious ancient civilization instead of a space alien. When Kamen Rider was revived at the end of the decade as Kamen Rider Kuuga he got his powers from a mystical artifact from a mysterious ancient civilization, not from being a cyborg bug man. In each of these cases they were updating their respective franchises and making them more contemporary, and mysticism and ancient civilization was, I guess, the thing in the 90s!

[darthzilla99]

Convergent thinking.

In addition: when Ultraman was revived in '96 as Ultraman Tiga he was a mystical giant tied to a mysterious ancient civilization instead of a space alien. When Kamen Rider was revived at the end of the decade as Kamen Rider Kuuga he got his powers from a mystical artifact from a mysterious ancient civilization, not from being a cyborg bug man. In each of these cases they were updating their respective franchises and making them more contemporary, and mysticism and ancient civilization was, I guess, the thing in the 90s!

While Tiga is tied to ancient civilizations, he was always a space alien in his show. In fact part of his backstory was that when the original civilization before man was collapsing, the ancient beings of light returned to their home because the civilization was refused the giants help to free themselves from the influence of an addictive pollen produced by a plant kaiju. The ancient ultras were bound and could not interfere with the ancient people's agency and choices. Tiga however is not bound and could interfere with humanity's agency because he was both a being of light and human.

Ultraman Gaia and Aqua were the first terrestrial ultras in the ultra franchise.

[Angilasman]

^ Even if he was from space originally the aesthetics and stuff was all ancient ruins, prophecy, and mysticism.