Talkback: King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

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Re: Talkback: King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

Post by LSD Jellyfish »

LegendZilla wrote: Mon Jan 09, 2023 11:13 pm I'm surprised that both times Toho did Kong in the Show era, they didn't use the suit actors' real eyes in portraying Kong.
…what? That would be incredibly creepy.
Spirit Ghidorah 2010 wrote: Sun Dec 03, 2023 4:54 pm Anno-san pleasures me more than Yamasaki-san.

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Re: Talkback: King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

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LSD Jellyfish wrote: Tue Jan 10, 2023 2:30 am
LegendZilla wrote: Mon Jan 09, 2023 11:13 pm I'm surprised that both times Toho did Kong in the Show era, they didn't use the suit actors' real eyes in portraying Kong.
…what? That would be incredibly creepy.
Probably a reference to how the Gargantuas have their respective suit actors' eyes visible:

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Re: Talkback: King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

Post by LegendZilla »

^Exactly. It worked for them, so why not for Kong?

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Re: Talkback: King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

Post by Coobzilla03 »

May have been too scary for the kids :lol:
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Re: Talkback: King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

Post by LSD Jellyfish »

Yeah, the images sort of prove exactly why that would've been bad. The way they did the eyes with Gaira and Sanda makes them incredibly unnerving and uncanny. It suits Gaira because he's supposed to be this horrible man-eating monster. Sanda less so, but I don't think they focus in on Sanda's face as much as Gaira. It's important to remember Gaira and Sanda are technically sort of extensions of humanity.

As for Kong, I still think that would've been super creepy and weird. In KKVG he's sort of this drunken grouch, that the audience and characters are supposed to root for. There's moments of him becoming a monster and being ferocious, but you're not supposed to be too scared of Kong. In KKE where he is definitely the hero, they gave him these big goofy eyes, which while silly make him cute and memorable.

Kong is fine as he is.
Spirit Ghidorah 2010 wrote: Sun Dec 03, 2023 4:54 pm Anno-san pleasures me more than Yamasaki-san.

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Re: Talkback: King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

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LegendZilla wrote: Mon Jan 09, 2023 11:13 pm I'm surprised that both times Toho did Kong in the Showa era, they didn't use the suit actors' real eyes in portraying the character.
At certain points in KKvG you actually do see the suit actors eyes!
LSD Jellyfish wrote: Tue Jan 10, 2023 5:05 pm Yeah, the images sort of prove exactly why that would've been bad. The way they did the eyes with Gaira and Sanda makes them incredibly unnerving and uncanny. It suits Gaira because he's supposed to be this horrible man-eating monster. Sanda less so, but I don't think they focus in on Sanda's face as much as Gaira. It's important to remember Gaira and Sanda are technically sort of extensions of humanity.

As for Kong, I still think that would've been super creepy and weird. In KKVG he's sort of this drunken grouch, that the audience and characters are supposed to root for. There's moments of him becoming a monster and being ferocious, but you're not supposed to be too scared of Kong. In KKE where he is definitely the hero, they gave him these big goofy eyes, which while silly make him cute and memorable.

Kong is fine as he is.
I agree, even when they did use a suit actors eyes in 1976 it looked unnerving. Most likely due to the white part of the eyes remaining, whilst real gorillas don't have that. It just looked off, and the same case remained with the Gargantuas.
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Re: Talkback: King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

Post by edgaguirus »

The white eyes on Kong don't seem that creepy, mainly because you hardly see it. The face design works to hide it, while the gargantua brothers put them front and center.
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Re: Talkback: King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

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KingKong2005 wrote: Tue Jan 10, 2023 7:31 pm
LegendZilla wrote: Mon Jan 09, 2023 11:13 pm I'm surprised that both times Toho did Kong in the Showa era, they didn't use the suit actors' real eyes in portraying the character.
At certain points in KKvG you actually do see the suit actors eyes!
LSD Jellyfish wrote: Tue Jan 10, 2023 5:05 pm Yeah, the images sort of prove exactly why that would've been bad. The way they did the eyes with Gaira and Sanda makes them incredibly unnerving and uncanny. It suits Gaira because he's supposed to be this horrible man-eating monster. Sanda less so, but I don't think they focus in on Sanda's face as much as Gaira. It's important to remember Gaira and Sanda are technically sort of extensions of humanity.

As for Kong, I still think that would've been super creepy and weird. In KKVG he's sort of this drunken grouch, that the audience and characters are supposed to root for. There's moments of him becoming a monster and being ferocious, but you're not supposed to be too scared of Kong. In KKE where he is definitely the hero, they gave him these big goofy eyes, which while silly make him cute and memorable.

Kong is fine as he is.
I agree, even when they did use a suit actors eyes in 1976 it looked unnerving. Most likely due to the white part of the eyes remaining, whilst real gorillas don't have that. It just looked off, and the same case remained with the Gargantuas.
The fact that Kong also….acted the way he did around Jessica Lange certainly didn’t help with reducing the unnerving factor lol. I like Rick Baker’s work as much as the next guy but 76 Kong is just unintentional nightmare fuel sometimes.

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Re: Talkback: King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

Post by JVM »

So, tonight I finally found the chance to watch the Japanese cut of King Kong vs. Godzilla, almost twenty years after my personal rediscovery of the film lead to my interest in kaiju first being reinvigorated.

It felt interesting to see obviously new material for a movie I'm so familiar with of this age. An easy generalization would be to say that a lot of the first act is virtually new, replacing the American UN scenes with a much more thorough setup for the expedition to Faro Island and Godzilla's awakening. I don't feel like any of these scenes tell us a lot of new information, but they do a job of getting you familiar with the characters earlier on and build more anticipation for Godzilla and Kong's arrival into the film later. They feel very distinctly Ishiro Honda to me, reminding me of siilar scenes in other films and driving home that commonality. The pacing feels surprisingly improved overall. There's also more submarine scenes setting up Godzilla's escape from the iceberg, and surprisingly this movie is still trying to hold some more direct continuity to previous - it is explicit Godzilla is returning, that he is still a threat, and that electricity is a weakness. I was a little surprised by that. There is also much less emphasis on the berries in Kong's story, where they feel somewhat incidental, and more emphasis on the lightning. I definitely prefer Operation Burial earlier in the story.
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Re: Talkback: King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

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The way I see it, if Universal hadn't cut it out, we might've had the Godzilla Theme a little earlier than we did.

Anyway, I've also seen the Japanese version of this film (Terasawa PMed it to me on August 27, 2020) and I must say that, once again, it's much better than the American one, just like, e.g., Godzilla (1954) is definitely much better than Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956). In that film's case, however, the dubbing and editing were well done indeed, while this film's American version and the other three Toho films whose American versions also did this, Godzilla Raids Again (1955) / Gigantis the Fire Monster (1959), Half Human (1955 / 1957) and Varan (1958) / Varan the Unbelievable (1962), have all become textbook examples of how NOT to dub and edit a foreign film (especially the first two)! Both of Toho's American versions of Rodan (1956 / 1957) and Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster (1964) / Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster (1965) and Daiei's American version of Gamera the Giant Monster (1965) / Gammera the Invincible (1966) all kinda-sorta escaped those four films' fates, but just barely. And that's just what I can think of right now in terms of major tinkering on the American studios' part.

And before anyone asks, yes, I am aware that all of these films' releases in this country basically occurred at a time in history when those selfsame American studios were only interested in making a quick buck, not art.
Last edited by mikelcho on Mon May 01, 2023 1:14 pm, edited 14 times in total.

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Re: Talkback: King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

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mikelcho wrote: Mon May 01, 2023 12:19 pm Both of Toho's American versions of Rodan (1956 / 1957) and Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster (1964) / Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster (1965) and Daiei's American version of Gamera the Giant Monster (1965) / Gammera the Invincible (1966) all kinda-sorta escaped those four films' fates, but just barely. And that's just what I can think of right now in terms of major tinkering on the American studios' part.
A lot of people, including myself, find the King Bros' Rodan and Gammera superior and tighter-paced than their Japanese counterparts. And Ghidrah has several advantages over Ghidorah, though I wouldn't quite call it superior due to some sloppy cuts.
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Re: Talkback: King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

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Every time anyone makes a comment about the US version of Ghidrah being better in any way than the Japanese original I just have to mention that anything they did to "improve" the movie during the Americanization was negated completely by how badly they destroyed Ifukube's score. They absolutely bastardized the movie's best sequence - Godzilla and Rodan appearing at night in Yokohama - by doing everything they could to ruin it.

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Re: Talkback: King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

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I think you're both right; from what I've heard, the U.S. version of GtTHH was edited to the point of near-incoherence.
Last edited by mikelcho on Tue May 02, 2023 5:25 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Talkback: King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

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Legion1979 wrote: Mon May 01, 2023 5:56 pm Every time anyone makes a comment about the US version of Ghidrah being better in any way than the Japanese original I just have to mention that anything they did to "improve" the movie during the Americanization was negated completely by how badly they destroyed Ifukube's score. They absolutely bastardized the movie's best sequence - Godzilla and Rodan appearing at night in Yokohama - by doing everything they could to ruin it.
Interesting. I've only seen the Japanese version once, forever ago, and I didn't notice anything different about that sequence. I'll have to do a side by side comparison.
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Re: Talkback: King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

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In regards strictly to Godzilla films, I don't think there's a soul that would truly argue that the American edits of any of them are superior unless they were someone who had problems watching with subtitles and couldn't admit it was a personal problem. The only reason those early edits continue to exist is because Toho seems to have no historical international dub to replace them with, though I know there are rumors about the film this thread is about. Then again, in that timeline, maybe Godzilla fans are busting their asses trying to preserve Gigantis, the Fire Monster for some reason.

I don't have anything new to say about the Ghidorah film, I haven't seen the Japanese cut of that particular film yet, but I can safely assume it's superior. I have to admit in regards to musical cues I am not the sort of person to notice that right away. More so on repeat viewings once I've seen both cuts does it become obvious and noticeable to me.
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Re: Talkback: King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

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JAGzilla wrote: Mon May 01, 2023 8:14 pm
Legion1979 wrote: Mon May 01, 2023 5:56 pm Every time anyone makes a comment about the US version of Ghidrah being better in any way than the Japanese original I just have to mention that anything they did to "improve" the movie during the Americanization was negated completely by how badly they destroyed Ifukube's score. They absolutely bastardized the movie's best sequence - Godzilla and Rodan appearing at night in Yokohama - by doing everything they could to ruin it.
Interesting. I've only seen the Japanese version once, forever ago, and I didn't notice anything different about that sequence. I'll have to do a side by side comparison.
They removed Ifukube's score for some stock American horror/scifi music in several of the Godzilla vs Rodan scenes. Although the music itself wasn't bad per se, it was *far inferior* to Ifukube's score (which they left intact in the rest of the film, which makes these random music edits even more puzzling), and the places where they plugged in the American music made little/no sense and added absolutely nothing to the scene. Legion's right, any positives of the Americanization (i.e. adding the monster background roars during the final battle and cutting down the 2nd Mothra song) were pretty much negated by removing Ifukube's score (and I think this may be one of his best scores of the original SHOWA series) and their re-editing/shuffling of scenes of Godzilla & Rodan's first encounter in Yokohama.

As far as KK vs Godzilla goes...the Americanization is pretty awful (perhaps only topped by "Gigantis the Fire Monster" in terms of a G film being bastardized)....yet, the original Japanese version (a satire of TV advertisement/commercialism going on in Japan at the time) would have been completely lost on your standard American movie-going audience of 1962. Still doesn't excuse how awful the changes to the American version were, however.
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Re: Talkback: King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

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JVM wrote: Mon May 01, 2023 9:52 pm The only reason those early edits continue to exist is because Toho seems to have no historical international dub to replace them with, though I know there are rumors about the film this thread is about. Then again, in that timeline, maybe Godzilla fans are busting their asses trying to preserve Gigantis, the Fire Monster for some reason.
I know you said you've been on a fandom hiatus, so I'm not sure what your knowledge on Toho's current feelings towards most US cuts (including Gigantis and Ghidrah) is. But basically, they've been making a conscious effort to suppress them from existence, with them being completely excluded from the 2019 Criterion set and all streaming platforms. So people ARE trying to bust their asses to preserve them, for good reasons.

But even if there did happen to be International dubs (which a lot of fans deem inferior to US-based ones anyways) for all the films, why the hell shouldn't people still work hard to preserve alternate cuts of them? You personally not liking one is irrelevant; they're apart of the franchise's history and should always be available.
Last edited by MaxRebo320 on Tue May 02, 2023 9:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Talkback: King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

Post by JVM »

MaxRebo320 wrote: Tue May 02, 2023 9:03 am
JVM wrote: Mon May 01, 2023 9:52 pm The only reason those early edits continue to exist is because Toho seems to have no historical international dub to replace them with, though I know there are rumors about the film this thread is about. Then again, in that timeline, maybe Godzilla fans are busting their asses trying to preserve Gigantis, the Fire Monster for some reason.
I know you said you've been on a fandom hiatus, so I'm not sure what your knowledge on Toho's current feelings towards most US cuts (including Gigantis and Ghidrah) is. But basically, they've been making a conscious effort to suppress them from existence, with them being completely excluded from the 2019 Criterion set and all streaming platforms. So people ARE trying to bust their asses to preserve them, for good reasons.

But even if there did happen to be International dubs (which a lot of fans deem inferior to US-based ones anyways) for all the films, why the hell shouldn't people still work hard to preserve alternate cuts of them? You personally not liking one is irrelevant; they're apart of the franchise's history and should always be available.
I was under the impression, false or otherwise, that the US cuts of the first five or so films were considered fairly safe for the reasons described beforehand and that the suppression was more towards the post-Ghidrah library. I'm very aware of the efforts to preserve the later dubs of the Showa films, such as the AIP dubs and so forth. I have/had a friend involved in some of those efforts although we lost contact during my hiatus. I'm also aware the international dubs are considered inferior; that comment was based on what I thought Toho's position was, not what I assumed the fanbase thought. It certainly sounds like things have changed or intensified during my hiatus but the broad strokes are very familiar.

I was only trying to comment originally on the Japanese cut of KKvG as a film, I really wasn't trying to kickstart the generalized 'Japanese vs American cut' discourse that the thread immediately plunged into afterward. It frankly makes me regret saying anything to begin with.
Last edited by JVM on Wed May 03, 2023 6:44 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Talkback: King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

Post by LegendZilla »

Is it possible that Jun Tazaki plays the same character in this film as he does in WoG? I have heard some people theorize it.

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Re: Talkback: King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

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LegendZilla wrote: Thu May 04, 2023 11:15 pm Is it possible that Jun Tazaki plays the same character in this film as he does in WoG? I have heard some people theorize it.
Where'd you hear people say that?

It's not true.

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