Talk:Rodan (film)

Is this a case where we wrote the original list of changes in the U.S. version and then Wikipedia copied us? If so, perhaps a "comment visible only to editors" could avoid further confusion.--Astounding Beyond Belief (talk) 18:55, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

I was not aware that Wikipedia also had that list. If it is plagiarized from them and not vise-versa, it needs revised to remove the plagiarism. If it was plagiarized, it would have happened back in like 2007 or 2008. The King of the Monsters (talk)

Yeah, I wrote that as explanation when I nuked the section. Is there a decent way to determine who swiped from who?--Astounding Beyond Belief (talk) 19:37, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

I would just assume that Wikizilla plagiarized it, since back prior to 2011 everything on Wikizilla was plagiarized from somewhere. You could systematically search through the page histories on the Wikia and on Wikipedia, but that might be either inconclusive or just needlessly long. The King of the Monsters (talk) 19:51, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

FACTS

Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters quotes:

• “Tsuburaya’s elaborate visual effects for Rodan ate up 60 percent of the film’s production budget, more than was allocated for Godzilla, and viewing the film, one can see why -- it is filled with beautiful matte paintings and optical animation (some of the most realistic Tsuburaya ever produced) and exquisitely detailed miniature sets.” [p. 50]
• “Unfortunately, the shot of Rodan bursting from the water before destroying the bridge did not fare nearly as well. While shooting it, the cables suspending actor Haruo Nakajima failed and he fell nearly twenty feet. Fortunately, the costume's wings and the depth of the water helped soften his landing.” [p. 50]
• “Another accident proved more fortunate. During the shooting of the climactic eruption of Mt. Aso, in which both Rodans were to be slowly overwhelmed by the lava flows, one wire on one of the small latex puppets of Rodan suddenly snapped. Tsuburaya kept the cameras rolling, however, and had the wire operator ad-lib the death scene. With the puppeteer frantically trying to pull the puppet out of the conflagration, it appeared that the creature was making one last attempt at escape before falling to earth to join its mate in death. This mistake, instead of being a setback, added a sense of lyricism and pathos to the final scene and is one of the most memorable sequences in the film.” [p. 51]
• Tsuburaya won a Japanese Film Technique Award for the movie. [p. 51]

Age of the Gods:

• “As for the scenes of panicked mobs fleeing the soaring Radons, [assistant director Jun] Fukuda had to point to where in the sky to look (‘and please act terrified.’) Often, this would yield only puzzled laughter from the extras; what, precisely, were they so terrified of? Fukuda himself was the blind leading the blind: having been shown none of Tsuburaya’s designs, he hardly knew what Rodan was himself.” [p. 76]
• “Rodan’s wings were supported by wires, but Nakajima was the one making their movements. The costume’s kneejoints, however, were accurately built, to move opposite to those of mammals, making it tougher still on him.” [p. 80]
• “For the first shot of the adult Radon emerging, Nakajima came up with the idea that the monster should preen itself before taking off into the air.” [p. 80]

Ishiro Honda: A Life in Film:

• “Images of roof tiles flying off were inspired by a crewman’s memories of 1934’s disastrous Typhoon Muroto.” [p. 128]
• [on the wire snap at the end] “Tsuburaya thought the scene was ruined, but Honda salvaged it by increasing the intensity of Rodan’s mourning. ‘At first, there was just the regular sound of the monster, but we modified it to make it sound as if it were crying out for something,’ Honda said. ‘Without that sound, it just looks like Rodan is flapping around… sound effects made the difference.’” [p. 129]
• “Other changes arose during script revisions. There was just one Rodan in the first draft, and the creature was seriously wounded by American fighter planes over Okinawa, giving the story a whiff of postwar tension; and as originally written, Sahara’s character led the effort to kill Rodan by dynamiting the volcano.” [p. 129]