Latest news with #SteveRyfle
Kuwait Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Kuwait Times
Godzilla fans fete the monster as it turns 70
Godzilla has morphed over the years, but one constant is the devotion of its fans, who celebrated the Japanese monster's 70th anniversary at the pop culture convention Comic-Con. The Japanese studio Toho, which created Godzilla, maintains a calendar of events to celebrate the beast often called the king of monsters, and Comic-Con is on the agenda. Godzilla was born on November 3, 1954 with the launch of the first movie about it, directed by Ishiro Honda. 'I am a very big fan of Godzilla,' said Angela Hill, a teacher who traveled from Arizona to take part in Comic-Con, which this year featured events and displays celebrating Godzilla. One of the world's largest celebrations of pop culture, Comic-Con brings together 130,000 people, many of whom come dressed as wizards, princesses or characters from movies, games or TV series. As the story of Godzilla goes, a prehistoric amphibious beast is awakened and mutated by nuclear bomb testing in the Pacific. It emerges from the sea and attacks Japan in a rage, symbolizing the deadly power of nukes. 'I think because he came from such a historic event -- like, a lot of other monsters are just interesting creatures, but they don't hold the grief of a nation,' Hill said, referring to the US nuclear bomb attacks against Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II. At the pop culture watering hole in San Diego, people lined up to shoot pictures and video with an image of Godzilla, which was also the theme of a panel discussion on Friday that featured Shinji Higuchi, who co-directed a reboot in 2016 called 'Shin Godzilla.' The movie franchise includes nearly 40 films and has spawned hundreds of animated productions about the monster as well as TV series and graphic work. Attendees pose for photos with Godzilla during Comic-Con International. Authors Steve Ryfle (left) and Ed Godziszewski pose their book "Godzilla: The First 70 Years" during Comic Con International. A miniature Godzilla is displayed at the Bandai booth during Comic-Con International. An attendee poses for photos with Godzilla during Comic-Con International. An attendee poses for photos with Godzilla during Comic-Con International. 'Rooting for him' On Saturday the writers Ed Godziszewski and Steve Ryfle signed autographs of their book 'Godzilla: The First 70 Years,' which sold out at Comic-Con. 'It's a rich history,' Ryfle told AFP. 'This is the longest running feature film franchise in cinematic history that's focused on a single, continuous character. It's been around longer than James Bond.' He said the key to its longevity is that Godzilla has evolved over time but stayed faithful to its origins. 'Godzilla has been serious, it's been scary, it's been heroic, it's been funny. But at the same time this is a movie character that's rooted in something that's very real,' Ryfle said. 'And that's the trauma that Japan experienced, both during World War II, and also the trauma of the aftermath of World War II, the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,' he added. He said Honda, who directed the first Godzilla movie, was a veteran who used the film to send a message against war and in particular against nuclear weapons. Michelle Pena, a Godzilla fan who waited in line to get the autograph of the two writers, said part of the monster's charm is how it has changed over the years. 'Good, bad, hero, anti-hero, you know. And I like that,' she said. 'He's not, like, lovable,' she added. 'He's a big dinosaur-looking thing, you know. He's scary. But, like, you really, really find yourself rooting for him.' — AFP
The Star
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Star
At 70, Godzilla keeps on smashing expectations and buildings.
Steve Ryfle remembers scouring the TV Guide each week to find the monster movies and Universal horror films he loved. 'You had to make an appointment with yourself to be by the TV, so it was really special,' recalls Ryfle, an author and co-writer of the Emmy-winning documentary Miracle On 42nd Street. 'The Japanese films always appealed to me the most. 'They were intriguing because they took place in a world that was unfamiliar, a culture that was unfamiliar.' Godzilla, he says, was especially captivating to a dinosaur-loving kid. 'Of course, when you're younger, you're into dinosaurs,' he says. 'Godzilla seemed like the greatest dinosaur I'd ever seen, and it did all these crazy things, and I just loved it.' A statue of the Godzilla inside the Toho Studio head office building in Tokyo, Japan. — AKIO KON/Bloomberg But back then, beyond a few fanzines or horror magazines, it wasn't as easy as it is now to find information about less mainstream interests or connect with like-minded fans. 'There really wasn't anything to read about these films in any detail. And I remember as a child asking a bookstore clerk if there were books on Godzilla, and he actually laughed at me and asked why I would ever want to read anything like that,' says Ryfle. 'That stuck in my brain.' Clearly. Along with Ed Godziszewski – with whom he co-wrote 2017's Ishiro Honda: A Life In Film – Ryfle is the co-author of the massive new book Godzilla: The First 70 Years , a 432-page, 2kg book filled with stories, interviews, breakout boxes, and more than 900 photos of one of cinema's most enduring figures. The writing duo will be appearing as part of an overall Godzilla onslaught at this year's San Diego Comic-Con. 'Godzilla, at its very heart, is a monster rooted in trauma,' says author Ryfle. — Famous Monsters/Instagram Reflection of the times The book, which features introductions by Halloween and The Thing directing legend John Carpenter and recurring Godzilla actress Megumi Odaka, is the culmination of an effort by the publisher and Toho Studios to mark the anniversary with the ultimate English-language book examining the narrative and visual history of the films, says Ryfle. 'Dating back to 1954, Godzilla has, of course, gone through all of these different iterations and evolutions and changes and its motivation and its personality and the way it's depicted on screen, and even the techniques that are used to bring it to life,' says Ryfle, who points to the recent box office success and critical respect for 2023's Godzilla Minus One . 'I mean, who would have thought 70 years ago that a Godzilla movie made in Japan would win an Academy Award? It would have been impossible, and yet here we are.' 'It's a real evolution from the time when these movies were sort of misunderstood and just relegated to the scrap heap of low-budget cinema they were assumed to be.' 'Obviously, there are interesting stories to tell about these movies and the people who made them,' he says. 'It's really kind of a celebration of the people and the culture that they come from. The people who made these movies were proud of the work that they did, because they were basically, by and large, handmade films.' History of Godzilla is looked into extensively in a massive new book titled Godzilla: The First 70 Years. — TNS Rooted in trauma Unlike other schlocky mid- century genre movies, the original Godzilla films reflected Japan's experience during and after World War II. The films were a response not only to the devastation caused by the United States detonating atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but also to the firebombing of Tokyo in which nearly 300 US planes dropped 1665 tonnes of napalm on the city, creating a firestorm and killing 100,000 people in what the Truman Library Institute called 'the most devastating aerial bombardment in history'. 'Godzilla, at its very heart from the very beginning, is a monster rooted in trauma,' says Ryfle. 'It's also really about that collective experience of the war and the struggle and the hardships that people went through – and also the collective experience of the post-war period when the economy was in shambles and there were food shortages and political unrest and unemployment and deprivation of extreme magnitude.' There are images in the original film that directly correspond to wartime destruction, says Ryfle. 'When I'm giving talks about the first Godzilla film, I'll show stills of Tokyo on fire,' says Ryfle, referring to actual photos taken during wartime bombing raids. 'I'll put up these two pictures side by side ... it's almost like a mirror image.' As well as exploring the film's inspirations – such as the original King Kong, which had been a huge success upon re-release just a few years before the initial Godzilla film – Ryfle and Godziszewski did interviews and scoured archives for fresh insights – and found things that surprised them despite having decades of experience writing about the films. 'Ed and I've been writing together for a number of years and working on a lot of different projects. We actually met 30 years ago at the very first Godzilla convention that they had in Chicago,' says Ryfle, praising his writing partner Godziszewski as 'a legend' when it comes to knowing the topic and where to dig up information. Not only did they discover the audio elements of the iconic Godzilla roar – many of the monster cries were made with different musical instruments, says Ryfle – but they also learned something surprising about the changing face of Godzilla over the years. 'From 1954 to, say, 1975, the suit looks different pretty much in almost every film, and I always thought that was on purpose. 'But no, they actually made the suits, at least for about the first 15 years, from the same mould. They just came out differently every time,' says Ryfle, who credits the actor inside the suit, Haruo Nakajima, both for his artistry and his superhuman stamina. 'The very first suit was almost unusable. It weighed so much and the interior of it was almost inflexible ... the guy tried to walk in it and just tipped over.' 'It was impossible to be inside without suffocating if you were in it for more than a few minutes ... it was almost a death sentence to do this stuff,' says Ryfle, adding that Nakajima would sweat out dozens of pounds during filming. 'They would have to pour the sweat out of the suit every day, and then dry out the interior for the next day, because it was just a sauna in there. Though the 'man-in-the-suit' aspect could sometimes be viewed as comical, Ryfle says Nakajima's work was instrumental in the creature's evolution and popularity. 'I attribute a large part of the success of those movies to Haruo Nakajima, who played Godzilla for roughly the first 18 years of the first cycle of Godzilla films,' says Ryfle, while also praising the original film's special effects wizard, director and cast. 'He was just a wonderful man who died a couple of years ago. 'He loved his work, and he's largely responsible for the personality that starts to come through.' 'He turns Godzilla from a walking nuclear bomb into a character over a period of time,' says Ryfle. In the beginning, original King Kong films served as an inspiration for Godzilla movies. Presently, the two gigantic creatures have appeared together in Hollywood films. — Handout Lasting power While we discussed a range of topics and there's much more in the book, Ryfle summed up the project as we were concluding the conversation. 'Someone asked me, like, what was your goal at the start of it?' he says. 'We wanted to make the best Godzilla book for the widest possible audience. 'I've always felt from the beginning that (the films) were unfairly maligned and misunderstood, and that maybe I could help, especially after I started meeting the creators and realising what passion they had for their work, and starting to understand how culturally specific these films are.' But he also understands another reason for Godzilla's lasting power. 'On a gut level, no matter what's going on in the film and how quote-unquote 'serious' it is as a movie,' says Ryfle, 'people really want to see the spectacle of Godzilla destroying things.' – The Orange County Register/Tribune News Service
South China Morning Post
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Godzilla's 70th anniversary celebrated in huge new book with over 900 photos
American author Steve Ryfle remembers scouring his TV guide every week to find the monster movies and horror films he loved. Advertisement 'The Japanese films always appealed to me the most,' says the co-writer of the Emmy-winning 2017 documentary Miracle on 42nd Street. 'They were intriguing because they took place in a world that was unfamiliar, a culture that was unfamiliar.' Godzilla, he says, was especially captivating to a dinosaur-loving kid. 'Of course, when you're younger, you're into dinosaurs,' he says. 'Godzilla seemed like the greatest dinosaur I'd ever seen, and it did all these crazy things, and I just loved it.' Along with Ed Godziszewski, Ryfle is the co-author of the massive new book Godzilla: The First 70 Years, a 432-page, nearly 6lb (2.7kg) book filled with stories, interviews, breakout boxes and more than 900 photos of one of cinema's most enduring figures. Pages from Godzilla: The First 70 Years. Photo: Harry N. Abrams The book, which features introductions by Halloween and The Thing directing legend John Carpenter and recurring Godzilla actress Megumi Odaka, is the culmination of an effort by publisher Harry N. Abrams and Godzilla film producer Toho Studios to mark the anniversary with the ultimate English-language book examining the narrative and visual history of the films, Ryfle says.
Gizmodo
14-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
Look Inside the Cinematic Legacy of ‘Godzilla' In This Stunning New Book
Last year marked the 70th anniversary of the first Godzilla, and Toho has spent much of that 70th year going all-in to celebrate the King of the Monsters. From more movies, to theme park rides, to plenty of crazy merch, it's been a great time to be a Godzilla fan, and it's about to be even better. Ahead of its release this week, io9 has an exclusive look inside Godzilla: The First 70 Years, a titanic celebration of the last seven decades of kaiju moviemaking. Published by Abrams and written by Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski, The First 70 Years charts a visual and narrative history of Godzilla's creation and his titanic rise in Japanese cinema. From the very first movie back in 1954 all the way to the international success of Godzilla Minus One, The First 70 Years is a treasure trove of Godzilla's history in Japan, featuring insights from across every era of Godzilla filmmaking, as well as tons of rare behind-the-scenes photography, production materials, and marketing to gawp over. To celebrate the book's release, io9 has a look at just some of that rare visual history from within the book, including chilling concept art of Hedorah's acid attack in Godzilla vs. Hedorah, sales copy from the first scrapped attempt to bring Godzilla stateside, and behind-the-scenes photos from production on the 1954 classic. Check them out below in our exclusive gallery from Godzilla: The First 70 Years! Godzilla: The First 70 Years releases tomorrow, July 15, and is available to preorder now. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
