New App Shows Shin Godzilla In Full Motion

About eight hours ago, a new smartphone app released in Japan promoting the new Toho film 'Godzilla: Resurgence.' In the app, you have to scan a QR code and then focus your camera on the poster of the film. Godzilla then comes crashing through the poster while audio from the trailer plays in the background. This gives us a really cool glimpse at his possible level of mobility in Resurgence itself, so it's definitely worth checking out.

I have never been the biggest advocate for this design. In fact, I can go on the record saying that I do not like it very much at all. Seeing the suit in the full film might end up changing my mind though, as long as he has the full range of movement seen in the app video above. Gone are the super stiff motions that we have seen thus far, and replacing them are some very Godzilla like movements in his upper torso. I still don't really like the snake mouth, but I think I could get over that in time.

We also seem to get a brief glimpse at his radioactive breath, and it looks like they may be returning to a white beam instead of the more traditional blue. This would be yet another reference to the 54' Gojira design, and I am completely on board for this minor change. Hopefully, we will keep getting more and more of these little glimpses at the design before the film releases in Japan on July 29th.

Is This Shin Godzilla's Roar?

I woke up this morning in a usual routine which includes checking in to see what the Godzilla community was up to late into the night, and I was pleasantly surprised. Fans were discussing and arguing about whether or not a part of the soundtrack had been leaked and included a snippet of Godzilla's new roar from the upcoming 2016 film. The video in question and the answer to our click-baity headline is below.

If that is the roar for Shin-Goji, I actually wouldn't mind at all. Not because it sounds particularly good, but because it would show that they're going even further with setting their Godzilla apart, without throwing tradition out the window. 

Unfortunately, this is definitely a fake. The Japanese title reads "My idea for Shin Gojira's roar." Also, if you listen, the dialog in the clip is from a much older film, and the roar itself is a heavily modified sound bite.

I still wanted to post it because the discussion around Godzilla's new roar and the possibilities are endless, and I want to know what noise you think will come out of this undead behemoth.

Hopefully, we'll get another trailer that actually answers this question before Shin Godzilla releases on July 29th in Japan.

'Godzilla Resurgence' News Round-Up, Massive Plot Detail Emerges

These last few weeks have been peppered with tiny pieces of information about 'Godzilla Resurgence' and we thought there might be enough little bits of info to warrant a full breakdown of the new stuff. These news bites range from marketing info to huge plot details, so let's get to it!

'GODZILLA RESURGENCE' SOUNDTRACK UP FOR PRE-ORDER

The soundtrack for the new films has shown up on the Japanese Amazon and is showing the same release date as the film (July, 29th). The coolest thing about the release is the new image of a snarling Shin-Goji that looks amazing! This picture really stands out and kind of proves my point that this Godzilla design will look good from some angles, but not so much from others. My co-host Coleman pointed out that it looks like he may be a bit more regenerated in this image, but I think that may be just hopeful thinking.

'GODZILLA RESURGENCE' PLOT DETAIL AND NEW IMAGES

The biggest news of the last few weeks has been relayed by Sci-Fi Japan. This article not only revealed some great new hi-res photos of the film, but also gave an interesting (but crucial) plot detail that was not known until now. 'Godzilla Resurgence' is not connected to the original 1954 'Gojira' and will be the first appearance of Godzilla in the film's universe. This is the first time that a Japanese-made Godzilla film has tried to separate itself from the original, and makes this movie a reboot of the franchise instead of a sequel. I personally don't like that we don't have a baseline for how this Godzilla will act, but I do see how this may free Toho to make some pretty radical changes to the formula we know Godzilla to adhere to. I mean, the design itself is a decently large departure from what we have seen from Toho in the past.
 

CROSS MARKETING EVERYWHERE

The last few pieces of "news" really just show how hardcore Toho is marketing the new film in the hopes to make it a smash hit over the summer. First we have a little commercial for a cross-promotion with the company PARCO. In the ad, Shin-Goji seems to be going up against the companies giant Koala mascot. There are actually a couple of quick new shots for the film which makes the 30 second ad worth a watch.

Lastly, we have a interesting little event going on at Umihotaru which is an artificial island that is apparently a huge tourist spot.  The full breakdown was done by our friends over at the Gormaru Island facebook page, but it looks like there is going to a 1/60th scale Shin-Goji image put up and some activities like a Godzilla photo session and a talk show interview with Shinji Higuchi. I doubt we will get much more information from the event but at least we got the super silly image out of it right?

Hopefully, we'll be getting some more substantial news in the near future! Maybe a final trailer soon or an actual US distributor will rear their head? A fan can always hope and dream.

Another Distributor Steps Forward To Release 'Godzilla Resurgence' Outside Of Japan

A new trailer for 'Godzilla Resurgence' just dropped, but don't get too excited. As far as I can tell, there isn't any new footage shown and a lot of what we've seen already actually got cut. The trailer is actually out to promote the Chinese release of the film, and we've just got our first news of who will be handling it. Foreign distribution news. Is this what we're supposed to get excited about nowadays with the drought of information that Toho has been greedily keeping to themselves? No, I think there is a larger story to this trailer release than just the back end of a film's business model. Check out the most recent trailer below and my thoughts on why this matters to you seeing 'Godzilla Resurgence' as soon as possible.

Here's the "new" trailer:

Right there at the beginning you can see who will be distributing the film to Chinese audiences: Intercontinental Film Distributers (H.K.) Limited. They've handled some major film distribution for the country that includes: 'Transformers 4,' 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,' 'Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation,' 'Terminator: Genesis,' 'The Wind Rises,' 'World War Z,' etc. Their home video distribution arm includes 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' if that helps give you an idea of how massive a company this is and what that means for 'Godzilla Resurgence.' It looks like the film is going to get a wide theatrical release in one of the most important film markets in the world.

Is it starting to make sense why I'm treating this as major news? If Toho has sought out a distributor of this size in the second largest movie market in the world, it is now ridiculous to think that they don't have major plans for an American release. They're not going with a smallish company just to push this into another Asian country and make a quick buck, they accepted the bid of a huge distributor based in an integral region. Legendary's 2014 'Godzilla' was the number one movie when it opened in China and it did great business during it's run. The only place the film did better? Domestically, here in the United States.

I can't imagine a scenario after hearing about this where a major distributor like Sony doesn't pick up the film for an western release at some point. There's no guarantee that we'll get a day and date theater opening with Japanese audiences, but I think we'll see it in theaters and definitely in homes carried by a large company we know and trust. That's a lot more than we could say even yesterday.

Sorry New World Cinemas. 

'Godzilla Resurgence' will release in China on August 25th, 2016.

[Updated] Rumor Control: 'Godzilla: Resurgence' Story Details Leak?

UPDATE: So, the user who originally posted the story came clean on the Toho Kingdom forums and announced that it was made up. We've gotten a lot of flak for posting the rumor to begin with, but I personally love fake rumors like this one when it's obvious that someone put a lot of effort into it. The story they laid out was incredibly interesting and they went the extra mile to include details that sound like they would be plausible coming from the filmmakers involved and their previous works.

Kudos to the user JetJaguarPaunch, and I hope everyone arguing about this can just take a deep breath and enjoy these next few months when we truly don't know anything about Toho's new film and can get this excited about the many possibilities the movie has in store for us. What follows is the confession to making up the rumor posted a few minutes ago on the Toho Kingdom forums and our original article on the rumors.

"So, I think it's time to come clean on a few things. 

A few of you, a very select few, would know me best as Burkion from KaijuPhile/Rodans Roost. I've been a member of Godzilla communities online for most of my life at this point, since 2000. Maybe 1999. 

I have seen a lot of stuff in that time, a lot of rumors and 'leaks' and ideas and just total and complete bullshit across the board. I was contacted by a long time friend of mine, who you all should know as Monster Master, about a supposed 'leaked script' by our good friend LSD Jellyfish. I thought it sounded wrong from the get go, as did he, and we worked together on our own 'leaked script' designed to be maximally accurate to what LSD did, while also pushing the limit on what should have been believable. 

It has proven an overwhelming success, to my dismay, but it also drawn out some interesting things from LSD himself. I'm not saying his script is a lie, or that his sources are lying to him, I honestly Do Not Know myself -but he only brought up the existence of 'Yudas' after we did. That is incredibly suspicious. 

Once upon a time on KP, we had a magical event occur. It was late 2003, and one guy came on with spoilers for EVERYTHING in Final Wars. Absolutely everything. GINO, Minya, Monster X becoming Kaiser Ghidorah- every single thing he knew about. 

We called bullshit on it immediately and gave him utter Hell until the movie actually came out. 

But that was a once in a life time thing, and the moral of this story is- please do not believe everything you read. 

There are a lot of assholes out there who will post blatantly false information just for kicks and giggles. 

Like us."

Take the following information with a huge grain of salt, but we may have just gotten a lot of major story details about 'Godzilla: Resurgence' from a possible script leak. A user on the Toho Kingdom forums (JetJaguarPaunch) regaled everyone with an amazing breakdown of some major secrets in the film that Toho has been trying to desperately hide from audiences. This leak does seem extremely fishy, but there is so much here that makes sense with the information we have on 'Godzilla Resurgence' so far. Keep in mind that what follows is a verbatim transcript and could be considered getting into extreme SPOILER territory, so read at your own peril.

"Okay, after looking through this thread after hearing about it, I find this very interesting. I've also seen the script. LSDJ’s description is very close to what I've seen as well. Before I go, I want to make clear that what I have may not be the final script, and may not even be the same script as he has. I will not give up my source, reveal my true identity (no, I am not an active member on these forums or ever have been), nor will I get into a massive argument about how I got this script and why you should believe me. The movie comes out in a few months, we will see then.

So without further ado, POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD
Spoiler:
First off, KAIJU A –

The script references this monster as very basic in design. I can not verify if what LSDJ said about its creation is true or not. However, from what I gather, the monster isn’t very spectacular. It seems to be a somewhat quadrupled design and a dark olive green in color. The script references it as having a “Arrow-Shaped” head, possibly like a snake’s. If what LSDJ said about its reasons of existence are true, I personally believe they could get away with recycling the GMK Baragon suit for the creature. Godzilla does fight it very early on just as his mutation is setting in. It is not a very long fight, but the monster is referenced as “Alphagon” in the script. I do not know if it is also referenced as such in LSDJ’s copy. During the fight, the monster manages to hit Godzilla’s jaw and something happens, either the jaw is dislocated or gets horribly maimed by its “mole-like forelimbs.” Godzilla is to then release a much different roar than what we’re used to, hinting that he is not in complete control of himself. At this point, Godzilla destroys “Alphagon” with his atomic ray.

Start opening credits which includes news reports on both old atomic bomb testings and the Fukushima disaster.

GODZILLA MUTATED FORM –

As LSDJ said, and as we have all seen, Godzilla is in a highly ravaged form. This is not a result of the Oxygen Destroyer from 1954 or anything of the sort. It is a parasite. The human characters are not aware of this until about half way through the film when, after a fierce battle with the self-defense forces (which utilizes napalm for the first time in the series excluding Megalon), Godzilla’s body slumps forward. His spines begin to separate and a large gash or cut appears down it. While it is described as a “man exiting a suit”, it also gives details on pieces of Godzilla’s flesh falling from it in the process and gives excessive details on Godzilla’s arms flattening out, as if all the bones and muscle are being pulled out of them. Godzilla is left as a skin as the new monster, called Judas, emerges.

This name also keeps in tradition with Anno taking inspiration from Judeo Christian mythology.

At this point, the monster is described as being humanoid with extremely lanky arms and legs. It is said to have a skull-like face. This immediately sounds like the monster Sachiel from Evangelion. It is also said to have large, bulbous red eyes and a pair of wasp-like wings. Its tongue is also long and tends to dangle from its mouth and is tipped with a pair of snapping jaws. Think Alien. The flesh is said to be black and “wet”. I imagine it’ll be a lot like a salamander or a frog’s skin.

At this point in the movie, Judas is standing within the remains of Godzilla and the self-defense forces have no idea what just happened. Judas flies into the air and one of the characters, which has had a due amount of time making it clear she is not religious, looks up and makes the statement “It looks like an angel.”

From a tonal standpoint, the movie completely shifts. The film starts to feel and act more like a traditional Godzilla versus a monster movie. Judas is now the focus and engages the military in much faster paced combat and dog battles over Japan. At the same time, Godzilla is regenerating. By the time he has recovered, most of the self-defense forces are gone and America is debating whether to deliver a nuclear strike to Judas (it plays a lot like a homage to the 1984 film, the first film Shinji Higuchi worked on for Toho), despite the Prime Minister’s objection. Godzilla returns to life and is on a warpath directly for Judas who is now in the heart of Tokyo. The Americans try a military blockade with several lines of tanks and ground-to-ground missile launchers. Unlike other movies where Godzilla stomps and blasts them, he now walks through the attacks not even paying attention. After numerous failed blockades, the commander simply orders “Everyone and everything, get out of his way.”

It should be noted that the script now calls for this Godzilla to “look more like the original”, so he won’t have the mangled look he had before. He is now black with his spines being bone white. From what it reads as, he seems to be a design cross of 1954 and the Heisei Godzilla.

When Godzilla reaches Judas in Tokyo, the new monster spots him and tries to run away. Keeping with what LSDJ has said about Godzilla using his tail more than his beam, he swats it out of the sky and breaks one of its wings. Judas falls and Godzilla begins a lengthy battle against it in which this Godzilla displays a much different fighting style, thanks to his long tail. Near the end of the fight, Godzilla begins to stomp the back of Judas’ head into the ground repeatedly. After several stomps, its entire body is stated to “disintegrate into a black mass of spider-like creatures.” This swarm of what I presume are babies (like how a spider can explode into a bunch of babies once hit) begin to swarm Godzilla and the surrounding area. Godzilla’s flesh begins to change like it did before, implying that whatever Judas did to Godzilla originally, it is doing it again.

The disintegrating Judas could be a reference to actual babies as a way to propagate itself or something like Destroyer breaking down into its smaller forms. We never see these before this scene happens.

At this point, the UNITED STATES decide to use a miniature nuclear weapon on Godzilla and Judas with or without Japan’s approval in order to secure the safety of the rest of the country and the world. The Japanese government only agrees with this if they’re allowed to rebuild their military power (also keeping with LSDJ’s sentiments of this being a key issue) so that they can take future matters into their own hands, monsters or otherwise. The strike hits Tokyo and seems to kill Godzilla and Judas, along with destroying all of Tokyo in the process.

At this point, just before the movie ends, one of the characters is seen with documents concerning Alphagon, Judas, and Godzilla. The character closes a blue and white folder which has an “M” marked in the corner. Hinting that it could take part in the same timeline as Legendary’s Godzilla.

I can't confirm nor deny if Judas is suppose to be suitmation or CGI. The same goes for Alphagon, but I will not be surprised if Alphagon is a modified GMK Baragon suit, also coming from a movie that Shinji Higuchi worked on, tying it together with the earlier Return of Godzilla allusions.

Take all of this as you will. I can not confirm if the script I have and translated is the final one or what, if anything has changed. If mine is an earlier, or later, iteration of LSDJ's, I wouldn't know. They are extremely similar however. We will just have to wait and find out until the movie comes in July."

I love this breakdown so much that I think I will be almost disappointed in the film if none of this is true. Godzilla's design oddities and how stiffly he moves make a lot more sense if the whole thing is a play on the creature himself being a meat suit for this new creature, "Judas." What really caught my eye, is that this seems like a Godzilla film that Hideaki Anno would make. This story (if true) would also kind of make the weird Godzilla Vs Evangelion marketing make more sense in retrospect, with "Judas" seemingly taking a lot of design elements from the "Angels" of the Evangelion series. I have wanted a new solo Godzilla outing for a very long time, but this movie's story and plot progression have eluded my senses for so long that I would be perfectly happy if this becomes a versus film in the last act. Also, this story possibly taking place in the Legendary Godzillaverse is intriguing, but I'm gonna bet that is just wishful thinking and the scene will probably be cut from the final film.

A little validity can be found for this leak if you look hard enough. The first revealed toy information from Resurgence actually listed two mysterious products called "Kaiju A" and "Kaiju B" respectively, as "coming soon." Could these two toys be "Alphagon" and "Judas?" Also, remember the potential leak during the production of this film that Godzilla would have "multiple forms" over the course of the movie? Toho came out and denied the rumor that he would be regenerating into a fully-fleshed Godzilla, but they technically never denied the multiple forms angle. Also, they seem to want to keep this incredibly secret, so wouldn't they just deny that anyway?

Maybe this leaked script is real... maybe it's not. Regardless, this makes me a lot more excited for the film itself, since it is quite possible that the trailers have only shown us a glimpse of what truly is going on in this reboot.

Coming Next Week - Episode 8: Road To Godzilla Resurgence

This is an episode of the podcast that you absolutely don't want to miss! We had a whole line-up of topics ready to go for the next few episodes, but we couldn't help ourselves in inserting an entire episode dedicated to Toho Picture's upcoming 'Godzilla Resurgence.' We go through the history of Godzilla films focusing on past breaks and reboots of the iconic giant monster, before diving into the new directors Shinji Higuchi and Hideaki Anno and their influential impact on Japanese entertainment.

This episode marks a turning point with the podcast where hosts Coleman and Kyle hope to give insight and behind the scenes details into the company and filmmakers who created the upcoming new Godzilla film. Besides covering that in the main topic, they also go into recent news concerning Gareth Edwards leaving 'Godzilla 2,' the new Power Rangers reboot costume reveal, and IDW's new Godzilla comic written by Jeremy Robinson.

You will not be disappointed if you, like us, are incredibly excited to see what Toho does with their incredibly divergent new inclusion to the Godzilla franchise. Keep a look out for the episode to drop early next week.

'Return of Godzilla' Releasing On Blu-Ray And DVD For The First Time In America

Breaking news! Kraken Releasing (the company behind the recent Bluray/DVD releases of 'Godzilla vs Hedorah,' 'Godzilla vs Gigan,' and 'Ebirah Horror of the Deep') has just acquired the rights to release the uncut Japanese version of 'The Return of Godzilla' (some of you may know this film by the name 'Godzilla 1985'). This is huge news, as this uncut version of the film has never made it over to U.S. shores. Fans rejoice!

 'The Return of Godzilla'  served as a reboot to the Godzilla franchise after poor box office returns from the last Showa Godzilla film, 'Terror of MechaGodzilla.' Godzilla came back in 1984 with better special effects and returned to the serious tone of the original 'Gojira.' The US version of the film ('Godzilla 1985') was heavily re-edited and had many new scenes added superfluously into the film. There were about twenty minutes of footage from the Japanese release removed to add in the new scenes with Raymond Burr reprising his role of Steve Martin from the American version of 'Gojira' ('Godzilla King of the Monsters').  

Most of us die-hard fans have previously had to import 'The Return of Godzilla' because of a major rights issue with the film. New World Pictures still owns the rights to the American version of the film due to a strange contract that was signed when the film was originally released in North America. The company has since gone out of business, and due to the rights of 'Godzilla 1985' still being in their clutches, we have not had a DVD version of the film, much less seen the original unaltered version natively.

The new Blu-ray and DVD from Kraken Releasing will include a Japanese language track with subtitles and the English dubbed version. Interestingly enough, I do not think the dubbed version will be the American cut due to the aforementioned rights issue with 'Godzilla 1985.' I think that the dub being used for this release may be from a different English-speaking country where the film was not re-edited on release.

The new Blu-ray and DVD finally arrive in America on September 13th, 2016.

Is This Really The Company Handling The American Release Of 'Godzilla: Resurgence?'

This week, film distributer New World Cinemas spoke for the first time about their supposed 'Godzilla: Resurgence' U.S. distribution on their Facebook page. While we have previously reported that New World Cinemas would be taking the reins on the American release of the film, I'm starting to have some doubts that an unknown distributor would be given the reigns to a reinvigorated franchise the size of Godzilla. I have a bit of evidence (or lack thereof) that may shine some light on this bizarre turn of events.

The above mentioned Facebook post stated the following:

“To all GODZILLA FANS! We are working hard to bring GODZILLA to every State! Patience my Friends... she is coming soon!”

Looking at the post from a purely innocent standpoint, this seems to be great news. Fans have been plastering their Facebook and Twitter with questions pretty consistently since their name showed up on the film's IMDB page. Their website has also had a strange "coming soon" page listing a 2017 release for a DVD of the film for over a month now. The Facebook post is the first real comment they have made about the film's release, other than a couple images of text that say in very broken English:

“Godzilla “The King of the Monsters’ is back in a new film “Godzilla: Resurgence.” Going back yo his roots, The Toho Company and co-drectors Hideaki and Shinji Higuchi have designed Godzilla to be more menacing and destructive. THE FILMS OPENS IN JAPAN JULY 29 2016 and will be distributed in the USA through NEW WORLD CINEMAS some time after that.”

I did not edit that paragraph in any way and you can clearly see that on both their official site and their Facebook page they come off as incredibly unprofessional. Toho has yet to officially make any sort of statement announcing an international release of the film and has made no mention of the film being distributed by New World Cinemas or anyone else for that matter. 

This all just seems extremely suspicious to me. In the last thirty years, Toho has distributed the Godzilla films in the United States using major companies like Sony (Late Heisei and the Millenium films including 'Godzilla: Final Wars')  and HBO/Miramax ('Godzilla vs Biollante'). Heck, even 'Godzilla 1985' was distributed by a company called New World Pictures (no relation to New World Cinemas) that had worked as a distributor on major films running all the way back to the 60's. Big companies are interested in distributing Godzilla films because they usually make decent money in DVD sales with barely any cost to the studio.

We know there was a marketing expo back in January/February that was showing off the concept of the film for a potential international distributor. There have also been rumors floating around that Warner Bros. were given first dibs due to their ongoing relationship with the American Godzilla sequels. If a big studio like Warner Bros. were given the opportunity to distribute, how did this tiny company that mostly distributes bottom-rung independent films win out the bid? Godzilla has become a house-hold name again due to the generally well received American movie from 2014 and has made a new audience interested in the G-man for the first time. It doesn't make any sense that none of the studios who worked with them before (especially Sony who seems to have an excellent relationship with them distribution wise) wouldn't want to capitalize on Godzilla 2014's popularity. In the modern distribution landscape, this situation looks like dollar signs, even without considering a theatrical release for 'Godzilla: Resurgence'.

Another suspicious item to note is the New World Cinemas official Twitter, which is plastered with political propaganda for the upcoming american presidential election. This official company Twitter page for the company reads more like a personal account and definitely does not exude any semblance of professionalism. Toho has always seemed like a corporation that prides themselves on being very straight laced and polished. Why would they allow their most iconic property to be handled by this strange company? 

I'm not going to call out New World Cinemas for outright lying to us just yet, but this whole situation seems extremely odd. I also worry about this company being in charge of subtitling and/or dubbing the film with their lack of integrity regarding the release and how they run their business. Many individuals and companies have tried to contact them for screening information and outside of confirming that they are in fact handling the distribution of the film to one fan that reached out, they have ceased responding to even professional inquiries. 

I'm sure we will find out more in the coming months, but for now call me a skeptic with this being how the U.S. distribution of the film will move forward. You can see New World Cinemas IMDB page here if you want to look into the other films they have previously distributed.

Am I looking into this too much? Do you think they really are the distributors of 'Godzilla: Resurgence'?