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Spoilers DC's Legends of Tomorrow - Season 4

There's an urban legend that the original plan for the movie that would be "Godzilla" actually was for an octopus monster, until the production team became aware of Ray Harryhausen working on "It Came from Beneath the Sea", at which point the monster was changed into a dinosaur-like creature.
While there's probably not a lot of truth to this ("Godzilla" premiered more than six months before "It Came from Beneath the Sea"), it might just be enough of an inspiration for making the monster in this episode an octopus.

Another thing, that shot of the single tentacle coming out of the water reminded me very much of Godzilla's tail doing the same in "Shin Godzilla".
 
Kai "the spy" said:
There's an urban legend that the original plan for the movie that would be "Godzilla" actually was for an octopus monster, until the production team became aware of Ray Harryhausen working on "It Came from Beneath the Sea", at which point the monster was changed into a dinosaur-like creature.
While there's probably not a lot of truth to this ("Godzilla" premiered more than six months before "It Came from Beneath the Sea"), it might just be enough of an inspiration for making the monster in this episode an octopus.
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Okay, apparently FX creator Eiji Tsuburaya did pitch a giant-octopus movie in 1951. This blog post makes the case that Tsuburaya would've been a better fit for the character here than Honda, though I guess they went for a composite character.

But the reason Tanaka went for a giant dinosaur -- one with a certain apelike quality to the face and hands -- was because he was inspired by Harryhausen's The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and the 1952 re-release of King Kong. As you say, Godzilla predated ICFBTS.
 
Christopher said:
Okay, apparently FX creator Eiji Tsuburaya did pitch a giant-octopus movie in 1951. This blog post makes the case that Tsuburaya would've been a better fit for the character here than Honda, though I guess they went for a composite character.

But the reason Tanaka went for a giant dinosaur -- one with a certain apelike quality to the face and hands -- was because he was inspired by Harryhausen's The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and the 1952 re-release of King Kong. As you say, Godzilla predated ICFBTS.
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That's the first I heard of it. Unfortunately, the article doesn't go into much detail about Tsuburaya's pitch, and doesn't give a source, either. Gotta research this further. If there's anything to it, it would make a nice article for the German monster movie magazine I'm writing for.
 
Couldn't find anything about a pitch by Tsuburaya in 1951, all the references I find are about the giant octopus being the original idea for the 1954 monster movie that turned into Godzilla. I really need to finally get a copy of August Ragone's book on Tsuburaya, it may be in there.
 
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Kai "the spy" said:
Couldn't find anything about a pitch by Tsuburaya in 1951, all the references I find are about the giant octopus being the original idea for the 1954 monster movie that turned into Godzilla.
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I think those references are conflating the two, saying that Tsuburaya's monster pitch was the antecedent for the project that became Gojira.
 
Not their best but still OK episode. I thought the actual tentacle interaction with Sara was decently done and Zari looks great in period gear.

Gary’s plan to flash his “date” is a little problematic in this day and age but their escapade was fun. I take it we will see more of Ramona Young.

Cute callback to Back to the Future with Biff’s make like a tree and leave.
 
I was surprised when I saw that.
I'm a big Godzilla fan, so I got a kick out of this one. I'm not familiar with the behind the scenes history, so I wasn't aware of all the inaccuracies.
The stuff with Nate and Ava and his family, and all the Time Bureau drama was a lot of fun. It definitely seems like Nate's dad has some sort of plans for all the fugitives, and I have a feeling it's not going to be good. The "make like a tree and leave" bit got a nice laugh, I'm a surprised it took them this long to work in a Back to the Future reference.
I'm glad Nora is back in the picture, I really started to like her towards the end of last season. She's a regular now, so I'm assuming we'll be seeing a lot more of her now that she's popped back up.
 
You know I think I must be a complete idiot. It just know occurred to me that the reason they hired the Biff actor is because he is famous for movies dealing with time travel. How in a world could I not connect the dots. They were basically the size of a Death Star.


Jason
 
So I just finished watching and listening to the commentary by Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski on the Classic Media 2-Disc Version of Gojira and the Criterion commentary by David Kalat as well as the supplemental features on both and they all agree that the original pitch for a monster movie was an giant octopus/squid in late '51-early '52, which evolved into a draft by Shigeru Kayama where the monster is only vaguely described but is definitely more anthropomorphic with large flapping ears and glowing red eyes.

As the script passed through the storyboard stage the monster resembled something akin to a Chinese dragon (several storyboards are reproduced on the Classic Media version of Gojira which shows the monster wrapped around various Tokyo landmarks like a snake).

It was when Eiji Tsuburaya was brought onboard that the monster began to take on the more familiar Gojira/Godzilla form that we all know.
 
DarrenTR1970 said:
As the script passed through the storyboard stage the monster resembled something akin to a Chinese dragon (several storyboards are reproduced on the Classic Media version of Gojira which shows the monster wrapped around various Tokyo landmarks like a snake).
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Ooh, that would've been neat. I love Chinese dragons on film.
 
Okay, tonight's episode, with the Minotaur, was a hoot. So many good lines:

". . . and I've met Gillian Anderson at a meet-and-greet!"

"That's for being on my eighth-grade summer reading list!"

Etc.
 
It was all very Midnight in Paris. :)

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Or that episode of Timeless

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I felt they rode a bit too hard on the self-referential humor, "Another wacky Legends mission!" and all that. Also, I had issues with the premise that Hank was concerned about the Legends' wasteful spending, like when he cited the expense of historical costumes as a line item. Gideon makes the costumes with her replicator; why does the US government have to pay for that? (Also, why is the Time Bureau a US government operation instead of an international one?)

Given how desperate the Legends were to keep Nate from seeing Charlie, he handled the revelation rather easily. That was an anticlimax. It was also a rather convenient coincidence that the temporal anomaly that cropped up when Hank was visiting just happened to involve his favorite writer.

I'm still trying to figure Mona out. Given her surprisingly encyclopedic knowledge of magical creatures' dietary and environmental needs (with no explantion but "I read a lot") and her casual acceptance of their existence -- and given that her actress is billed as a regular when even Gary is still just a guest star -- I strongly suspect she's hiding something and will turn out to be a warden of the magical prison the creatures escaped from, or something. But if so, she's doing a really good job of hiding it. On the other hand, she did seem to push Ray and Nora into doing things that led to the situation of the three women being trapped together and bonding. Maybe that was more than just being a clueless romantic.
 
Christopher said:
I felt they rode a bit too hard on the self-referential humor, "Another wacky Legends mission!" and all that.
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I think it may be a bit much passing the Legends wackiness on to the Time Bureau and so on. Nora and Ava seem fairly defanged and while I like Ramona Young the Mona character is really pushing the adorkable envelope. Maybe better to restrict that stuff to the Legends themselves?
 
Mr. Adventure said:
I think it may be a bit much passing the Legends wackiness on to the Time Bureau and so on. Nora and Ava seem fairly defanged and while I like Ramona Young the Mona character is really pushing the adorkable envelope. Maybe better to restrict that stuff to the Legends themselves?
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Well, the show has done dour, serious time police in the past, and it didn't work as well as the comedy stuff. So I'm not surprised that the writers are playing to their strengths. Still, I do sometimes wonder how Gary manages to stay employed, and why he seems to be given so much more responsibility at the Bureau than any of the dozens of other people in suits in the background. I guess the basic idea of Gary is that he's really good at paperwork and bureaucracy and middle-management stuff but hopeless out in the field, but the more we see of him in the office and still played for comedy, the more he seems like a screwup there too.
 
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