MANNNNN, sometimes this net thing is so cool!!!! Ok geeks of the world, let me transport you to KOREA, where just yesterday Emmerich and Devlin hosted a wing ding presentation of GODZILLA!!! Here they lay out their advertising scheme and our spy name YINYANG gave us the in and the out, and gives you a seat at this cool as hell event. And remember Ain't It Cool took ya, mannnn where is my time travel and place displacement device when I need it. Let's live now through the experiances of YINYANG!!!
Let me get to Godzilla now. I was invited to Godzilla presentation for merchandiser and licensors in Korea. This was sponsered by Columbia-Tri Star Korea. Well, these guys spent tons. They held it at a **** hotel and pulled out all the stops. They brought in all the marketing tools. Posters, theatrical boards, ice carving... Your saying, so what I've seen all that.
We were escorted into a ball room that had been set up for a nice sit down lunch. While seated, a music blared out. Heavy metalish, guitar heavy tune with Godziila in the lyric. The hard driving tune really set the tone. They also had two giant eyes(Godzilla's) on two walls which lit up red from time to time. They even had dry ice machine going. The atmosphere was truely awesome. Sad part was that none of the Koreans there knew what Godzilla was. In Korea, Japanese films are prohibited, so no one knows. Yours truely had grown up in Japan and the US, so I was psyched. Most Koreans saw it as an attempt to cash in on Jurassic Park.
Well, the room went dark and the screen was first filled with scenes from ID4 as a set up. "From the producer and Director of ID4, comes bigger, badder, meaner enemy to terrorize the eath... blah...blah". Then Roland and Dean came on to welcome the Koreans and hyping the films as being the biggest film of all time. That Godzilla will be the event film of 1998 and beyond. They also had comments from Patrick Tatopoulos, Creature Designer, Volker Engel, Visual Effects, etc. These guys were psyched in explaining the film. The creature designer said that this new Godzilla will be sleek, and he also said that this baby will be unbelievably fast, outwitting F-18, super tanks and other military weapons. He also said that the new Godzilla can reach the speed of 300MPH! Is this possible? I guess anything is possible with nuclearlly mutated beast!
They showed shootings in NY with the floor the ground shaking and debris falling! Godzilla will be added later via CG, minature and mechanical. They also showed the museum trailer which I had seen in the US.
The most awesome part of the presentation was a 3 minute in the works footage that they showed! They showed scenes in Jungle(shot in Hawaii), then they showed the mayhem in NY. Empire State building exploding. Godzilla moving toward NY (under water) destroying ships in its path. They showed a monster tail destroying buildings, a clawed paw? crashing through the inside wall of the building and obcourse the giant feet running. I was in awe and wanted to see the film right there and now.
Unfortunately, they did not show the beast in whole. The marketer pointed out that the new Godzilla won't be revealed until May 20, 1998. As a teaser camapign parts of him will be revealed litle by little. Does this sound like "Jurassic Park"?
They were hyping this film as the biggest film ever! And they were making a believer out of me! Their marketing effort will be huge like Godzilla. This is going to be HUGE! I had to tell someone and you came to mind.
To top off the event, they fed us full course deluxe filet mignon lunch. As a gift, they gave me a Godzilla T-shirt, baseball cap, poster, pin and informational phamplet!
Man, this mother is going to rock! I am a happy man today!
