LONG LIVE THE KING….OF MONSTERS!!!!

This article was originally published on 9.11.2013. Interesting update at the bottom of the article following the cut.

Earlier today, someone posted this image of the titular King of Monsters from Legendary Pictures upcoming Godzilla film, directed by Gareth Edwards (backtracking through articles, the source seems muddled. One of the main sites that I’ve seen pointed to this image has 404’d every time I tried to load it, so if this is yours, let me know!), from a licensing expo in Australia. Where it’s not *technically* an official image release, I can’t imagine why else they’d have this image up at a Licensing expo, so take this with a kaiju-sized grain of salt, however, there’s further proof to it being legit, more on that in a moment.

Now, once we move past the fact that this looks AMAZING and treats not only the G-fans, but the lineage of the monster itself with a respect that was sadly and completely lost in the last American try at making a Godzilla film, we can look at the legitimacy of this being the actual appearance of the beast itself since thus far, no pictures have been released in an “official” capacity. GET YOUR INTERNET DETECTIVE SLEUTHING HATS ON BOYS AND GIRLS WE’RE TAKIN’ THE CASE!

Okay, ready? Of course you are.
Look at these pictures of a statue that made it’s appearance at the Godzilla Experience during San Diego Comic Con 2013:

Now, I saw these a couple of months ago, but hesitated to post them or get too excited, since it could have been just concept work. I mean, I’m sure it is, the poster and the statue don’t look exactly alike, but they’re very close. Also at the GE, was this bust sculpt:

And this teaser poster that has been released, look here at the tail, then go back up and look at the tail/figure on the statue. They look VERY similar.

Then there are these two images. Now the first, most interestingly is a grainy image taken from the teaser preview shown during SDCC 2012, before production on the film was even officially announced. It was all still speculation as to what was actually going down. Not to mention the grey, “production limbo” area that so many “announced” films fall into after appearing at any multitude of conventions/publications. The second image was apparently leaked from someone working on the film. I’ve found nothing about the source of this either. However, my point is that again, all these images in form and basic shape look alike.

So what do you think? Can the conclusion be safely drawn that we finally know what our favorite giant, radioactive, force of man and nature, will look like in the film? I certainly hope so. Especially since a very large initial complaint about the last American Godzilla flick was the blatant disregard for the fans and the monster’s heritage. I say “initial” because we saw what it looked like before we saw how awful the film was….and MAN was it awful….

I think Legendary would do well to just go all out and publicize THIS version, if indeed it is the actual film model. I think any hesitation or lingering doubts by the fans would be tempered with the knowledge that, at least, the monster looks relatively as it should in this movie. That would be a fantastic PR move on their part. I’m not saying they should do the equivalent of Casey Elwes knock against Kevin Costner as the character of Robin Hood in Mel Brooks’ Men In Tights (“at least *I* speak with an English accent!”), and say “Hey look! Our Godzilla looks freaking awesome and more like the ACTUAL Godzilla, not like that piece of crap that Tri-Star made!!”.
So even if, and PLEASE DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN, but even if (deep breath) this movie sucks….(*sigh*)…at least the figures of it won’t look out-of-place in my collection.

Oh, one last note, Legendary also scored Akira Takarada for this movie. Who’s that you say? He just so happens to be the only non-monster recurring figure in the old school Godzilla series. Mr. Takarada starred in the original 1954 Gojira, as well as several other Godzilla films during the Showa era. He also had a role in Toho’s 2004 film, Godzilla: Final Wars. Here he is with director Gareth Edwards:

Well, that’s it for now. New York Comic Con is coming up in a few weeks and Rishard and I will be in attendance. Legendary had a huge presence there promoting Pacific Rim. Hopefully they’ll be back this year with some Godzilla goodness! Until then, I’ll be waiting with baited, nuclear, breath.

UPDATE: We found this image of one of the toys/figures/collectibles being released of Godzilla for the upcoming film. It shows the full monster as he’ll appear in the film. At least, the toy scale version. The arms look a bit thin and those Brontosaurus feet look a tad weird, but aside from that, I like it and appreciate that they’ve kept the general aesthetic of our favorite kaiju intact this time around. The rumor mill is still perpetuating hints that Big G will be facing other monsters in this film as well so, stay excited!!