Monthly Archives: May 2019

Review, Blog

Lost and Now Found: A Review of “Kong Unmade” by John LeMay

The cover of “Kong Unmade,” the newest book by film historian and kaiju fan John LeMay. It is available in paperback and KIndle on Amazon.

Tokusatsu film historian John LeMay has done it again! After indexing every kaiju (giant monster) movie from the 1950s to today with The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies, Vol. 1-2, his newest is essentially the third entry in what could be called his Lost Films trilogy. Previously he discovered unused scripts and story treatments for famous Japanese monsters like Godzilla and Gamera with the copiously-researched The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies: The Lost Films and more down-to-size Japanese science fiction and fantasy films with Terror of the Lost Tokusatsu Films. Now he brings readers the “lost films” of the granddaddy of all kaiju, King Kong, with Kong Unmade: The Lost Films of Skull Island.

While Kong’s impact on pop culture is humungous, his filmography is surprisingly short. In all, he has only ten official films (plus one upcoming movie) in over eight-and-a-half decades. It’s not from a lack of trying, though, as LeMay details. Director/producer Merrian C. Cooper tried for years to make another sequel to the 1933 classic after the hastily-made Son of Kong. The New Adventures of King Kong would’ve been a “midquel” that took place while Kong was being transported from Skull Island to New York, where he escaped into the jungles of Africa. A similar and even more outlandish idea was Tarzan vs. King Kong, where the big ape would’ve met the famous ape man. On the other side of the Pacific, Toho Studios attempted to create Frankenstein vs. King Kong, which eventually became King Kong vs. Godzilla. After its massive success, a script for a rematch—cleverly titled Continuation: King Kong vs. Godzilla­­—was written that would’ve had Kong become a surrogate father to a lost infant. And that’s just a few examples!

Essays on these lost films aren’t all that’s in this new volume. There are “bonus reviews” and “development of” chapters on the Kong films that did get made. They detail many concepts that were abandoned or changed during the filmmaking process. For example, the script Peter Jackson wrote for his 2005 remake was originally quite different (Ann Darrow was British, for one thing). There are also essays on lost or obscure Kong media such as Don Glut’s Tor films and what would’ve been an animated sequel to King Kong Lives featuring Kong’s son (who would’ve had the ability to change his size) by producer/artist Robert Lamb. Several of these essays are written by excellent guest contributors. LeMay also writes on obscure and lost films that were inspired by King Kong, such as The Mighty Gorga and the infamous A*P*E*. If they don’t get a full-length chapter, they’re included in one of the book’s several appendices.

One improvement over LeMay’s previous books is the inclusion of many images. These are photographs, movie posters, and concept art. The aforementioned chapter on the proposed Kong animated series includes concept art from Lamb, which gave me flashbacks to the Saturday morning cartoons of my childhood. A downside of the images is some of them are placed on right-hand pages opposite from the previous essay, and since these don’t have captions, it isn’t apparent that they’re meant to signal the next essay.

As usual, the design of the book is creative. The spine is designed to look like it has a library index code taped onto it. The title pages have a few ink splotches to simulate age and a half-faded stamp that says, “This book has been discarded by the Skull Island Public Library.” They’re wonderful touches, and the sort of clever design choices I wish I saw more often in books.

If I may mention a fairly significant nitpick, there are points I think the book could’ve been edited and proofread a bit better, but this is coming from someone who spends a lot of time editing in his work, so it’s hard for me to miss.

For fans of Kong, kaiju, film history, and/or LeMay, this is a must-read!

Five Stars out of Five.

Blog

Living with Imposter Syndrome

Last weekend I saw the trailer for the upcoming film Yesterday, which spins the yarn of a down-on-his-luck musician who wakes up in world that doesn’t remember the Beatles, so he takes credit for their songs to get rich and famous. In other words, he’s an imposter.

While he is an intentional deceiver, I discovered at the end of my first year as a graduate student that I, too, am an imposter. Or at the very least I feel like one.

To see the full comic strip, go here:
http://www.collegehumor.com/post/7054961/what-it-feels-like-to-have-imposter-syndrome .

This is called Imposter Syndrome. In a nutshell, it’s the fear that one doesn’t deserve their accolades and accomplishments and will exposed as a “fraud.” That’s how I felt after getting A’s on both of my final papers this past semester—which were about kaiju and superheroes—because I thought they either weren’t written well or that their ideas were faulty. Along with that, I maintained a 4.0 GPA (something I hesitate to say for fear of jinxing myself), which is better than what I had as an undergrad. Not only that, but several professors have been advocating for me to get either a PhD. or an MFA. Apparently, I make connections in my schoolwork only PhD. caliber students make. Some of the same professors have said I’m an “excellent teacher” given my success as a graduate teaching assistant.

You’d think I’d read/hear all of this and say, “I must be good at this school thing,” but instead I make excuses for why it’s not that impressive. Those include 1) my aforementioned inferior grades in undergrad, 2) people saying the university I’m attending isn’t that hard (there was once a joke that said its acronym stood for “I Paid For What?!”), and 3) feeling like I’m not as well-read as others and have to hide the fact that I haven’t read/seen/played certain media that supposedly everyone has. This is true of me not only as a grad student, but as a writer, a dancer, a son, a friend, a (potential) boyfriend, and everything else.

The truth is—if I may take the risk of being a little vulnerable—I’ve struggled with self-confidence most of my life. Even if my performance and/or ability was exceptional, I felt like it didn’t measure up to people’s expectations. I could and would still be rejected, and I frequently was. As I grew older, I started playing the “comparison game,” and since I tended to befriend really intelligent people, I felt like I was the “dumb one” in the “smart group” (not realizing that this still made me smarter than most people). I mean, when you hang out with Nick Hayden, who I’ve described as an intellectual One-Punch Man (he got a nearly perfect score in two years of Greek classes—and he took it for fun!), it’s hard to think your knowledge and writing is up to snuff. (What’s crazy is Nick is too humble to admit any of this). Paradoxically, whenever I would, for example, get a bad assessment or a rejection letter, I would say I deserved it but still get angry and think nobody recognized my talent. I, like all human beings, am full of contradictions.

Sadly, imposter syndrome isn’t recognized as a mental illness, although many of its symptoms, like depression, are seen as such. Those can be treated, but that won’t cure it. A pill can’t magic this away. In order to do that, I have to dig deep within myself, identify my anxieties, face them, and surround myself with supportive and truthful people. Ultimately, though, it’s up to me accept the fact as imperfect as I am, I am worthy of their praise.

Do you struggle with imposter syndrome? How do you deal with it? Why do you suffer from it?

News, Appearances, Announcements, Blog

My Toho Screenwriter Panel was Accepted by G-Fest!

It’s been a while, hasn’t it, True Believers? I know I say this a lot, but please accept my apologies. I was hard at work finishing my first year as a graduate student. If you’ve been following me on social media, though, you know that I’ve picked up on writing Hope’s War and editing my novella for Children of the Wells. That and a secret project will be my primary works this summer. Stay tuned for more!

Speaking of summer….

A few months ago I wrote that I would be going to G-Fest XXVI but as a panelist and not a vendor. I’ll once again be part of “The Art of Kaiju Writing” panel and joining the panel discussion of the upcoming Godzilla: King of the Monsters. More importantly, though…

Promotional image for G-Fest XXVI. (Courtesy of www.G-Fan.com).

I’M HOSTING MY OWN PANEL!

I and my friend/fellow writer Danny DiManna of the Godzilla Novelization Project will be presenting on Toho screenwriters Shinichi Sekizawa and Takeshi Kimura, who wrote many of the studio’s tokusatsu films from the 1950s-1970s. (You probably heard me talking about them a lot on Kaijuvision Radio). The fandom talks a lot about directors, actors, and composers, and rightfully so, but almost never about screenwriters, which is a shame. Danny and I hope to fill in that gap.

Here’s the description of the panel you’ll see in the convention program:

Most of Toho’s classic tokusatsu films started with scripts penned by the Showa era creative team’s unsung heroes, Shinichi Sekizawa and Takeshi Kimura. Join Nathan Marchand (professional writer and co-creator of Kaijuvision Radio) and Daniel DiManna (creator/author of the Godzilla Novelization Project) as they explain how these polar opposite storytellers revolutionized the kaiju genre.

I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am about doing this. Danny is a tremendous writer and one of the most infectiously enthusiastic fans I’ve ever met, so it’ll be a great presentation. Be there or be square!

Here’s my panel schedule:

Friday 12pm (Kennedy Room): Sekizawa and Kimura: A Tale of Two Screenwriters
Saturday 3pm (Ballroom 1): Godzilla: King of the Monsters
Saturday 4pm (Kennedy Room): The Art of Kaiju Writing

Learn more about G-Fest here.