Director Takao Okawara: A Career Retrospective

Very insightful, although I actuallu enjoyed Orochi, the special effects seemed a lot more fun and refreshing for a 90's Toho monster movie. Not saying it was the best, but I had fun watching it.

But to see how the decline in Toho studios had a huge hand to play with the outcome of the product makes more sense to me now.

Good find, I found this article very enlightening.

The article is awesome and very interesting. Thanks for the link. Also, can you please tell him to do a KWC battle between Godzilla Junior and Godzillasaurus? Please?

riggzamortis86,
I think the point is that the 1970s had a negative impact on future films, but by the 1990s Toho was actually on the rise again. (In fact economic prosperity is one of the main themes of Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah.)

I think the big takeaway here is that Okawara was a young, inexperienced director that wasn't entirely sure of what to do with big budget special effects films. He improved, certainly, but it may have not been his genre.

One thing that sticks out is that I've always been of the mind that Godzilla vs. Destoroyah is the most cinematic of his Heisei films. Sure, it's plagued with other issues, but at least he chose to shoot the film with specific lighting and angles that better fit a big budget Japanese production.(The red, orange and brown colors throughout the film give it a consistent look, inspired for example.) Meanwhile, Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla II, which in recent years has become one of the most boring Godzilla films for me, is just bland to look at. Colorless and uninteresting throughout.

The other thing that hits me is his relationship with Kawakita. Although I'm not surprised by it, I had only heard stories about Kawakita and Omori's conflict. It has made me more curious about Kawakita's career. I have to wonder if he was just generally hostile toward anyone giving him notes/direction. (Was it ego? Supposed drinking? Insecurity over Gunhed & Godzilla vs Biollante's performance? Was he just hard to work with and that's that?)

Not to slam Kawakita's name, but there's a lot about the untold background of his career that begs for a hard look. The red flags throughout the  Heisei Godzilla series raise a lot of curiosity from me.

@G. H. (Gman)

Funny how we're talking about this and the fan activity on the website currently (currently=on the day I made this comment, for anyone who is new) mostly isn't even about this forum. Btw, why haven't you left a comment on the other forum that is currently (again, currently=on the day I made this comment, for anyone who is new) the main topic of the fan activity?

MinecraftDinoKaiju,
I'm not really interested in the other topics going on at the moment.

Ok. Just asking. And what about that KWC battle suggestion? What did Patrick say?