Saturday
First
thing on the agenda for Saturday was to get in line for the
make-it-and-take-it model painting session, featuring a wonderful
Y-MSF sculpt of Megalon. Phoenix made a new friend while waiting in
line, and we wound up crossing paths with the boy and his
grandparents many times throughout the weekend and even sat at the
same table at the awards dinner on Sunday. There are only a limited
number of model kits available, so we were there for a while, but it
was worth it. The kids had a blast doing their own thing, and of
course I wound up getting bogged down in the details and didn't have
anywhere near enough time to finish painting. I figure I can buy
some paint and finish it at home somewhere. Except the only place in
town that sells model paint is Hobby Lobby. Well shit. Gavin Smith
of Terrible Claw Reviews, and a good friend from B-Fest, joined us
for the rest of the day's festivities.
From
there we caught the last few minutes of Katsuhiko Sasaki's first
session and sat down for part one of Koichi Kawakita. Even this
early in the weekend, poor Robert Scott Field, who was doing
translating duties for all the Japanese guests, was starting to sound
like Macho Man Randy Savage with emphysema. It was pretty rough
going, but the first hour of his session was a really interesting
live commentary on his first movie as special effects director, a
little-known-in-America WWII Zero pilot drama with a title that
translates to something like Big Sky Samurai. Amazingly,
there is not one single shot of a real airplane in the movie, and
some fantastic aerial battle sequences.
At this
point the kids were getting bored, so I took them downstairs to
Minya's Place for a quiz show, where they got G-Fest Kaiju Kids
t-shirts. We caught the last half hour of Kawakita's session, which
was something to do with a GunHed TV ad, and wasn't nearly as cool as
the WWII movie. No matter. We were there to get some good seats for
the next session in that room: Don Frye.
This was
the first of two sessions Frye gave, and covered all aspects of his
career – his MMA fighting and other film appearances – instead of
just Godzilla: Final Wars, although there was plenty of that
too. My reaction upon hearing his answer to the first question of
the panel was, “Holy crap, his voice really sounds like that!” I
assumed he had put on that gravelly voice for his character of
Captain Gordon, but it's the real deal. Mr. Frye seems like a warm,
friendly guy, and funny as hell, but thoroughly badass. He fought
for a year and a half with a broken neck assuming it was just sore
before a trip to the doctor for an unrelated injury revealed the
truth. Three months after surgery he was fighting again. After his
session we got autographs and a photo with him, and then it was back
to the room to drop off signed posters before walking to Giordano's
for a pizza.
We
returned to the Crowne Plaza in time for the costume parade, which
was a highlight for the kids. There were several extremely
impressive costumes, but my favorite of the bunch for sheer
creativity was MechaGuiron, complete with spinning buzzsaw hand.
There was also a great Megalon costume with whirling drills, working
mandibles, and a light-up horn. There were also several little kids,
around four years old, dressed in fairly generic Godzilla (and one
pretty cool Gamera) costumes. It was cool to see these kids up
there, posing and roaring in their costumes, because for those few
minutes they weren't just little kids in costumes, they were their
favorite kaiju, and they were fucking invincible.
Off to
the Pickwick Theater for the part of the weekend I was looking
forward to the most. Thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign, a
full orchestra was assembled to put on a concert of suites of music
from every Godzilla movie Akira Ifukube scored. Sadly, but not
surprisingly, Toho said no to the planned DVD of the show, but it was
recorded for a CD as a premium for backers and I can't wait to crank
that sucker up in the car. It was an amazing, moving night, hearing
this thunderous, crushing orchestral monster music played live. I've
seen a lot of metal things in my day, and that just might top them
all.
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