On Wednesday, February 5, 2003, at 08:48 PM, Scott Andrew Hutchins wrote: > Yes, and the theme music comes off Yoshimitsu Banno's _Birth of the > Japanese > Islands_. Banno is under contract to direct three films for Toho > before he > can be a freelance director, but he prefers writing and assistant > directing, > so he's done a lot of animation scripts, including the 1982 _The > Wizard of > Oz_, and they never required him to, just made it a stipulation for > going > elsewhere. > A funny story about Banno: he directed only one Godzilla film, the bizarre, psychedelic Godzilla vs. Hedorah, better known in the USA as Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster. The reason he was able to be so experimental with the film (it includes animated sequences, a black and white scene, the depiction of one character's LSD trip, etc.) was that Godzilla series producer Tomoyuki Tanaka was in the hospital. When Tanaka finally saw the finished film, he told Banno, "You've ruined the Godzilla series!" and dictated that Banno never direct a Godzilla film again. Chris ---- For past messages, visit the Screen-L Archives: http://bama.ua.edu/archives/screen-l.html