{"id":42624,"date":"2024-02-16T19:50:14","date_gmt":"2024-02-17T00:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=42624"},"modified":"2024-02-16T19:50:14","modified_gmt":"2024-02-17T00:50:14","slug":"the-bootleg-files-wolfman-vs-godzilla","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2024\/02\/16\/the-bootleg-files-wolfman-vs-godzilla\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bootleg Files: Wolfman vs. Godzilla"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 854: <\/strong>\u201cWolfman vs. Godzilla\u201d (unfinished fan film). <\/p>\n

LAST SEEN:<\/strong> On YouTube and Internet Archive.<\/p>\n

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO:<\/strong> None.<\/p>\n

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS:<\/strong> A right clearance issue. <\/p>\n

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE:<\/strong> Not likely.<\/p>\n

From a creative artist\u2019s perspective, I could never understand the appeal of making fan films. I appreciate when teens and pre-teens create these cinematic tributes \u2013 there\u2019s something very charming when the James Bond or Star Wars orbits are reimagined by an alternative universe of the under-18 crowd. But when adults spend a great deal of time and money in creating fan films, it usually leaves me cold.
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I need to be clear that I am not talking about fan-made parodies of popular movies, but ambitious and serious productions conceived as non-canonical entries to established franchises.<\/p>\n

Why do I feel this way? It is not because fan films are dreadful \u2013 in fact, many of them are very clever and well-made, and they offer a sense of enthusiasm that is often lacking in franchises that have overstayed their big screen welcome. But what irks is why this talent and energy is wasted in productions that can never have a proper commercial release \u2013 why didn\u2019t the fan film creators make a work of original intellectual property rather than rip off characters that are protected by trademarks and copyrights? <\/p>\n

One of the most outrageous examples of a film made by an excessively fixated fan is \u201cDensetsu no Kyoj\u016b \u014ckami Otoko tai Gojira,\u201d which is translated as \u201cLegendary Beast Wolfman vs. Godzilla\u201d \u2013 it is more commonly known as \u201cWolfman vs. Godzilla,\u201d though some sources call it \u201cGodzilla vs. Wolfman.\u201d This was the work of Shizuo Nakajima, who once worked at Toho Studios as a production assistant on \u201cGodzilla vs. Mechagodzilla\u201d and \u201cTerror of Mechagodzilla.\u201d Nakajima and several Toho colleagues created a three-minute fan film short called \u201cWolfman vs. Baragon\u201d that paired a new lycanthropic monster against Baragon, a kaiju that appeared in the 1965 \u201cFrankenstein vs. Baragon\u201d but which never became a favorite of Japanese monster movie lovers.<\/p>\n

Nakajima set his sights on a bigger film with a bigger kaiju icon \u2013 the one and only Godzilla.
\nOriginally planned as a short film, \u201cWolfman vs. Godzilla\u201d somehow metastasized into a feature-length film. Nakajima amassed 10 hours of Super 8mm footage that was shot from the late 1970s through 1983, but the film was never completed after Toho got wind of the project and issued a cease-and-desist order against the would-be filmmaker for using the Godzilla character without the permission of the studio.<\/p>\n

Details on what \u201cWolfman vs. Godzilla\u201d was going to offer are sketchy \u2013 the bare minimum of the plot that is known has a Japanese man becoming a werewolf that grows to monstrous size and embarks on a rampage across the country. Godzilla, who has been trapped at the North Pole, escapes from his Arctic imprisonment and returns to Japan to fight the oversized werewolf in a duel that bears more than a passing resemblance to the climax of \u201cKing Kong vs. Godzilla\u201d \u2013 and speaking of that 1962 classic, Nakajima\u2019s Godzilla resembled the movie monster during his early 1960s incarnation. Fuyuki Shinada, who would later design the monster costumes in \u201cGodzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack,\u201d worked with Nakajima on this project.<\/p>\n

Few people knew \u201cWolfman vs. Godzilla\u201d existed until a trailer was screened in 2012 at the Godzilla-focused G-Fest XIX convention; more footage turned up later at other Godzilla-inspired events. Over the years, Nakajima spoke about a 100-minute feature, a 140-minute director\u2019s cut and a DVD release that gained Toho\u2019s approval. To date, none of these promised offerings materialized, although 26 minutes of footage have surfaced online.<\/p>\n

Strangely, the best part of Nakajima\u2019s available footage involves the transformation of the man into a werewolf \u2013 this was clearly inspired by the special effects from \u201cAn American Werewolf in London\u201d and it could have been an entertaining B-movie if the filmmaker followed that story line. But the human-sized werewolf has black fur while the kaiju version has white fur, which makes the creature\u2019s growth into kaiju proportions strange.<\/p>\n

As for the footage of Wolfman fighting Godzilla \u2013 to be frank, it is badly staged and dull. Even if Toho was benevolent enough to overlook Nakajima\u2019s copyright infringement, it is impossible not to realize that his enthusiasm runs miles ahead of his talent. And since the potential for a commercial release of \u201cWolfman vs. Godzilla\u201d is nil, the curious will have to pique their curiosity by hunting down the shabby footage that is floating around the Internet.<\/p>\n