Alec Gillis is Fighting Back

 

Remember that horrible abomination that tried to pass itself off as a prequel to The Thing? Remember how the director kept dropping positive PR assuring everyone he was a true fan and all this, and how he was going to match sets 1:1, how it was going to fit in the continuity perfectly and show us how the Norwegian camp ended up like it did, and, especially, that Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff, Jr. were in charge of the special effects and we could expect a fitting tribute to Rob Bottin's work on the original, which was, of course, absolutely perfect? And remember how they went on record saying that practical effects WOULD be the movie?

And then remember what they actually did? You know, lie?

...and then remember when they killed Godzilla?

In a world where opinions are bought by the highest bidder, sheeple are the new people, and nothing with integrity matters anymore, it seems, to me, that the world is just... ending. Now, if you've been following along, you're probably aware that I'm being quite literal about this. I have no intentions of continuing to live for an extended period of time, no will to live, no ambition, and no passion. Everything that I care about has been destroyed, and I'm basically a walking corpse, a hollow remnant of something that used to be alive.

This isn't, of course, JUST about Godzilla. See, what happened was that my original plan wasn't simply to spend the rest of my life wasting away like an ugly cancerous mass. I know, it's hard to believe, but yes, at one point in my life I had very real plans to have a life of my own. Now Godzilla is certainly the catalyst for this, but back at this time I never could have imagined that Godzilla could have died in such a horrific manner, so I didn't touch him, and I imagined for myself a career where I'd have to do my own thing. That meant I had my own ideas, my own treatments, my own screenplays, even. I wanted to make my own monster movies, separate from Godzilla, but ultimately something he was responsible for. Much like Godzilla himself would not exist if it weren't for King Kong.

And so I was in a weird position for a while, between 2010 and this May, with my financial means gone, there simply was no longer a future for me, because you need money - lots and lots of money - to accomplish anything at all, yet I was still "alive" in a sense. Even though I couldn't write the way I used to, I was spent and angry and tired, I still had something I cared about. Something that I could see that would ignite some sort of spark in me and, for a while, I would feel normal again. The week before Godzilla died was, um... traumatic. I see Biollante now and I just break down. There's no joy there anymore, just a reminder of how the world died. Now, the block isn't simply that I have no means to accomplish what I wanted to, but that nothing matters and no one cares. The mega-corps have won, and we are literally living in an Orwellian dystopia, and no one fucking cares. Even now, there is so much I could say if I really dragged myself back from the dead, but no one's listening to me.

So that's me, that's my problem. Let's shift focus for a moment and talk about Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff, Jr. These two, if you've found yourself on this article somehow and yet don't know who they are, first of all I'm ashamed of you, second of all, this will sum it up: Xenomorphs. These two worked on 5 of the 7 films, 4 or which they worked on after setting up their own company. These people are for the Alien movies what Eiji Tsuburaya is for Godzilla, they make these things in the most profound sense of the word. We're not just talking about suitmaking and animatronics, Tom IS the Alien. Yes, really, he's the guy in the suit. The Dog Alien? Yeah, that's Tom. And not do we have the suit-builders and actors actually being the same people, but after the disconnect with the second film, Tom and Alec brought H.R. Giger back into it. And even after executive meddling caused a riff between Giger and Fox, Tom and Alec kept fighting the good fight, and the fourth film was far and away the single-most Giger-esque movie ever made. These guys are incredible artists, on par with Shinichi Wakasa or Eiichi Asada on the otherside of the world. And I am not screwing around here, take a look at some of their work and tell me you don't think they're on the same level as the beasts from the east.

As I mentioned at the top, these folks STARTED with the United States' second greatest monster, and had finally worked their way up to a huge milestone, this is essentially a group of dream-makers having their dream come true. And it was stolen from them.

But Alec isn't like me, he's not dead. He has the means, the fanbase, the reputation, and the resources to fight back, and he's not taking this lying down. Last year he started up a Kickstarter for an expy-sequel to The Thing called Harbinger Down. He realized after posting videos of ADI's (the company he and Tom started) effects work on the Thing prequel that he wasn't the only one that felt jipped. The Thing prequel was a very, frankly shocking instance where people simply didn't drink the kool-aid. People were pissed. I was pissed. Alec was pissed, and he's done fucking around.

It's unfortunate that I heard about this so late in the game, with it to be released sometime this year. With my situation, I could have easily given up everything I have to make this sort of thing possible. The good news is that they didn't need my help and things are going along pretty smooth. Suffice to say everyone needs to check out Harbinger Down now, but more than a just being a plug, I'm going to go full circle here and bring the focus back onto myself, and explain what all that set up was about.

I guess realizing that I was willing to pawn off every single thing I could to put towards supporting this movie I'm not even making made something sort of *click* in me. If Godzilla is dead, then there's nothing stopping me from just up and writing Godzilla X Biollante then, is there? That thing that hollywood owns is NOT Godzilla, and there is no way in hell I give a damn about what the fucking mega-corps tell me. Besides that, I still have my own ideas that I need to write down as well. And that's exactly what I'm going to do.

What am I going to write about? What unique monster do I have? What is all this about? Well, and this will probably surprise you if you've been looking at this blog, but I'm ACTUALLY going to write more about this. I'm working out an outline in my head, I've got a lot of ideas, and I finally found something constructive to do with all this rage that's been essentially taking over every aspect of my psyche.

So I'll make a new post soon. Maybe tomorrow, even. But I'll leave you with a few quotes:

"There are two kinds of movies, monster movies and everything else." - Keita Amemiya

"Monsters are important. They've been with humankind since we became human. We're going to do everything we can to keep them with us, and most importantly, to keep them real." - Alec Gillis

"Monsters are born too tall, too strong, too heavy, that is their tragedy." - Ishiro Honda

“I respected him so deeply. My world was Eiji Tsubaraya. He was that important. When he died, I didn’t know how to live.” - Minoru Nakano

"Mankind is a beast of prey... that is the entire history of the human race." - Boyd Rice