By Tim Ryan
Star-BulletinIt's a cloudy, off-and-on drizzly day at Waiahole pier on windward Oahu, yet a boat is sailing back and forth, spreading fog from a special-effects machine in its stern, worsening visibility even more. Matthew Broderick steps from a well-used sea plane at the pier's end and, with an armed military escort, tromps down the gangway acting confused.
"Why am I here?" the actor asks a stocky, pink-faced officer.
And that's exactly what a group of rude, hysterical news media, jammed on nearby boats and the pier, also want to know.
File photo
The new Godzilla, unlike the older model above,
is sculpted from pixels instead of plastic.
"Why are you here?" KHON's Emme Tomimbang yells at Broderick, while KGMB's Terry Hunter tries to stick a microphone in Broderick's face. Their respective cameramen push against armed soldiers to get a shot. A Star-Bulletin reporter, along with actors portraying reporters, are held at rifle point on a boat tied to the pier."Get these people out of here! And get them off the pier," bellows the officer.
A preliminary military assault on Makua? No, just another day of filming for the $72-million-plus film "Godzilla," which finished principal photography last Friday after five days of filming on Oahu.
"It's been excellent, really excellent being in Hawaii," producer and co writer Dean Devlin says between scenes. "I would love to shoot an entire film here."
Broderick plays a scientist tracking Godzilla, who's been rampaging through Panama and Jamaica -- played by Oahu -- and is headling to New York for equally bad things.
"We talked about filming in the Philippines and Mexico, but we realized that we could find all the locations we needed on (Oahu); then it came down to Hawaii's vast experience in filmmaking," Devlin said. "There are enough people here who ... know how to do it, and there are very talented crews here."
Filming was done at Kualoa Ranch, Kualoa Beach Park, Kahuku and Waiahole Beach Park.
Blue Fin Productions, producers of the film, used about 200 crewmembers -- half were local -- and about 400 extras, although there were no speaking parts for local actors. (The real-life reporters called in for duty while on assignment were not paid.)
Blue Fin Productions also spent about $40,000 to repair a portion of the 650-foot Waiahole pier, primarily replacing rotten boards.
For the Waiahole pier filming, Broderick is supposed to have just arrived in Panama to inspect the damage Godzilla has done to a nearby village. The village was built in a Kualoa Ranch valley, not far from where a "Jurassic Park" scene was shot.
By Ken Sakamoto, Star-Bulletin
A scene from "Godzilla," filmed at Waiahole
pier, involved dozens of extras.
To protect the immense secrecy of the filming, no still cameras were allowed on the sets, a Blue Fin publicist said. And Devlin is very cautious when describing the monster to a reporter."He's 20 stories tall, sleeker, faster, and meaner than ever before," the producer says. "It'll look like Godzilla but be more realistic, more to the lizard genesis than just a big fat guy in a rubber suit."
Devlin confirmed that Godzilla creates havoc in New York City. So how does it get to the Big Apple from Panama? "Like in the original we capitalize on (Godzilla's) swimming ability," he said.
All Godzilla devotees know for sure at this point is that the modern-day story is based on the character created four decades ago by Toho Film Co. The storyline is something else, despite numerous "unfounded rumors," Devlin said.
The most popular tale is that French nuclear testing has produced a mutated and gigantic beast -- Godzilla --which swims west to Panana, then Jamaica, before going east and landing near New York City.
It's here, reports say, that the "asexual" Godzilla does something horrifying: It lays dozens of eggs.
The only one who can save the world is Matthew Broderick's character, an oceanographer who warned the French government about the mutations caused by the nuclear testing.
He can stop Godzilla and its hatchlings, but if he fails, dozens of hungry baby Godzillas -- reported to be about 7 feet tall -- will hatch and then maybe swim the Atlantic Ocean to Europe. Do we sense a sequel here?
Devlin flatly declined to discuss whether Godzilla dies.
"In the beginning of production I responded to some of the rumors on the Internet and even put up a rumor Web page to show how ridiculous it was getting," he said. "I made a game out of it, but I started getting as many as 60 e-mails a day. Finally I just stopped responding altogether."
Godzilla is a three-dimensional computer model fashioned by Orem's Viewpoint DataLabs International Inc. The company is using sculptures provided by Centropolis Entertainment -- the film's production company -- to build digital versions of the beast for on-screen action scenes, close-ups and full-screen shots, says Steven Keele, Viewpoint senior digital sculptor and "Godzilla" project lead.
It can take three months or more to create models like those that will be used in "Godzilla," said Walter Noot, Viewpoint production vice-president.
The producers are well aware of the dangers of messing with such a cultural icon.
"It's terrifying because it's so meaningful to so many people," Devlin said. "There's a lot to live up to; everyone has their own expectation."
