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| G2Kmaster | Apr 4 2009, 05:53 PM |
BIGGEST GODZILLA NERD HERE!-Monster Island Hall Of Famer
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That is why I am requesting that teachers keep control of their classes at an all time high. They will be compelled and they will talk to their friends, among other things. And that is an interesting question you bring up. Originaly, I started OPERATION GOJIRA by ways in which to get THE DAY AFTER TOMMAROW replaced, But since then, I wanted to get the film approved to be shown period. Things have gotten bigger. And I am succeeding. ====================================== Operation Gojira Part 2: Success or Failure? Back in and around December 2008, I wrote and published an article on my quest: having Gojira shown at my school. What became a mere thing which I wanted to substitute my school showing THE DAY AFTER TOMMAROW became a goal in which I wanted the film shown. The operation, success or failure, has helped me to grow up in a lot of ways. One is that it taught me how to get stuff done, as in how you go by getting a film shown by an organization and it has also taught me more about the film in general. Operation Gojira also taught me more stuff: Godzilla’s image in the minds of some pretty diverse groups of people and how I can be stronger when I am presenting something to some people. All of that is great, if you count Operation Gojira among that of an independent study of sorts. The big problem with me still remained: I wanted the first film to be shown. Through the lessons I have learned through out my past two attempts, my third attempt was easily my best one and the one which may succeed. Here is the history among my third attempt at getting my school into showing the classic monster film, Gojira. This whole third attempt thing was really not planned by me from the start. It was just something which came to me by nature. I was talking to an administrator of my school and I mentioned that, “You are missing a great opportunity not showing the film”. Of course, the administrator which was my principle, knew what I was referring too. And that is how it happened. So I decided to go full frontal: I pushed the film at them. I do not know as to weather this can be counted as pushed at them for the first time I tried to get the film shown I was just doing it the day before the film I wanted replaced was going to be shown and the second time I think did not really matter since my counselor, who was not really a counselor of anything accept academics, was just a person who once talked to the administration of the school involved her own personal opinions to cloud the initial first appearance of this film and what it could do. So I pushed the film. I gave the film to my principal in a most quick situation which caught my principle between a rock and a hard spot: when he was greeting the temporary new counselor in the morning first thing. After that came the first of two periods of wait. Occasionally, about twice a week, I would ask them as too if they have seen the movie. I would get an indefinite answer and I would be on my way. In the mean time, I calculated the variables. The variables in this stage of part three of the operation was that I had to find screening dates for the film. And thiese were the ones which I had kept in mind. In part of this is that there was an AR (Accelerated Reader programs schools use nation wide) contest between the grades. The second variable was a little school project called the “penny wars” in which all the grades tried to see who would have the most pennies at the end of the grading period. The third variable was that the film had to be shown either way due to educational opportunity. So I waited. I waited till one afternoon. The assistant principal was in the main hallway. He shouted out, in a respectful manner, “Oh look, radioactive lizards and a book lover.” Of course, I had to but in and in what I called my Kitamura mood said, “Radioactive lizards with educational value.” The principle just happened to be walking up to me, my brother, and the assistant principle. Of course, more small talk occurred till I told them about the major bomb which successfully did what I hoped for the operation: I mentioned William Tsutsui. For those of you who are reading and do not know who he is, he is the Professor of Japanese Arts and History at the University of Kansas, who has published two books; In Godzilla’s Footsteps and Godzilla In My Mind, among other works not pertaining to daikaiju eigia. Youtube has been an host of the University of California, in which UCLA has their own channel and posts quite frequently videos, one of them being an one hour lecture by William Tsutsui on the symbolism and allegorical context of Gojira. This was done in terms in which would be educational, and so I e-mailed both the principal and the assistant principal the video along with more text by me. Then another wait went on, with my Gojira DVD still not returned to me (I wanted this to happen though). So I started a chain of experiments to help me past the two weeks in which I waited. One was the heavy distribution of Operation Gojira on more kaiju related forums/message boards and on you tube. I cried out to people to read the paper I had written and e-mail my principle and my assistant principal to help urge them to accept the film and have it shown. In the mean time, I asked students questions like if they would mind watching a subtitled film. And of course, I needed to know how much they know about Godzilla, the character themselves. So I brought the smallest Godzilla toy I own. It was my Hyper 1999 Godzilla 1954 from the box set and not the separately released ones. I carried it, mostly for the experiment and as my muse. I wanted it as a muse because I have talked to Steve Ryfle before and he gave me the advice that I should be good in Language Arts. Although too bad that he would be disappointed. But I was more lukewarm about the reception of Godzilla. Most people called it a dinosaur, which many true fans know this is not true since Godzilla is no mere dinosaur. With the ones who did recognize it as Godzilla, they were excited as little children who either brought up stereotypes of the character and one person even said this, “I would kill for this when I was in the fourth grade.” Really lukewarm. I also had an encounter with a girl who said that Godzilla was a dinosaur and she is as dumb as anyone on the subject of Godzilla in my school. Making another move, I decided to show my Language Arts teacher and the administration my paper on the first two times I tried to execute Operation Gojira. My Language Arts teacher said it was “in depth” but that my “call was unheard”. This makes me think, as to if she thought through the paper I was trying to get her help or if she could understand the paper and my quest. She, rather instead of reviewing the paper like what I originally wanted, just edited it. I then gave it to the administration, in which read it and I heard no immediate feedback. I then decided to go ahead and tell them about the internet hype over my Operation Gojira. I had received no real feedback. So I waited for two weeks. I also decided to show a friend of mine the DVD and I was rather thrilled that he found it as, “interesting.” I also repeatedly watched the William Tsutsui video, just thinking of where the main punches of the video were, as in when Mr. Tsutsui says, “what a man in a rubber suit could teach us about World War II”. This just blew me away. I was very excited. I also kept taking pointless video diaries, which have since been deleted by my own self. This marked the end of the third month of part three of Operation Gojira, which started in January 2009. However, once March 30th came by, I was given a shock. I said to myself, “This is it, I am done waiting for this bullshit to happen, especially since the variables in which the movie could be shown in” since most of thiese were contest-oriented which was difficult enough to control in a school environment. So I requested to have a meeting with the Principal, since I have been for the past two weeks to have a meeting and on that fateful day of March 29, I was called into his office. Of course, he seemed happy as always, but tried to keep things in a 10 minute time period. He also tried to get off topic as to asking me about certainty films which he could not remember and about MST3K. But he also kept on talking, with me taking notes in my head and on some sticky notes, about that the film he felt was more social then scientific (he based this on a talk with a science experienced school system head, which did not watch the film first hand meaning that the “telephone game“ was going on). He also mentioned that the film may be a little dark for middle schoolers - one reason as to why people have said to me to wait till high school to carry out Operation Gojira. I think it also scarred my principal, since he gave off a vibe that he was more experienced with 70’s protagonist Godzilla and not early, 80’s and 00’s antagonist Godzilla. But I was happy that I got the film approved. This was good but I also intended to use this as a weapon along with the DVD, my paper, and the William Tsutsui video. But I had the film approved. This was a great achievement in which I thought would have been a failure. The fallowing morning, I came to him in the same hallway in which I mentioned earlier and I asked about some paperwork in which I laid out when I left his office when I found out the film had been approved. He said no he had not, but when I asked about his assistance on the project, he said one thing, “I want you to spear head this project. Since you are so passionate about it, you would do best with it.” I took thiese words to heart and I went on asking teachers, mainly three, about showing Gojira. |
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| Gojira Viewing in Public Schools · Godzilla-Miscellaneous | |
6:29 PM Nov 26
