Godzilla Minus One stomps into U.S. theaters today, so director Takashi Yamazaki probably already has a lot on his plate right now. But goddammit, the man wants to do a Star Wars movie, and now I can think of nothing more perfect.
“I watched Star Wars, and that’s how I ended up being a filmmaker,” Yamazaki recently told /Film about his hopes for what movies he could do next. “I’m really hoping I will get a call and they will bring me on Star Wars.”
Look. Look. I know Lucasfilm does not currently have a great track record of actually getting Star Wars movies made by the directors it hires to make Star Wars movies. I know they just recently pared down their slate of planned movies even further, to focus on the three big new projects on the horizon: Dave Filoni’s Mando-verse film, James Mangold’s origins of the Jedi film, and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s Rey Skywalker/New Jedi Order film. But. But! Here’s the thing: a Takashi Yamazaki Star Wars movie could be goddamn incredible.
I’m not just saying that because Godzilla Minus One is really good (it is though). I am not even just saying that because Yamazaki walks the walk when it comes to being a Star Wars fan and its influence on him—when I spoke to the director in 2020 for his 3DCG Lupin III movie, The First, his office was lined with shelves upon shelves of the boxes, and completed results of, Bandai’s line of Star Wars model kits. I’m saying this because Yamazaki isn’t just a great director, but a great visual FX lead, and is experienced in the kind of massive undertaking a Star Wars project would be—and clearly experienced in balancing practical and visual effects like anything in the galaxy far, far away.
One of the many, many great things about Minus One (okay sue me, so maybe I was also saying all this because Godzilla Minus One is really good!) is how tactile its FX work is. While being a CG creation, Godzilla moves and interacts with the physical world around him in Minus One like a combination of living beast and his roots as, well, a man in a monster suit. It’s a triumph of balancing his old-school legacy and in delivering a great looking monster movie, but it’s also the kind of approach that would be fantastic in a Star Wars movie—building on the saga’s history with practical model work and revolutionizing the VFX industry as we know it, and putting it in the hands of someone with a really keen eye for that legacy. Yamazaki could even provide a few models himself!
I don’t care what it is. Hell, give him the Zillo beast, cheap as that would be. Just someone, anyone out there at Lucasfilm interested in making something great, give the man a call.
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