The Making of Godzilla
The first great monster-movie wasKing Kongin 1933, and   the sight  of the stop-motion ape crashing through the forest toward the screaming   Fay  Wray can still send chills up the spine. The bar has been raised many   times  in the past 65 years, and movie makers have to do a lot more to evoke   the  kind of terror and awe that Kong once brought to theaters.Roland Emmerlich and Dean Devlin, the director and producer who gave us   the  blockbusting über-patriotism ofIndependence Day, may have   stumbled  withGodzilla. Reviews, and more important, ticket sales, have   not  lived up to the hype, but one thing is clear: this movie was a colossal  technical undertaking, demonstrating the extraordinary advances that   have  been made in the art of make-believe.The Making of Godzillaoffers  a glimpse inside that creative process, which seems at times more like   a  military operation than a movie set. Whatever your opinion of the end  result, the combination of technology and old-fashioned hard work that   went into the making ofGodzillais, in its own way,  breathtaking.--Simon Leake