After years of working on acclaimed projects in the genre, Shannon Tindle is making his directorial debut with the animated Ultraman: Rising movie. Having first kicked off his career on the small screen as part of the Samurai Jack and Static Shock teams, Tindle has steadily built an impressive filmography over the past 24 years, having worked on everything from Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends to Coraline, Kubo and the Two Strings and Lost Ollie, the latter two of which he also was involved on the writing side of things, including creating the Netflix adaptation of William Joyce’s children book.

Interestingly, Ultraman: Rising not only marks a revival for the franchise and Tindle’s feature directorial debut, but also wasn’t technically envisioned as being part of the series, but instead being inspired by the eponymous character and developed as an original idea. After years of putting the project together, Tindle eventually found himself partnering with Tsuburaya Productions to make it a proper Ultraman movie, with DuckTales and Gravity Falls vet John Aoshima also coming onboard to serve as co-director.

With an English voice cast led by Christopher Sean, Sixteen Candles‘ Gedde Watanabe, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters‘ Tamlyn Tomita, Keone Young and Julia Harriman, Ultraman: Rising centers on Ken Sato, a star baseball player who returns to his home country of Japan to take over the titular mantle after his father, who was the previous hero, suffers an injury. As he grapples with his dedication between being a hero and being a sports superstar, Ken is presented with his ultimate challenge of discovering the first-ever baby kaiju and protecting it from an evil science organization.

Ahead of the movie’s Netflix premiere, Screen Rant interviewed Shannon Tindle and John Aoshima to discuss Ultraman: Rising, the movie’s journey from an original story to a fresh take on the iconic franchise, the various Easter eggs they hid in the film and getting to work with Tsuburaya Productions.

Only 1 Thing Really Changed For Tindle’s Original Story When It Became Ultraman: Rising

With the long journey of development and production behind him, Tindle recalled some of his original plans for the movie, which was ultimately going to be a “father-son story“, and was the key theme he wanted to keep when he partnered with Tsuburaya to turn it into Ultraman: Rising:

Shannon Tindle: When I met with Tsuburaya, I knew it was going to be an Ultraman film. We’d already worked quite a bit on the story, and I didn’t want to mess with that, because it’s a father-son story, and it’s about parents and children, so that was kind of locked in. But then, it was like, “How can I incorporate that in?”

So, we had a villain in earlier versions of it, but now that it was an Ultraman film, they have a science team, “What if the science team in this film were the bad guys rather than the good guys? Their initial intent of being a force that was founded, actually, by Ken’s mother, as a way to better understand kaiju. How can we show how that was changed, and that it’s twisted in creating a complex villain?”

So that was one way. Of course, the suit, I thought that even if you know who Ultraman was, if you lean on that iconic image of that red and silver suit, and doing a dynamic version, it was a little bit different in proportion and style, you could do something in that way. But always making sure that none of that stuff got in the way of telling that personal story and that story that many people could relate with, whether they knew who Ultraman was or not.

Working With Tsuburaya Was A Dream Come True For Aoshima (& Led To Some Fun Easter Eggs)

Much like Tindle, Aoshima is a self-professed superfan of the Ultraman franchise, which made their partnership with Tsuburaya to be a dream come true, even if it also came “with a huge responsibility.” In diving right into bringing the franchise to both a modern and global audience, the duo pulled from some of their favorite entries both as inspiration and for Easter eggs, including the 1967 TV show, Ultraseven:

John Aoshima: Tsuburaya Productions, the owners of Ultraman, comes with a huge responsibility. But I think what was great about working with them is that they really wanted to hear our perspective, our love. They knew we were fans, but they wanted to hear what was it about Ultraman that we loved. And then, from there, diving in deeper to understand how to represent Ultraman, because this was an opportunity to really reboot and bring back Ultraman and showcase Ultraman for the rest of the world who hasn’t seen or discovered this hero.

It’s personal to me, I grew up watching Ultraman in Japan, and then forgetting about it completely. But that was one area that was really meaningful for me. We worked closely to get in deeper, it was really to understand where we’re pulling in references from. For our film, we were big fans of Ultraseven, so we use the Dan Moroboshi character as our model, who is an alien who takes the form of a human. We identify that with our character, Professor Sato, who is Ken’s father, and for Ken, being not fully Ultraman yet.

But then, there’s the other area of how he doesn’t understand Ultraman, because he has this different experience with his father. We worked closely with Tsuburaya on that specifically, to really drive this character in a way where it still provides that spirit of Ultraman, the hero of Ultraman, what it means, and what it means to rise to the occasion as a hero.

About Ultraman: Rising

With Tokyo under siege from rising monster attacks, baseball star Ken Sato reluctantly returns home to take on the mantle of Ultraman. But the titanic superhero meets his match when he is forced to adopt a 35-foot-tall, fire-breathing baby kaiju. Sato must rise above his ego to balance work and parenthood while protecting the baby from forces bent on exploiting her for their own dark plans. In partnership with Netflix, Tsuburaya Productions, and Industrial Light & Magic, Ultraman: Rising is written by Shannon Tindle and Marc Haimes, directed by Shannon Tindle, and co-directed by John Aoshima.

Stay tuned for our other Ultraman: Rising interview with stars Christopher Sean, Tamlyn Tomita and Gedde Watanabe!

Source: Screen Rant Plus