I remember my own children, then aged 10, eight and six lapping up Where Eagles Dare back in 1969, the same year they also loved The Valley of Gwangi , the British monster movie by the great special effects maestro Ray Harryhausen , the co-dedicatee of Pacific Rim along with Ishiro Honda, who made the series of Japanese monster flicks that began in the 1950s with Godzilla and Rodan .