As posited when I did the top films that influenced who I am, I am a huge Godzilla fan. It started when I saw my first Godzilla film when I was about 9 years old. That film was Godzilla Vs. The Sea Monster, a 1966 film that isn't considered one of the best. And I don't count it as one of my favorites either. It's near the middle of the 28 Toho Godzilla films in that regard. Yes, not counting the new Legendary Pictures version or the quite horrible Roland Emmerich film from 1998, there are 28 Godzilla films. The first one came out in 1954 in Japan as a nuclear fable. Having been the only country to have an atomic bomb dropped on it (2 actually), they knew first-hand the effects of nuclear war. And Godzilla was supposed to be a personification of those effects with the destruction he caused by trampling through the cities and laying waste with his nuclear breath. The first film was a dark one, and it did so well in Japan that an American company bought up the rights and re-edited the film, inserting Perry Mason himself, Raymond Burr, as a foreign correspondent in Tokyo as Godzilla attacks. The film was retitled, Godzilla, King of The Monsters, and is actually a great movie in it's own right, yet not as dark and very different from the Japanese original. The original Japanese film was quickly followed up with a hastily made, inferior sequel called Godzilla Raids Again in 1955. Despite it's strong sales, it was not well received critically, and when sold to America, they tried to market Godzilla as a different monster called Gigantis, and the film flopped. Godzilla would not appear in another movie until 1962, when he met up with King Kong... That movie, and it's American redub (which is the only way you can see the movie in America, unlike the other Godzilla films), did so well that Godzilla would appear in a movie almost every year from 1964's Godzilla Vs. Mothra until 1975's Terror of Mechagodzilla. The only year in between those without a Godzilla film was 1970, when the Japanese studio system started to collapse.
Due to the success of American Saturday matinees on TV and all-day marathons of Japanese monster films in movie theaters Godzilla remained popular even after the films stopped being made both here and in Japan. In 1984, Toho decided that Godzilla might be profitable again. (The 1970s had been a time of declining ticket sales for Godzilla films... and lower budgets.) 1984 saw the release of Return of Godzilla, which was a dead serious take on Godzilla, akin to the 1954 original, but with some sci-fi action added. It's a pretty great Godzilla film and did well in Japan. It was re-edited and released in America in 1985 as Godzilla 1985. Raymond Burr, star of the American re-edit of the original Godzilla, was again called back to reprise his character. New scenes were added, some scenes were deleted, and a scene where a Russian submarine tries to stop a nuclear launch was redone so it looks like they tried to actually launch the weapon. The film didn't do well critically or in theaters here. However, this new series continued in Japan until 1995! It's referred to as the Hesei series by Godzilla fans, referring to who reigned in Japan while the bulk of the series was produced. The original 1954-1975 series is referred to as the Showa series. Godzilla was actually killed off in 1995 to great media attention.
In 1998, the American Godzilla came out to a critical drubbing around the world. It didn't feel like a Godzilla film, it didn't look like Godzilla, and those that are fans of Godzilla call it GINO (Godzilla In Name Only). And the movie is actually not that great. The story sucks. But it has some cool destruction scenes, I'll give it that. Due to the film, Toho decided to make a new Godzilla series to rinse the bad taste left in peoples' mouths from the American film. This new series is called the Millennium series, as it started with Godzilla 2000, which was also released in American theaters. (I know, as I was one of the few who went to see it.) It was again re-edited and dubbed, but not to the large extent of the last two times. The new dubbing made the film a bit less serious, and the film was re-edited to move things along quicker. In fact, most prefer the American edit to the Japanese one. 5 films followed after that one, and since 2004, there has not been a Godzilla film.
5 Weirdest Godzilla Moments
1. Okay, so this is the only one here that I couldn't find a film clip for. In the 1964 film Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, Mothra's fairy companions, who are only a foot tall, translate the attempt by Mothra, here in larva form, to convince Godzilla and Rodan to join up with it to fight the new menace, Ghidorah. So we get to hear translated Godzilla and Rodan being sad that the humans don't understand them, and Godzilla appearing to curse at Mothra resulting in the little fairies saying "Oh Godzilla, what bad language!". Maybe you have to be there to consider this weird, but I always have. Up until this film, the 5th Godzilla film, the series was considered serious, but it was this film as well that turned Godzilla into a good guy, so...
2. Godzilla plays volleyball with a giant lobster. This is from Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster and it may seem out of character for Godzilla, but there's a reason for that. The movie was originally going to be a King Kong film. However, at the last minute, they decided Godzilla was a better choice. So all throughout the film Godzilla does Kong-like things. I think he even beats his chest a few times, and he's woken up by lightning, which in the Japanese films, gives Kong his power.
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/cMKrtWhQcoc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
3. Godzilla and Angillas, um... talk to each other. And I mean, it's translated into English in the American version... This happens in 1972's Godzilla Vs. Gigan. In it, a tape that only monsters can understand is played like hundreds of miles away, but somehow Godzilla hears it all the way on Monster Island. And he proceeds to speak in English to Angillas, and Angillas speaks back... No, that isn't odd at all.... In the Japanese version, the monsters sound like records scratching and have Japanese speech bubbles to translate what they are saying to each other. That makes a LITTLE more sense, right? Right? Here's a rip that shows both the speech bubbles and the English dub.
4. Godzilla's victory dance. Okay, this one is from Invasion of the Astro-Monster from 1965. Aliens bring Godzilla and Rodan from earth to their planet to fight Monster Zero, who just happens to be King Ghidorah. So they fight him and seemingly win, after which, Godzilla does a little dance that was popular in Japan at the time. This moment in one of the more serious films of the series....
5. And I saved the best for last. In 1971's Godzilla vs. Hedorah (also known as Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster), Godzilla fights a big pile of sludge brought about from humanity's trash. (I shit you not. The Japanese love to talk about environmental stuff.) And believe it or not, that's not the most WTF part of the film. No, there's also little animated sections for some reason... And comical music... and people get eaten away by toxic gas. And most of all... Godzilla suddenly learns how to fly. Yes, Godzilla can now, for one movie, fly. And if that weren't intriguing enough, he flies... backwards.... propelled by his own radioactive breath. Yes, folks, this is something you have to see to believe.
And here's something I couldn't leave out either... In 1973's Godzilla Vs. Megalon, Godzilla performs the world's longest jump-kick. Forever enshrined during the opening of a few seasons of MST3K too!
Top 5 Favorite Godzilla Films
1. Son of Godzilla (1966)
This was the first Godzilla film to not have any city-trampling. This one is set almost completely on a far-off island where scientists are doing weather experiments. This was my dad's favorite Godzilla film, as it includes Minya, commonly believed to be Godzilla's son. Throughout the film, Godzilla teaches Minya to breath radioactive breath (Minya manages smoke rings instead) and fights giant praying mantises called Kamakaras or Gimantis and a giant spider called Kumonga in the Japanese version and Spiga in the English version. It's definitely not one of the more serious Godzilla films, but it's not the silliest either. It sports an odd musical score, and is the first Godzilla film helmed by the director of many of the later Showa pictures, Jun Fukuda. It's quite entertaining, and the second Godzilla film I ever saw. And for once, the characters are somewhat interesting too.
2. Godzilla 1985 (1985)
Another one of the first Godzilla films I saw, and the only one never to be released even on DVD here in America. There's been some rights issues with the film since the mid-1990s that have yet to be resolved. At any rate, it's a very serious film. Godzilla looks truly menacing here, and the city destruction is some of the best out of Godzilla history. For the first time in decades, you actually see Godzilla stomp on people.... You see him pick up a train with people in it and then throw it back down. And Godzilla has fangs! And looks pissed off. For once, Godzilla is kinda scary for the first time since 1954. If you can find it, check it out.
3. Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah:Giant Monsters All Out Attack! (2001)
This movie was concieved and directed by the guy who directed the kick-ass Gamera films of the 1990s, which were often considered darker and better than the Godzilla movies produced at the time. In this film, Godzilla is a bad guy, as he was through all of the Millennium series. But also King Ghidorah for the first time in history, is a good guy... and he's shorter than Godzilla! The movie also brings back fan favorites Mothra and Baragon. Godzilla looks more reptilian here than ever before. In fact, Godzilla was originally meant to walk on all fours in this film, but that wasn't to be. He also has stark white eyes with no pupils... Yet again, if you want to see Godzilla as an evil bad-ass, here's one of the films to see. It's actually got some pretty good special effects too!
4. Godzilla Vs. Gigan (1972)
Ok, so this one is either loved or hated by Godzilla fans. It does have quite a bit of stock footage from earlier Godzilla films stuck in there which kind of stick out, but it's not as much as some claim. However, it also introduced a monster Godzilla fans really like in Gigan. And the end monster battle lasts about 30 minutes in a Godzilla amusement park! The plot has to deal with these people building an amusement park to bring forth world peace. (Yeah, I don't get it either.) But their intentions are really to destroy all of earth's monsters and reform the world to suit their needs as their world has been polluted to the point of destruction! But who cares, right? We're here to see men in rubber suits beat the crap out of each other and destroy scale models, am I right? Well, there's a lot of that in this film too. Even though the Godzilla suit used here is obviously falling apart. You can see bits of rubber fling off during the fight! And the King Ghidorah suit was in such bad shape that during most of the fights, stock footage had to be used, as evident from it going from day to night and back quite a few times during the fights/destruction scenes.
5. Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964)
Why is this so good? Well, it's the first time in the series that more than two monsters fight each other, that's why.... and it was still sort of serious despite the talk between the monsters I explained earlier. And it's got enough city destruction to please most anyone. It's directed by the guy who did the original Godzilla film, and in fact, quite a few of the Showa series films, Ishiro Honda. So it's got some quality to it, even if it is just a monster free-for-all. I'm still unsure of the plot... so.... yeah....
\
Be sure to watch the new American Godzilla film. It's gotten good reviews and looks great.
No comments:
Post a Comment