Godzilla has finally been given due respect.
In 2004, the 50th anniversary of the debut of the King of the Monsters, the original black-and-white Gojira was finally released. Erase any confusions or doubts from your mind, forget about the kid-friendly, loveable behemoth you and I grew up on. Gojira is one dark, often depressing, thought-provoking horror film.
When Japanese filmmaker Tomoyuki Tanaka came up with the idea of a creature awakened from the depths of the ocean by H-bomb testing, the concept wasn’t very original. American cinema had been doling out such tripe for years. But Toho Motion Picture Company was in dire straights, and needed a hit. Tanaka hired Ishiro Honda, who managed to bring an essential darkness and type of grave reality to the project, having witnessed firsthand the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Honda wanted the film—like several of his others—to resonate with the force of that experience. So it was decided that Gojira —or Godzilla, as he would come to be known on our shores—would be the physical manifestation of an atomic bomb. Ordinary weapons couldn’t cripple or kill him, and both his fiery breath and very passing through Japanese domain would leave lingering radiation behind, a death sentence for all who bore witness to his presence. Hardly the stuff of your standard giant monster movie.
Gojira’s resonance was powerfully felt within Japanese culture. Hav-ing debuted barely a decade after the bombs dropped, this thinly veiled allegory for the horrors of atomic devastation was a huge success. It was soon imported to the states where, sadly, all the pathos and power was eviscerated in reediting by American director Terry Morse.
Morse chose to tell the story, of course, from an American point of view. To this end, he hired actor Raymond Burr to play journalist Steve Martin(I know—it’s hysterical now to think of “Steve Martin” being in a Godzilla film. Keep in mind though, Burr was born nearly 30 years before our wild-and-crazy guy was, and no one on Earth knew who the real Martin was…yet). Burr had already racked up an impressive number of acting credits in movies and shows such as Dragnet, Tales of Tomorrow and Ford Television Theatre. He had been in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window only two years before appearing in the renamed Godzilla: King of the Monsters. His most famous roles as Ironside and Perry Mason were still 10 years away. He was an attractive commodity at the time, and Morse figured his star power could only help the project on this side of the Pacific.
With the story focusing more on Steve Martin’s travails than Godzilla in actuality—or the original Japanese cast—the solid back-story of Emiko’s love triangle with naval officer Ogata and Dr. Serizawa (the man ultimately responsible for Gojira’s/Godzilla’s “death”) was lost, along with several key moments of heartrending storytelling. Yes, the scene of a child in a hospital being tested with a Geiger counter is still present, it’s one of Godzilla’s opening scenes. So is the brief shot of a mother clutch-ing her three children to her while Godzilla rampages through Tokyo. But both are taken out of context: we don’t understand the child is being tested because he was one of hundreds present when Gojira appeared, and will more than likely die. We don’t know the mother is telling her children “We’ll be joining your father in just a moment”, meaning they’ll see him in heaven because they’re about to be killed…that dialogue is excised.
The semi anti-American politics have also been taken out, of course. There are several mild references to the bombs which dropped on Japan’s two cities, and how citizens are scared they’ll have to report to bomb shelters once more. They’re also concerned that “atomic testing” might have awakened Godzilla. It’s a way of blaming America for their horror without really blaming America. It’s an honest—and well-earned—jab. But of course, it wouldn’t have played to American audiences, at least in the minds of the studio heads.
Once the Americanized Godzilla arrived, it hit big on these shores—and for better or worse, this helped influence the direction Toho would later take in the evolution of the Gojira character. While still being a towering engine of destruction, Godzilla’s motivation would flip-flop over the coming half-century. In one film, he would be Earth’s protector; in another, a vile monster which needed to be defeated at all costs.
Through it all, one had to wonder how much “Godzilla Insurance” must have cost the poor denizens of Tokyo, who had their property destroyed on an almost annual basis. Talk about “there goes the neighborhood”!
Of course, Toho couldn’t always repeat the same “Hulk smash!” type of formula for their monster, and so others were created for him to spar with: Gigan, Mecha-Godzilla, King Ghidora, and others. Some of these, like Rodan, were instant hits with fans. Others like King Caesar or Anguirus, were just flat-out stupid. And let’s not even get started on the big G’s son Minilla and his size-changing powers. In fact, the only time the Godzilla series comes full circle and touches base with the original, is in the big G’s “last” film, 2004’s Godzilla: Final Wars. In this movie, which relies far too much on Matrix-style martial arts and CGI, a young boy asks his grandfather why Godzilla is destroying a town. The old man replies, “Long before you were born, men did a terrible thing and made Godzilla angry. They made a huge fire and burned everything on the land. Godzilla will never forget it.” Still, I do have an affinity for many of Godzilla’s excursions into cinematic absurdity(using kung-fu against his opponents in Godzilla vs. Megallon?), if only because that’s what I grew up with and it introduced me to the big guy. It’s like if you grew up with the Roger Moore James Bond, and you thought it was pretty cool…until you finally saw a Sean Connery Bond film, and then you finally under-stood what the character’s really supposed to be all about.
The re-release of Gojira comes in a duel-disc set: both the original and the re-edited American version are included for historical compari-son, and it is a wonder to behold the differences between the two. Direc-tor Honda always lamented the fact that his movie was not as powerful a political influence as he had hoped; he honestly wanted Gojira to be the
catalyst for an end to the possibility of nuclear confrontation. There is a scene in the original, in which a young child wails in heartrending sorrow as her dead mother is taken away under a covered sheet, following Gojira’s rampage. In some ways, it almost makes one physically ill to realize how such a powerful, atypical “monster movie” full of true human-ity, heartbreak, despair and societal redemption could have been butchered in such fashion.
catalyst for an end to the possibility of nuclear confrontation. There is a scene in the original, in which a young child wails in heartrending sorrow as her dead mother is taken away under a covered sheet, following Gojira’s rampage. In some ways, it almost makes one physically ill to realize how such a powerful, atypical “monster movie” full of true human-ity, heartbreak, despair and societal redemption could have been butchered in such fashion.
Yet after all these long years, the King has finally received his due. Don’t just rent Gojira...go buy it. It’ll be one of the best DVD purchases you’ll ever make, and you’ll come to understand the post-WWII Japanese psyche—and how it came to influence their standing in the current world community—just a bit more.
All hail Gojira.
Long live the King.
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