Why I Love... GODZILLA!

Introduction (wherein I try to justify my poor life choices)

Now, lockdown has been tough on everyone and I imagine we've all had to develop our own coping mechanisms to stay sane. I apparently decided to abandon the prospect of sanity and watched 36 Godzilla films over the course of two weeks instead. Now as you might imagine, there's very little else rattling around my brain other than everyone's favourite kaiju (anyone who says they prefer Gamera is just being a hipster) so to try and correct that inbalance I'm endeavouring to put my thoughts on the big guy together and foister them upon anyone foolish enough to read this blog. 

So without further delay, let's get on with the show.

"The Show"

Now to be clear, when I say I love Godzilla, I'm not just talking about the character or a few of the movies, I'm talking about as a concept. I'll get a little more into the history of the franchise later on but the fact that a one off film that sports a giant monster as an analogy for the use of nuclear weapons could go on to spawn a 66 year legacy is phenomenal to me, and with the release of Godzilla vs Kong later in 2021, this juggernaut shows no signs of slowing down.

Get hype, stay hype

Now, as there is just so much to talk about, I'm going to divide this "essay" into a few sections. First I'm going to chat a bit about my own early experiences with the character, then look at the differences in how he is handled in Hollywood and Japan before throwing out a "few" recommendations of where to start with the movies. While it would probably make more sense to start a the beginning of the franchise, instead I'm going to start with its darkest hour.

How I learned to stop worrying and love a critical bomb.

This is not Godzilla

The phrase "so bad, its good" gets thrown around a lot when discussing genre movies but personally I rarely share that sentiment. For me a bad film is a bad film and I'll usually only give it credit if it's trying something ambitious or imaginative. Now unless you consider "Jurassic Park but bigger" a particularly innovative concept, there's verily little to applaud in Roland Emmerich's 1998 reimagining of the franchise. A pedestrian plot with actively obnoxious central characters squanders what it actually a fairly cool monster design and what little fondness I have for this film is usually reserved for the soundtrack. While the film was a modest success (particularly in the realms of merchandise) its savage critical reception lead to the scrapping of a planned sequel but most damning of all, it left a legacy in a whole generation of audiences that THIS was Godzilla. Personally, this was my first Godzilla film and honestly, it left me with no immediate desire to ever watch another. 

So how did I learn to love it? Simple, it gave the world this guy...

This is also not Godzilla, but is closer than that last chump.

As previously mentioned, a sequel to the 1998 film was planned before the first film was even released, and upon its cancelation a lot of the more interesting ideas being developed were folded into the soon to debut cartoon Godzilla: The Series. I cannot stress this enough, the quality of this show just about justifies the existence of the film that inspired it. Showrunners Jeff Kline and Richard Raynis managed to correct a lot of mistakes from the source material and while the series nominally follows up the film, most of the characters that make the jump to animation are far more fleshed out and likeable then their big screen counterparts. Even the series' take on Godzilla (technically an offspring of the movie version) show a greater degree of personality and even gets to fight some creatively designed monsters on an episodicy basis. Godzilla: The Series just about managed to wash away the negativity my young brain associated with the 1998 film but still, it would be a LONG time before I gave the franchise another chance but ultimately I have made peace with the film, and even find a morose pleasure in it. Still, its Godzilla in name only, and not a patch on any of the other films to share the name.

Now THIS is Godzilla

Godzilla in Hollywood

But before we dive into the legacy of the character in his home country, it'll probably be easier for you dear reader if I look at how Godzilla finds (some of) its origins in western cinema and the many ways Hollywood subsequently "reimagined" the character. With all due respect to the creative dynamos that developed 1954's Godzilla, it is hard to argue that that film would have come into being at all without Merian C Cooper's King Kong (1933). Revolutionary for its time, King Kong popularised the giant monster movie and while Godzilla was certainly the best of the bunch, there are many other films internationally that owe some homage to the original king. However, the success of Ishiro Honda's original Godzilla in 1954 caught the attention of Hollywood and the film was subsequently released in an altered form in 1956 as Godzilla, King of the Monsters!. The original film underwent a process of "Americanization" which dubbed the film into English, removed some of the more politically charged themes and ideas and added additional scenes featuring actor Raymond Burr as the film's new lead, interacting primarily with body doubles of the Japanese cast. This rerelease was a resounding success and is most responsible for introducing Godzilla to new international audiences, if in the process robbing the character of its inherent meaning. Still, a relationship had been formed between Toho Studios and Hollywood that would see King Kong take on Godzilla on his own turf whilst also spawning the Hanna-Barbera produced 1978 cartoon Godzilla.

What, you were expecting the giant monkey?

The relationship between America and Japan would carrying on mostly with redubbed English releases  for much of the next few decades until Toho Studios, owners of the Godzilla brand, came up with a radical idea in the 1990s. The studio had effectively "rebooted" Godzilla in 1984 away from the more child friendly fare of the 60s and 70s into something darker that refelected the tone of the original film and while the approach spawned some critical successes, box office returns were steadily declining. The plan then, was relatively simple. Toho would kill off the character in their own series, allow Hollywood to create a series of Godzilla films of their own to keep the franchise viable internationally, and then forge a return for the character in Japan to coincide with its 50th Anniversary. The previously discussed critical failure of the 1998 film however scrapped these plans and Toho returned to making Godzilla films quicker than they would have liked. It would take a further 10 years before Toho would entrust their flagship character to an American studio again, but when a deal was struck with Legendary Pictures in 2010, Godzilla's return to Hollywood was inevitable. While 2014's Godzilla is not without its critics, it was a financial success and led Legendary to begin developing their own monster universe through Kong: Skull Island (2017), Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) and the soon to be released Godzilla vs Kong. While Michael Dougherty's 2019 Godzilla film did underperform somewhat, it was a fantastic adaptation of the early 1960s Godzilla films and is one I have a particular soft spot for. 

Chonky boi

Godzilla in Japan

It is undeniable that Godzilla is one of the most recogniszable pop culture symbols not only in Japan, but across the world. While Godzilla was traditionally a destructive force in his early appearances, his humanoid appearance and strained, lumbering movements soon endeared him to Japanese audiences, particularly children. It is this more friendly conception that defines much of his cultural impact. By the 1990s, the revenue from Godzilla merchandise by far outstripped profits made from the box office of the films and so it is easy to forget that the original Godzilla is a deeply political film. 

A nuanced political allegory

The political climate of Japan in the 1950s was one of conflicting ideals. Still reeling from the end of the Second World War, Japanese culture was caught between a desire to return to traditional ideals and the increasing presence of "western" culture. Outright criticism of America was discouraged (as the Japanese film industry had been forced to adopt similar approaches as the Nazi  propaganda machine during the war) but the country was still reeling from the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 so resentment was rife. It was in this environment then that the development of Godzilla (heavily influenced by the 1953 American release, The Beast from 20'000 Fathoms) almost inevitably became a method to explore this cultural moment. The depictions of the destruction of Japanese cities would have been enough to invite parallels to real life tragedies but the narrative importance of radiation as a side-effect of Godzilla's rampages further hammers this point home. Scenes of survivors sufferening from radiation burns and poisoning are particularly impactful when you consider less than a decade had passed since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Furthermore, the choice to deploy a weapon of mass destruction to halt the destruction proves a climatic moral dilemma in the film's final act. Yet director Ishiro Honda was himself a former soldier, and his experiences had left him with both a strong sense of national pride, as well as criticisms of the attrocities he witnessed firsthand carried out by the Japanese military leading up to and during the Second World War. As a result Godzilla is both critical of the responses to the creature's path of destruction whilst also emphasising the role of the individual in making moral decisions. It really is a phenomenal film.

The finacial success of Godzilla lead to the production of an immediate sequel, 1955's Godzilla Raids Again, but despite the success of the original the sequel underperformed and was not received as well by critics. Perhaps it is telling that of the first 6 films to feature Godzilla, this is the only one that Honda did not direct. Subsequently, Toho did not have any immediate plans to make further Godzilla sequels, instead focusing on other giant monsters such as Rodan (1957), Varan the Unbelievable (1958) and Mothra (1961). All three of these films were helmed by Honda and both Rodan and Mothra enjoyed considerable box office success. The next step in the development of this emerging genre, and the return of Godzilla to prominence, came about due to a project developed by King Kong stop motion animator, Willis H. O'Brien. O'Brien's pitch originally concerned a clash between Kong and a giant Frankenstein Monster but after bringing this pitch to producer John Beck for development, Beck gave the project to Toho without O'Brien's knowledge and after a hasty production, and a wise substitution, 1962's King Kong vs Godzilla was released to colossal box office returns. 

Why can't we be friends?

The success of this crossover, and the cancellation of a proposed rematch, led Toho to the idea of using their own monsters in future installments such as the dual releases in 1964 of Mothra vs Godzilla and Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster. The monster battles of these films, and Godzilla's turn from antagonist to hero, would remain as defining traits in his next 10 appearances (with mind control frequently used as a temporary way of getting some villainous Godzilla action) but by 1975's Terror of Mechagodzilla, the franchise had become almost entirely family friendly and subsequently lost much of its potency.

He had some issues to work out

Toho's decision to return to the character in 1987's The Return of Godzilla also featured a return to the original characterisation of the title character. The film abandoned all of the shared continuity that had built up and positioned itself as a direct sequel to the 1954 original, adopting a more serious tone that presented Godzilla once again as a destructive force. 

He's back!

It is worth mentioning that despite its more "mature" tone, The Return of Godzilla features little to none of the political commentary of the original, offering a far more patriotic depiction of the Japanese government. However the original release of the film (Raymond Burr returned for the poorly received "Americanized" release) was critically well received and did well enough to spawn a number of sequels throughout the 80s and 90s that inevitably saw Godzilla transition from villain to anti-hero. As 1994's Godzilla vs SpaceGodzilla underperformed at the box office, the previously discussed plans were put in place to rest the character until the 50th Anniversary. The failure of 1998's Godzilla led to a decline in merchandise sales internationally so Toho brought Godzilla back earlier than planned, and without any cohesive plan for the franchise going forward, in Godzilla 2000: Millenium (1999). Toho would release 6 Godzilla films between 1999 and 2004 to mixed fortunes critically and comercially, and following 2004's Godzilla: Final Wars the franchise was again put to rest. Following the success of Godzilla (2014), Toho made the decision to bring Godzilla back to Japanese cinemas and entrusted the project to Hideaki Anno (creater of Neon Genesis Evangelion) and Shinji Higuchi (special effects director on the acclaimed 1990s Gamera films), allowing them a great degree of creative control. To say they rewarded that trust would be an understatement. 2016's Shin Godzilla received universal critical acclaim and was a box office smash, and is in my humble opinion the best entry in the entire franchise. That being said, if you are at all familiar with Hideaki Anno's earlier work this will come as no surprise, it is also the strangest. 

I'll explain this guy later I swear

Following the success of Shin Godzilla, and its American cousins, Toho would have been forgiven for trying to capitilise but have instead shown tremendous restraint as there are no current live-action Japanese Godzilla projects announced. However through a partnership with Netflix there have been a number of animated projects released or announced including the sci-fi influenced computer generated trilogy of Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters (2016), Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle (2018) and Godzilla: The Planet Eater (2018) as well as the soon to be released traditionally animated, Godzilla Singular Point. What the future holds for Godzilla beyond the imminent release of Godzilla vs Kong may be a mystery for now, but the franchise is in a promising position going forward.

Chonkiest boi

The Best of The Beast

Well hopefully I might have encouraged some of you to give Godzilla a try, if you haven't already, so I thought I'd cap of this monster session (see what I did there) with some of my personal recommendations of the best Godzilla films, and really there only one place to start.

GODZILLA (1954)

It's not looking good for Tokyo

The original and for many people the best. I discussed the film in a bit more depth earlier on but its worth reiterating, this isn't just a great monster movie, it is a great film in its own right. A genuine all-timer and one I think everyone should watch.

KING KONG VS GODZILLA (1962)

No you apologise!

Worth checking out for novelty value alone, Honda's 1962 film also has some hilarious cultural commentary as it satirizes both marketing and the entertainment industry. Oh, and one of the two definitively wins the fight. Well, sort of. 

GHIDORAH, THE THREE HEADED MONSTER (1964)

Well, that escalted quickly...

The original monster free-for-all in which to prevent the planet's imminent destruction by the titular beast, humanity must ask a pair of tiny twin fairy girls, to ask their giant moth friend, to ask Godzilla to stop being a dick and help save the world. This is the moment where the monster battles became the focus of the franchise and Godzilla makes the transition into a heroic figure. That is after him and Rodan have spent an hour kicking each other around for no reason. Also the primary influence on 2019's Godzilla: King of the Monsters.

DESTROY ALL MONSTERS (1968)

...I mean that got out of hand fast.

Aliens mind control Earth's monster population into destroying its major cities. There are 11 monsters in this film. Godzilla fights a UFO. What more do you need?

GODZILLA vs BIOLLANTE (1989)

Believe it or not, Godzilla is the bad guy in this image

This is probably my favourite of the traditional monster battle films. As a follow up to The Return of Godzilla it retains that film's darker tone whilst one of the most underrated movie monsters of all time. Producer Tomoyuki Tanaka was reluctant to even make the sequel but after the Japanese success of, of all things, Little Shop of Horrors (1986) decided to hold a public story contest for ideas for a sequel. Ironically, the winning submission can from a dentist, Shinichiro Kobayashi, and his story (which centred around the attempts of a scientist to resurrect his recently deceased daughter) combined with the clear influence of Little Shop of Horrors to create the plant/human/monster hybrid, Biollante. The designs of both monsters are excellent and the film's undercurrent of philosophy and spiritually really make it stand out. 

GODZILLA VS DESTROYAH (1995)

Meet the aptly named, 'Burning Godzilla'

I've previously discussed Toho's decision to temporarily retire the Godzilla franchise in the mid-90s and this was the film to bring this era to a close. The 'Heisei era' of the Godzilla franchise runs from 1984 to 1995 and is easily my favourite period, in no small part to the fact that it basically tells a complete story. Each of the films are connected to prior entries and so this Godzilla character has a coherence rarely afforded to other time periods. As a result, the decision to give the character a definitive death in this film carries all the more weight. Early in Godzilla vs Destroyah, it is established that Godzilla's heart (basically a nuclear reactor) is on the verge of meltdown, and subsequently the human cast begin a race against time to find a solution to a potetentially planet ending threat. Simultaneously, a mutated colony of organisms has arisen in Tokyo Bay (with its origins tied to the original 1954 film) and has begun to reak havoc. The creatures, dubbed "Destroyah" eventually merge to form one colossal, demonic beast that they lure into conflict withn Godzilla in the hope that Destroyah kills Godzilla before Godzilla melts down. Similar to the influence Biollante took from Litte Shop Of Horrors, the Destroyah are clearly influenced by Aliens (1986) and provide yet another wholly unique entry in the pantheon of giant monsters. This film isn't quite as good as earlier entries in the franchise but has some of the most unique imagery and ideas.

GODZILLA: FINAL WARS (2004)

Who's next?

This is another entry in the series where the appeal is fairly straightforward. Final Wars is basically a return to Destroy All Monsters only this time, Godzilla is the unwitting hero from the get go and has to run a gauntlet of Alien controlled foes. Just a monster battle bonzanza with a personal highlight being the, brief, battle between Godzilla and his much maligned American counterpart from the 1998 film. Just big, dumb fun.

SHIN GODZILLA (2016)

Goth-zilla

Here we have a film that is one part epic monster movie, one part thought provoking sci-fi horror and one part hilarious political satire. Shin Godzilla returns to the aspirations of the original film but updates its theme from the use of nuclear weapons to the failure of the Japanese government in their response to the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, and the subsequent Fukushima nuclear disaster. When Godzilla first appears the powers that be are rendered impotent in their decision making, and through some wonderfully understated comedy, shown to be nothing but weak willed bureaucrats. If Tokyo is to be saved it is the free thinkers that are going to do it, and some of the most dramatic scenes in the film centre around sequences of research and planning. In parallel we have the most monstrous take on the titular monster yet. Godzilla undergoes a number of transformations in this film, from the semi-amphibious weirdo I promised to explain earlier, to the stonish nightmare of the above picture. Throughout these transformations, Godzilla is depicted as a nightmare of evolution (a concept that would have gone to much more surreal lengths in the director's original vision) and by design never becomes something the audience can sympathise with. If you only ever watch one Godzilla film, make it Shin Godzilla.

In the end, the genius of the Godzilla character is its mutability. From politics, spirituality and satire, to giant monsters performing wrestling moves on each other, it really is the most adaptable franchise in the world and I for one can't wait to see what the future holds.

Well there it is, thank you for humouring through to the end of this strange little journey and as a treat I'll leave you with this delight. 

...right, I'm off to rewatch the Gamera films now.