Godzilla or Godzilla?

[Manixguy@1994]

Raymond Burr was in the first movie , later starred in the Perry Mason TV series . Dan

[James Y]

Raymond Burr was in the first movie , later starred in the Perry Mason TV series . Dan

Dan,

The Raymond Burr version of the first movie consisted of scenes with his character that were filmed later, and edited in to the original Gojira/Godzilla movie to make it palatable to American audiences. His character wasn't actually in the first movie at all. The iriginal Japanese version was released in 1954; the heavily edited American version was released in 1956. The original, uncut Japanese version is much deeper, and is a better movie that makes more sense than the Americanized version.

As a kid, I'd only seen the Raymond Burr version on TV; the first time I saw it was in the late '60s, and I hadn't seen the Japanese version until much later (2004).

As a kid, i also used to like the 1960s Godzilla movies, when he became kind of an anti-hero; even when he began to look like a cute Muppet-like character, fighting other monsters, alien invaders, etc., and dancing a jig when he won or got one over. IMO, those 60s movies weren't as good as the 1954 original, but they were still FAR BETTER than any of the American versions of Godzilla.

But there was always something about the original Godzilla monster itself, even in the heavily edited Raymond Burr version of the movie, that set it apart for me. Seeing the original Japanese version for the first time at an arthouse theater in 2004 (the 50th anniversary release of the original) cemented in my mind that it was definitely best Godzilla movie ever.

Another one of my favorite kaiju (Japanese giant monster) movies is Rodan (original Japanese-language title: Radon). The first kaiju movie filmed in color, like Gojira/Godzilla, it was also more serious and somber than later kaiju movies. Gojira/Godzilla is still the king, though.

Jim

[Doc Dan]

Yeah, Bloke, that's the one!

[Manixguy@1994]

Thank you James , I had no idea there were two versions. You are definitely the Godzilla guru ! Dan

[James Y]

Thank you James , I had no idea there were two versions. You are definitely the Godzilla guru ! Dan

Not really the Godzilla guru, Dan, I was just a big fan of kaiju films as a child. I had long heard that the original Japanese version of Godzilla was superior, but didn't get to see it myself until I was 41 years old.

Jim

[James Y]

Godzilla Vs The Wolfman

(2 videos below)

I thought some of you might find this interesting. In the second video, the fictional electricity cannons the Japanese military uses on the Wolfman were the same ones used in the 1966 movie War of the Gargantuas (original Japanese title: Frankenstein's Monsters: Sanda vs Gaira).

If the concept of Godzilla fighting a gigantic, irradiated werewolf seems really weird, Willis O'Brien, who did the stop-motion animation effects for the original 1933 King Kong, for many years had wanted to make a King Kong vs Frankenstein movie, but the Hollywood studios weren't interested. Shortly before his death in 1962, when he heard that the Japanese had made King Kong vs Godzilla, it was said that Willis O'Brien cried (probably out of frustration that his own dream of making a "King Kong vs Frankenstein" movie never materialized).

The History of Godzilla vs Wolfman

https://youtu.be/I3wAc-j-N88

Godzilla vs The Wolfman, Surviving Footage

https://youtu.be/OSdp7TIqVCY

Jim

[Mad Mac]

In 1954 when the original Godzilla movie was made
I was a seven-year old Army Brat living in Sendai, Japan,
so I think that may give me a different perspective.

Japan suffered the horror of nuclear war
at the hands of human beings.
Additional atom bomb testing in the Pacific
stirred the creature Godzilla.
We are the monsters in the 1954 movie.
In the 1956 movie the nuclear connection is whitewashed.
https://collider.com/godzilla-king-of-m ... y-its-bad/

[Doc Dan]

Yeah, in a way, America is Godzilla, the unstoppable, undefeatable monster. Japan's dream of empire collapsed when America entered the war. The Americans were already giving them a shellacking when the American Volunteer Group went to China and fought them in the air. Later, America beat off their best attack at Midway and other places and finally dropped two nuclear bombs on them. Even though the war was their own fault, getting beaten by an unstoppable enemy using nuclear weapons that killed hundreds of thousands in an instant was a lot to take, I assume. Like in the movie, they brought the monster on themselves.

[James Y]

I do know that the original Gojira/Godzilla was a metaphor for the atomic/ nuclear bombs and the testing of them. I don't know if Godzilla was a representation of America in particular. The US was not the only country that was testing nuclear bombs in the South Pacific; wasn't France also doing it? Maybe Russia, too? IMO, Gojira/Godzilla represented the horrors and uncertainty of the Nuclear Age itself.

IMHO, the original 1954 version remains the best Godzilla movie ever made. I knew that even as a little kid. The movie was a sci-fi/horror movie with a dark, somber mood that fit the time period perfectly.

I remember reading somewhere that the biggest cinematic inspiration for the original Gojira/Godzilla, besides King Kong, was the 1953 American movie, The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. Which was a dinosaur that was awakened by the testing of atomic bombs in the Arctic.

Jim

[Mad Mac]

By "we" I meant mankind.
Not the United States.
The same inhumanity of man
explored on a small scale
in The Lord of the Flies
and in many other books and movies.

[James Y]

Another thing that was special about the original 1954 film was when Dr. Serizawa destroys his notes and plans for his invention, the oxygen destroyer; and then, as it's being used on Godzilla, he commits suicide. The reason, as he had mentioned in his dialogue earlier in the movie (which was cut from the 1956 American Raymond Burr edited version), was that the military would seize and weaponize his invention if they got their hands on it, and/or would try to force him to make another. Which, in real life, if someone had created such a weapon, and the government/military-industrial complex became aware of it, they would swoop in and seize it for their own purposes. And the inventor would be permanently "disappeared".

That train of thought showed a level of realism in the 1954 Gojira/Godzilla that American sci-fi monster movies of that era lacked, and wouldn't have touched with a 10-foot pole.

Jim

[Water Bug]

Yeah, don't care for a kinder, gentler, PC Godzilla. Leave the **** monster alone as the savage beast he is.

Geez, what's next, a kinder, gentler Darth Vader or Doctor Doom?! Leave our villains alone!

[Doc Dan]

Yeah, I hate this stupid pitbull puppy type monster where it is loving and loyal to those he loves and fierce and deadly to those on the outside. Godzilla has the capability to scare the pants off of us, if done correctly. Let him be a monster!

[James Y]

Shin Godzilla (2016) was an attempt to return to the ‘scary’ Godzilla. WAY better than the American versions, but still nowhere as good as the original 1954 version. But Shin Godzilla introduced a somewhat “creepy” version of Godzilla.

As a kid, I did enjoy the 1960s Godzilla movies that had him fighting other monsters, like King Kong vs Godzilla, Godzilla vs Mothra, Invasion of Astro-Monster, Destroy All Monsters, etc. But I always felt the original was better. IMO, Godzilla is best when he is the villain and is alone, without any other monsters. And I don’t even count the American versions of Godzilla.

Jim

[Doc Dan]

Godzilla with Broderick was actually not bad. The monster had motivations and was a monster in human eyes. The other American films made him a big protecting animal.

[James Y]

Godzilla with Broderick was actually not bad. The monster had motivations and was a monster in human eyes. The other American films made him a big protecting animal.

IMO, the Broderick film shouldn't have been called Godzilla, but given another name. It didn't strike me as Godzilla; it looked like a giant, deformed iguana.

Jim

[James Y]

Shin Godzilla (2016)

IMO, Shin Godzilla was a mixed bag. The monster itself is an interesting take on Godzilla (growing and evolving from a slithering thing). And they used the old soundtrack music by Akira Ifukube from the 1954 movie. But much of Shin Godzilla is a bunch of bland humans with no distinguishing personalities, talking.

Gojira Evolves Into its Third Stage

https://youtu.be/h8VPyUSDksM

Jim

[Mad Mac]

A militant environmentalist.
Destroying the blight on this good earth
that passes for industry and commerce,
cleansing the cities
that are but pustules on this blue marble.
If only Godzilla could have shed tears.

[Doc Dan]

Shin Godzilla actually showed the incapacity of the Japanese government to act. That was actually what they were doing in the movie. The government had to move from one room to another literally in order to make a decision. They had to go from one committee to another and all of the same people were on on those committees and they still could not act without going back to the other committees. So they were protesting that.

[James Y]

You're exactly right, Doc.

However, as I remember it, all of the human characters in Shin Godzilla all looked and acted generic, and none of them stood out. Unlike the old school Godzilla movies, where the actors all had unique facial appearances and personalities. The actors in Shin Godzilla looked like they had to pass some type of generic physical appearance standard. With the drab characterizations and acting, and the interesting monster, it was like two different movies were spliced together into one. A movie at its basic is to entertain, and the scenes with the human actors were a chore to sit through (for me).

Jim