In the history of cinema, you have a variety of incredibly recognizable characters: Darth Vader, Indiana Jones, the xenomorph from Alien, the Terminator. But there are two characters in particular that have lasted longer than any other character. The first one was the super spy James Bond. Come on, EVERYBODY knows 007, regardless of which actor that played him. The other is Godzilla. Even if you haven’t seen ANY Godzilla film, you know who and what that big guy is. He’s one of the most iconic characters in pop culture. Well, we are coming up on the 70th anniversary of the original Kaiju’s appearance. The original Gojira was released in 1954 as a response to the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki just 9 years prior. Most people will recognize the Godzilla from the 60s and 70s. You know, the really campy and silly monster movies that ended up defining an entire sub-genre of movies. But the original film was deadly serious. I want to talk about the Godzilla movies that I’ve seen, including the recently released Godzilla: Minus One.
Just this weekend, I went and saw Godzilla: Minus One, the latest Godzilla film from Japan’s Toho Entertainment. I won’t go into full spoilers or a full review here, but let’s just say that Godzilla: Minus One is perhaps the best Godzilla movie since the original. Some might it’s the best one yet. It’s not just a great monster movie. It’s a great movie. Yeah, the big guy gets to destroy stuff, but all of that is anchored by a really strong and human story about the struggles of a post-war Japan. This movie is set just after World War II when Japan was still picking up the pieces from the attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Unlike most movies of this kind, the focus is on people and how they come together to solve a common problem: Godzilla. I absolutely recommend this movie.
As of this writing, Warner Bros. has released a new Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire trailer. The New Empire is the latest in series of Godzilla films that were started by Gareth Evans back in 2014. I loved the 2014 movie, and I enjoyed the last two American-made Godzilla movies, but this new one just looks ridiculous. This has been a huge problem with American-made Godzilla movies since Roland Emmerich’s 1998 film. The tone is all over the place. It’s like the film-makers decided to jettison the serious tone of the 2014 film and embraced the lunacy of the 60s and 70s movies. That’s fine, but it just goes to show the disparity between the western approach to Godzilla versus Toho’s approach. That’s not to say that Toho’s movies have all been good. They haven’t. Again, the 60s and 70s Godzilla films are just pure insanity with the amount of destruction and monster mayhem. There’s nothing wrong with that approach as long as the film-makers go in head-first with that intention. The problem is that the western approach to the characters in these movies is that the human characters are always boring or irritating. I get it: Most people don’t go to these movies for the human characters. They come for the mayhem, and that’s all well and good, but if you’re going to put a focus on the human characters, you need to not make them irritating douchenozzles. Otherwise, just take them out of the film completely.
While we’re at it, lets discuss the 1998 Godzilla film starring Matthew Broderick and Hank Azaria. The design of Godzilla has undergone changes over the years since he first appeared in 1954, but most of those changes adhered to a specific overall look to our favorite Kaiju. Well, Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich took that design and threw it out the window with their 1998 film. What we ended up with was essentially an overgrown iguana. Granted, the CGI character was fairly well executed, but fans of the OG monster took a lot of issues with the creatures design. Godzilla has generally been indestructible and feared NOTHING. The changes to the character’s design and motivations was just…weird. The OG Godzilla wreaked havoc because it was essentially nature reacting to the use of nuclear power. In the 1998 movie, the creature just wanted to settle down and have a family. Ignoring the terrible miscasting, the 1998 movie just wasn’t what people were expecting. Toho was PISSED at what Emmerich had done, and this would eventually result in Toho going full-bore into THEIR movies with Godzilla 2000 and Final Wars. The west would not make another Godzilla movie until Gareth Evans’ 2014 film.
Gareth Edwards’ film marked the west’s return to the giant monster movie genre with a pretty spectacular movie starring Bryan Cranston, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ken Watanabe. Now, there was a lot of criticism about Godzilla not being featured as prominently in his own movie as he was in others. People often forget that Godzilla didn’t have much screen time in the 1954 film, either. He didn’t need it. His presence was felt throughout the entire movie, and when he showed up, shit got wrecked. That was the approach that Gareth Edwards took with the 2014 movie, and I thought it was much better for it. Even the human characters were given more to do than just be crushed like insects. Movies like this can have more impact(pun intended)when they’re anchored with good writing and good characters. WB responded to the negative reactions to the 2014 film with Godzilla: King of the Monsters in 2019 by throwing in everything but the kitchen sink. Rodan, Mothra, and King Ghidora and other giant monsters make an appearance. As usual, the humans are the focus, but poorly written. Godzilla Vs. Kong at least embraces the ridiculousness and just goes full ham and the monster mayhem, and the movie is actually a lot of fun. Again, though, the west has drifted so far from what Godzilla represented.
In 2016, Toho released Shin Godzilla, a reboot of sorts that really put the emphasis on why Godzilla was a problem for Japan and it focused on the people trying to solve that particular problem. The design of big G was very reminiscent of the old-school Godzilla, but it also showed different stages of the creature’s evolution. What Shin Godzilla and Minus One have shown is that Toho has a completely different idea on how to involve people in a story that’s centered around a nuclear-powered monster. Toho has a much better understanding of how to use Godzilla as well. Yeah, the massive destruction brought on by the monster is amazing, but without the human element to connect the audience to those events, it’s pure spectacle. Again, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, but I feel that the modern non-Toho Godzilla movies have failed to really capture the spirit of Toho’s movies. Now, some of you might wonder about the campy movies of the 60s and 70s. Fair point, Toho was riding on a massive high with the success of 1954’s Gojira. So, the approach changed. The seriousness of the original film wouldn’t necessarily bring audiences back to more movies, so they had to up the B-level factor and make movies that were…more fun, hence the addition of monsters like Mothra, Rodan, MechaGodzilla, Ghidora, Gigan, Jet Jaguar, and Destoroyah. The less said about Baby Godzilla, the better.
Godzilla has been a huge part of the public consciousness for 70 years, and I don’t see it slowing it down. Minus One looks like it’s going to be a huge success, and there are plans for Toho to make more of these. Personally, I can’t wait. I will go see the new Godzilla X Kong movie when its released next year, because I’m a huge fan of the genre. However, I can’t escape the idea that the divergent paths that the American and Japanese approach to Godzilla is going to lead to an oversaturation of these movies. If that must be the case, then I would rather lean towards the Japanese approach. I really love how they manage to make such big movies for what is essentially a fraction of what it would cost to make the same movie in the United States. Yet, for all the rough patches in the career of big G, he’s the gift that keeps on giving, because I’m always going to see his movies and so will a lot of other people. I’ve been watching these movies since I was a kid, so I do have an interest in how these movies are made. Godzilla will always be Godzilla, and as long as people try not to deviate to far from what makes him work, there’s no limit to what you can do with him. Just try not to make a romantic comedy where Godzilla is involved in a love triangle between Mothra and Rodan. Nobody wants to see that…or do they? No kink shame here.