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Extra Credit 023 - Godzilla (Patreon)

Published:
2024-05-30 20:49:10
Imported:
2024-05
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We conclude Monster May by chatting about the king of them all: GODZILLA!

Next up: The War of the Worlds

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Comments

David Ricker

My favorite Godzilla movie is Godzilla, King of the Monsters starring Raymond Burr!

Mooncubus

My friend has been wanting me to get back into Godzilla so I've been planning on binging all of them. I remember as a kid I had only a handful of Godzilla movies on vhs like biolante, mecha godzilla, mothra, and Godzilla 2000. I watched those to death. It's funny thinking about a kaiju sized Frankenstein's monster because I just finished re-listening to the Colossus right before this. When do we get the sequel audio movie where he fights Godzilla? This was a great trip down memory lane. I think I'm gonna go home and watch the original Gojira.

Strange T-Rex

Godzilla for the win! I don’t know whether I first encountered the big G in a Sunday matinee slot or one of the occasional late night monster movie marathons, but I had a distinct sympathy for (and empathy with) the monster that everyone in the movie seemed to fear and hate. I was an undiagnosed autistic kid, excluded and derided. That elemental rage was totally understandable - cathartic even - and granted me access to the same fantasy I found in The Incredible Hulk tv series: I may never be accepted but, if I could just find the right trigger, I could maybe become strong, stand my ground and fight back. It felt to me that if Godzilla and I were just left alone, we’d have been fine and happy and hurting no-one, but the rest of humanity just *wouldn’t let us be*. That for me is true monstrosity - the intolerance and vindictiveness of the Mob against the outsider. I found it in The Incredible Hulk, Frankenstein, King Kong, and latterly in movies like Nightbreed, Freaks, and Cronenberg’s Fly. Nobody wants to be a monster; it’s an appellation put upon them. But Godzilla doesn’t care. He’s pure in that way. Instinctual. Responsive. It’s what makes him King of the Monsters. The rest of us have to hide our nature, try to fit in as best as we can, and just pray that the Mob never finds us. [Cue sad Hulk end credit music]

Aaron La Vene

You got one movie away (space Godzilla) from mentioning the 3rd best Godzilla movie ever made and the actual conclusion to the Hesei era, Godzilla Vs Destroyah (I believe u mistakingly said final wars which is the ending of millennium) anyways. I would recommend the entire Hesei era as it does culminate into the final movie (Destroyah) but even as a standalone Godzilla Vs Destroyah is a masterpiece and the best kaiju vs kaiju godzilla movie ever made and I and I know many others will die on that hill. I think the Hesei era of Godzilla is truly special. And Destroyah was a truly horrifying and powerful creature with many layers, and I would count that movie as horror. However, I do agree. Minus one in Black and White specifically was the best Godzilla Movie I have ever seen. They did such an incredible job with the black and white with it being a time piece and all, def check it out! (Msg me on discord if u need help) obviously I loved the color one too, it was the best Godzilla movie til the black and white version came out!

Bugberry

The recent Legendary Godzilla isn’t really a protector of anything, that’s more King Kong’s thing, with that Godzilla regularly wreaking destruction purely to protect its territory and dominance. Only Mothra is kind of able to convince it to cooperate.

Bugberry

I’m curious if either of you have seen Neon Genesis Evangelion, because the director Hideaki Anno who also directed Shin Godzilla obviously brought a lot of elements from that anime to the film. Both have Lovecraftian Kaiju with long scenes of municipal workers planning countermeasures against the kaiju.

Oleh R

Interesting episode! The only downside is there’s so much Godzilla to discuss that it merits a separate podcast. I’ll note you forgot to mention the classic soundtrack used throughout the various films, including -1. My favorite underrated Godzilla ability? Flight!

Eldritch Golem (JPM)

Really enjoyed this extra credit guys. I am a life long Godzilla obsessive. As much as I love Cthulhu, Godzilla will always be my favorite monster. As a result I have a few comments/corrections for you regarding some of what was said here... 1) Ted Cassidy - Lurch from the original Addams Family - was the voice of the Hanna-Barbera Godzilla. Why Hanna-Barbera didn't use the iconic Godzilla roar is a mystery. I have colleagues who have interviewed a lot of the surviving staff that worked on that show and no one seems to recall why that decision was made. 2) Godzilla was not originally designed to look like an ape-whale hybrid. While the name Gojira is a portmanteau of the Japanese words for gorilla and whale this was not intended to reflect the monster's appearance. Rather Godzilla was always intended to be a dinosaur since the original film was a cash-in on The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. Artist Akira Watanabe came up with the iconic design for Godzilla by combining aspects of a T. rex, Iguanodon, and a Stegosaurus. 3) But starting in the Heisei era (1989 - 1995) Godzilla was redesigned to intentionally look like a cat in the face as well. More recently both directors Takashi Yamazaki (Godzilla Minus One) and Adam Wingard (Godzilla vs Kong) have said that they based Godzilla's mannerisms off their pet cats. This makes a lot of sense when you consider that Asian dragons have always had feline-type faces. A final thing I want to mention is that like a lot of the material covered on this show, Godzilla's roots lie in the pulp fiction tradition. The original story treatment for the first two Godzilla films were written by award winning Japanese pulp sci-fi author Shigeru Kayama. After the success of the initial pair of films Kayama wrote up his story treatments as a pair of YA novellas. These books were unavailable in English until late last year when they were translated by Jeffery Angles and published by the University of Minnesota Press. If anybody is going to be in Chicago the weekend of July 12-14, both Jeffery and I will be giving talks at G-Fest on the history of the Godzilla series.

Jim Cannon

In a weird coincidence, The Evolution of Horror just spent a couple weeks on King Kong and Godzilla, and that show made the claim that it wasn't Beast from 20,000 Fathoms specifically that inspired Godzilla, but actually the 20th anniversary rerelease of King Kong in 1953. The Toho people were looking for some kind of giant monster idea and the Lucky Dragon incident kind of clinched it, birthing the Gojira we know and love today. Also, Toho didn't just "decide" to go with suitmation, they were constrained by time and budget (as all films are), I think they really would have preferred to do stop-motion. But glad they didn't! So much of what Godzilla became comes from a stunt guy trying to move in a 200 lb rubber suit that also dangerously filled up with water during underwater scenes.

Jim Cannon

So I grew up on the cartoon and the Showa movies myself, usually on WPIX or USA on Saturday afternoons. Loved Godzilla and Kaiju from the get-go. It wasn't until high school, after renting it, that I actually watched the first Godzilla King of the Monsters all the way through. I was watching it alone at night and I had a moment during the Tokyo rampage where I had to pause the movie, get up, go into another room and talk to a sibling for a few minutes because the full impact of what Godzilla actually represents hit me square between the eyes and I felt queasy. Even the American version of that film is eerie, unsettling, and weird. And I finally saw the original Gojira just last weekend, courtesy of that Pluto channel that Chad mentioned (I have it bookmarked as well), and that is clearly superior to the American version in every way. Even more eerie and unsettling, and the offhand mention of "I managed to survive Nagasaki, and now this" in the subway scene is just gut-wrenching to contemplate at this remove from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Just a fantastic film all around. And I will stand up for that 2014 Monsterverse flick. I know it has many detractors. Before seeing that, I would have agreed with Chad that Godzilla works best as an implacable force of nature, neither good nor evil, just an elemental representation of raw destruction.... but my inner six year old loved loved loved getting superhero Godzilla back and I will not apologize. In conclusion, Godzilla is a land of contrasts.

Steve

Until recently I'd not seen anything more than a few short clips of Godzilla, but Monarch: Legacy of Monsters was an OK TV show. It was a bit slow. I tell a lie. I saw the Matthew Broderick one which was pretty dull, to the extent that I'd forgotten it.

Ken Hardin

Lifetime G-Fan here. For the obsessives, I’d recommend the audio commentary by David Kalat from the single-disc Criterion release of Godzilla (1954). He touches on a lot of the complexities of why Japanese audiences almost immediately embraced Godzilla – in no small part because he can be seen not only as a metaphor for the Bomb, but also an expression of the Japanese public’s conflict about their nation’s role as aggressor in the Pacific. The protagonist of “Godzilla” struggles with the decision to use a super-weapon to stop an otherwise undefeatable foe, and our heroes ultimately decide to drop the Oxygen Destroyer on the Big G while he’s sleeping out in the bay, not during a rampage. (I honestly can't think of another finale like it). Japanese audiences cheered when Godzilla stomps the Diet; for many of them, the chamber debate played as a sendup of Westernized political claptrap that ends with the revered Takashi Shimura shaking his head in chagrin. And Dr. Yamane’s reverence for Godzilla is never dismissed as foolishness, a la The Thing from Another World. It’s really a pretty fascinating look at a pliable, complex character. If you haven’t seen it, “Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All Out Attack!” (2001) is flipping amazing. The Big G is the ghost of Japan’s victims in WWII and he is way pissed. Ghost eyes! As always, thanks. Commentary track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0gbNOjgs1k

Bugberry

I forgot to mention. Yall talked about the fight scenes in Godzilla Final Wars, but it's one of the only instances of people fighting a Kaiju on foot, and it's against Ebira, the giant crab. It's hilarious.

Joshua Weiss

Did you know that both Godzilla Raids Again (Gojira no gyakusyu) and Godzilla 1984 were meant to be direct sequels to the first Gojira? This means, canonically, that there were in fact two Godzillas-- one whose bones lie in the bottom of Tokyo Harbon, and another who alternately terrorized and protected Japan. Minya (Minira) and Godzilla Junior (the baby G's in the Showa and Heisei series, respectively) were the children of this second monster. Since they were born long after the death of the first one, this means that the surviving G must have been female. Thus, Godzilla is more properly referred to as Queen of the Monsters.

David Halstead

Another podcast I follow, Junkfood Cinema, did an extensive episode on the original Gojira. They brought up how Dr. Serizawa is an Oppenheimer stand-in from a 50s Japanese movie, and he's sympathetic. Honda, the director, who was drafted into the war 3 times, had a deep belief in pacifist philosophy that he works into the film. The guest on that show was comics artist Matt Frank, who's done some of the recent IDW Godzilla comics. I've read some of those comics, and they're really good. I can recommend the Ruler's of the Earth seires and The Half Century War graphic novel.

Jeremy Impson

I was surprised to hear you say that Shin Godzilla was divisive within the fandom. My friend group and the online spaces I frequent all generally love it. For me, Shin Godzilla exists in a ambiguous quantum state along with Godzilla (1954) as best Godzilla movie of all time. As an update/reboot of the original, Shin Godzilla hits all the right notes with respect to social commentary, while also creating an exciting visual experience . I think Godzilla Minus One also exists in that state, but I need to see it a few more times to see if my excitement holds (I think it will). I find comparing Shin Anime to anime a bit ironic, because while I think it's a fair comparison (especially given the writer), I personally am not an anime fan (at least, not modern anime) and am usually the first one to become annoyed when I see anime influences (e.g. in post-DC Animated Universe DC Comics animation). Nonetheless I do love Shin Godzilla and think it's one of the best.

It's a Ghost.

I took your advice guys and watched Minus One this weekend, and I loved it! Growing up, or just in general, I was never a Godzilla fan. I think the only movie I ever saw was Mothra vs. Godzilla, which my family rented from the local VHS store in the late 80s when I was 8 or 9, and I only have the vaguest memories of thinking it was kind of weird. So watching Minus One and liking it so much was a great surprise. I loved how focused it was on the people, and then there was just the right amount of Godzilla, who was totally awesome in such a monstery or foreign way. Like he just seems concerned with doing monster stuff. I think with a lot of other movies, TV, etc., you are usually trying to figure out what the villain's objective is, and in this case, he's just a monster. Yes, a monster that symbolizes lots of different things, but he, the monster, doesn't have a clear objective other than being a monster wreaking havoc on humanity.

Michael Cunliffe

Great discussion of a great subject - absurd and profound indeed! I’m looking forward to you covering War of the World’s, but hope you will save some time for the definitive adaptation that is the 1978 prog-rock opera by Jeff Wayne - oooooolaaaaaa!

Andrew Brown

I love Godzilla - I remember seeing Godzilla versus Mechagodzilla! OMG

Andrew Brown

But it's funny how quickly Japan felt it was a victim and seemed to forget that they were homicidal religious fanatics who made the SS nervous with how vicious they were.

Eric S. Vallone, M.D.

Hey Chad! I have to ask. When you were making the comment about Godzilla’s expressionless face, were you thinking about the Flannery O’Connor novella, “Wise Blood?” Recall the landlady’s internal monologue: “A woman like her, who was so clear-sighted, could never stand to be blind. If she had to be blind she would rather be dead. It occurred to her suddenly that when she was dead she would be blind too. She stared in front of her intensely, facing this for the first time. She recalled the phrase, “eternal death,” that preachers used, but she cleared it out of her mind immediately, with no more change of expression than the cat.”

Sweatin' to the Great Oldies

I have done some voice work at Toho Studios and am always inspired by the Godzilla statue out front - it's tail "wrecking" the wall behind it - and the Mothra mural that helps folks orient themselves as they try to find the right building. I occasionally pass the Daiei Studios building and dream of getting a gig there so I can see their Gamera and Daimajin costumes and props up close. Some day. The word monster is Latin derived where it originally meant an omen or portent. A sign of the times. The best kaiju films are just that. The monster points to something ominous and demands we pay attention.

REO Jackwagon

Ya know, due to some confusion, Godzilla is always called Frankenstein in German movies until pretty recently.

Newk

Fun fact: Bikini a toll is the reason the swimsuit is called a bikini