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Toho’s famous atomic beast, and easily the most recognisable kaiju in the entire world, Gojira first emerged from the waters of outside of Japan to wreck the city of Tokyo on November 3^rd, 1954. To celebrate “Godzilla Day” this month, I’ll be dedicating very Saturday in November to looking back at the undisputed King of the Monsters’ many reboots.

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Released: 20 May 1998
Director: Roland Emmerich
Distributor: TriStar Pictures
Budget: $130 to 150 million
Stars: Matthew Broderick, Maria Pitillo, Jean Reno, Hank Azaria, and Kevin Dunn

The Plot:
When a gigantic, mutated iguana dubbed “Godzilla” suddenly comes ashore and rampages through New York City, the United States military finds their conventional weapon ineffective against the creature’s size and speed. Doctor Niko “Nick” Tatopoulos (Broderick) is brought on to try and understand Godzilla’s biology and nature in order to destroy it and ends up uncovering a conspiracy involving French nuclear tests and the monster’s true reason for arriving in the Big Apple: to birth its young.

The Background:
Ever since the release of the original Godzilla/Gojira (Honda, 1954), American filmmakers and studios have strived to translated the character for Western audiences; the original Japanese film received an international release as Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (Morse and Honda, 1956) and included a number of additional scenes and edits, with most revolving around actor Raymond Burr, who was inserted into the film. The sequel was completely rebranded as Gigantis: The Fire Monster (Oda, 1959) and Toho’s kaiju movies were consistently dubbed into English over their many decades of release, ensuring that a version of the atomic monster was as accessible to worldwide audiences, however awkwardly these dubs may have been. American film producer and distributor Henry G. Saperstein had attempted to get a fully American Godzilla production off the ground since the early-to-mid nineties, but the concept and its many pitches were repeatedly turned down by the likes of Sony Pictures and Columbia Pictures. Producer Cary Woods was finally able to get the project off the ground by pitching it directly to Sony Picture’s then-CEO and chairman, Peter Gruber, who was excited by the project and managed to purchase the rights from Toho. Toho were extremely protective of their property, however, and provided the filmmakers with a memo that detailed how the character should look and act in the film. After a number of rejected scripts, the studio settled on a pitch by up-and-coming filmmakers Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, hot off the success of Independence Day (Emmerich, 1996), who threw out the previous scripts and commissioned Patrick Tatopoulos to dramatically redesign Godzilla as a far more nimble and agile creature. Toho were stunned by the redesign but powerless to change it, though they eventually distanced themselves from the project entirely, and the creature was brought to life using cutting-edge CGI and a number of animatronics. Godzilla was bolstered by an aggressive marketing campaign that kept the creature’s full design obscured and resulted in toy manufacturers Treadmasters going out of business following the film’s scathing critical reception. Regardless, Godzilla’s $379 million box office made it a financial success and led to a short-lived animated spin-off, but plans for two follow-ups were shelved due to how badly the film was received; Toho were so underwhelmed by the film (which they felt took the “God” out of “Godzilla”) that they began production of a new series of Japanese-produced Godzilla films, and it would be some sixteen years before an American film studio would revisit the franchise.

The Review:
It’s easy to forget now but Godzilla was a huge deal back in the day; the marketing was absolutely everywhere, from billboards to toys and merchandise, to a bevvy of trailers, all of which only showed glimpses and size comparisons of various parts of the creature. Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin were the hottest of hot shits after Independence Day and big-budget disaster movies were all the rage [https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/how-independence-day-defined-modern-summer-movies/] in Hollywood, so anticipation was really high for their next effort. For a Godzilla fan such as myself, this was the first chance I would ever get to see a Godzilla movie on the big screen, and I vividly remember being taken to see it by my dad when it came out all those years ago. As a kid, I remember being bowled over by it and wowed by the destruction, special effects, and the sheer size and awe of the creature, but it’s safe to say that, very much like Independence Day, a lot of the glamour surrounding Godzilla died off really quickly. Now, it’s regularly aired on television to the point of oversaturation, its flaws are well documented, and it’s since been surpassed by bigger, better, and more fitting versions of the character but I still get a pang of nostalgia any time I watch it, see some of the old marketing crop up on social media, or whenever Puff Daddy and Jimmy Page’s “Come with Me” appears on the radio.

After a quick open credits sequence that hints towards the movie’s revised origin for the titular monster, we’re then introduced to easily the worst part of this, and any movie that he stars in: Matthew Broderick. I’m sorry to say that I’m not a fan of this guy; the only films of his I can even remotely stand to watch are this one and The Cable Guy (Stiller, 1996) and even then I’m more interested in the giant monster and Jim Carrey, respectively. Here, Broderick plays Dr. Niko Tatopoulos (named after the man who redesigned Godzilla for the movie, and subjected to a pretty lame running joke where no-one can pronounce his name properly so everyone just calls him “Nick” or “The Worm Guy”), a scientist working for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) who is busy research the affects of radiation from the Chernobyl disaster on local wildlife, specifically worms, when he is suddenly whisked away to give his expert opinion on a gigantic, radioactive footprints and a wrecked sea vessel in Panama. While his new boss, Doctor Elsie Chapman (Vicki Lewis) believes that culprit to be a dinosaur that somehow escaped extinction, Nick provides the more credible explanation that the attack was caused by a creature mutated by radiation, and proves to be correct when the Big-G itself makes landfall in New York City. Nick has a tenuous relationship with the military and governmental officials he finds himself surrounded by; while Ellie clearly has the hots for him (for whatever reason) and Sergeant O’Neal (Doug Savant) is friendly enough to him, Colonel Hicks (Dunn) is far more abrasive and has little time for wild theories; he just wants to cut to the chase and find out the best way to track and destroy the creature as quickly and efficiently as possible, which is decidedly at odds with Nick’s more awestruck reaction to the creature and his scientific curiosity.

Nick and the military follow Godzilla to New York City, which reunites him with his ex-girlfriend Audrey Timmonds (Pitillo), a beautiful young woman with aspirations of being a fully-fledged reporter but who is stuck doing menial work for her lecherous boss, anchor-man Charles Caiman (Harry Shearer). Although Nick never forget Audrey (he still has photos of her and the two of them together in his car, which isn’t creepy or obsessive at all…), their reunion is a little awkward as they broke up when Nick proposed to her and she got cold feet. Just as they begin to rekindle their friendship, and express a continued mutual attraction to each other, Audrey screws it all up by swiping a confidential videotape that reveals Godzilla’s origins and preparing a report on the creature, and Nick’s theories that it is nesting in the city, to try and launch her career as a reporter only to be screwed over herself when Caiman steals her report and misidentifies the creature as “Godzilla” instead of “Gojira”. From there, Audrey conducts her own investigation into Nick’s theories and, like him, ends up constantly at ground zero when the creature and its young rampage through the city. The two are joined by Audrey’s her friend and cameraman, Victor “Animal” Palotti (Azaria), who largely acts as the film’s comic relief. Of the three main characters, Animal is probably the most likeable and interesting to watch thanks to being both something of a snarky jokester and a bit of a cynical Brooklyn native who finds himself recording evidence of the story of the century by association.

The rest of the film’s characters are made up of the standard, no-nonsense military types and thinly veiled parodies of real-world film critics, but easily the best human character in the film is Philippe Roaché (Reno). An agent of the French secret service, Philippe is conducting his own investigation into Godzilla; having been charged with destroying all evidence of his government’s involvement in the creature’s creation, including the creature itself and its young, Philippe takes a special interest in Nick and the ongoing military operation to track and destroy Godzilla, and is the only one wiling to entertain Nick’s theory about the creature having nested in the city. If you actually stop and think about it, it’s quite odd that Hicks and the other governmental officials don’t believe Nick’s theory considering he’s been right about every single other thing he’s said about the creature up until that point, but I guess it’s necessary to introduce some drama in the muddle of the film and get Nick teamed up with the more efficient and interesting French spies. This leads to some of the film’s more amusing and entertaining moments, such as their continual dissatisfaction with American coffee and snacks, them all chewing gum to “look more American”, and Philippe even impersonating Elvis Presley to convince the Americans that he’s one of them. While Hicks and the United States military are satisfied to believe that they’ve ended Godzilla’s threat, Philippe leads his men to Madison Square Garden to find and destroy the creature’s nest, which results in his men suffering the highest, most tangible body count in the entire film as they’re torn apart by the baby ‘Zillas. Still, Philippe remains an instrumental and pivotal character in the film since he’s the only one who takes Nick seriously outside of his friends, and Reno’s stoic charisma and undeniable screen presence easily allow him to steal every scene he’s in and be the undisputed highlight of the human cast, especially compared to the bland and awkward Nick.

Very much like the original Godzilla, it takes some time before we actually seethe titular monster in full view; its emergence from the ocean comes at around twenty-five minutes into the film and is easily one of the best and most memorable shots of the entire film as it slices up through the water and lumbers its way into the city, crushing cars and people alike and raining debris down on the streets. Even here, we don’t really get a good look at the creature as its framed mainly from the legs and ankles down and we get brief glimpses of its jaw and head, all of which really helps to create a sense of mystery and fear surrounding the creature. In the first of many borrowings from Jurassic Park (Spielberg, 1993), the creature’s approach is heralded by a series of rumblings and shaking buildings, and the entire city is thrown into chaos as it stomps through downtown Manhattan before promptly disappearing. This is a recurring element in the film; despite being a good ninety-meters tall and causing a great deal of destruction in its wake, Godzilla is extremely difficult for the military to track and easily evades their attempts to track it by returning to the ocean and burrowing deep into the vast New York underground. This leads to a shot that should have been one of the most chilling in the movie but ends up being one of the most aged CGI shots in the film as Godzilla’s eye dominates one of its tunnels, and way too much of the film’s runtime is devoted to trying to figure out and draw out the creature and then contending with its young. When the creature does appear, it’s always at night and in the rain (which theoretically helps mask some of the CGI effects but ends up making the film appear very dreary and bleak as it’s constantly raining all the time), but it definitely makes an impression to see this mammoth, dinosaur-like creature standing in Central Park or weaving between the skyscrapers of the city, easily evading the military’s weapons with its agility and sheer mass.

The Nitty-Gritty:
The movie wastes no time in altering the origins of the iconic kaiju; in this version of the story, Godzilla is a normal, everyday iguana that was horrifically mutated by radioactive fallout from military nuclear tests in French Polynesia. I actually don’t really mind this change all that much; it’s not a million miles away from Godzilla’s actual origin (which varies, but is generally that of a new species of dinosaur that is supercharged by nuclear radiation) and brings the story a little closer to then-modern day. Obviously, it diminishes a lot of the horror of the original Godzilla in that the creature is no longer the embodiment of nature’s wrath or a physical manifestation of the nuclear terror that gripped Japan after the Second World War, but I think altering the story somewhat is probably necessary if you’re going to shift Godzilla’s target from Japan to America. However, thinking about it now, they probably could have retained the original story and had Godzilla target America as recompense for their actions during the war, similar to how the character would later be a vengeful force of the unjustly killed in Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (Kaneko, 2001). Still, the creature remains very much a symbol of the dangers of nuclear power and mankind’s tendencies towards recklessly endangering others and nature, though it does make you wonder why only one iguana was mutated in such a way when we clearly see an entire nest near the set of the nuclear tests.

The film does circle back around to the original movie, and the creature’s origins in Japan, by having it attack a Japanese boat out at sea, the sole survivor being traumatised by the experience and dubbing the creature responsible “Gojira”, and Godzilla laying waste to a village in Panama, which is all very similar to events seen in the original movie. Godzilla’s motivations for coming to New York couldn’t be further from the original monster’s, as it arrives not to unleash the fury of nature upon humanity or teach us the error of our violent ways, but to establish a nest within the city. Consequently, Godzilla doesn’t really go on a rampage in the same way as its predecessors; it only rages through the city after being attacked by the military while trying to have its fill of fish, and is far more concerned with gathering food for its young then destroying iconic landmarks. Indeed, as Mayor Ebert (Michael Lerner) states, the military causes more damage to the city than the creature as its easily able to slip past their missiles and high-powered artillery using its speed and agility; while the cluttered city doesn’t really give the creature a chance to reach its top speed, it allows Godzilla to nimbly hop onto and through buildings in a way its predecessors (and successors) never could. Its sheer size and mass also make it heavily hesitant to artillery, but its far from the invulnerable, unquenchable force of nature as the traditional Godzilla; the main issue the military have in trying to harm it is that it’s too fast and aggressive for them to get a good shot at with their more powerful weapons, and it favours an intense blast of air that becomes highly combustible rather than the iconic atomic breath, but it’s still a very formidable creature that easily overwhelms the U.S. military since they’re just not equipped to handle it.

Eventually, however, the military are able to draw the creature out with “a lot of fish”; although the same trick doesn’t work twice, it is enough to force Godzilla into the ocean, where it is seemingly killed by torpedoes fired from a submarine. From there, Nick and his friends join forces with Philippe and the French secret service to destroy the nest, with the film blatantly ripping off the Velociraptors from Jurassic Park and The Lost World: Jurassic Park (Spielberg, 1997) in the depiction of the young ‘Zillas. These snapping, vicious little creatures are about the size of an average man and “born pregnant” and hungry, but are largely hit in miss in terms of their effects and their threat; sometimes they’re fully CGI creatures, other times they’re traditional animatronics, and sometimes they’ll leap at and chew the faces off the French but other times they’ll back away from falling lights to avoid hurting the main cast. This sequence gives the characters an additional threat that they can actually overcome, but does kind of drag the movie out a bit; I feel like it might’ve been better to simply have the nest and many five mini ‘Zillas running around rather than a whole mess of them, but they do serve one key purpose. Up until that point, there’s been a sense of awe and even beauty around Godzilla; it’s not presented as malevolent or aggressive in the slightest and is instead simply an animal looking to lay its eggs that only acts aggressively when provoked. However, when its young are killed, Godzilla becomes a vengeful and enraged creature as it relentlessly chases after the ones responsible (Nick, Animal, Audrey, and Philippe) in the lead-up to the finale.

For the most part, the film’s special effects and CGI hold up pretty well; Godzilla and its young can appear very weightless and fake at times thanks to some dodgy lighting effects, but when the creature is shot correctly, it remains an impressive and detailed digital creature. A few choice miniatures, physical sets, and animatronics help to lend a tangible threat to the creature and its destruction, and it’s clear that the most time, effort, and money went into the full body shots of the massive kaiju. Unfortunately for this version of Godzilla, the adaptation process has robbed the creature of many of its abilities, ferocity, and threat; though gigantic and formidable, it’s still just a mindless creature with simple urges (feeding, sleeping, and protecting its young), and its threat to the city and its inhabitants is generally framed as being incidental to its size and nature. Godzilla’s true threat lies in its ability to reproduce asexually; though it’s the only one of its kind, it can lay a vast amount of eggs, which hatch very quickly, and each of its offspring has the potential to grow just as big and produce just as many eggs, potentially meaning that Godzilla could supplant the human race as the dominant species on the planet. This is an interesting addition to the Godzilla lore, but one that somehow isn’t as impressive or as fearsome as Godzilla’s general depiction as the embodiment of nuclear fears. Upon discovering its young have been bombed to death by a massive air strike, Godzilla flies into a rage and chases as Nick and the others (who are, somehow, able to out-run the creature in a taxi despite the terrible weather and the destruction littering the streets…) and ends up getting tangled up in the cables of the Brooklyn Bridge. This finally gives the military a clear and open target to aim at and, after being assaulted by a bombardment of missiles from a few fighter jets, Godzilla finally goes down for the count. While it’s an anticlimactic and disappointing end to the traditionally indestructible creature, it’s a surprisingly distressing moment as the once mighty creature’s heartbeat slowly dies away in a scene very reminiscent of King Kong (Guillermin, 1976). Also like in that film, Nick is the only one to feel remorse at Godzilla’s death, as everyone else bursts into cheers of applause, but the film ends with the revelation that at least one of the creature’s eggs survived, and this ‘Zilla would go on to be the more heroic version of the character seen in the animated series.

The Summary:
It’s not hard to see why so many bemoan Godzilla, especially the die-hard fans of the character and its franchise. Realistically, the film would work just as well without the Godzilla name attached to it since so much about the monster has been changed that the filmmakers could have simply said any remaining similarities were a homage to Toho’s famous kaiju. The problem is that Godzilla really is so much more than just a mindless animal rampaging through a city; it’s supposed to be this metaphorical, elemental force of nature that exists to remind us of our failings and/or to defend the Earth from increasingly ludicrous and monstrous threat. Reducing it down to an irradiated and enlarged iguana that’s just trying to lay eggs is quite the betrayal of the core aspects of the character, and it also doesn’t help that it’s simply Godzilla against the largely ineffectual military rather than facing off against another monster. While this isn’t necessary a required element of a Godzilla film, as we’ve seen throughout this month, it is one of the main appeals of the franchise and was another serious miss-step on the filmmakers’ part. Still, as a disaster movie about a giant lizard trashing parts of New York, it works pretty well; the level of destruction is nowhere near that seen in Independence Day, though, and the attempt to introduce the secondary threat of Godzilla’s young succeeded only in unnecessarily prolonging the film’s runtime. I do have  a little affection for this film, though, despite my dislike of Matthew Broderick and many of the changes made to the titular monster; I actually quite like the more versatile and agile design of the creature, and the film definitely excels whenever Godzilla or Jean Reno are onscreen, but it remains a startling underwhelming disaster film that’s way too reliant on special effects and oddball humour. Obviously, you’re going to need a lot of special effects to bring Godzilla to life but you really need to make damn sure that the rest of the film can support those effects, and the creature within it, and the sad truth is that this could have been any threat, monster, alien, or otherwise, stomping through the city and very little about it would be different except that Godzilla fans wouldn’t have had to see the famous monster butchered by studio meddling.

My Rating:

Could Be Better

So…do you have any fond memories or positive things to say about Godzilla? Were you disappointed by Godzilla’s redesign or were there elements of it that you enjoyed? Are you a fan of Matthew Broderick (and, if so, why?) and which of the film’s characters was your favourite? What did you think to the changes made to Godzilla’s origin and motivations, and the incorporation of its young? Were you disappointed by how easily Godzilla was taken down? Did you ever watched the cartoon that spun out from this film and would have liked to see a sequel? What’s your favourite Godzilla movie and why? How did you celebrate Godzilla Day this year? Whatever your thoughts on Godzilla, or Godzilla in general, feel free to sign up and leave a comment below, or let me know on my social media, and check back in next Saturday for more Godzilla content!

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Toho’s famous atomic beast, and easily the most recognisable kaiju in the entire world, Gojira first emerged from the waters of outside of Japan to wreck the city of Tokyo on November 3^rd, 1954. To celebrate “Godzilla Day” this month, I’m dedicating very Saturday in November to looking back at the undisputed King of the Monsters’ many reboots.

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Released: 15 December 1984
Director: Koji Hashimoto
Distributor: Toho
Budget: $6.25 million
Stars: Ken Tanaka, Shin Takuma, Yasuko Sawaguchi, Yosuke Natsuki, Keiju Kobayashi, and Kenpachiro Satsuma

The Plot:
Decades after Tokyo was devastated by a gigantic, radioactive dinosaur, reporter Goro Maki (Tanaka) finds evidence of another incarnation of Godzilla (Satsuma). Although Prime Minister Seiki Mitamura (Kobayashi) tries to keep the beast under wraps, the government is forced to turn to their advanced cadmium-firing Super X weapon in a desperate attempt to halt Godzilla when it rampages through Tokyo once more.

The Background:
When Gojira (more popularly known worldwide as Godzilla) made his big-screen debut in Godzilla (Honda, 1954), he represented very real lingering fears regarding the threat and consequences of nuclear war. Since then, the character has appeared in numerous films and been depicted as both a saviour and destroyer of Japan, a protector and an unrelenting force of nature that has become an iconic figure in pop culture over his many decades of cinema. In 1975, Honda helmed the fifteenth film in the original line of Godzilla movies, Terror of Mechagodzilla, which proved to be such a box office failure that Toho put the franchise on a premature hiatus. Over the next ten years or so, Toho attempted many times to reinvigorate the franchise, but all attempts were shelved until series creator Tomoyuki Tanaka took charge or revitalising the series and adding a contemporary shine to it following incidents such as the accident at Three Mile Island. Initially, American director Steve Miner seemed set to direct his own Godzilla movie, though the project was hampered by his insistence on utilising costly stop-motion animation and 3D effects, and when this production fell apart, Tanaka hired director Koji Hashimoto to helm a direct sequel to the original 1954 film that disregarded the character’s more heroic, anthropomorphic characterizations. Teruyoshi Nakano returned to direct the film’s special effects scenes, which saw the creation of the biggest and most detailed and expressive suits and miniatures seen in the franchise so far; the special effects were further bolstered by a sixteen-foot-tall animatronic Godzilla dubbed “Cybot” that was used for the creature’s close-ups and cost ¥52,146 to construct. The Return of Godzilla was a modest success, bringing in ¥1.7 billion at the Japanese box office, and has been noted to be one of the Big-G’s finest cinematic outings. The film also kicked off the second stretch of Godzilla films, the Heisei Era, the era that introduced me to the franchise, and received a slightly edited and altered American dub titled Godzilla 1985 (Kizer and Hashimoto, 1985). Godzilla 1985 saw the return of Raymond Burr, who made some bizarre demands upon signing on, and saw the inclusion of more comedic elements to the script. Godzilla 1985’s $4.12 million box office made it a modest success; this it received lackluster reviews, it was notable for being the last of the Toho films to receive a major North American release for some fifteen years.

The Review:
Just as in my review of the original Godzilla, I feel it’s worth highlighting that I’m reviewing the uncut and uncensored version of The Return of Godzilla, as opposed to Godzilla 1985 with Raymond Burr. However, unlike with that original version, my copy of The Return of Godzilla is dubbed into English, so any purists out there will just have to excuse me for taking advantage of this option. Like a lot of the later films in Godzilla’s Millennium Era, The Return of Godzilla also positions itself as much as a direct sequel to the original as it does as a more contemporary retelling of that film’s events, meaning that Japan has suffered through an attack from a Godzilla before, in 1954, and a number of the film’s characters either directly reference, or were directly affected by, those events (crucially, the monster is also positioned as being the same kaiju seen in that film, rather than a different one). Consequently, I would classify The Return of Godzilla as more of a “requel” than either a straight-up sequel or remake, which is honestly one of my preferred tropes in cinema since it allows filmmakers to pay reverence to a classic and yet still build upon and represent the themes of a previous movie in a new way.

The Return of Godzilla opens very much in the same way as the original, with a Japanese fishing vessel, the Yahata-Maru encountering a gigantic, radioactive, prehistoric beast while adrift at sea. In this instance, we see that Godzilla is awoken following the suddenly eruption of a volcano on Daikoku Island and, rather than incinerating the ship with its atomic blast, Godzilla left the vessel largely intact but devoid of all life, save for the badly wounded Hiroshi Okumura (Takuma). Okumuru (and the ship’s strangely decomposed crew) are discovered by reporter Goro Maki, who is attacked by a giant sea louse but saved by the shell-shocked Okumura; terrified out of his mind by the events, Okumura is only able to deliver a brief and vague description of Godzilla and its attack but it’s more than enough for Maki to bring the story to his editor. While recuperating in hospital, Okumura is visited by Professor Makoto Hayashida (Natsuki) and basically confirms that the creature was Godzilla are being presented with pictorial evidence of the original monster’s attack on Tokyo. Hayashida believes Okumura’s story and speculates that the sea louse grew so large because it fed off Godzilla’s radioactivity, like a parasite, and that the creature was disturbed by the aforementioned volcanic eruption. Cabinet Prime Minister Seiki Mitamura (Kobayashi) is naturally concerned by the news and orders that Godzilla’s return be kept quiet until they can investigate further; this, as well as Maki’s claims to have witnessed the aftermath of a giant monster’s attack and the Japanese government’s efforts keep the creature’s presence under wraps (something that you’d think would be impossible given the nature of its original rampage but don’t worry too much about that), mean that Maki’s story is blocked from being run by his editor, Godo (Kei Satō), to avoid raising a panic.

Maki is sent to talk to Hayashida, who reveals that his parents were lost during Godzilla’s 1954 attack and that, rather than trying to kill the creature, he has spent his time trying to properly research the creature for a potential weakness. During the interview, Maki crosses paths with Okumura’s sister, Naoko (Sawaguchi), and earns her favour by revealing that her brother is alive since he doesn’t agree that the media blackout has kept her in the dark. Naturally, she rushes to the hospital for a tearful reunion, barging past the laughably incompetent government detail stationed to keep him from having visitors, and reuniting Maki with Okumura in the process. After Godzilla destroys a Soviet submarine out in the Pacific, tensions between the Soviets and the United States escalate to the brink of all-out nuclear war and Mitamura is forced to reveal that Godzilla was behind the attacks in order to prevent a third World War, officially revealing Godzilla’s presence to the world during a press conference. Okumura publicly declares his desire to see Godzilla dead, and both he and Naoko are aggravated at Maki turning their reunion into a media circus, and see him as symptomatic of the press’s sensationalist reaction to Godzilla’s return. While the media has a field day reporting on the kaiju’s return and speculating on whether or not it will attack Japan, a hastily-constructed Godzilla countermeasure committee discuss their options to defend themselves should Godzilla attack and resolve to employ their top secret super weapon, the “Super X”, to combat and destroy the creature.

Designed in secret to defend the capital, the Super X is comprised of a highly durable, heat-resistant titanium alloy and fires cadmium rounds specially-created to pierce Godzilla’s skin, this flying fortress is prepared for battle alongside the entirety of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF). However, Godzilla makes landfall at the Shizuoka Prefecture nuclear power plant without any resistance whatsoever since his approach was masked by fog, of all things! Luckily, its feeding time is interrupted by a flock of birds, which draw it back out to sea, which Hayashida attributes to a migratory radar not unlike the homing abilities of birds. This odd and convenient inclusion means that Godzilla is now highly susceptible to magnetic forces, but raises the question of why it even came ashore to feed if it was due to migrate; the film seems to suggest that the birds somehow activated this sense within it, which is a bit of a stretch for me but then again this is a film about a gigantic, radioactive dinosaur so… Anyway, this development leads to them contacting renowned geologist Professor Minami (Hiroshi Koizumi) and, together, they develop a plan to use this knowledge to lure Godzilla to Mount Mihara on Ōshima Island and trigger a controlled volcanic eruption that will imprison the creature. While Hayashida is determined to safely subdue Godzilla without killing it, the remainder of the world’s superpowers are determined to use their nuclear arsenal to destroy the creature, something Mitamura vehemently denies; while Hayashida views the monster with a certain awe and respect, Mitamura has no desire to have nuclear weapons of any atomic yield dropped on Japan even if Godzilla attacks because of how destructive they are and a severe lack of evidence that they’ll even harm the kaiju.

The Nitty-Gritty:
I mentioned in my review of the original film that pretty much every single Godzilla movie follows either a reporter or a member of the military, and the same is true of The Return of Godzilla. In fact, we follow three different staples of humanity that would become the “Holy Trinity” of the Heisei Era, especially: the press, the army/JASDF, and the increasingly ineffectual and perplexed Japanese government. I can see why so many Godzilla movies follow this format; it’s important to see the government being overwhelmed and inadequate against Godzilla, whom they view with a mixture of awe and dread, to emphasise not only how their procrastination and fear costs valuable time and lives in preparing for Godzilla’s attack but also that the creature has no respect for their authority or societal law. Framing the narrative largely through Maki/the press is generally always a quick and easy way for the characters to learn about Godzilla, and thus position themselves as the audience surrogate; it’s somewhat redundant over fifteen movies into the series, but this was the first Godzilla film in about ten years so it’s not too surprising that they’d want to properly introduce the monster to new audiences. Finally, following the JASDF allows for some of the more explosive and exciting action sequences of the film and the now-traditional trouncing of all of then-modern society’s most powerful weapons by this unstoppable force of nature. As ever, the human characters prove to be the weakest element of the film (well, them and the large amounts of time where Godzilla is entirely absent form the film): there’s a bit of a romantic sub-plot between Maki and Naoko, but this appears to be based on little more than him being attracted to her and her…I dunno, letting her emotions get the better of her, I guess? They really don’t have all that much chemistry and she doesn’t really do much except worry about her brother and patch up Maki when he gets hurt. Hayashida is certainly nowhere near as interesting as Doctor Daisuke Serizawa (Akihiko Hirata), and while Okumura gets to have a measure of revenge against Godzilla by triggering the explosions that trap it in Mount Mihara, he really doesn’t have all that much else to do (it might’ve been better to have him piloting the Super X to allow him to go toe-to-toe, figuratively speaking, with Godzilla).

As in the original movie, a great deal of The Return of Godzilla’s early going is spent building tension regarding the titular kaiju; Godzilla is only briefly glimpsed during the first thirty-odd minutes of the film, seen as a gigantic shape lumbering from the ground or passing through the murky depths of the ocean, and its attack on the Soviet submarine is framed pretty much entirely from within the vessel to heighten the sense of terror surrounding the creature’s destructive intentions. When the creature does finally appear, it’s revealed from a very unique perspective of a showed and terrified security guard who is suddenly confronted with Godzilla’s massive feet; from there, this composite shot pans upwards to the creature’s face and Godzilla’s new, bulkier design is revealed for all to see. Perhaps taking its cue from the Showa Era films that proceeded it, The Return of Godzilla also features the brief appearance of a secondary giant monster of sorts, in the form of a large and unpleasant sea louse. While Godzilla itself remains an impressive and fun combination of suit work and animatronics, the sea louse leaves a lot to be desired; similar to Mothra’s maggot form, you can practically see the wires that propel it through the air as it lunges for Maki, and watching him struggle with the bit lump of rubber and plastic aboard the ship is particularly ridiculous in all the wrong ways. Rather than having Godzilla battle another kaiju, The Return of Godzilla sees the return of its conflict against the futuristic might of he JASDF, which is of little consequence against such an unconquerable force of nature as Godzilla. That is, of course, until the Super X enters the fray and basically turns the film into Godzilla vs. Thunderbirds (1965 to 1966); a highly advanced flying fortress, the Super X hovers around the city and distracts Godzilla with flare bombs so the pilots can fire cadmium shells into Godzilla’s mouth. This is surprisingly effective as Godzilla’s atomic breath is entirely useless against the craft and the monster is apparently now also easily distracted by pretty lights and the cadmium rounds successfully render the beats inert after a few shots, though the visual of a bulky, cumbersome little space craft battling the Big-G isn’t necessarily the most visually striking opponent for the titular monster.

Naturally, though, Godzilla looks worlds better than he did in the original movie; the suitmation evolved quite extensively throughout the Showa Era and Godzilla slowly become a lot cuter as he was anthropomorphised and transformed into a heroic, almost comical, protector figure to appeal to kids. The suits did seem to drop in quality, however, appearing for more floppy and goofy compared to the intimidating original and, while a lot of close-ups of Godzilla’s feet don’t do much to sell the illusion of a giant monster rampaging across the land, the far more expressive and detailed face helps to make give Godzilla a decent amount of personality (although its unblinking eyes do look quite goofy). A far larger and bulkier creature than we saw before, Godzilla is a lumbering, aggressive force of nature; it trounces the power plant, toppling buildings and crushing carefully-constructed miniatures and causing countless deaths in its desire to feed off the nuclear reactor stored there, leaving a disaster area in its wake. After much political procrastination on how to best defend and prepare for Godzilla’s inevitable attack, the G-Man finally comes ashore to attack Tokyo and the JASDF; shots of Godzilla wading through Tokyo Bay as explosions fire off all around its head and of it rampaging through the city smashing apart models and toy tanks really help to make up for the hour-long build up to the creature’s first big action scene, and the scenes of destruction are far more detailed and impressive than those seen in the original. Godzilla smashes through the streets, swatting skyscrapers out of the way, crushing a train (much like in the original), and lays waste to the JASDF using its atomic breath (now represented as a bright blue/white beam of radioactive energy rather than a stream of smoke). Mass evacuations are ordered to try and minimise casualties, though this does little to limit Godzilla’s destructive and devastating rampage. Many of these scenes of devastation are brought to life not just through practical, in-camera effects of a man in a suit tearing through a highly detailed recreation of Tokyo or splashing about in  large water tank, but also through some ambitious (if, obviously, somewhat dated) composite shots that take full advantage of Godzilla’s impressive animatronic head. After decimating the JASDF and shrugging off even their high-powered laser cannons, Godzilla is finally subdued by the Super X, whose cadmium shells are fired into its mouth and successfully slow its heart rate, apparently similar to quelling an out of control nuclear reactor and, while Tokyo is left in ruins, the creature is rendered unconscious.

However, angered at Godzilla destroying one of their submarines, and what they perceive as Mitamura’s weakness, the Soviets launch a nuclear missile into the heart of Tokyo in an effort to destroy the creature. Although the U.S. intercept it with a missile of their own, they unintentionally cause Godzilla to be revived from the resulting nuclear storm and, to make matters worse, the electromagnetic pulse of the explosion temporarily disables the Super X. This not only revives Godzilla but, in a trope that would be revisited time and time again after this film, also greatly empowers it; as the Super X is all out of cadmium shells, even its advanced missiles and laser weapons have no effect against the vengeful Godzilla, who causes even more destruction as it lumbers after the flying fortress, threatening Maki and Naoko (who are still trapped in the city and helped to safety by a very strange drunkard (Tetsuya Takeda)) in the process and leaving the city in shambles. Although the Super X is faster and more nimble, Godzilla is only further enraged by its attacks and final destroys the craft, and its plots, for good by dropping a skyscraper on it! Victorious, Godzilla threatens to continue its rampage through the city as an unstoppable force of nature until Hayashida finally gets his homing signal up and working; unable to resist the call of the homing signal, Godzilla heads out to see and over to Mount Mihara, where it stupidly topples into the volcano like a good little puppy and is subsequently trapped when Okumura triggers the detonators and a controlled eruption, which encases Godzilla is molten rock. Once again, we’re left with a rather anti-climatic ending for the world’s most famous kaiju, however it’s interesting to note that, where Godzilla was originally defeated by a scientific device that was even more deadly than the creature itself, this time it is conquered by turning its very nature against it. As a force of reckoning, a warning regarding the dangers of nuclear power, Godzilla is an overwhelming force but, here, its also just as explicitly a slave to its instincts and the call of nature as any other creature. This ultimately proves to be its downfall and allows Godzilla to be subdued not by the highly advanced Super X, but by manipulating its instincts against it, indicating that only nature can defeat nature.

The Summary:
The Return of Godzilla is certainly visually impressive; the effects have come a long way from the original movie, and Godzilla and the miniatures it crashes through and stamps under its feet had arguably never looked better before this film. Brilliantly brought to life through a heavily detailed suit and animatronic head, Godzilla has a real weight and viciousness to it; it swipes skyscrapers like they were nothing, tramples through streets and buildings like they were nothing, and shrugs off everything from explosive missile rounds and high-powered laser cannons. It’s a shame, then, that the creature is absent for so much of the movie; this was, and would continue to be, a recurring issue in many Godzilla films and I get that it’s a new introduction to the character and a great way to build a sense of tension, awe, and dread up to its first big reveal, but the film really drags while you’re waiting for the Big-G to finally show up and cause some mayhem. The Super X would be just one of many futuristic craft constructed to fend of Godzilla, with later models and vessels being far more versatile and interesting; here, it’s just a clunky bit of kit that meanders around the city firing off its weapons before being crushed by Godzilla. The idea of turning Godzilla’s nature against it to manipulate it to its anti-climactic end is an interesting one, but results in a bit of an uneven representation for the titular kaiju: Godzilla is both paradoxically an invincible and inexhaustible force of nature but also a living creature that can be easily distracted and lured away by manipulating its instincts. Thematically, I quite enjoy this, and a running them throughout the subsequent Heisi Era would revolve around pitting Godzilla against creatures born from its cells or even more impressive feats of technology (and sometimes both!), but it feels  bit clunky here and actually weakens Godzilla in many ways. Overall, it’s a much bigger and more impressive version of the original film, with some great practical effects and scenes of monstrous destruction, but drags a little too much and seems to be lacking both the fun of the later Showa Era films and the dark, gritty message of the 1954 original.

My Rating:

Pretty Good

Did you enjoy The Return of Godzilla? How did you feel it holds up today, especially compared to the original and other films of the Heisei Era? Did you like Godzilla’s depiction and the animatronic head used to bring it to life? Were you also disappointed by Godzilla’s lack of screen time and the Super X? Did you enjoy the bigger, more detailed miniatures and scenes of destruction? What did you think to the film’s message and the way in which Godzilla was overcome? What is your favourite Godzilla movie and why? How did you celebrate Godzilla Day this year? Whatever your thoughts on The Return of Godzilla, feel free to sign up to leave a comment below and check out my other Godzilla content!