This week’s movie is special. It’s the re-release of the original Godzilla, but that’s isn’t what makes it special.
So, here’s the spoiler:
Godzilla was created by nuclear energy.
So, I know my loyal audience is out there thinking, "yea, so. We knew that is was. Now where’s the humiliating satire? We want our monies worth!"
First of all, this web site doesn’t charge anything for it’s content, so stop whining. And your free order of cheese fries will be right out.
Secondly, why am I making a big deal about Godzilla and nuclear energy? Because the watered down US version of this film has always lacked something that they saw in Japan, but we never go to; full-frontal communism.
Yep, though it was a more acceptable form of government for the Japanese to understand, us people in the US would never go see a movie with anything even closely resembling acceptance of that. But here’s the kicker, nuclear bombs.
You get the feeling something is up when you look at the original Godzilla, and they make such a big deal about the bomb. But to the people of Japan, the memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki will live forever. That is why there is more to this film than you thought when you were 7.
Imagine what the people making this film had to do to avoid getting this film banned all together. They were making a movie about a creature that was created by weapons that cost them the war and killed countless innocent people. Doing a film like that in the US would be like making a monster movie that has a monster that could only be stopped by blowing up skyscrapers with planes.
Oh, and there’s the whole China’s got missiles aimed at us, while the US has missiles aimed at them, and Russia has missiles aimed at everybody. And, oh yeah, we’re in everybody’s flight path.
This movie was progressive even with the 1950s special effects. Though they weren’t cutting edge (but darn good for 1954), they did convey the message. Even if we got Gojira: Special Edition, I don’t think it would add to the story.
What would add to the story? The almost 20 minutes cut out of the original. In fact, the movie was supposed to be a one-shot deal, as Godzilla dies at the end. Except, since it made tons of cash, they started pumping them out like late 90s boy bands.
The material cut out of the movie added to the mythos of Godzilla in a way that would really give the movie legs these days. You see, the main character, the scientist, make what he calls an "oxygen bomb." In some of the deleted scenes you would find out that the reason that he doesn’t want Godzilla killed is that he doesn’t want keep him alive, he wants to know why he ain’t dead!
Seems that when us Americans bombed the carp out of their Axis*, we awakened a dinosaur, and gave him, or her, strange powers. Not nuclear powers, like we’ve been led to believe, just…powers. The movie actually points out that the same thing the scientist makes the oxygen bomb out of is the same thing that powers Godzilla. But for the entire run of the movie, from 1954 to today, they have never gone back to this idea.
Even when read about the original from various sources, I’ve never been able to get this into perspective. There was a lot cut out of this movie when shown as Godzilla, King of the Monsters. There was the red panic, there was the global pollutions, there was the racism, there was the social commentary. All cut because it didn’t work as it was filmed.
To put it in perspective, imagine the films of The Lord of the Rings. Now image every scene that had to do with Sauron were cut out. Now, delete any scene having to do with war. What you’d have there is a buddy movie about trying to marry an elf, some dudes that ride trees, and the guy who has to throw away a ring. Seems kinda silly, doesn’t it?
But while the Lord of the Rings was about a war, Godzilla was about the effects of war. Ever wonder why Godzilla smashed everything in his way? Didn’t it seem pointless that he torched everybody? And why’d he go through all that wire stuff that was supposed to stop him? Remember, this was decades before the first Alien, and Godzilla was never Freddy Krueger.
It was because Godzilla was an allegory for the effects of the bomb. It was a release for the fears that something bad may come from nuclear energy. It was because people were genuinely afraid that we were messing with something we had no business messing with.
The saddest thing is that a few months latter, there was Yen on the table, and they made another Godzilla. Not the outstanding social film, but the Disney-fied version of a thoughtless killing machine. Then Godzilla started being the good guy. Sad.
I will admit that I loved the Saturday cartoon series as a kid, but I thought it odd when I read a review of the movie in our school library. It was an old paperback that the school got for cheap, and I was into monsters at the time, and I read it earnestly. I go to a part in the book where it stated that the original Godzilla in the US was changed to better reflect American sensibilities. It also mentioned that most of the references to America attacking Japan were removed. And it said that Raymond Burr was stuck in there as a reporter to make the movie work.
I think Gojira worked just fine.
Have a great weekend, everybody!
*I am very sorry for that joke. Please forgive me, but you never waste a good pitch…
