(Original Title: "Gojira")
December 15, 1984
Godzilla's creator Tomoyuki Tanaka ultimately thought that the decision to change the direction of the series to appeal more to children was the mistake that killed the series. Despite this, he still had a desire to continue the series after 'Terror of Mechagodzilla.
10 years later, an opportunity to do so finally came. This would be the beginning of what is known as the Heisei series of films. (Pronounced: "Hey-Say")
The first of which, returned the series to it's original dark tone.
30 years after the original King of the Monsters attacked Japan, another Godzilla appears to terrorize mankind. After attacking a Russian submarine, the world is thrown into panic. The US and Russians insist on using a nuclear weapon to take out Godzilla but Japan is adamant on using other means to repel the monster.
Under the direction of Koji Hashimoto, a former assistant director of several of the Showa Godzilla films, Godzilla was no longer the hero to mankind. He returned to his roots as a symbol of nuclear terror and destruction. And what better way to reintroduce him than during the height of the Cold War? The Return of Godzilla can be looked at as both a sequel and a reboot to the series that only follows the 1954 film, it was actually the closest movie with a similar tone to the original until 2016. In Japan, this sequel to the first Godzilla was titled "Godzilla", which would confuse anyone getting into the series. Luckily, most fans refer to this movie as The Return of Godzilla, now if only The Thing and Halloween were more fortunate...
Donning the new Godzilla suit was Kenpachiro Satsuma, who had previously played Hedorah and Gigan. His experience with suit acting and mentoring he received from Haruo Nakajima made Satsuma the natural choice to play Godzilla.
In the years that Godzilla had not been in the movies, the city skyline of Japan had changed dramatically, sporting buildings that would surpass Godzilla's original height. As a result, Godzilla went from 50 meters to 80 meters and the sets had to be built smaller than normally. Whether or not the details of the smaller size were compromised is debatable, but in my opinion, they look fine.
The effects team lead by Teruyoshi Nakano had a much bigger budget to work with and chose to experiment with new ways to bring the King of the Monsters to life. In addition to the suit, Godzilla was also portrayed by a 16 ft. tall animatronic dubbed the 'Cybot Godzilla'. The Cybot was mainly used for close up shots and public appearances and while it's obvious that the heads of the suit and the Cybot don't match 1:1 and sometimes the movements of the Cybot can be a little jerky, it doesn't bother me very much.
What I find distracting is the huge life size foot they used for certain shots. For some reason, the claws on the foot are curved in a way that they do not match the suit and it bugs me more than it should. I'm more willing to forgive the stiff puppets of the giant sea louse at the beginning of the film.
Fortunately, none of that can take away from how awesome Godzilla is presented in this movie. He looks awesome, he sounds awesome and he can actually be quite terrifying in this movie. One of my favorite Godzilla moments of all time is in this movie. Just before he comes ashore to Tokyo, the JSDF fire everything they have at him. It does nothing. Godzilla then fires his atomic breath at them, we see explosions, people running around on fire and being vaporized. And then everything goes silent until Godzilla lets out a victory roar.
It's worth noting that one man uncredited with helping with the creature effects was named Shinji Higuchi.
This would not be the last Godzilla movie he'd work on.
If I could find one weak link of this movie, it would be the cast. Our main players reporter Goro Maki (Ken Tanaka), fisherman Hiroshi Okumura (Shin Takuma) and his sister Naoko (Yasuko Sawaguchi), while important to the story aren't always the most interesting to watch.
One bright spot in our leads is Dr. Hayashida (Yosuke Natsuki), a man who lost his parents to Godzilla's rampage in 1954 who began studying Godzilla out of vengeance, but after awhile began to view him in a similar matter to Dr. Yamane. He now views Godzilla as mankind's punishment for tampering with nature and is essential in coming up with the plan presented to deal with him or "send him back home."
The most compelling part of this film comes from watching the politicians discussing the moral implications of using nuclear weapons against Godzilla as the United States and Soviet Union pressure them to do so, forgoing their existing nuclear policies. One of the best lines in the movie has to be when the Prime Minister proclaims: "Should Godzilla appear in your countries, either America or the Soviet Union...would you have the courage to use nuclear weapons?"
Scenes like this would later be replicated and perfected in 2016's Shin Godzilla.
There's a rumor that this movie features an uncredited cameo by the creator of Dragon Ball himself, Akira Toriyama.
The score was provided by Reijiro Koroku. While this may have been his only Godzilla movie he worked on, his music is haunting, attention grabbing and I really like it. I don't even mind that none of the original Ifukube themes are used.
As I explained in my How I Got Here post, this was the very first Godzilla movie that I saw. Of course, I saw the Americanized version that was retitled 'Godzilla 1985.' The movie was edited by New World Pictures (A former film production and distribution company founded by Roger Corman himself), the changes included the typical Godzilla movie edits, including the cutting out some of more poignant scenes of the film, adding in music from other movies and inserting new scenes with American actors, one of which was Raymond Burr reprising his role from the 1956 American version of the original Godzilla.
Most of the American footage includes the actors not really taking the matter of Godzilla seriously. But if you thought that was bad, it could have been a lot worse. The original plan was to completely re-dub the movie and turn it into a comedy. (Think 'Kung Pow! Enter the Fist')
It was Burr who shot this idea down and even threatened to leave the project if they didn't treat the dubbing of the film seriously. Say what you will about his performance in the film and Godzilla! King of the Monsters, but you have to give respect to that man. Plus, his speech at the end is by far, the best thing added to an Americanized Godzilla film.
Another noteworthy change involves the handling of a scene involving a nuclear missile.
In the movie, A Russian ship is attacked by Godzilla and that sets off the controls for a nuclear missile. A crew member sees this and he tries desperately to stop it from being launched.
However, in the '1985' version, it was changed to make him look like he was deliberately firing the missile.
Again, made during the Cold War. I'm not excusing it, just stating the facts. It's about as on the nose as the Dr. Pepper product placements.
I loved watching Godzilla 1985 as a kid, I've watched it so many times I'm surprised my VHS copy hasn't been worn out by use. I've literally watched it so many times I have most of the dub memorized and could recite scenes on command.
I always wanted to watch the original uncut version, but it was difficult if not impossible to find outside of Japan. Until finally, I found that someone uploaded it with subtitles to Myspace. (I am dead serious about this!) My love for this movie increased ten fold.
The Return of Godzilla remains my personal favorite of the Heisei series and the franchise overall. It was an excellent way to revitalize the franchise and insure that Godzilla would remain a dominating pop culture icon around the world.
Till next time, I have been your host Gryphon
and thank you for joining me here in my lair.
So long...
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