Much like Madonna,
Matthew McConaughey and Miley Cyrus, Godzilla
illustrates a time-honored showbiz dictum: The best way to sustain your
superstardom is to repeatedly reinvent yourself.
During six decades of Japanese-produced low-tech
monster mashes and made-in-America CGI-stuffed spectacles, Big G has remained au courant through the miracle of image
makeovers. From nuclear-age nightmare to doting single parent, from freelance
global defender to butt-kicking tag-team wrestler, he has evolved and
developed, evincing a versatility that might make Meryl Streep turn green – or,
perhaps more appropriately, charcoal gray –
with envy.
In Godzilla,
slated to open this weekend at theaters and drive-ins everywhere, The Original
Gangsta Lizard has a bit less spring to his step, and a tad more spread to his
waistline. But never mind: Even as he approaches eligibility for Social
Security, Big G remains ever ready to rumble, and authoritatively defends his
title as King of the Monsters in this terrifically exciting flick.
Of course, it helps that he has in his corner
Gareth Edwards, a filmmaker who, suitably enough, first attracted attention
with a 2010 movie titled Monsters. Edwards’
latest creature feature benefits greatly from the director’s ability to pull
off a tricky balancing act: While ingeniously reimagining the legend, he also
respectfully acknowledges the tradition. In short, he lets Godzilla be
Godzilla.
The mythos began in 1954, when the Toho
Company of Japan introduced Big G as Gojira,
a rudely reawakened dinosaur who developed toxic halitosis and an extremely bad
attitude after exposure to H-bomb testing in the South Pacific. (The plot device
of mutation through radiation was profoundly impactful on Japanese moviegoers
less than a decade after the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.) Growling and
grouchy, the fire-breathing behemoth sauntered though Tokyo with a sumo-wrestler
shamble while burning buildings, gobbling trains, stomping bit players, and
generally making an epic nuisance of himself.
Two years later, legendary producer Joseph E.
Levine and a group of associates renamed the movie and its eponymous star when they
released Godzilla, King of the Monsters,
a redubbed and re-edited version of picture designed for English-speaking
audiences. Some of the Toho-produced footage was trimmed to allow for new
scenes featuring Raymond Burr as a gravely serious journalist – named, no
kidding, Steve Martin -- who provided the creature-feature equivalent of play-by-play
commentary. (“A prehistoric monster just walked out
of Tokyo Bay!” Geez, ya think?)
But none of these alterations dulled the
movie's surprising power as a cautionary Cold War fable about the threat of
nuclear annihilation. Keep messing with the forces of nature, Godzilla warned, and this could happen to you.
In the three sequels that followed, Godzilla continued to come across as
a cranky bully who enjoyed nothing more than incinerating large portions of
major urban areas. Whether he was trading punches with an ornery dude in a
monkey suit (King Kong Vs. Godzilla)
or trying to pluck the wings of an economy-size insect (Godzilla Vs. Mothra, a.k.a. Godzilla
Vs. The Thing), Big G made The Incredible Hulk seem like a paragon of
polite decorum.
But then, as though
sensing audiences might be tiring of his anti-social tendencies, Godzilla
transformed himself into a kinder, gentler creature. The rehabilitation process
began in Ghidorah, The Three-Headed
Monster (renamed Ghidrah, The
Three-Headed Monster for U.S. release), a 1964 opus that introduced the
infamous triple-headed beast who would go on to become Big G's most frequent
foe. In the next 10 Zilla Thrillers, Big G solidified his antiheroic image as an international pop icon by
repeatedly saving mankind from alien invaders and their mutant monster
henchmen. In Son of Godzilla (1967), he
actually became a bachelor father, adopting an orphan hatchling and teaching
the Muppet-like critter how to breathe fire and stomp bad guys.
Most Zilla Thrillers of Big G's good-guy era
received minimal theatrical exposure in North America. And with good reason:
Badly dubbed, simplistically plotted and hopelessly cheesy, they were best
suited as fodder for drive-in double bills and Saturday afternoon TV. But
despite their exuberant tackiness — or maybe because of it — these are the
movies that elevated Godzilla to folk-hero status among camp-savvy baby boomers
and thrill-seeking Gen-Xers. Indeed, Godzilla was such a lovable cuss during
the 1970s that he popped up as an animated adventurer in a TV cartoon series.
Nearly a decade after Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975), the last "good guy" Z-movie,
the bigwigs at Toho decided it was time to let Godzilla again be as nasty as he
wanted to be. So they reintroduced him as a fire-breathing fiend in The Return of Godzilla (1984). Once
again, a U.S. distributor hired Raymond Burr for an Americanized edition, Godzilla 1985. (Trivia note: A poster
for this flick appeared prominently in Roger Ebert’s office during the intro
for the syndicated Siskel & Ebert
TV show.) Oddly enough, however, this retrofitted version was a box-office
disappointment. Maybe U.S. audiences were uncomfortable with the idea of a
bad-to-the-bone Big G. Or maybe they simply preferred to see Godzilla shooting
hoops with Charles
Barkley in TV ads.
In any event, Toho continued to crank out sequels for domestic Japanese
consumption – and sporadic home-video release in the US – until the 2004
production of Godzilla: Final Wars. They
actually killed off Big G in 1995’s Godzilla
vs. Destoroyah. But, of course, you can't keep a good monster down: By the
end of the movie, a leaner and meaner Godzilla Jr. was ready to carry on the
grand tradition of crushing innocent bystanders and blowtorching through Tokyo.
In sharp contrast to this born-again behemoth, the computer-generated
creature of 1998’s American-made Godzilla
was something of a wuss. Part of what has always made his Toho movies so
popular is Big G’s badass, take-no-crap attitude. Even during his “good guy”
phase, he was at his crowd-pleasing best whenever he was swatting buildings, flaming
trains, and laughing out loud at heat-seeking missiles. But when Godzilla did
Manhattan in director’s Roland Emmerich’s lavish but sluggish remake, the CGI
weenie usually ran away from his attackers, and caused most of his damage by
accident.
Rest assured, Gareth Edwards doesn’t make the same mistake in his new and
improved Godzilla reboot. True, he
mercilessly teases his audience during the first half of the film, giving us
only sporadic glimpses at the title creature while employing the same delayed-gratification
technique he used in Monsters. But
when push comes to shove and the battle lines are drawn in the climactic Kaiju-vs.-Kaiju clash – yes, you
guessed it, Godzilla isn’t the only monster in this particular mix -- Edwards’ Big G is bodaciously large and in charge, romping and stomping with a purposeful pugnacity that recalls both the
whup-ass heroism of the ‘60s and ‘70s “good guy” Godzilla and the fearsome ferocity
of the bad boy that razed Tokyo back in 1954.
Better still, this Godzilla – unlike Emmerich’s pretender – actually breathes
fire. And let’s be honest: Isn’t that
what really makes a Godzilla movie a true
Godzilla movie?
ZILLA FACTOIDS
If you want to pass as a diehard
G-Fan, always remember: The Original Gangsta Lizard is charcoal gray, not green,
in the overwhelming majority of his movies. And no, despite all the stories you’ve
heard to the contrary, he doesn’t
emerge victorious in the Japanese version of King Kong vs. Godzilla. To further enhance your ability to bluff,
study the following factoids.
A.K.A. GODZILLA: The original Godzilla was such a smash in Japan that
a sequel – Godzilla Raids Again – was
rushed into production, and released domestically in 1955. Four years later, however,
this follow-up was re-dubbed and restructured, and released by Warner Bros. as Gigantis, The Fire Monster. No kidding:
Warners sold the movie as an original, not a sequel, featuring an entirely
different creature with a completely different roar. Mothra got even less
respect when Mothra vs. Godzilla (1965)
was picked up for US release by American-International Pictures. That film was
retitled Godzilla vs. The Thing, and
sold with advertising art that depicted Godzilla fighting… a giant question
mark.
BLESSED ARE THE
PEACEMAKERS:
Mothra had her hands full... er, her wings full... well, she had a pretty tough
time of it while rehabilitating Godzilla in Ghidrah,
The Three-Headed Monster (1964). When she initially approached Big G to join
her and Rodan in a triple-team assault on Ghidrah (a.k.a. Ghidorah), Big G in
effect bellowed: "Help those pesky humans? Fuhgedaboudit!" In the
end, though, Godzilla fought the good fight because -- well, hey, a monster's
got to do what a monster's got to do.
MADE IN USA: Raymond Burr appeared in
scenes added to Godzilla and Godzilla 1985 by US distributors, but
only one Western actor ever actually played a lead role in a Toho-produced
Zilla Thriller. Monster Zero, a 1965 feature also known as Invasion of Astro-Monster, had ‘50s TV star Nick Adams (The Rebel) improbably cast as Astronaut Glenn -- no, not that Astronaut Glenn -- a blunt-spoken, two-fisted hero of the Tokyo-based World
Space Authority. Rodan could flap his wings, and Godzilla might break into a victory dance, but only Adams could sneer at the evil extra-terrestrials and – in the English-language version, at least -- growl: “You rats! You stinkin’
rats!”
THE ORIGINAL SURVIVOR: During his “good guy” phase
– roughly speaking, from Monster Zero
to Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975) –
Big G sought R&R between battles on Monster Island, a sort of
creature-friendly Club Med where he swapped war stories with Mothra, Rodan and
other occasional allies. Fortunately for all parties involved, no one ever
suggested a tribal council to expel any pariahs.
ZILLA SPEAKS: In 1972’s Godzilla vs. Gigan (a.k.a. Godzilla on Monster Island), Big G
inexplicably gained the ability to speak. Mind you, he was limited to
conversations with another rubbery beastie, the spiky Anguirus, and he remained a
monster of few words. ("Something funny is going on! You better
check!") But the effect was jarring enough to unsettle long-time G-Fans.
So much so, in fact, that the gimmick was never repeated in subsequent Zilla Thrillers.
PAST IMPERFECT: Toho waited until 1991
before spilling the beans about Godzilla’s war record. In Godzilla
vs. King Ghidorah, a densely plotted time-tripping melodrama, we learn that
a pre-irradiated Big G made first contact with humankind as a long-necked
dinosaur who, during World War II, helped Japanese soldiers repulse American
invaders on a South Pacific island. Which, of course, may help explain why this
picture never got a U.S. theatrical release.
