SCIENCE! Movie: "Godzilla: King Of All Monsters"

[mario]

I'd been looking forward to seeing this one for some time. I've always been a fan of the Godzilla films, but I'd never had the pleasure of seeing the one that started it all.

But this was no ordinary English dub job.

See, instead of the standard fare Japanese-film-gone-US, wherein the actors lines are all overdubbed by English actors but the story is kept much the same, this movie added a completely new American character! I can only assume the reporter Steve Martin (heh) was provided in an attempt to give the audience someone to relate to, and I do appreciate that this meant much of the dialogue was in its original Japanese (with Steve claiming his Japanese was "a bit rusty" so that some Japanese guy next to him could translate). But it was odd seeing an American reporter in such a prominent role. At times the original Japanese main cast was pushed into the background so Steve could shout a nice soliloquy into a tape recorder.

But of course, Godzilla movies are all about the real star of the show, and the rubber-suited actor never failed to impress. Fine use of miniatures throughout the movie, but it's clear to see that the techniques had some refining to do (when you have miniature cities being destroyed, the trick is more effective if the scene is shot slightly slower than normal, suggesting slower, more deliberate movements from things as supposedly massive as Godzilla). Since most of my Godzilla experience comes from later movies where he actually saves the world from worse threats, it was odd seeing him doing all the destruction, at least so intentionally.

I didn't expect Godzilla to die at the end. I may have to seek out the next film in the series to see if his return is explained. I'm guessing other Godzillas would be the offspring... or they don't explain it at all, and there's little to no continuity in the series (except for the tiny girls that summon Mothra).

[Amoeba Boy]

I'm pretty sure there is next to no continuity in the series. At least not until later when they start bringing dead monsters back to life in robotic forms.

I saw this movie several years ago so my meory may be a bit rusty, but this is the one that features a SCIENCEtitionist with an eyepatch, right? I believe he is the very first pirate of SCIENCE!

[Lang]

This movie was cool. Godzilla looked drastically different from the other movies, and they actually said he was a dinosaur. 0_0

Very fun, and probably very good for its time.

[Behemoth]

Quoting takes up space. In responce to mario's post:
The sequal explains him by saying that radiation in the ground reformed him.

Steve Martin:
Steve Martin was added into the film in order to fill in the time from all of the deleted scenes. Scenes that made reference to the atomic bomb. The whole film was meant as anti-atomic bomb propaganda. there was an incident known as the lucky dragon incident in which US nuclear bomb testing in the pacific after the war accidentally eradiated a small fishing boat and it's crew. They all died eventually and some of the fish made it to market and caused several more people to become sick. The US still hasn't admitted to the incident which caused a nation-wide panic.

Fun fact: godzilla's name comes from kojira(whale) and gorira(gorilla), a name used to make fun of an over-weight co-worker of the writer.

[mjc0961]

Wow. I never would have guessed that Godzilla was originally about nuclear bombs. That's some high quality trivia right there.

[Lang]

Is that sarcasm? Kinda hard to detect.

[Night Lord]

You don't need to see the next films, wikipedia explains how they wrote his death out...

[Apathy]

Originally Posted by Amoeba Boy

I saw this movie several years ago so my meory may be a bit rusty, but this is the one that features a SCIENCEtitionist with an eyepatch, right? I believe he is the very first pirate of SCIENCE!

Yes. It is made so much better by the fact that nobody mentions the eyepatch or questions its presence at all.

I didn't see the Steve Martinised version, so I can't really comment. It would have either made me laugh more, or get really pissed off. It's hard to judge these things sometimes. Probably piss me off, I'm not a fan of editing for propaganda reasons.

[jc]

Do I want to talk about Godzilla continuity or not?

...Maybe later.

Oh, and "whale" is kujira.

[Behemoth]

Sorry, typo.