Chris Samnee Godzilla drawing
Tag: godzilla
Unproduced Godzilla movie maquette
Godzilla, king of the monsters
“History shows again and again how nature points up the folly of man.” Godzilla, by the Blue Oyster Cult.
Think about this for a second; Godzilla has been with us as long as the music of Elvis has. That first film Godzilla premiered in 1954 and quickly became a Japanese then worldwide phenomena. A whopping 28 sequels followed the original with yet another, again titled Godzilla, that’s currently in theaters.
Back in the mid-1950s the world was a much different place than it is today.
Back then it was just nine years after the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were obliterated by atomic bombs that killed more than 100,000 people and effectively brought an end to the second world war. And in the 1950s it seemed as if the Cold War between the US and the USSR would surly turn to a hot one, with cities all over the globe suffering the same fates of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Worst of all the US, Great Britain and the USSR were all trying to perfect these ultimate killing weapons by testing them around the planet in far-off spots on the map. Each of these tests seemed to explode a more powerful bomb than the last making the two used in WWII look weak by comparison. One of these tests in the South Pacific by the US produced an explosion much greater than anticipated which resulted in radioactive fallout raining down on unsuspecting islanders as well as the crew of a Japanese fishing boat operating nearby. Many of the islanders and the crew of the fishing boat were afflicted with radiation poisoning that would eventually kill one of the crewmen.
To all this fallout and fear of a nuclear future would enter the king of the monsters — Godzilla.
Not the first giant monster movie ever released, King Kong beat Godzilla by 21 years, none-the-less Godzilla would set the standards of what we’d come to expect in a giant monster movies after. Namely some sort of mutated creature that’s far more powerful than our puny weapons who loves nothing more than to destroy cities and wreck lives. For examples of movies that pay “homage” to Godzilla in the last few years see Cloverfield (2005), Monsters (2010) or Pacific Rim (2013). Actually, see Monsters but don’t see Cloverfield or Pacific Rim. They’re terrible.
If people had fears about the ramifications of all this nuclear testing going on across the planet in the 1950s, these fears could be explored and exploited on-screen under the guise of a gigantic, reptile-like tank-squashing monster. Created from the very radioactivity these tests released, Godzilla is a force of uncontrollable chaos and destruction who would invariably find its way to shore to deal out a terrible retribution on mankind for daring to play with the atom.
And today the new version of Godzilla is set to explore and exploit fears we have in the 21st century. Though we don’t really fear nuclear weapons anymore* we do have fears unique to our time. Mainly concerns over climate change and super-storms that can be as, if not more, devastating that the nuclear weapons we used to be so concerned about.
And movies like Godzilla allow us to explore fears of wrecked cities and a world inhospitable to us via the relative safety of a movie theater.
After the release of the original Godzilla in ’54 it took about a decade for Godzilla to go from a frightening creature to something more playful and silly. For a good part of the 60s and 70s the big green meanie was more kid’s fare than total terror. If this new version of Godzilla is successful and they keep making more and more Godzilla films, expect to see the return of the “silly” Godzilla that saves cities and hangs out with kids to sometime in 2024.
*Though if reports are correct there are still enough of nuclear weapons stockpiled around the globe to wipe mankind off the map several times over. Think about that the next time you go to bed. Muhahahaha!
Godzilla poster
Summer movie preview
First up this year, as it has been every year since 2007, is a movie based on a character from Marvel Entertainment; this time The Amazing Spider-Man 2 on May 2. Totally skipping the notion that every super-hero movie sequel should feature just TWO villains, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield) throwing down with Electro (Jamie Foxx), Green Goblin (Dane DeHaan) and Rhino (Paul Giamatti).
Three villains!? Do you think Spider-Man might, gulp!, lose this time!?
On May 16 Godzilla returns to US theaters after an absence of 16 years. Like virtually every other Godzilla movie ever made, Godzilla is set to stomp unsuspecting cities, this time here in the US. Godzilla does have a few things going for it; the movie’s being directed by Gareth Edwards who also directed the underrated Monsters (2010) and stars a post-Breaking Bad Bryan Cranston.
I can only hope that Godzilla finally settles the debate on the true fate of Dr. Niko Tatopoulos from the ’98 Godzilla.
X-Men: Days of Future Past, really X-Men Part 5, “bamfs” into theaters May 23. Days of Future Past mingles characters from both the newer prequel X-Men: First Class film and the original X-Men trilogy of films from ’00-’06. This time, Professor X and Magneto (Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen) send Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) from their time to their younger counterparts (James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender) in the past to head off doomsday in their timeline.
X-Men:Days of Future Past is a great comic story and this movie does look interesting if a bit character-heavy with a dozen + super-hero characters currently listed for the film in IMDB.
Edge of Tomorrow, out June 6, wins the award for best original movie title All You Need is Kill turned into something that sounds like more like a soap opera that sci-fi epic. Tomorrow features a futuristic battle-armored soldier, Tom Cruise, who’s sent to fight an invading alien army bent on world domination. In his first battle Cruise is killed almost immediately by the aliens but inexplicably wakes up to relive that battle over and over again. Think Groundhog Day but with heavy artillery and power-armor.
The “didn’t they promise us there’d be no more of these movies after the last one — they lied!” movie Transformers 4: The Age of Extinction stumbles into theaters June 27. This Transformers movie sets itself apart from every other Transformers movie in that it has dinosaur Transformers, the Dinobots. Which sure screams “let’s figure out what we can sell the most toys of THEN come up with a movie” to me.
One sequel I’m genuinely interested in this summer is Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, or really Rise of the Planet of the Apes Part 2, or maybe really Planet of the Apes Part 8 on July 11. Taking place nearly a decade after the events of Rise, in Dawn most of mankind has been wiped out by the virus released in that film allowing the smart apes lead by Caesar to rise (get it?) to the dominant species on the planet. My worries here are that both the writers and director of the spectacular Dawn were oddly enough dumped from Rise. This doesn’t mean that Rise won’t be good, I’m just concerned that it won’t be as interesting or thought provoking as the first.
Guardians of the Galaxy continues the Merry Marvel Marching Movie Machine in theaters August 1. Sort of X-Men meets Star Wars, Guardians follows a human (Chris Pratt) in the far off reaches of deep space who teams up with characters like a living tree and a raccoon (no joke) to battle the evils of the universe. Back in the ’90s Guardians was one of my favorite comic books and after seeing the trailer for this one I’m actually kind’a excited about the big screen Guardians.
On August 8 a fourth live-action version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles chops it’s way into theaters. Supposedly this version alters the history of the turtles a bit with an alien invasion being the cause of the genesis of said mutant ninja turtles. ALIEN INVASION!? Totally unrealistic when compared with the original explanation of turtles being exposed to radiation that turns them into kick punching crime fighters. Everyone knows radiation works wonders, just ask Daredevil.