Gojira (film, script, dvd, action)

[trlhiker]

The very 1st Godzilla movie made. Black and white and subtitled. No Raymond Burr here. Currently playing on Comet TV. This is the first time I have ever seen it. It took 50 years to make it to the US. It is nothing like the comic Godzilla movies of later years.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047034/

[AFtrEFkt]

The very first Gojira is indeed a classic. It's been available, remastered, on DVD for years.

[ironpony]

I actually didn't like the original, as I felt that the WWII themes they tried to force in, were just too forced, and that this monster had nothing do with the WWII themes they were going for.

I also didn't think the special effects were that good as Gojira hardly is able to do much, and the people aren't even in the same shots as him cause all they could afford were reaction shots. When Gojira knocks over a truck of soldiers, you can totally tell they were plastic toys!

[AFtrEFkt]

Originally Posted by ironpony

I actually didn't like the original, as I felt that the WWII themes they tried to force in, were just too forced, and that this monster had nothing do with the WWII themes they were going for.

I also didn't think the special effects were that good as Gojira hardly is able to do much, and the people aren't even in the same shots as him cause all they could afford were reaction shots. When Gojira knocks over a truck of soldiers, you can totally tell they were plastic toys!

Yeah, well consider the decade when it was made. It still holds up pretty well, all things considered.

Godzilla is a metaphor, btw. Keep that in mind.

[ironpony]

But I didn't think it was well made for the 50s cause King Kong came out 20 years earlier and the monster effects were much better in that one. I just don't think Godzilla works for a metaphor. A metaphor for what, nuclear experimenting?

[FluidFreedom]

Originally Posted by ironpony

But I didn't think it was well made for the 50s cause King Kong came out 20 years earlier and the monster effects were much better in that one. I just don't think Godzilla works for a metaphor. A metaphor for what, nuclear experimenting?

Godzilla was a metaphor for nuclear weapons.

[ironpony]

But I don't think Godzilla makes a good metaphor for nuclear weapons. He's a mutated dinosaur from what it looks like! Even if we the audience are suppose to take him as a metaphor, all the characters in the movie are not going to see it this way, and will just see him as a giant dinosaur. It just feels like a forced metaphor to me, and I felt the writers were hamfisting too much.

The Japanese filmmakers wanted to make him a nuclear metaphor because of the nuclear bombings in Japan, which I understand. But it comes off as really cheesy like they are reaching.

Imagine if the US made a giant monster movie today, and the monster was suppose to be metaphor for 9/11, for example. It would just come off as forced and cheesy and it wouldn't work at all, cause a giant monster, has nothing to do with 9/11.

So that is kind of how I saw Gojira.

[FluidFreedom]

Originally Posted by ironpony

But I don't think Godzilla makes a good metaphor for nuclear weapons. He's a mutated dinosaur from what it looks like! Even if we the audience are suppose to take him as a metaphor, all the characters in the movie are not going to see it this way, and will just see him as a giant dinosaur. It just feels like a forced metaphor to me, and I felt the writers were hamfisting too much.

Godzilla is a metaphor for the devastation caused by nuclear weapons to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Godzilla does the same to Japan. He causes destruction and death.

Metaphors are merely comparisons. Of course Godzilla had nothing to do with nuclear bombings. They were comparing his destruction of japan to the destruction nuclear bombings caused. It’s symbolic.

[ironpony]

But I feel it's too much of apples and oranges there.

The Japanese filmmakers wanted to make him a nuclear metaphor because of the nuclear bombings in Japan, which I understand. But it comes off as really cheesy like they are reaching.

Imagine if the US made a giant monster movie today, and the monster was suppose to be metaphor for 9/11, for example. It would just come off as forced and cheesy and it wouldn't work at all, cause a giant monster, has nothing to do with 9/11.

So that is kind of how I saw Gojira. It just felt like it was forced, and perhaps in bad taste. I guess I just felt the symbolism was in in bad taste and did not work for me.

What were the filmmakers trying to say anyway? That this monster is similar to the destruction we suffered a few years before the movie was made? Is that all? Or were they trying to say something else about the nuclear bombings, rather than just making a comparison?

[FluidFreedom]

Honda decided to make his vision come true. He conceived of a giant monster, awakened from the depths of the ocean by the power of these nuclear tests. The monster itself would have enormous strength and would breathe fire while leaving a radioactive trace to contaminate the survivors of its rampage.
Honda called it Gojira―a mixture of the Japanese word for a whale (kujira), and the English word gorilla, which was a clear reference to King Kong. Since the occupation was over in 1952, the censorship was losing its power. That didn’t mean the authorities weren’t worried about Honda’s script, but since the film would fall into the science fiction genre, they misjudged its allegorical potential.
The result was a truly bleak and disturbing picture. Images of destroyed buildings, homeless people, stretcher bearers carrying dead and wounded together with an unstoppable force of nature in the form of a giant lizard invoked memories of the devastation the country had gone through after a war that began with Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii and included atrocities committed by Japan.

This is a good explanation.