Gorzirra, Then and Now
(Part One Is above; or,
Go Here. From spring, 2014.)
[NOTE: As the Googlemachine has reminded all of us, this is the 114th birthday of
Eiji Tsuburaya, special-effects designer and the originator of so
many hero beings from Japanese science fiction cinema. He also created
the concept which we know today as The Big Guy, the Chairman Of The
Board; and San Francisco's hometown monster, as we are a Sister City
with Tokyo.]
Releasing Gojira: 1954
(
The Story Thus Far: An American film,
Beast From 20,000 Fathoms,
is released by Warner Brothers in 1953, and gives producer Tomoyuki
Tanaka of Toho Film Studios the inspiration he needs to save his job.
Allowed to make a Japanese version, he is given roughly six months to
complete it.
(Tanaka envisions a Giant Lizard, the
mutated product of radioactive fallout or contamination, to serve as a
warning about the limits of science and unintended consequences of the
proliferation of nuclear weapons.
(It's decided the
Creature will be named "Gorjira" [a combination of the Japanese words
for 'Gorilla' and 'Whale'], and the project's special effects
consultant, Eiji Tsuburaya, convinces Tanaka and his team that an actor
in a large rubber suit can play the Monster, and will have the fun of
ravaging a miniature downtown Tokyo.)
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| Haruo Nakajima (Left) Served Tea On The Set Of Godzilla (1954) |
One of Toho Studios' principal stunt actors, Haruo Nakajima, volunteered
to play Gorjira -- but even with several redesigns,
the suit was heavy and difficult to use (its final version required a
drain for collected sweat) and only frequent rehydration breaks kept
Nakajima from passing out due to heat exhaustion.
 |
| Tsuburaya (Left) Confers With Nakajima, 1956 |
|
|
The film was completed on schedule, released in Japan
on November 3, 1954, and was a blockbuster hit. Overnight,
Toho was
the film studio in Japan, and
Gojira's director, producer and special effects creator hailed as geniuses of the cinema arts.
The
film was sold to the American market; producer Joseph E. Levine had it
dubbed, cut by twenty minutes, and inserted
scenes of Raymond Burr (star of the popular television series, "Perry
Mason") as an Edward-R-Murrow-style journalist, broadcasting eyewitness
accounts of The Big Guy's trip to Tokyo.
 |
| Raymond Burr Contemplates His Fee For This Acting Job |
Levine named the film
"Godzilla, King of the Monsters",
and released it in 1956. It was a smash in the U.S., pulling in $2
million dollars (that's about $40M in 2014 dollars, kids -- not bad for a
guy in a rubber suit).
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Toho, and Daikaiju, Go Viral:
1955 - 1961
Tanaka
initially considered
Godzilla a one-shot morality tale, not the
beginning of a 'franchise', and of an entire
cinema industry. However, the movie was so popular (not only in Japan,
but worldwide) and making sequels seemed so potentially profitable, that
in less than a year Toho shot and released "Godzilla's
Counterattack" (later famous for the derisive line, "And you call yourself a
scientist").
This was the first film where Godzilla would
fight another monster, Anguirus (which became Godzilla's friend in later
movies) -- and this established what eventually became the hallmark of
the Godzilla 'franchise': Other monsters appear (from inside the earth,
from outer space, or the mind of Minolta), wreak havoc, and Earth is
defenseless... until Godzilla appears to save the day.
 |
| War Of The Rubber Suits: Big Guy And Anguirus Duke It Out |
"Counterattack" (released as
Gigantis in the U.S.) wasn't as successful in Japan as the original
Godzilla, and the movie didn't adapt well to foreign distribution. As a result, Toho began releasing
other
daikaiju movies (a term meaning "gigantic, strange
monster"), a new genre of films Toho had created and which other
Japanese studios began to imitate) -- most
notably
Rodan; "Varan the Unbelievable"; and
Mothra by 1961.
All
three of these characters would appear in later Godzilla films. All were
solid box-office hits in Japan; Toho Films decided to keep milking the
daikaiju cow
so long as it kept paying off.
Good, Bad, and Even Worse: 1961 - 1973
 |
| "Look, No One Told Me Kyoto Was A World Heritage Site" |
...
and pay off it did. In 1961, Toho collaborated with American producer
John Beck to create "King Kong versus Godzilla", the most box-office
popular Godzilla movie of all
time in the U.S. and Japan. On the strength of that success, Toho
produced 12 more Godzilla films -- by the end of which Godzilla was
transformed from a mutant, destructive Monster created by atomic
radiation, to the protector of humankind.
Actually, no one can be certain whether The Big Guy
likes
humankind enough to fight for it, or is just amazingly pissed off at the
violation of his turf by some giant Bug / Dragon / Flying Turtle / et
al.
(I'm not adding a list of all Godzilla productions; you can look at
the Godzilla Wiki for that. We're just
looking at the evolution of an archetype here.)
Unfortunately,
over time, several things happened: Godzilla's character and portrayal
began to resemble the formulaic aspects of other
daikaiju films
and characters, and other Giant Monster films had a certain level of low
comedy and moments of near-slapstick action. Toho adapted its most
popular character to fit the genre, not the other way around, and by the
early 1970's things were ... goofy.
No longer the
chunky-but-trim Terror From Under The Sea who laid waste to large urban
areas, Godzilla lost most of his back spines and looked like... your
neighbor, in a big rubber suit.
 |
| Godzilla (L), Megalon (R), And Other 400-Foot-Tall Beings |
In
1971, I thought the bottom of the barrel was Toho Studio's "Godzilla
vs. The Smog Monster", which showed human victims chopped up in sections
(take
that, kiddies), pratfalls, and Godzilla
boxing like a human. It's tough to maintain suspension of disbelief under those circumstances.
Unfortunately, it was topped by their 1973
Godzilla vs. Megalon
-- I swear to God; the stunt workers in that 89 painful minutes of
cinema had to have been higher than Mt. Fuji. And the "film" was shot in
only two weeks: Toho was low on funding. The
daikaiju cow had gone dry.
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Death And Transfiguration: 1975 - 1995
In 1974 and 1975, Toho tried slightly rebranding their character for its 20th anniversary in
MechaGodzilla and
The Terror Of MechaGodzilla,
but the original magic of the character had been badly diluted; the
public wouldn't pay to watch him, and Toho's executives didn't want to
risk their money in future Godzilla film projects. The Big Guy only
made a few appearances on Japanese
daikaiju science-fiction
television into the early 1980's, all moderately ridiculous compared
with the menace and destructive power of the original Monster.
In
1984, the 30th anniversary of the character's birth, Toho made a simple
and radical decision to save the franchise which had financed the
studio's successful expansion for decades: They started producing a new
set of Godzilla films, called the
"Heisei Series."
Most
were for the Japanese market only -- but through them, Toho Studios
simply 'reset' their character -- they ignored every Godzilla film made
after the original 1954 release (good pick, that) and started with a new film
appropriately titled
Godzilla, which starred a Big Lizard who looked almost identical to the one who stepped on Tokyo in 1954.
In
it, The Big Guy returns to his amazingly pissed-off former self,
indestructible, created by nuclear radiation, a 350-foot-tall Lizard out
for
your personal ass. It was released in America as
Godzilla 1985,
with some added scenes featuring an American played by (wait for it)
Raymond Burr.
Ten years later, in 1995, Toho decided to end their
franchise by killing it, in
Godzilla vs. Destroyer. Toho made Godzilla's
death
public by adding "Godzilla Dies!" to posters and advertising of the
film, and (while leaving a door open for a successor to reappear), The
Big Guy dies.
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| Broderick Gets Up Close And Personal With Roland Emerich's So-Called Lizard (1998) |
In
1998, everyone wished his successor had died before the filming started
when TriStar Films licensed with Toho to develop their own Godzilla -- a
computer-generated Big Lizard which had little relation to the classic
Big Lizard. Directed by Roland Emerich and starring Matthew Broderick,
it was a financial and artistic flop; the less said about it, the better -- but it was Bad. It was just
Bad.
There
was, of course, the movie 'Atonement', but Godzilla's appearance in
that film was barely mentioned. Probably because we'd all rather look at
Keira Knightley.
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So,
there are two Godzillas -- the Japanese Monster who came from the sea
to destroy things, stayed to become a comedic actor, then returned to
his old ways. That current Godzilla encompasses both the original
Destructor, the product of bad science and big bombs, and his
daikaiju side, battling other Big Monsters to protect the Earth, his turf, or just for the hell of it.
Godzilla films have continued to be popular in Japan, and a second series was
released following The Big Guy's supposed 'death' in 1995 -- again, Toho
simply "reset" the story line without reference to the character's
end... but this is one side of his existence that
American or European audiences don't see. In Asia, Godzilla is timeless
and lives on, as pissed-off and irrascible as ever, sometimes defending
mankind and occasionally kicking Tokyo's ass.
The second Godzilla is a creature of Hollywood -- less accessible, a Godzilla "leased" from Toho Studios and who is (
aber natürlich)
much different for a Western audience. He's more of an animal, nastier, cunning and cold-blooded -- kind of like The
Koch Brothers on a good day. He's all Destructor. No slapstick from
this Big Guy.
However,
after Emerich's poor showing nearly
twenty years ago, no American studio (or whoever owns the conglomerates
which make films these days -- Disney; Little Rupert's Fox; Comcast)
wanted to risk putting
money behind another Godzilla remake -- until now. This new film is
supposed to be a "totally new concept" in Godzilladom. We'll see.
It's nice, though, that The Big Guy is getting work. He thinks so, too, I'm sure.
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MEHR: With apologies to Fafnir, Giblets, the ghost of Freddy el Desfibradddor; Mistah Charlie, Phd.; and the Medium Lobster Himself (who is, well... pretty sizable):
Godzilla! There is no Giant Happy Fun Lizard but He - the Living, The
Self-subsisting, the Eternal. No slumber can seize Him Nor Sleep. His
are all things In the heavens and on earth and under the oceans. Who is
there that can intercede In His presence except as He permitteth? He
knoweth What (appeareth to All as) Before or After or Behind them. Nor
shall they compass Aught of His knowledge Except as He willeth. His
throne doth extend Over the heavens and the earth, and He feeleth No
fatigue in guarding and preserving them, For He is the Most High, The
Supreme (in glory). He is Godzilla, King Of The Monsters, the One and Only.
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