A different historical perspective

[Guest]

The original "Godzilla" (unexpurgated, uncut and subtitled) is re-opening this week so I'm celebrating. The big fella is simply part of my childhood landscape. There's a good review at the bottom of this post (with pics!). - Perdita
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A 'GODZILLA' TIME LINE - G. Allen Johnson, Patrick Macias, May 2, 2004, San Francisco Chronicle

1945 Atomic bombs are dropped by American forces at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, hastening the end of the Second World War.

1952 The first hydrogen bomb, developed by Edward Teller, is exploded in a test. In American theaters, the 1933 classic "King Kong" enjoys a successful re-release, inspiring producers Hal Chester and Jack Dietz to make "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms."

1953 "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms," the first film adaptation of a Ray Bradbury story and the first feature film to have special effects by Ray Harryhausen, is released. It features a prehistoric lizard unfrozen by atomic bomb testing in the Arctic; the film makes a huge impression on "Godzilla" producer Tomoyuki Tanaka.

1954 The fishing boat Fukuryu-maru (Lucky Dragon) makes big news in Japan: The boat accidentally strays into a nuclear test site, its crew becomes ill and one man dies. A nationwide recall of tuna is ordered. Meanwhile, Tanaka, with the help of former documentary filmmaker and Akira Kurosawa assistant Ishiro Honda, brings his dream to life: "Gojira," featuring radiation-stricken sailors, is a box-office hit in Japan.

1955 A quickie sequel, "Godzilla's Counterattack," is rushed into Japanese theaters. It is released in the United States in 1959 as "Gigantis, the Fire Monster" because Warner Bros. is too cheap to pay for the naming rights.

1956 "Gojira" becomes "Godzilla," and Raymond Burr is inserted into the footage as ace American reporter Steve Martin, who broadcasts news of the destruction back home. An international legend is born (Godzilla, that is, not Burr). In Japan, though, moviegoers are on to their next monster: "Rodan" is a pterodactyl on the loose.

1961 Honda, who once proudly told an interviewer, "I've made it an established practice (in films) to have the scientists of the world get together for the sake of cooperation," releases his latest challenge to the world's brain trust, "Mothra." He/she is -- you guessed it -- a giant moth. The only creatures who understand Mothra are two cute, 12-inch-tall twins who can sing.

1962 John F. Kennedy's darkest hour: The Cuban Missile Crisis, a showdown with Fidel Castro, brings the world perilously close to nuclear war. The first successful test of the neutron bomb, developed by scientist Sam Cohen (later a neighbor of O.J. Simpson), demonstrates that atomic energy can kill without destroying buildings -- a very un-Godzilla-like concept. Also, "King Kong vs. Godzilla" becomes the highest-grossing Japanese monster movie of all time in terms of tickets sold; 11.2 million Japanese paying customers watch the big guys square off, pro wrestling-style.

1965 So much for horrific Armageddon and cultural messages: In "Monster Zero" Godzilla should have been flagged 15 yards for excessive celebration after dancing a victory jig. "Gamera," featuring a giant turtle, provides competition.

1967 Godzilla takes on his biggest challenge to date: fatherhood. "Son of Godzilla" introduces an adopted monster named "Minira," who bore an uncanny resemblance to Gary Coleman.

1972 The United States and the Soviet Union agree on the first nuclear arms non-proliferation treaty, known as SALT.

1975 The rising cost of film production (made worse by the global energy crisis) puts the kibosh on the Godzilla series. While the Japanese film industry waits for a turnaround, the big guy takes a nearly decadelong nap.

1977 "Ohhhh no, there goes Tokyo -- go go Godzilla!" -- Blue Oyster Cult brings the big guy to Casey Kasem's Top 40. And now, on with the countdown ...

1979[/b] The first one went so well, the United States and the Soviet Union sign a sequel, SALT II.

1985 "Godzilla 1985" tries to revive the series, even bringing back Burr. It's awful.

1989 "Godzilla vs. Biolante" marks the beginning of the new-wave cycle of Godzilla films, made by younger filmmakers.

1995 To make room for a pending American makeover, Toho studios orchestrates the "death" of Godzilla for "Godzilla vs. Destroyah." Fans reached for the tissue box as their radioactive idol expired in a "China Syndrome"-like nuclear meltdown.

1998 You knew Hollywood would screw it up. A $200 million budget "Godzilla," with all the computer effects you can shake a stick at, plus Matthew Broderick and Jean Reno, can't hold a candle to a Japanese guy in a suit.

2000 Takao Okawara's "Godzilla 2000" comes out, with the monster saving Tokyo from a flying saucer-turned beast.

2004 The original "Godzilla" is released in the United States for the first time. It's 50 years late, but worth the wait. Meanwhile in Japan, Toho announces the production of "Godzilla: Final Wars," which (it claims) will be its only Godzilla movie for the next five to 10 years. Shooting locations include Tokyo and Manhattan.
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from the review: "Godzilla" is one of the great anti-nuclear films, made by a onetime prisoner of war and documentary filmmaker, with an original vision as well-imagined and chilling as "Dr. Strangelove." Seriously.

Godzilla

Edited to add this.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

OMG!!!!! my son, turning 10 this month, is a mega-Godzilla fan! Did you know this is the year he retires?
Woohoo for Godzilla!!!!!!!!!

 

[SnoopDog]

Ok, so I guess I REALLY am the only person in the world that actually likes the Hollywood remake.
Honestly I hate the Godzilla-trash-c-movies. I can't take them serious OR funny. I guess all the alcohol in the world wouldn't change that.

Snoopy

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Perdita,

To me, one of the best tributes to Godzilla was the original SimCity computer city building program including a Godzilla-type monster that went on a rampage if your town's pollution level became too high.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[shereads]

In a fair fight, Mothra could have stomped Godzilla's scaly butt.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

In a fair fight, Mothra could have stomped Godzilla's scaly butt.

In your dreams sister, King Kong maybe, but Mothra....hah!
Okra the boogerarsaurus could beat Mothra. sheesh.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Lord help me! I've got C-movie senility! Someone tell me the name of the Godzilla movie giant flying turtle? He had huge fangs and when he flew fire shot out of his leg-holes. He went on to star in a couple of his own spin-offs. Megeron? Ankylus? Yurtle?

My favorite part of the whole Godzilla ethos? Japanese schoolboys in short-shorts, chasing the monster around and screaming. Can't get enough of their screetchy voices and obnoxious cheering.

---dr.M.

 

[Liar]

All hail Trogdor the Burminator.

Oh yes, we do need a link:
http://www.homestarrunner.com/trogdor.html

 

[ABSTRUSE]

These movies are great to watch with the voice off and dubbing your own script in them. I have to learn to watch what I say in front of the kids.

 

[Boota]

Lord help me! I've got C-movie senility! Someone tell me the name of the Godzilla movie giant flying turtle? He had huge fangs and when he flew fire shot out of his leg-holes. He went on to star in a couple of his own spin-offs. Megeron? Ankylus? Yurtle?

My favorite part of the whole Godzilla ethos? Japanese schoolboys in short-shorts, chasing the monster around and screaming. Can't get enough of their screetchy voices and obnoxious cheering.

---dr.M.

I think the turtle is Gamera. I should be sure of this, but I'm not. I guess the C-movie senility is getting me, too. LOL.

 

[Guest]

Jeeze, all you have to do is google, Mab. Yep, he's a big turtle thing. P.

Here!

 

[Guest]

Esp. for Snoopy (who obviously did not read the review in my first post):

From the NY Times review:

For Godzilla was, even in its bowdlerized "King of the Monsters" incarnation, an obvious — gigantic, unsubtle, grimly purposeful — metaphor for the atomic bomb. The Americanized "Godzilla,' which removed about 40 minutes from the Japanese original and inserted 20 minutes or so of new scenes featuring a sympathetic Yank journalist (played, with burly gravitas, by Raymond Burr), did its darnedest to minimize the nuclear theme. A lot of the Japanese characters' explicit references to the bomb were jettisoned. But Godzilla's back story was left basically intact: the beast, we're told, had lived more or less peacefully in the ocean for a few hundred thousand years (only very occasionally requiring the sacrifice of a virgin or two by nearby islanders), until H-bomb testing killed off its food supply and, as its fiery exhalations indicate, irradiated the creature itself. And since the stateside distributors were understandably reluctant to tamper with the meat-and-potatoes scenes of the monster's rampages, the most memorable images, even in the American version, are those of a Japanese city burned and crushed to dust by a lethal, apparently ungovernable force. You'd have to be pretty thick — thicker than Raymond Burr — to miss the point.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I think the turtle is Gamera. I should be sure of this, but I'm not. I guess the C-movie senility is getting me, too. LOL.

Gamera!!! Yes! You're right!

Thanks, Boot,

---dr.M.

 

[shereads]

Gamera wasn't half the actor that Mothra was.

 

[shereads]

Mothra's song in Japanese, Malay and English:

http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Island/2295/song.html



Mothra's goddesses' are pictured below. Your turtle didn't have goddesses.

 

[rgraham666]

Personally I liked Ghidra.

I've never recovered from watching him get his ass whupped in Monster Zero.

 

[jfinn]

1998 You knew Hollywood would screw it up. A $200 million budget "Godzilla," with all the computer effects you can shake a stick at, plus Matthew Broderick and Jean Reno, can't hold a candle to a Japanese guy in a suit.




There's an interesting sidebar re the Hollywood remake that underlines the biggest complaint screenwriters have about the use of their work. Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio are the team that wrote the screenplay for 1998 Godzilla (and Shrek, Aladdin, Zorro etc.). What they wrote bears no resemblance to what was shown in theaters. They tried to get their names removed from the credits before the movie was released, but weren't able to do that. What they did do was put their original script on their site Wordplay Below is what Ted Elliot wrote in the introduction:

Wordplay: Introduction to Godzilla

One thing they don't warn you about in film school, that nobody tells you about regarding screenwriting, is THE SPEECH.

For most of the films I've worked on that have been produced, I've had to learn some version of The Speech. What happens is this: people (friends, relatives) come up to you and say something like, "I saw THE PUPPET MASTERS on television the other night," or "Hey, didn't you work on GODZILLA?" And you feel compelled to explain that yes, you worked on the picture, but you know that it's terrible, it's okay that they hated it, you would have done it differently, etc. You find yourself in the situation so often, the collection of disclaimers, apologies and explanations for a movie eventually become rote.

For example, here's 'The Speech' for GODZILLA:

"Yes, we worked on it, but our script got thrown out. We got story credit because they kept some basic elements -- but in our draft, Godzilla fought a second monster, and kicked his ass. We realized that Godzilla was the hero, and even if people were afraid of him in the beginning, they wanted to root for him in the end."

To which people invariably look relieved ("Great, I don't have to pretend the movie wasn't crap") and say, "Oh, that would have been much better."

And it would have been.

For the record: Ted and I originally helped get the GODZILLA film off the ground at TriStar, writing a screenplay that satisfied the studio enough to seek directors. Our draft got the interest of Jan De Bont just after he finished SPEED. During pre-production on the film (man, the storyboards looked great!) budget differences caused Jan and TriStar to part ways.

The INDEPENDENCE DAY team of Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich came in, and decided to write their own script. They were complimentary of our draft, and said it showed them that a film could be made -- but concluded "It wasn't a story we wanted to tell." They kept some elements, and changed most. So here is the version that might have been -- our last draft, worked on with Jan. You can see for yourself how responsible we are for the film that was eventually made.

The screenplay follows the intro if you're interested.

Jayne

 

[shereads]

Re: Re: A different historical perspective

There's an interesting sidebar re the Hollywood remake that underlines the biggest complaint screenwriters have about the use of their work. Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio are the team that wrote the screenplay for 1998 Godzilla (and Shrek, Aladdin, Zorro etc.). What they wrote bears no resemblance to what was shown in theaters. They tried to get their names removed from the credits before

Speaking of frustrated screenwriters,


"In 1988, John Gregory Dunne and his wife Joan Didion began work on a film script based on the tragic life of anchorwoman Jessica Savitch. Over the next eight years, studio executives coaxed them to transform it into Up Close and Personal, a toothless star vehicle for Robert Redford and Michelle Pfeiffer."

~ Publisher's Weekly

The book is called "Monster."

So this doesn't qualify as an attempted hijack of the Godzilla thread.

 

[Boxlicker101]

In a fair fight, Mothra could have stomped Godzilla's scaly butt.

They did fight, and 'Zilla won. Then Mothra's eggs hatched and two caterpillars emerged and they ganged up on Godzilla. That was two on one, though, not a fair fight.


Later on, one of the caterpillars died but the survivor teamed up with Rodan and Godzilla to whip Ghidrah, the three-headed monster.

 

[shereads]

They did fight, and 'Zilla won. Then Mothra's eggs hatched and two caterpillars emerged and they ganged up on Godzilla. That was two on one, though, not a fair fight.


Later on, one of the caterpillars died but the survivor teamed up with Rodan and Godzilla to whip Ghidrah, the three-headed monster.

Oh PLEASE! You think Godzilla shouldn't have been able to beat two freshly hatched infant mothras? The lizard was a poseur.

 

[KarenAM]

Who here is old enough to remember the classic interview of Godzilla by Babba-Wawwa?

Babba-Wawwa: If I may get vewy personal with you, Godziwa, how do you and your wife 'do it'?

Godzilla: Very carefully.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Oh PLEASE! You think Godzilla shouldn't have been able to beat two freshly hatched infant mothras? The lizard was a poseur.

I have to agree. Godzilla could have fried them like sausages if he had wanted. The only thing the caterpillars could do was to shoot out cocoon material, and the big guy could have burned that off like cobwebs. The fight was obviously fixed, possibly hoping for a big money return match.

 

[SnoopDog]

Esp. for Snoopy (who obviously did not read the review in my first post):

From the NY Times review:

For Godzilla was, even in its bowdlerized "King of the Monsters" incarnation, an obvious — gigantic, unsubtle, grimly purposeful — metaphor for the atomic bomb. The Americanized "Godzilla,' which removed about 40 minutes from the Japanese original and inserted 20 minutes or so of new scenes featuring a sympathetic Yank journalist (played, with burly gravitas, by Raymond Burr), did its darnedest to minimize the nuclear theme. A lot of the Japanese characters' explicit references to the bomb were jettisoned. But Godzilla's back story was left basically intact: the beast, we're told, had lived more or less peacefully in the ocean for a few hundred thousand years (only very occasionally requiring the sacrifice of a virgin or two by nearby islanders), until H-bomb testing killed off its food supply and, as its fiery exhalations indicate, irradiated the creature itself. And since the stateside distributors were understandably reluctant to tamper with the meat-and-potatoes scenes of the monster's rampages, the most memorable images, even in the American version, are those of a Japanese city burned and crushed to dust by a lethal, apparently ungovernable force. You'd have to be pretty thick — thicker than Raymond Burr — to miss the point.

Well, now the only problem I have is.....
I have no clue who Raymond Burr is. Lol.

Snoopy

 

[AngeloMichael]

Raymond Burr was the actor who played Perry Mason and Ironsides.