By Leo Cookman
When you hear the name “Godzilla,” what do you picture? A man in a rubber suit crashing around a scale model of a city? Or the CGI slugfest that was “King of the Monsters?” Or, perhaps, the 1998 T-Rex clone? Is this monster friend or foe? Misunderstood animal or ungodly abomination? Your interpretation of the big guy will vary depending on which of his movies you’ve seen, and where they were made. That’s because, as it turns out, not all Godzillas were created equal.
ゴジラ (or “Gojira”) first appeared in a movie of the same name in 1954. In it, the giant monster (or “Kaiju”) emerges from the ocean awakened and empowered by the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and stomps around Japan, laying waste to Tokyo. A paleontologist, Yamane, is recruited to study the creature, but concludes that it can’t be killed because it survived nuclear weapons. (What’s more, he thinks the monster should be further examined, instead of flat-out murdered.) After a couple of fruitless attempts to destroy Gojira, the military consults Yamane’s colleague, Dr. Serizawa, who has been developing an “Oxygen Bomb.” Serizawa initially does not want to use the dangerous technology, but eventually relents. He kills Gojira, but destroys his research and blows himself up along with it, therefore ensuring that no one can use the weapon again.
In its depiction of major Japanese cities being devastated by nuclear weapons, “Gojira” all but begs to be read as a metaphor for the country’s post-World War II trauma. There’s a strong institutional critique of the military and government, both of which are simultaneously depicted as all-too-willing to use weapons of mass destruction and as impotent in their fight against Gojira. The movie conveys how small and insignificant everyday people can be made to feel, not just in the face of a giant monster, but in the face of government and military intervention. Pleas for mercy, pleas to study Gojira instead of killing him, and pleas to not use city-destroying weapons are largely ignored by both the monster and the government. For a silly B-movie about a man in a suit laying waste to models of the Japanese coast, there is a surprising amount of contextual depth to the original “Gojira” film.
Most of these elements were carried over in the following films that make up the sprawling “Gojira” franchise, which continues in Japan to this day. Over the last 60 years, he’s moved with the times, going from pure villain to anti-hero battling other monsters, to Dad, back to villain, and, most recently, to star of an anime film series on Netflix. Gojira’s legacy as an embodiment of post-World War II Japan’s challenges and changes is long and looks set to continue for many years to come.
“Godzilla” is an Americanized mishearing of “Gojira” — make of that what you will — that was used for the English-language releases of various Kaiju movies from 1954 onward. The original “Gojira” was even edited for the American release to include a Canadian actor and remove a lot of the political themes.
The first American-produced “Godzilla” film was released in 1998 and is not particularly well-remembered. It relocates the action to New York but follows a more typical “monster movie” plot: Godzilla shows up, devastates the city, and is killed by the military. While it does have a scientist (Matthew Broderick) who argues for studying Godzilla, he isn’t opposed to killing the creature. Also, perhaps unsurprisingly, Godzilla is no longer a product of America’s bombing of Japan, but vaguely of “nuclear testing.” Meanwhile the military is nearly as destructive as Godzilla himself, blowing up the Chrysler Building, Madison Square Garden and the Brooklyn Bridge. Importantly, this isn’t done in some self-critical way, but is merely a fun pre-9/11, post-”Independence Day” visual spectacle. The mostly-forgotten film was very much a product of its time, from its desperate attempts to ape “Jurassic Park” in its monster designs to the wanton destruction of New York that aged so poorly post-9/11.
Tristar Pictures subsequently abandoned the “Godzilla” license. It was then picked up by Legendary Pictures, who produced a much more sober, dark, and gritty reboot. This new version of “Godzilla” took itself more seriously and strove to be “legitimate” cinema. At the same time, it also returned to the more nuanced formula of the original, emphasizing Godzilla’s origins and the implications that came with them.
The Godzilla of 2014 is not merely a destructive monster, but rather, an ancient god/spirit/apex predator that acts as a guardian of the world and is actively seen as an ally. This departs from the original Japanese version, making him more a “force of nature” than a terrible man-made mistake. As in other American-adapted versions of Japanese “Gojira” films, (“King Kong vs Godzilla,” “Ghidorah,” “Godzilla vs Mothra”), Godzilla is our own ass-kickin’ avenger against the threat of other Kaiju. The trouble is, as with the original American adaptation, these new American versions understand the broad strokes but miss the subtleties.
Though both versions are about a big monster wrecking famous cities, and both touch on similar topics like the power of the military-industrial complex and the natural order, the American version shies away from the original’s more heavy-handed criticism. The “Godzilla” of 2014 (Can we stop giving these reboots the same name please? It gets very confusing.) tries to reintroduce some form of commentary, specifically on the contemporary issue of climate change and the existential threat it poses. It still, however, manages to imagine a world bereft of real human responsibility. Godzilla is a destructive force of nature that we can only step aside for, not fight, allowing nature to take its course. In this scenario the nukes “awoke” him, but he is still a product of the natural world; he is not a product of our folly and when he is done fighting other destructive “MUTO’s,” he beds back down to trouble us no more. This is taken even further in the sequel “King of the Monsters,” when the eco-terrorists, who insist that maybe humans are responsible for this devastation, are framed as the villains.
This is the defining difference between Godzilla and Gojira: their purpose and what they want to achieve, both on-screen and off-screen. Gojira was never a shill. Gojira had his own agency. He fought Rodan, Ghidorah, and Mothra because he wanted to, not because of some ancient rivalry foretold by the gods and certainly not to protect us. Gojira represents mankind’s responsibility to the natural world and our relationship with it, as well as the dangers of us playing God, particularly when it comes to technology. Godzilla, however, is a mascot. He’s a neutered and fluffy pet, a watchdog who bites intruders, a wonder of the natural world we can all admire.
