Godzilla's early '80s 'comeback'

[lhb412]

Something that's fascinated me recently is the pre-Return of Godzilla nostalgia for the series in the early '80s. I'd always known a bit about it. I'm sure there was a passing mention about it in the Official Godzilla Compendium, and I read that when I was ten years old! The idea that Godzilla had been gone for a couple of years, and had been a part of the children's Champion Festival for the last several years anyway, so for most people it was as if Godzilla had been gone for even longer than he had been - over a decade! I'd really like to know the specifics of the various rereleases and film festivals they did in those intervening years. Looking back into that section on Steve Ryfle's book I see that the sale of Godzilla toys and merchandise began increasing in the late '70s, and wasn't it around then when Bandai became the main Godzilla toy company?

What got me thinking was this picture I saw a few months ago on raffleupagus' tumblr page:


http://raffleupagus.tumblr.com/post/153 ... ume-at-the

That's Hirata in costume as Dr. Serizawa for the 'Godzilla Comeback Festival' in 1983!

I'm interested in how The Return of Godzilla wasn't just an attempt at franchise revival out of nowhere, but was really riding a resurgence of popularity for Godzilla. Of course, when Return did well at the box office but not well enough considering the enormous expense of the film did that wave crest and Godzilla's popularity settle back down? In a way, Return, Biollante (five years later), and vs. King Ghidorah (two years after that) were all attempts at starting anew and the third one was really the one that stuck.

PS - Imagine living in a world where the initial reboot idea played out: a faithful remake of the original 1954 film in the late '70s using much of the same staff who did the '70s films, including director Fukuda and FX by Nakano! Can you wrap your head around that?

[Shin_Edda_Robo!!!!!]

Well, we'd have TONS OF EXPLOSIONS on par with Submersion of Japan and Prophecies of Nostradamus thats for sure!

[lhb412]

I forgot about another aspect of Godzilla's 1983 comeback: Ifukube's 'Symphonic Fantasia.'

[Gentleman]

[lhb412]

^No idea. I've just listened to different recordings of it on Youtube and such.

The internet is failing me; I can't even find the album cover image of Godzilla's reflection on the building.

[lhb412]