Monster Zero x SciFi Japan - Archive Only

So after the discussion in the Heisei vs. Millenium thread, I thought this would be an interesting discussion (and I do hope to get a real thought provoking discussion out of this, so pardon the long post). I made a point in the other thread about how a good portion of my appreciation for the Heisei series comes from nostalgia.

So now I must ask the rest of you... how much does nostalgia play into your love of Godzilla/kaiju movies? And lets be 100% HONEST here, people.

Let's face it. Nostalgia clouds our judgement when it comes to the films, songs, etc. that we enjoy. A good non-Godzilla example would be the reaction to the last Indiana Jones movie... now Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a bad, stupid movie, but not for a lot of the reasons people give (ie: fridge nuking). Here's a movie that came at a time so far down the line that its main audience (people who watched the originals as kids) had either forgotten or forgiven (due to nostalgia) all the questionable and equally crazy things in the original trilogy. People had no problem with Indy somehow surviving holding onto the outside of a submarine that travels the ocean or jumping out of a plane in an inflatable raft, but they act like the fridge thing is suddenly the dumbest thing ever. And they refuse to acknowledge how stupid - given what happens in the other films - that stance is. Now Crystal Skull is awful for a whole set of OTHER reasons, but those dumb little moments that people complain about are simply part of the Indy formula... they're just so attached to the originals that they don't see it.

How forgiving are we of kaiju films when we are so nostalgic about them?

Here's the way I think of it:

Upon further glance, a good portion of my appreciation for a lot of kaiju movies comes from nostalgia. If I was just now trying to get into Godzilla, I don't know how many of these films would stick with me.

Godzilla vs. Gigan for example was the first Godzilla movie I saw all the way through and it is still one of the ones I revisit the most. Godzilla vs. Gigan is one of my absolute favorite kaiju films, so I don't want anybody to get the wrong idea. But if I just saw it for the first time NOW, I would probably just be more "meh, it was kinda fun." But I don't know that I'd revisit it so often if not for all the fuzzy memories attached to it. Godzilla vs. Megalon is another one I watched a lot as a kid, but if I was seeing it now for the first time, it would be nothing more than a "so retarded, its hilarious" form of entertainment.

I got into Godzilla around the time Godzilla vs. Mothra 93 came out in Japan. I was lucky and resourceful enough to discover fanzines and G-Fan almost immediately after getting into Godzilla (within the same year, at least), which to this day, I'm not sure how I even pulled that off since this is a good 7 years before I had the internet... I was a persitent little guy I guess and my local comic shops helped me find resources. So every summer, I would look forward to the Japanese home video release of the latest Godzilla movie and plunk my allowence down for a subbed bootleg VHS (many of which I still have). Now that I'm older, most of the Heisei films hold up, while others (Mothra and Space Godzilla specifically) are a chore to sit through these days.

That brings me to the Millenium series. This series came at a point where I was older and my G-Fandom wasn't so much a constant as much as it would come in bursts... I'd be really into it for a year, then I'd more or less forget about Godzilla for a while, then I'd come back. This is why I didn't see GxM or GMK until at least a year after they were released. So I don't have ANY personal attachment to the Millenium series. Sure, seeing G2K on the big screen was great and seeing the rabid reaction to Final Wars at G-Fest was something else... but they are nothing compared to the childhood memories of the Showa and Hesiei films...

My grandpa taking me to every video store around to find just ANY film I didn't have, and subsequently dubbing them onto VHS tapes for me (again, I still have all of these), pouring through TV Guides to see if someone was going to air that rare kaiju film, anxiously waiting for the new Heisei films, or watching Frankenstein Conquers the World at my mom's house on a hot as hell summer night with no air conditioning, while (for some reason) drinking hot chocolate. Moments like that are totally pure and perfect memories... they were my childhood. and I'd simply be lying if they had nothing to do with my love for these films. Thankfully most of the films have held up great for me as an adult... I can recognize that stuff like most of Honda's films, Biollante, Sea Monster, etc. are truly great (and sometimes even intelligent) genre films and the nostalgia is just the cherry on top... but for some of the others (G's Revenge, Megalon, some of the Heisei films, etc), the nostalgia definitely helps.

So I must ask again, how much does nostalgia cloud YOUR judgement of these films? How forgiving are you willing to be for some of the lesser films?

Some nostalgia... but not a lot. I mean, my list of favorite Godzilla flicks when I was a kid and favorite ones now don't exactly jive. I loooved Godzilla 1985 as a kid, but now I find it kinda difficult to watch. Mothra vs. Godzilla, Monster Zero and Son of Godzilla were liked by kid-me, but have risen significantly in my appreciation as time goes by.

When I watched all the Godzilla films a few years ago it was a kind of reevaluation by me. My appreciation for some things grew while others revealed themselves to have faded significantly since I was younger.

... but despite my tastes becoming a bit more sophisticated as an adult I still have a very healthy inner-child and I enjoy lots of things that are cartoony and whimsical and often made for kids. For the love of Pete, I've spent the greater part of the last two years collecting one of my new favorites: Uncle Scrooge comics!

I know in all reality is is kind of bland; the actors are pretty ho-hum, and the story isn't everything it could have been, but it never lost its appeal to me. The score is awesome; my second favorite of the entire series, and the special effects are really good as well.

It hasn't lost its appeal. It's still a very appealing film, but I'm just not as gung-ho about it as I was when I was 6.

I watched the showa movies when they were on cable throughout my childhood/teens, but I was never obsessed. It was something I thought was a cool old series, and that was that. It wasn't until I was in my 20's that I found out about sites like this and all the heisei movies I missed.
So really nolstalgia doesn't affect my appreciation of Godzilla at all. I'm much more of a kaiju fan now than I was as a kid.

HEY I'M BUMPING THIS CUZ I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY, I THINK.

SO GUYZ.

I've been watching a lot of kaiju movies lately. A lot of older stuff. I just watched War of the Gargantuas, one of my all time favorites.

I love these movies as much as ever, and they really do bring me to a happy place in my grumpy little head. But the older I get and the more I watch them the more... um... uneven these movies seem to get. That's not to say I think any less of them, because I certainly don't. But my stupid, logical, adult brain is always noticing new flaws and plot holes that my 8-16 year old brain never pointed out.

The reason I bring this up is that it got thinking about Pacific Rim a little bit. I realize the film is widely loved in the fandom, but it got me going back to some of the people who didn't like it... Now I'm not talking about everyone, since a lot of people do have their good reasons (who found the story unengaging, the movie too long, or what have you), but the ones getting hung up on things like alleged plot holes.

I only mention this because having just watched some really widely loved kaiju movies like Monster Zero and WOTG, there's a lot in these movies that honestly makes no "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!" sense... much less sense than Pac Rim, even. I mean Godzilla vs. Mecha-Godzilla is sheer nonsense (which is part of the fun), but its kind of a sacred cow to a lot of people, while PR has tons of tiny problems that nobody in its intended age demographic would notice.

What I'm trying to say is why is it ok for old movies to be stupid, but not new ones? Some people say that nonsensical plot is "part of the charm" of old Godzilla and Gamera movies, but when a new movie comes out, its no longer charming and its used as examples of how bad the movie sucks.

Again, this isn't everybody, and I'm certainly not trying to discount people who have legitimate reasons for not liking a new film. But it certainly is common among older fans.

The only thing I can come to is that pesky little thing called "nostalgia."

FURTHER RECOMMENDED READING:

http://www.freddyinspace.com/2013/05/ar ... -with.html

I really think this article hits the nail on the head (even if it isn't referencing the kaiju genre specifically).