Monster Zero x SciFi Japan - Archive Only

Or, How I stopped worrying about the atom bomb and learned to love Godzilla 2014...

Just thought I'd create this thread as it's something that's been on my mind a lot lately.

Going into Godzilla 2014, I really thought we were getting a film that would mirror the original. Godzilla would be a dark force of nature, punishing mankind for its arrogance. That's not the movie, or the Godzilla, that we got.

Initially, I wasn't really sure how I felt about the new Godzilla, or the new origin. I went from "Ok, that's kind of cool and kind of 70's esque" to "Man, that's just not Godzilla." (Interestingly enough, those are two popular reactions I've seen from Japanese critics, a third being "The Americans finally got it right.") I've since come around to "It's pretty much the best of all worlds, it's something that I wouldn't have thought of doing, and it's the quintessential American take on Godzilla."

What got me stuck on this movie more than anything, was that I felt the nuclear message was lost. Ford has really never bothered me. The cut always bothered me a lot for a while, but I grew to like them with time. I felt that 2014 Godzilla was too friendly, that he was too gentle. He dived beneath boats instead of crashing through them. He didn't light cities on fire with his atomic breath. He wasn't vengeful towards mankind.

But then something changed. I'm beginning to think the film makers might have been smarter than I had given them credit for.

What I mean specifically:

-I think I had discussed prior to the movie coming out, that I wasn't sure how you could mesh an anti-nuclear theme with a Godzilla that audiences could root for and want to see more of. Why would an audience care about a monster that just incinerated a city? The film managed to find a way to split the difference, in that it made the MUTOs represent that anti-nuclear theme, while still giving us a Godzilla we could care about. The MUTOs represent many of the dark aspects of nuclear proliferation. More nuclear weapons leads to more monsters and death. This movie gave Americans the movie monster that most people in the west have always thought he was, a big dinosaur monster that beats the crap out of other bad monsters. The anti-nuclear aspect of the Big G isn't something most casual people equate with the series, most people are more apt to think of Godzilla vs. Megalon. And in that, Gareth and crew gave us the definitive version of OUR Godzilla.

-But here's the element that I find most fascinating, and it's the one I'm not sure was intentional. Even though the MUTOs represent the dark side of atomic warfare, I think what's more interesting is how the film views Godzilla. The Japanese Godzilla is a representation of the dread and fear over nuclear warfare and war in general, while the American Godzilla, the country that dropped the bomb, is a more more nuanced and morally gray creature. He has some uses, but he's a powerful force of destruction and should not be taken lightly. Like I said, I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, but I find it fascinating how a fictional creature that's a metaphor for atomic weapons could be viewed so differently from the country that had these weapons used against them, and the country that used the weapons. There's some interesting cultural discussion to be had here.


Anyone have any thoughts on this subject?

At the end of the day, Godzilla's introduction and backstory in this film is still a slide show presentation and narration to the audience (baring the opening credits). Despite thematic changes that I don't agree with at all this is a pretty blatant example of Godzilla's lack of focus in this picture. They could have easily made him the product of nuclear testing with a simple piece of dialogue change in the current, and they didn't. For me it's that simple.

I agree with the OP, or at least think you raise some good points.

Godzilla 2014 is an American take on Godzilla, so why shouldn't Godzilla himself be pliable to being viewed through the lens of how Americans have always seen Godzilla? He always has been adapted to the thoughts of the individual crafting the film, hence why Godzilla isn't always a harbinger of nuclear destruction and an allegory for the dangers of nuclear proliferation. Sometimes he's a scrappy monster who likes to fight. Sometimes he's a product of mankind and a warning. Sometimes he's a force of nature. Sometimes he's the re-incarnated spirit of World War II victims trying to get revenge on a Japanese culture that has forgotten its many wrongdoings during the war. Godzilla's adaptable, and that's why he's been around for SO LONG and has so many films instead of just the one being remade and riffed on over and over (*cough* KING KONG *cough*). As soon as you start insisting that Godzilla HAS to be this, or that, you miss the point of what Godzilla is.

Godzilla being a heroic force of nature righting the wrongs of the bad monsters is no less valid a take on the monster than superhero who literally fights pollution or malevolent creature hellbent on nothing but destruction.

Whether or not one likes the MOVIE itself is an entirely separate discussion from that, and I think too often the two are being tangled together.

So he's a necessary sort of evil who may be hugely destructive and cost lives but ultimately save many other lives...kind of like a nuclear weapon.

A living nuclear weapon.

One of the (many) things I liked about Godzilla '14 was the fact that its Godzilla is a composite of practically all previous Godzillas. When folks say this Godzilla is somehow an imposter, untrue to the Japanese original I'm frankly puzzled. What film series have they been watching?

Yes, Godzilla is no longer the dark specter of atomic warfare made flesh, instead he's more like Mothra in Mothra (1960) or Godzilla in Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964). He's living proof of man's smallness, a modern version of the kind of nature-derived gods and goddesses from Japanese mythology, stirred up to the modern world by man's recklessness.

I know at least a couple people here or elsewhere have criticized Godzilla's awakening via a passing nuclear submarine, but I think this version of Godzilla's origin actually helps emphasize a subtle message present in the story: we take nuclear power for granted. Complaining that Godzilla was awakened by "just" a nuclear submarine ignores the fact that we're talking about a nuclear submarine. I'm no expert on military weaponry, but those subs aren't something to be taken lightly, are they? ...And yet the idea of these submarines patrolling the oceans is one we're used to. Just like how the male MUTO is awakened by a mining group searching for uranium, or how the female MUTO is casually discarded into a nuclear waste site where she grows rapidly, Godzilla's awakening via nuclear sub goes to show how we may still underestimate the power of the split atom, and the repercussions the technology can bring.

The Godzilla of the 1954 movie isn't the same Godzilla that appeared in the 2014 movie. They are just two different version of the same nuclear energy eating creature.

Who could have guessed?