Well, glad I’m glad I read a few posts back, but I figure I’ll offer new insight to a thread that laid dormant for more than a decade.
To me, the Showa films remind me of my childhood, because, truth be told, that’s all we had until 1985, but to me it basically extends until 1990 –the reason being that –you had 15 Godzilla films. G 1985 was pretty much a Solo act, a remake much in the same way that KK 1976 was a remake, it wasn’t until 1991, G vs KG, the 3rd film of the “Heisei” era, that it would be clear that a whole new series was emerging from a couple of independent efforts. In fact, I sometimes wonder when the fandom first used the terms “Showa” & “Heisei”?… probably sometime in the mid-late 90’s when the online community really started to grow.
If I am in a purist mood, I will watch the films in their original form with subtitles. If I am feeling nostalgic however, I will watch them in English, and always with the same dub (AIP where applicable) that I heard as a child. In fact, for most of the films, I can remember a specific time that I watched the films—
I can remember one Saturday afternoon where Godzilla vs. Megalon & Godzilla on Monster Island played back-to-back on a local station @1983 –Yes in reverse chronological order I know, but I at least noticed they had the same monster “Gigan” in both films, and thought it odd at the time. –Truth be told, if you watch both films in reverse order, there really isn’t anything that would dictate what order they came in.
I can remember another occasion, my mom waking me up early on a summer day (probably 7am) to watch Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster, which I had never seen before.
I can also remember watching King Kong vs Godzilla with my cousins. We even acted out some of the scenes. They were all rooting for Kong, while I alone wanted Godzilla to win.
I also remember when my parents first got a VCR in 1986, (I was 10) and my dad telling me that we could record some Godzilla films, but not all because that would take up too much space, and blank tapes were expensive
. But of course, I was able to work around that. Although as a child, it seemed like an immensely long time (from 1986-1990), in 4 years I had managed to get all the films in one form or another, except for Destroy all Monsters, which had not aired in the S.F. Bay Area in several years, and was not available commercially on VHS. It was the hardest for me to obtain, and is still my favorite to this day.
I often wonder what a modern remake of a showa era Godzilla film would look and/or feel like. Originally I thought it could not be done, but upon seeing footage of G vs Wolfman, and the Ultraman series of the past decade (where showa era suits are recreated with stunning accuracy). I know it could be done if Toho wanted to. I think it would be awesome, if say…the 1968-1972 G suit was recreated for a new film with both some classic showa-era, and new kaiju that would “fit” showa era imagination. Of course, that’s just me. But at least I have my fond memories when I am able to watch and enjoy these films.
There are no more good TV Shows, only ones that haven't disappointed me yet.