1godzillafan's Toku Corner (Ultra Q)

Godzilla 1985 is the title of the English edit of the film by New World Pictures, that included Raymond Burr reprising his role as Steve Martin from the American edit of Godzilla, King of the Monsters.  The original Japanese title is simply Godzilla, while the international title is The Return of Godzilla.

Premise:  Despite the title, it is 1984 and it has been thirty years since Godzilla's raid on Tokyo and it's seeming death at the hands of Dr. Serizawa and the Oxygen Destroyer.  Reporter Goro Maki stumbles on the remains of a fishing vessel out in the ocean where most of the crew has been roasted alive.  The sole survivor is Hiroshi Okumura, who claims the crew was killed by a gargantuan beast.  The Japanese government decides to keep the encounter a secret until they can confirm what the creature is, which they suspect to be Godzilla.  Soon after, a Russian nuclear submarine is destroyed by the creature, amplifying tensions between the Americans and the Russians.  To defuse the potential nuclear war that is brewing, the Japanese Prime Minister comes forth with the information that the cause of the sub attack may have been Godzilla.  As politics debate over how to handle the situation, Godzilla rises once again to attack Tokyo and feed on nuclear power plants.  Japan launches an experimental vehicle called the Super X to combat the monster, but find the situation growing more serious when the Russians accidentally launch a nuclear missile at Japan.

As far as the bar being set on giant monsters on a rampage through a city, the original Godzilla sets the bar pretty high.  That's not to mention contemporaries like King Kong, Rodan, Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, or even the original adaptation of The Lost World from 1925, which are also achievements in this particular brand of moviemaking.  To make a "Godzilla takes a walk in Tokyo" movie at all, where Godzilla holds the entire weight of the movie without any brawl with a fellow monster, is a pretty tall order with big shoes to fill (so to speak).  You're always going to be compared to that first movie, and probably scrutinized even more closely than other Godzilla movies because it will be so similar to that first movie.  Maybe you do a new take on it, and it could result in Shin Godzilla in 2016, which came out to critical acclaim and prestigious award recognition.  Or that could turn into Godzilla '98, which was scoffed at and given Razzie recognition.

Or you can not have your apple fall far from the tree and do that first movie all over again to let your audience recall why they liked this franchise in the first place.  Hey, it worked for The Force Awakens.

Godzilla 1985 is technically inferior to the original film from 1954.  The original has a stronger theme underlining it and is overall just a more tense movie.  Godzilla 1985 however is my favorite Godzilla movie.  It's probably for superficial reasons (and those are the best reasons, don't let anyone tell you otherwise), but this movie sparks a reaction in me, and I absolutely adore it.

When I talk about superficial, what I'm mostly referring to is aesthetics.  There are a lot of people who don't understand why someone would willingly want to watch a Godzilla movie or be interested in tokusatsu in general when there are "better" options available ("better" being a subjective term based upon what the individual viewer responds to).  Speaking from my own experience with the franchise, the best way I can explain this to anybody is "It's an aesthetic thing."  For some people, there is nothing better than the latest Fast & Furious movie to get a good action fix.  For others, that action fix lies somewhere else.  They'll watch Furious 7 and not care for the obviously CGI cars doing obviously CGI stunts which they feel deflates the tension of it.  Their action fix might lie in a 60's James Bond movie (RIP Sean Connery), which might employ outdated special effects, but is more pleasing to their eye and provides a more exciting product.  That's the power of aesthetic.  Toku fans are no different.  You can point out "the strings" if you wish, but that doesn't matter to us.  We are full well aware of the strings.  We like the way the effects are crafted.  We like to be able to compare the Godzilla suits to each other and weigh the pros and cons of how they look.  We like to admire the craftsmanship of the handmade effects in these movies.  We think it's visually interesting and stimulating.

Aesthetic is a large part of why Godzilla 1985 appeals to me.  First and foremost, I love 80's filmmaking aesthetic, especially in genre films.  There is a very dirty, guerrilla style to films like Predator, Aliens, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and the like, and I feel this filmmaking style suits Godzilla quite well.  My one regret as a Godzilla fan is that we didn't get more 80's Godzilla movies, of which we only had this film and Godzilla vs. Biollante, which both had some fairly great cinematography, which only seemed to get more plain in the 90's.

The look of the film is enhanced by how Godzilla is filmed as well.  Godzilla 1985 is a bit unique in that there were several methods in which Godzilla was brought to life here.  There is the traditional man-in-suit way (in this case played by Kenpachiro Satsuma, who played Hedorah in Godzilla vs. Hedorah and Gigan in Godzilla vs. Gigan and Godzilla vs. Megalon, and would go on to play Godzilla throughout the Heisei era films), which is more detailed and expressive than his Showa era suits were.  One new thing this movie did was update the use of puppetry you would see in 50's Godzilla movies, but instead of a hand puppet it is a full blown animatronic puppet.  This wasn't just a facial expression puppet for close-ups you would see in the 90's Godzilla films, but a full blown functional Godzilla torso.  And this thing was huge, even larger than a person.  Look at this thing...



One last thing they did was they built a giant foot to create more vivid street level destruction.  All these methods put together give Godzilla a greater sense of scale than he had ever had before.  Putting aside the American Godzilla films, which had always succeeded with scale, one can even argue that this is the greatest sense of scale Godzilla has had since as well, at least until the release of Shin Godzilla in 2016.  Godzilla feels massive in this movie, and that's not always something a Godzilla movie can succeed at.  The thing about filming a man in a rubber suit is that it's very easy to film them as human beings and not succeed at making them feel large.  With the way Godzilla 1985 is shot combined with the multiple and new ways Godzilla is created in this film, something is unlocked that G filmmakers struggled to recreate since.

And speaking of aesthetic, this poster is my jam.



But that's not all the film has going for it because it also features a political slant that made Shin Godzilla special too.  This film is less of a parody than that film is, as it explores the political tensions that might arise should a Godzilla surface one day.  Adding to that is the fact that this was made during the mid-80's, where Cold War tensions were cause of high blood pressure throughout the world.  During one of Godzilla's earliest appearances in this film, before anybody knows for certain he has returned, he destroys a Russian nuclear submarine, which creates amplified tensions between the USA and the USSR as they blame each other for the disaster.  Once they know Godzilla is back, the film becomes something of an melodramatic satire of their conflict, as both trigger happy countries demand that Japan allow the use of nuclear weapons on their soil to destroy the monster (the non-Japanese actors in this scene are abysmal, but the point is made), and Japan is portrayed as the country stuck in the middle of the two nations' dick measuring contest.  This escalates to the point where Godzilla's attack accidentally triggers a Russian nuke to be launched at Tokyo, causing a non-Godzilla conflict to create dramatic tension, and that sequence is pretty intense.

Incidentally, there was a scene before the missile launch where an injured Russian agent tries to prevent the launch of the missile but succumbs to their wounds before they can.  When the film was re-edited for US release, apparently the distributors couldn't conceive of a Russian doing something vaguely heroic, so they altered the scene to make it look like the Russian launched the missile on purpose and the US having to bail Japan out.  While the US was always the one to counter the missile in the original cut, the US version has an entirely stateside filmed subplot to make sure we're portrayed as "We get shit DONE!" as possible.

Congratulations, United States.  You accidentally proved the point this movie was trying to make.

Speaking of the re-edit, which is, of course, the version I grew up on, the big news about this version is they actually went out of their way to bring back Raymond Burr as his Steve Martin character from the American cut of the original Godzilla.  Of course, at this point in time Steve Martin is the name of a popular comedian in American, and they refer to him as "Mister Martin" throughout his scenes.  They attempt to make Burr less interactive here and, maybe wisely, confine him to a sideline position with other American actors who are watching the events unfold from a distance.   The Steve Martin character is no longer a curious reporter, but portrayed as a wise old man who understands Godzilla better than any other living person.  While I'm not exactly convinced this is who Martin would be at this age, it's good to see Burr back, because he's honestly the most interesting thing about these scenes.  Other than the blatant Dr. Pepper product placement, of course.

Venturing back to Japan, the human characters are a fairly basic group of random civilians and a scientist who may or may not lead to Godzilla's demise.  The most interesting thing that's really done with them is a storyline that's resolved early on in which Godzilla's potential return is kept top secret and the character of Naoko believes her brother to be lost at sea, only to discover he had been recovered and is being hidden by the government until they're prepared to make their statement about Godzilla.  That being said, they do lead to an interestingly smart solution to solving the Godzilla problem, where they deduce that Godzilla responds to the sounds of birds and use this to lure him away from Tokyo (one wonders why this lure wasn't used to prevent Godzilla from returning throughout the Heisei series).  They lure him to Mt. Mihara, where they detonate charges that cause him to fall into the pit of the volcano.  It's glorious and probably my favorite climax of the Godzilla series.

But if we're going to bring up characters, we need to bring up my favorite of the film, a nameless bum who uses Godzilla's rampage to break into luxury hotels and dining rooms and help himself.  I love this intoxicated goof, and the way he believes himself to be pals with Godzilla, but will irritatedly yell at the big monster on a dime if Godzilla doesn't submit to the idea that this drunk human is the man in charge of Tokyo now.  I just find this guy really funny.

All of this put together make Godzilla 1985 the movie I respond to the most out of the entire franchise.  Others may disagree, but fandoms are unique like that.  Your favorite could be the original or Shin Godzilla or GMK or Godzilla vs. Megalon and they each have something about them that will make them special to the individual viewer.  That's one of the reasons the Godzilla franchise is so great, because it's so extensive and a lot of these movies have a unique flavor and something that makes them individually interesting, even the bad ones.  And hopefully if you've stuck with me on this journey through these films, maybe you can begin to see what I see in them too.

It took you ages to finish this thing. I of all people, respect that greatly.


In all seriousness, this was really fun. If the Heisei and Millennium films come to streaming or even a new box-set I'd be very eager to check them out.

I wish I knew more than the almost nothing that I know about the Godzilla movies so I could have enjoyed this thread. In any case, well done!

All the scenes of Godzilla attacking Tokyo have too much black in them, so they wind up looking black and white anyway.

JESUS CHRIST

I came here to post that for you