The Dark Herald Recommends Shin Godzilla
When I was pre-adolescent my sources of income were cruising parking lots for dropped change, returning pop bottles, and occasionally cutting the teeth out of sharks that had drowned in the nets for the creepy guy who made necklaces out of them for tourists.
That was more than enough for an eight-pack of Coke and a big bag of Fritos. Come three o’clock on Saturday afternoon and the Godzilla movie would start on UHF, let me tell you, I was SET!!!
In a pre-Star Wars universe, guys in silly rubber costumes tramping around cardboard sets were awesome. It’s a generational thing that you have no hope of conveying to Zoomers unless you make them watch those movies when they are two.
I considered an in-depth history of Japan’s various versions of Godzilla but decided against it as I’m running out of time tonight.
Godzilla started out as something very serious, it had a message and it spoke to the soul of post-war Japan. However, the series went into almost industrial production in the 1960s and 70s, and frankly, toward the end of the Showa Era cycle, they had gotten ridiculously cheap. You could see parts flying off Godzilla in the later Showa films. The franchise went to sleep for another nine years but then Godzilla rose again in 1984, this was the beginning of the Heisei era even if Hirohito (the freaking Showa Emporer) was still alive for the first three of them. This was supposed to be the same monster from the fifties in terms of continuity, he finally died in Godzilla 2000. The early 2000s movies were a rather interesting experimental period as none of the movies had anything to do with any of the others except the very first one. Let me know if you want a series on those. The very last live-action Japanese Godzilla movie was Godzilla: Final Wars in 2004.
Long tired sigh, and then American studios took over.
American Godzillas has sucked ass until very, very recently. Godzilla 1998 was obviously Rolland Emmerich putting his own stamp on something that he clearly had no love or respect for. Bryan Cranston’s Godzilla movie felt like a ripoff because the trailers made it look like he was an American Doctor Serizawa, which could have worked if Cranston had brought his A-game and been in it for more than fifteen minutes. Godzilla King of the Monsters was bizarre and awful in its own special. Godzilla Vs Kong, well, I liked it, the Dark Herald Recommends.
In 2016, Japan took another shot at it with Shin Godzilla.
Shin Godzilla is rather interesting from a narrative standpoint. This is “a Godzilla film with no protagonist and almost no Godzilla.”
This flick is basically a fictional documentary. What would really happen if this monster suddenly appeared in today’s Japan out of the blue? Sort of like the very first movie Gojira (1954) . Think about that for a second. The first movie prominently featured a Tokyo that was in flames a mere nine years after Tokyo had literally been in flames. Gojira (1954) had balls of titanium.
This film tries to recapture the feeling of that first film to the extent that it can. It shows the frustration of the Japanese with its government by Old Men. When Godzilla first attacks the first thing the Prime Minister does is hold a meeting. Then he holds a second more serious meeting and then a third and even more serious meeting as this unprecedented situation spirals out of control. The most frantic concern of the bureaucrats isn’t saving Tokyo it’s trying to figure out whose department this thing falls under.
When Godzilla first emerges from the surf he’s a giant sea snake. A problem for the coastal areas but the view is it will die on its own, so they only need to worry about spin control. And then he grows legs. The exasperation of young men towards the older men the major theme of this movie, Godzilla could have easily been dealt with, if decisive action (which is to say military action) had been taken earlier. None was taken because the Old Men were too frightened of breaking a precedent by creating one.
“Unprecedented” is the word that keeps getting used and it is clearly being used in contempt.
Contempt for Japan’s political inertia is as thick as a Korean Fake Mink Blanket, (if you have one you know what I mean) in this picture. “When will we stop being a Post-War Japan?” One of the young men asks in disgust.
There is no way to spoil a story you know by heart, so I’ll fill you in on it the details. The SDF fails and in desperation, the Japanese government calls in the Americans and even we fail to stop the monster so it’s up to the Otaku (Okay officially they were a study team but they were clearly all meant to be Otaku) to stop the monster. And they succeed.
Oh and speaking of Americans I HAVE to introduce you to Kyoko Patterson, the token American in this film. She is hilarious.
The funny part is that there really isn’t much in the way of Anti-Americanism present. We weren’t blamed over much for its creation. When asked in desperation we tried to stop it using our most advanced weapons. The attitude is the USA is big and it’s the most powerful country in history but it failed so we have to try and do this thing ourselves.
The end of the film shows a Japan that has defeated the undefeatable and is now ready to stand on its own.
This isn’t the usual Godzilla movie as there is normally a science fiction subplot running in between shots of Godzilla smashing things. This one is much more political in nature and may not be suitable for those who know nothing of Japanese politics. It’s a thinking man’s Godzilla movie. If that puts you off then skip it.
Otherwise…
The Dark Herald Recommends with Enthusiasm.
UPDATE: I have been informed that Toho will launch a new live-action Godzilla movie this November. No trailer yet.
