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Godzilla To Retire (for now)
ackthpt writes "CNN is reporting that Toho, after 50 years and 28 films, will be retiring Godzilla (Gojira in Japan) after this years film. Toho has thought of retiring the venerable monster before, but after pulling the stops to make a special Best of Best this may be it (but you never know, particularly if it draws large audiences)"
It'll be sad to see such an icon of the 'old scifi' go, now if only william shattner would stop screeching on television =)
Just because you disagree doesn't make it offtopic or flamebait.
Let me be among the first to with you well, in whatever endeavor you undertake in this chapter of your life.
Hail! King of the Monsters!
ps. don't attack my city
There's more than one Godzilla movie? I always assumed I was just seeing different parts of the same film... go figure.
Quote the article: "Even if the new movie makes money, it will be at least a decade before Godzilla returns, Tomiyama said."
That's pretty much telling us there's not going to be another sequel for a while no matter what. At least, unless you think he's lying.
And how many retirement concerts did Barbara Striesand have?
:)
Go'zilla isn't going anywhere...the press will see to that. This will simply be another comeback spike. It worked before and it will work again, and that's a good thing
I'm just glad Bambi can finally get some rest.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
Popular fictional characters never retire, they just get put away for a spell to create a pent-up demand. There will likely be more, but it'll likely be 10 to 20 years before somebody realizes they have a popular franchise that they're not using and it's time to revive it.
I thought Gojira was HUGE in Japan!
Er...
Ryan Fenton
...a bitter dejected Mothra mumbles profanities in broken Japanese.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
So, does this mean that we'll never get "Godzilla: The Musical?"
'Coz that would have been cool.
-err...
ps. don't attack my city
Shouldn't that be 'please don't attack my city'?
I'd certainly be polite to the 400-foot monster under those circumstances. Or any circumstances, really.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
Oh man.
They never even got a chance to do Godzilla vs. Mozilla
Have you tried Linux yet?
Toho group has taken over the operation of the Virgin Cinema movie theaters in Tokyo and seem to be doing a bang-up job of bringing first run movies to Japan in a very timely fashion.
It still costs an arm and a leg to see a movie here, but the theaters are much more comfortable than any that I've been to in the US.
Godzilla ought to be retiring. The threat of environmental damage and subsequent mutations caused by a nuclear waste spill has been shown to be a Chicken Little cause. As more countries shift their means of electricity production to nuclear, we have seen a progressive reduction of air pollution in those countries. In the US, coal and oil are still the primary means of power generation, and it shows when looking at statistical charts how much pollution per capita is produced by Americans.
Godzilla ought to be retired because the reasons that he was brought forth in the first place are gone. A new creature, relevent to today's global threats ought to be created so that kids can learn about those threats in an interesting and entertaining manner. Whether the threat ought to be fossil fuel pollution, terrorism, or global warming, bringing the issues to the public in an easily digestible and entertaining medium is the first step towards educating everyone about the dangers posed by these global problems.
I have been pwned because my
As long as they dont make another incredibly terrible movie like that Godzilla 2000 movie, I will be very happy
I would rather see a japanese guy in a rubber suit step on model trains for an hour than see the most expensive 3D technology used to string together a movie with plot elements so stupid it makes my eyes bleed!!!
Post apocalyptic gaming goodness
I'm a bit of a fan of Godzilla, but there are so many Godzilla movies that now the whole idea has been cheapened. The worst part is none of them are really that good. Some are just really bad. The original was bad as well, but that kind of added to it's charm. When you have 28 bad films, the joke is not too funny anymore. I hope Godzilla stays on the shelf until it's really ready to come back.
So where does the name "mozilla" come from anyway? I couldn't find it anywhere on the website...
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
Is it possible to come up with that many storylines? I mean, even the Friday the 13th seemed to be repeating itself after the three first ones (even though the first one was actually really really good).
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - radioactive scourge of Japan Godzilla was found dead in at the bottom of the Pacific ocean this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an Asian icon.
theya re rereleasing the orig 1954 B&W Godzilla in the USA in spring/summer (no dubbing!!!!!).... then next year we will get Godzilla: Final Wars.
it'll be sad they are not making more, but we still will have 28 movies to watch.... that's not too shabby. i have to admit i am just psyched to see the first one in a theater.
Teaser/trailer on apple.com for the reissue. fun fun fun!
It takes a special kind of person to actually enjoy retirement, and call me cynical, but I don't think Godzilla is that type of person.
In a couple months he'll start a consulting business.
"when life gets complicated, I like to take a nap in a tree and wait for dinner" - Hobbes.
In the end, to destroy the seemingly unbeatable (yet stupid looking) American robot monster, Godzilla is forced to explode himself into seperate fighting body-parts! His eTail will become a powerful digital entity known as GodThunderTail. His head will fly around and catch on fire : GodPhoenix! Ooops, I mean Firebirdzilla! Wrong again: GodFireZillaFox! The stupid american monster will be backed into a canyon, then becomes enraged by a massive wave of tiny annoying gophers which pop up both under and over him. He eventually starts to cry, and GodFireZillaFox pretends to feel sorry for him, and gives him some ActiveEcchs laxative ... whereupon Stupid American Monster forgets to eat a critical update monorail, and EXPLODES!
Remember folks, you heard it here first.
They outsourced his job to a Rent-A-Zilla from India.
Dear Blue Lobster:
I read that one of the largest crayfish ever found was 90lbs and 6 feet long. They found it in Louisiana in 1934 and named it Ol Papa Epice. They did not say, but I assume it would be a Red Swamp cray since they are native to that area. Does anyone know if this is true? I found this info at www.somaradio.ca/~minimalism/crawdad.html. I could not find any other info on it though. If anyone has any info on this please email me. It sounds crazy, but I dont know why it would be made up.
Thanks,
Daniel
Dear Gentle Sir:
Crayfish come in all sizes, some no larger than the top knuckle of your pinky and some larger than your average lapdog. Of course no one cares about the smallest ones when there are real monsters creeping around the dark corners of the world. Through time there have been some very large crayfish indeed, so let's look at a few examples of record-breaking crays.
Ol' Papa pic astounded Louisiana in 1934, but let's not forget that for publicity's sake the accepted measurement of 6 feet included his antennae. More accurate reports claim that the actual length from head to tail was 3 feet, 4 inches and weight was somewhere around 30lbs. Nonetheless these numbers are impressive since no other American cray reaches anywhere near these proportions. Since the species was never recorded doubts of authenticity suggest that the "cray" may have been a marine lobster introduced into a brackish swamp pool. DNA testing of the carapace has been inconclusive thus far.
In Borneo during World War II another creature waved its gargantuan claws into history. Bagaton (Kadazan-Dusun for "big jar") was found by Australian marines patrolling swamps. Measuring an amazing 4 feet, 2 inches and weighing 49lbs, Bagaton resembled marine lobsters from that region of the world but was caught in a freshwater pool. Taxonomists theorize that Bagaton is a marine species that had re-adapted to fresh water within the last several millennia. Again, lack of further scientific testing leaves us with more questions than answers, though the Bagaton corpse is still in relatively good condition for future research.
Prehistoric crayfish and lobsters handily beat today's record-holders for size and weight. Cruising the warm, shallow seas millions of years ago we find several bizarre specimens. Anomalocaris, a close lobster relative with lobster-like pincers but no body armor, actively swam and hunted food. It grew to lengths of five feet. Meganychus grew to lengths of eight feet and featured a set of claws that spanned four feet when fully splayed! Another genus, Gigaeurys, was almost as long as it was wide six feet and is thought to have been an evolutionary dead end that was as closely related to crabs as it was to true lobsters and crays.
Other, even larger, prehistoric fossils found off the coast of Japan inspired myths of the Ebira, a giant sea monster that guarded an island of treasure from the outside world. Thanks to the myths and the fossil species, this 20 foot long primitive lobster relative thought to be capable of vocalizations meant to stun prey eventually found its way into cinema in the 1966 Toho masterpiece Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster. Sadly for crustaceanists everywhere Godzilla made short work of the giant lobster champion with his atomic breath.
So what you want is Oilzilla. Hey, we'll send him right on over. Just wait 'till the election's done - he'll need a new job.
Oh no, they say he's got to go!
Godzilla!
Seriously, I liked some of the newer films that they released. The costumes have gotten to the point where you don't have to work hard to get past the whole "man in a rubber suit" issue. The city models have also gained an incredible level of detail. It's a shame really, but hopefully in a decade or so they'll bring him back.
After all, you can't actually kill Godzilla. No matter what you may think you've seen or read, he always comes back again. He cannot die.
Godzilla lives!
"They told me it was impossible. I replied with maniacal laughter." http://www.mydailyrant.com/
That we will not get an encore of Matthew Broderick vs. Godzilla? Christ, that's the best news since I got free porn that one time!
No but he got the alien babes.
Well, Godzilla has its own statue in Yurakucho (a district of Tokyo),
so I thought I'd go and check for you...
And indeed, Gozdilla may look huge...
But actually, if you don't count the pedestal, he's about the height of a 6 year-old
So you were right: Godzilla is not huge, even in Japan. It is just special effects (^_^)
(Anti-slashdotting measure: remove the spaces before the
I code, therefore I am.
Indeed, somewhere along the time Godzilla will rise up from the sea again (pun intended) to wreak havoc. The two words in the title "for now" pretty much sum up the situation.
is thousands of Japanese people going 'whew'.
Michael Dell stepping down from the helm at Dell and Godzilla going into retirement. Anyone smell collaboration?
How on earth do you get your eyes to bleed? You got horned lizard blood or something?
"The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance."
lots of force... Anyway, the 2000 version of Godzilla was a guy in a rubber suit again. He fights a monster that starts out as a rock, turns into a space ship, turns into an alien, and then turns into a mutant Godzilla super clone featuring the super gene Regenerator G8... or something. 4 Stars.
You are thinking of the Godzilla with old-Ferris in New York. Overflowing with originality, they called it "Godzilla".
I remember Toho announcing that Godzilla was dead a few years ago, complete with a Japanese actor at a press conference crying woefully about his passing.
It's an interesting cultural statement when you think about it.. Death first, THEN retirement.
The plots were,at best, flimsy. But the strange dubbing, the even stranger cast of characters, the
great miniature sets, throbbin music, and the lady with the big ears.
You gotta love these movies. Just rent one, with
a big bag of popcorn and a six pack. Sit back and
watch the "big fellow" destroy Tokyo.
My son, when he was very young, even came up with a dance called the Godzilla Stomp.
Its really a much better web browser than Explorer and..
Oh wait, GODzilla. sorry..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
I'll tell you where he's going...
Too bad, I'd like to see Kaneko write & direct another one. I just happened to watch Godzilla Mothra King Ghidorah (2001) and it really was quite good, almost as good as the 1954 Godizlla. No stupid kids, no superheroes, only a teeny-bit of weapon X... just people struggling against the unknown, with a bit of superstition thrown in for spice.
And those pupil-less eyes. Cool.
Well its offical, I can kill myself; Sam and Max and Godzilla in one week.
--Bob
'Cause he cannot die anyway! Regenerator G8, baby!! I'd love to freebase some of that stuff! :)
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
Thank god for that. You know, despite being a Godzilla fan I've never actually seen the original. It never gets broadcast, and it's not available on DVD that I've found (I'm in the UK).
Anyone know differently? Does the original exist, preferably on a region 2 DVD?
Cheers,
Ian
Japanese or European?? ;)
Just a quick note that the Japanese newspapers at work on the 3rd all had articles saying "5 to 10 years before another Godzilla movie." Heck... we even had the people that deliver yogurt drinks putting flyers stating such on every desk in the office. Japan: Gotta Love It.
It's just a big linguistic misunderstanding. He merely called a contractor to give an estimate for his bathroom - he's retiling.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
...before we get Godzilla On Ice?
Godzilla ought to be retiring. The threat of environmental damage and subsequent mutations caused by a nuclear waste spill has been shown to be a Chicken Little cause. As more countries shift their means of electricity production to nuclear, we have seen a progressive reduction of air pollution in those countries. In the US, coal and oil are still the primary means of power generation, and it shows when looking at statistical charts how much pollution per capita is produced by Americans.
True, but Godzilla wasn't really about nuclear power. Godzilla was all about the nuclear bombs that the United States dropped on Japan.
The effect that Hiroshima and Nagasaki had on the Japanese psyche was simply incredible. It instantly broke the will of the Japanese to fight, enabling the Americans to come in and transform their society. The scars still haven't completely healed. Every time you see some post-apocalyptic anime/film/book come out of Japan, you can bet that it was influenced by the atomic bomb.
Gojira was just a natural outgrowth of that. Look at the original story: A huge amoral destructive force comes from abroad and lays waste to Japan. Conventional weapons are useless against it, and it destroys the Japanese military. The monster is only stopped by the use of a weapon that is so terrible that the creator would rather die than see it unleashed upon the world.
Gojira was always a bomb reference. As long as we have super-weapons, he'll never be irrelevant. I'll miss the big guy.
This
(Anti-slashdotting measure: remove the spaces before the .jpg extension in the URL to view the pictures)
We have to type in the URLs by hand? You must work for Microsoft Security.
Five percent of one year's DoD budget puts us on Mars.
I find them bores as the old Star Trek series, can anyone truely say they admired Captain Kirk? Fantastic troll, the way you snuck that in at the end was inspiring :) I salute you!
haha I can see it now
Godzilla must fight mothra
while Godzlla is distracted, those space aliens try to put a mind control virus on the internet*, only to have it fight Mozilla!
this could explain pop-ups.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Faster than a speeding ..... welll .. ... uhjj.. ....
Stronger than a steam
Able to leap tall
hmm.. so what does Mozilla do ?
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
when do we see a makeover for godzilla?
we could have a genetic mutation run wild and create a huge Tokyo smahing electric breathing mutant lizard.
Nyuk.Nyuk.Nyuk.
Do you think at anytime people actually bilieved nuclear waste would bring out giant lizards/people/any damn bug on stock footage?
geez, thats what none technology is for, Guh.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
for that. It brought back a wonderfull memory.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
... Michael Dell has nothing to do with it.
;-).
Godzilla will retire from making movies in order to serve MPAA as an enforcer, to scare movie downloaders
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
... will miss our Gigantic Japanese Reptile Masters.
So when do we get the Mothra spin-off sitcom, and the Gamera E! True Hollywood Story?
Xbox reviews.. We think they're funny.
The real link:
Click
It would be nice if the people behind a certain other fading decrepit classic series would take the hint.
Chances are, from some obscure open source project. :)
Godzilla isn't the only one whose made tons of campy movies...but I actually enjoy his campy movies. Heck, one James Bond movie is two too many.
Your subject makes no sense dude!
it's == it is
I hope this means he won't be smashing my beautiful SimCity anymore!
[anybody else remember when Godzilla would randomly wreak havoc in SimCity?]
Good riddance, Gojira. You were always fun to watch, but sharing the planet with you, you ought to be more careful. At least take your friends with you, so they don't trash the place, either. *bows out of the way, graciously*
--
make install -not war
The first thing I thought of was "Damn, he's already retiring? How come no one told me? Are we gonna have a meeting in the morning?"
Long time EasyNews subscribers will know who I'm referring to.
Right - now that nuclear waste turned out to be completely safe, and no one ever needs to worry about nuclear warfare in their town, we should forget about Gojira, and what happens when we attack the Earth when we think we're the baddest on the planet. I wonder if they'll mock us, or forget us, those who survive, after he's been gone awhile: when we next assault the planet, and bring some Gojira back.
--
make install -not war
Long overdue. I mean, really. Given Japan's ongoing economic malaise, how could they keep rebuilding Tokyo for every film?
Godzilla is basically an oversized wrestler, and we all know that wrestlers never, ever retire. Just... one... last... grudge... match.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Lycra? Hmm.. now, X-Men vs Godzilla.. maybe that'd have mileage.
Care to revise much?
The Japanese military was thrilled to go toe toe superweapon to superweapon with the Americans. The Japanese people obeyed the will and word of their God-King. (Don't forget unit 731 and their already weaponized biological arms)
And as much as Godzilla was about the aftermath of the atomic bombs it was also about the promis of an uncertain future technology might bring, for better or ill, only to be realized after the dye was cast, and of course the mercurial nature of US foreign policy.
US tests nuclear weapons, Japan suffers unintended results.
Godzilla was always and will always be a much more multifaceted expression of Japanese culture than "We got nuked! Wonder Movie Powers Activate! Form of: Self-Pity."
Of course now the computer generating their special 404 page is getting slashdotted instead, so your trick with the url's didn't help them any.
Does that mean, I've actually been using Mojira all this years?
This is a plea to Hollywood, in particular the mor... the gentlemen behind the 1998 Godzilla:
PLEASE make another American Godzilla.
Back in 1996, Toho killed Godzilla in Godzilla vs Destroyah, and "Minilla" (aka Baby Godzilla aka Son of Godzilla aka NOT THAT FUCKING MUPPET AGAIN) took over as the "new Godzilla". This was Toho's way of saying, 'We will not make Godzilla movies anymore.'
Then the WONDERFUL Godzilla 1998 arrived... And the Japanese were so OUTRAGED that they demanded a new Japanese Godzilla.
So we got the kick-ass Godzilla 2000, and the following very entertaining Kaiju flicks. You guys gave us 5 more years of "Godzilla borrowed time".
So PLEASE MAKE GODZILLA 2 and repeat the magic!!
P.S.: If you like Japanese SF, check out "Returner", also from Toho. Nice special effects, derivative but highly enjoyable story.
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/02/08/13/1748247.shtml ?tid=154
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
So does this mean he'll be sentenced to a lifetime of horror on Monster Island?
(Don't worry, it's just a name)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Oops
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
The Godzilla franchise is closing its doors and selling off their locks, stocks and barrels, however
A select group of original Godzilla developers have licences the genome and starting a new project, OpenGodzilla, which will allow the innocent victims of primeval sea-dwelling beasts to view and contribute genes to the monsters that destroy their lives.
Senior OpenGodzilla developer Owyabitme Muvathuka said that people have traditionally had no input into the supermonster design process leading to poor quality genetics and weaknesses to conventional weapons that proper review of the code would prevent, and hailed an era of free-as-in-beer, invincible terrors.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
You've Forgotten the Smog Monster!? http://www.stomptokyo.com/godzillatemple/movie11.h tm
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As long as there is money to earn with B-SCIFI Godzilla will life.
End of story.
Godzilla To Retire
Thank God!!!!1!
--
Pan T. Hose, PhD
Skyscraper Construction Consulting Services
Tokyo, Japan.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
It'll happen - believe me :)
;-)
cLive
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
There is a short animated film titled "Bambi Meets Godzilla". It's worth watching, especially if your parents forced you to watch Disney films as a child.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Finally you can fly helicopters over Japan without getting smashed like a bug, and you can drive in the streets of Tokyo without being stepped on.
this is probably the most boring sig in the world
It instantly broke the will of the Japanese to fight. . .
If by "instantly" you mean that we had to bomb them conventionally again and they were still prepared to go down to the last, man, woman and child if the Emperor called them to, than yeah, I guess.
KFG
Wouldn't surprise me in the LEAST.
Mix the failings of Usenet with the shortcomings of the World Wide Web and the result is slashdot.
...Godzilla said today that after winding up his acting career he intends to move into politics, and will be running for Governor of the Kyoto Prefecture next year.
qntm.org
No doubt he's hanging out on Monster Island, shamelessly spoiling his grandchildren (who are probably at the smoke ring blowing stage now) and swapping stories about the good old days with Gamera.
This was the best part of all the Godzilla episodes ever made. It was just so weird and at the same time it was beautiful. Only THEY could communicate with Mothra and instruct him to fight off Godzilla. Their haunting tune, sychroneous speech and weird little clamshell home all stick in my mind as creative standouts.
this wont be good for the contractors and Buildings industry. Without Godzilla there is not much to rebuild.
"The quality of life is inversely proportional to the number of keys on your keyring."
The giant robot attack in SC4 just doesn't cut the mustard. The original Godzilla-stomping was the best.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
This just in: "TOKYO (AP)- Godzilla is in a serious negotiation with Steven Spielberg for a 3 picture deal starting in 2005 for a whopping $50m). Julia Roberts is rumored to have signed on to the deal for at least two of the three pix. This would be her first outing with the japanese superstar. Mathew Broderick was not available for comment. "
...why the Japanese Film industry isn't capable of making a non-cheesy Godzilla SFX film.
I mean, Emmerich's German-American Godzilla in New York had pretty decent effects, but a dull story.
The Japanese Godzilla films often have a good or at least a cute story (*), but really really bad effects. And bad acting. And bad costumes. And bad props.
(* I just _loved_ one Godzilla film that included an UFO traveling to the WW2 era. An American soldier spots it and says to his superiour: "Do we report this, sir?" "No, they wouldn't believe us, anyway. But you can tell your children about this when they're older, Major Spielberg.")
So why don't the Japanese filmmakers get together, set up a decent special effects budget and a good script and make THE ultimate Godzilla movie? It's their national trademark, after all. They should know, shouldn't they?
------------------
You may like my a cappella music
Millions of Japanese spontaneously snapped their heads up and down rapidly while saying, "Uh-huh!"
In related news, the cardboard skyscrper industry saw a sharp decline in orders, the Japanese Monofilament-flown Airplane and Helicopter Club disbanded, and FoamRubLizSuitCo lost dozens of Yen in market share value...
Windows XP SP2 told me to install third-party software that prevents viruses and protects stability... I chose Ubuntu
Now if they'd only retire other franchises long past their prime, like the Star Trek films (no, I didn't mean that as a troll - have you seen the last two films???)
Is that in the US I seriousy doubt it is attracting younger viewers. I mean, come on, I'm a huge scifi fan and over twenty years old and even I think Godzilla looks cheesy and has no appeal. I was able to watch only two of the films before I just couldn't take it anymore. Face it: most americans and japanese I bet thinks it sucks and should be retired. You don't still see Howdy Doody on teh air or cheap western in the theaters, why cheap monster flicks?
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
If you're talking about Gojira ('54), then yes, I'd agree with you, but Gojira has been retooled throughout his career to embody the threat of, or defense against, the threat du jour. Look no further than Gojira vs Hedorah (aka Godzilla vs the Smog Monster) to see an example where the threat is not the bomb, but pollution. Then there are the Ghidorah and first Mechagodzilla films (invading aliens), Godzilla x Biollante (genetic engineering), Godzilla x Gigan (heartless corporations, albeit alien in the story), etc.
In many cases, there was no real environmental or social message, just titanic wrestling matches played for fun and camp, and there's not a thing wrong with that, either!
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
Almost as bad as when I heard he had checked into the Betty Ford clinic back in the 70's. Though I was glad when he recovered and went back to films.
:)
And that rancorous divorce from Rodan, what a mess...
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
There was that Rugrats episode where they went to see the ice musical Reptar On ice. Who can forget those songs? "Reptar, Reptar, gotta find that Reptar..."
Here, how about I try my luck at correcting the parent of KFG's post, too.
enabling the Americans to come in and transform their society.
If by "transforming" you mean destroying their shrines and raping their women, well then, yes, you're correct.
I, for one, welcome our new reptillian overlord.
Godzilla was all about the nuclear bombs that the United States dropped on Japan
The scars still haven't completely healed
So true. That's why most Japanese run to see Space Battleship Yamato...it was Japan striking back!!!
Gojira was always a bomb reference. As long as we have super-weapons, he'll never be irrelevant. I'll miss the big guy.
I'd go a step further and say the Godzilla is a representation of the United States itself, not only because he comes from/across the Pacific ocean, and is born of radioactivity, but think of the reference Yamamoto made when they bombed Pearl Harbor: " I fear we have awakened a sleeping Giant".
Not only that, but while the first Godzilla film portrays him as a destroyer, in subsequent films he becomes a savior, almost a God, which parallels our rebuilding Japan.
He ain't da bomb, he's Uncle Sam !
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
The original Godzilla movie we all (or a good number of us) know and love, with Raymond Burr, is an Americanized version. They deleted a lot of scenes, some of which were rather important for the message to get across. Does anyone know where an English language DVD of this could be found?
I didn't think the house band in Hell would play this badly.
And no Raymond Burr! Hooray!
And no Harry Shearer either... (only memorable thing about the 98 US version)
Escape Pod Films: Sketch Comedy and Web Series
This version has added scenes with Raymond Burr as a visiting American reporter, and two or three others who are made up to look like the Japanese principals. Doubtless they altered the film in some other ways to introduce these scenes.
However, this should not deter you, if the 1954 American version is all that you can find (understand, I mean the augmented version that was prepared by Toho for release in the US, back in 1954). The movie still holds together pretty well. Remember that Raymond Burr was getting meaty roles back in 1954, such as in Hitchcock's "Rear Window," where he plays the villian. We're inclined in my generation to think of him as this ancient sod, not at all the case 50 years ago.
the "Who Gives a Flying Fuck Dept.?"
Wishing I was a millionaire since 1969.
Oh no! Gojira!
[insert witty quote here]
I can see it now:
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
It will be easier to insure towers.
Godzilla *HATES* towers.
"Tokyo Tower transmitted good television programs to millions of people. In the name of TV lovers everywhere, I WILL PUNISH YOU!" -- Sailor Moon
Oh man, you're just missing the whole point. For those of us who are not native Japanese speakers, and thus incapable of picking up the alliterative subtleties of the sinister one-eyed Col. Yamaguchi and his elite reaction anti-monster force, or Prof. Shiro and his young daughter trying to save the world, the dubbing opens up whole new artistic dimensions.
*moves lips* *pause* Look! Godzilla! *lips still moving* *lips stop moving* We are doomed!
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
Lifetime on Monster Island, yes. Horror no. The monsters get to fight all day, and apparently they really like it. Minya is there, too!
Wondering from which two movies out of 28 you
formed your opinions.
They should work with Mel Gibson to come up with another multimillion blockbuster hit!!!
Of Course the pressing question - how to resolve the battle?
Who wins? Christ or Godzilla?
Christ
- Deity, supernatural powers, rises from dead.
Godzilla
- Lighting Breath, Super Regeneration, and really big feet!!!
Blah, I misread that as a "non-cheesy Godzilla SEX film" ... I still have to recover from that thought before I can face the day now!
:/
Must need caffine or something
Go go Godzilla, yeah
Oh no, there goes Tokyo
Go go Godzilla, yeah..."
--with apologies to BOC
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
This is obviously a trick by Godzilla to fool us into letting our guards down. After this "retirement" he is going to go back to his war room on Monster Island and begin forming his master plan... Godzilla: All Monsters Fuck You Up.
This brilliant plan will be unprecedented in its complexity. His next attack will be on the west coast of Japan, rather than the east, and will involve a never-before-seen stomp, kick, flail arms pattern. A stripped down and more efficient revision of his traditional kick, scream, stomp, flail arms methodology.
Now is when we must be most wary people. Don't believe it.
Please mod parent up: +5, Funny!
Now Godzilla can go shoot a round with Michael Dell
Every five years or so when the makers of Beanie Babies threaten to stop making them, then change their minds "due to popular demand". Or the way Disney advertises that this is the last time you'll be able to buy Sleeping Beauty for the next five years, only they do it for real as they have a large enough film library to cycle through them.
First and foremost, Godzilla is the Son of Bravo: a 15 megaton H-bomb exploded by the US as a nuclear test on Bikini Atoll on March 1, 1954. Bravo dug a crater a mile wide and 240 feet deep, had a mushroom cloud 18 miles high, with a cap 62 miles across. It shed radioactive ash across an area 20,000 square miles, hitting a Japanese fishing boat (the Lucky Dragon No. 5) with a lethal dose for the ship's radioman (Aikichi Kuboyama). It spawned a nuclear typhoon that raged over hundreds of miles, engulfing Rongelap Atoll and its people. Japanese newspapers called this "The Second Atomic Bombing of Mankind". Kuboyama died on September 23, 1954. On November 3, 1954, "Gojira" was released, with Godzilla sinking fishing boats, rampaging over Ohto island in the teeth of a typhoon, and destroying Tokyo. This is Godzilla in his most ancient form: as the god of the atom, and the god of mass destruction.
While Godzilla first destroyed a nuclear power plant in 1966, it was part of a nuclear weapons manufacturing plant run by the Red Bamboo terrorists using slave labor (some of the slaves were kidnapped from Infant Island, involving Mothra as well as Godzilla). It was not until the end of the Cold War that Godzilla became the god of nuclear power, and the god of Chernobyl and Tokai. Considering eight plant workers were sprayed with radioactive water in a mishap in Japan in the last month, and America's own Hole-in-the-Head reactor in Ohio (we came within a 16th inch of our very own Chernobyl in the midwest), that aspect of Godzilla is hardly irrelevant.
With Iraq's missing WMD's in the news, Bush's desire to make mini H-bombs he can use, and Congress clearing the way for a rapid resumption of the production and testing of nuclear weapons (not to mention the 30,000 Russian nukes still pointed at us on hair trigger alert), the oldest aspect of Godzilla is alarmingly once more extremely relevant.
In the mythology of Godzilla, humanity, which once stole fire from heaven, has now stolen fire from the atom. But that fire is as wild and untamable as Godzilla himself. Originally made in the image of the T. Rex, Godzilla is an animal, the dominant alpha carnivore, the biggest to walk the earth, and the atom is his territory. Godzilla is also the god of the atom, the world's only, who demands that humanity pay for its theft. He will sleep in peace only when humanity returns what it has stolen, destroying all nuclear weapons, and forsaking them and nuclear power, fission and fusion, forever. Until then, expect his return: in the movies, in typhoons and the sinking of fishing boats, in nuclear tests, in nuclear plant accidents and disasters, in the deaths and damage caused by human pride, human greed, and human stupidity.
Have we no hope then? There is one: the mightiest monster in all creation, the one power greater than the world's sole superpower, the goddess of peace, humanity's greatest friend and protector: Mothra! She alone has defeated the god of mass destruction to become the Queen of Monsters.
Homage to Godzilla, King of Monsters, in the year of his Golden Jubilee!
Homage to Mothra, Queen of Monsters, in the year of her Ruby Jubilee!
"Our people.. stricken with disease.
You.. you played with the fires of the gods.
And you dare to come here and ask us for help!
You betrayed us! You expect us to trust you after what you have done?"
Infant Island Chief, "Godzilla vs. Mothra", 1964 - for the tenth anniversary of Bravo
I'm sorry, but this is a pet peeve of mine-- People seem to lord "gojira" over the heads of others as if it were more correct than "Godzilla"... guess what? Both "Godzilla" and "Gojira" are written /exactly/ the same in Japanese--depending on which standard of romanization is used, both are equally correct. There are 3 characters in the name, 'go' 'ji' and 'ra'... but 'ji' can also written 'zi' and 'dzi', and 'ra' can also be written 'la'. Therefore "Godzilla" is just as valid a romanization of the original as 'Gojira' is, no more, no less.
IIRC it was even in the new Godzilla movie: a female scientist told a sailor or something that was trying to find out what happened to a guy who was attacked by Godzilla (okay, I haven't seen the movie in a couple years, forgive me if my details are wrong) that it was Gojira, not Godzilla (and not in the nicest way, I believe...)
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Um...
Isn't he pretty fscking big EVERYWHERE?!?!
I hear it's going to be the last one because they kill him off in the movie.
WhAt?!?! They've done it before?!?! The first one? No way!
Well this doesn't bode well at all. When writers/producers create big media events out of a finale, the character should stay retired... Just like how those Death of Superman collectors comic books were the last time we saw Superman.
WhAT?!?!
Your new monsters are already covered by Toho:
Fossil fuel pollution:
"Mothra" (1961) : destruction of Newkirk Motors.
Any Godzilla movie depicting the destruction of refineries and other oil industry targets.
Terrorism:
"Godzilla vs. Ebirah" (1966): Godzilla and Mothra come down on the Red Bamboo terrorists and their WMDs.
"Mothra 3: King Ghidora Attacks" (1998): Ghidora as King of Terror flying into twin towers (very accurate depiction, I might add), shock and awe attack on Tokyo, Mothra as Queen of Peace kicking his butt.
Environmental Issues:
"Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster" (1971): Hedorah as pollution monster, Godzilla's disgust with pollution, dealing with environmental problems the right way (would later become a recurring theme).
"Godzilla vs. Mothra" (1992): Battra, the Black Mothra, and the Earth punishing those who harm the Earth. Mount Fuji, not amused by Maritomo Company's plans for development, drops Godzilla on top of the project.
"Rebirth of Mothra" (1996): Death Ghidora as monster of super volcanoes, forest fires, and global warming, importance of forests, dealing with environmental problems the right way.
"Rebirth of Mothra 2" (1997): Dagara, a Mothra badly mutated by Belems (a plan to remove ocean pollution that backfired), threatens humanity; importance of the seas, water pollution, dealing with environmental problems the right way, tribute to real world environmentalists who saved Ishigaki's coral reefs.
"Godzilla vs. Megagiras" (2000): importance of clean energy, neither fission or fusion/plasma are clean in Godzilla's book.
Those are just some samples. Lots of issues have been dealt with by the monsters over the last fifty years. Try watching some movies and taking them as seriously as they were meant.
Mr. Goto: "Nature spent millions of years making all this, and we destroyed it all in a matter of minutes."
Ms. Goto: "So what now?"
Mr. Goto: "It may not be too late to save the trees in the forests. It's going to take many years of hard work."
Ms. Goto: "Maybe, when we have grandchildren... they can live in a different world -- one where people respect the environment. We have to make sure that becomes a reality."
Mothra Leo roars "Grow! Grow!", and sheds ten thousand years worth of sunlight, rain, and dreams on the forest, which comes back to life in a matter of minutes.
"Rebirth of Mothra" 1996
And always remember... Godzilla is neither good nor bad. He's just Godzilla. Much in the same way that a hurricane is just a hurricane.
--
If I actually could spell I'd have spelled it right in the first place.
It's been so long since I've seen the word Godzilla I was thinking : I know about Mozilla and Bugzilla. So then WTF is Godzilla? What does it do? Um, oh yeah.
It's understandable. Godzilla's getting really old. His roar is getting a little hoarse and he's developed flabby thighs from eating too many nuclear reactors.
I used to play LustyMud (text based), and there was a section with Godzilla in it. The monster wasn't inherently aggresive, but if you attacked it it would rain down hell on you. It usually took only one or two hits to get you under your "wimpy treshold" and send you automatically running away. The catch? - There was a single room with only one entrance to the West of Godzilla. Want to guess what was the default first direction tried by the Wimpy mode? Yes. West. And Godzilla *remembered* you, so if you tried to get past it again it attacked on sight. Attacking Godzilla was usually followed by a long time sitting down doing nothing, waiting for your hp count to get high enough as to make it past the monster on the way back.
Ahh... the memories.
Overcaffeinated. Angry geeks.
ROFL with that one, keep the genius rolling!