Godzilla '14 as a late-Showa Movie in Disguise

NERDYBANDGEEKS- Godzilla is secured as an anti hero in the film, Basically just having Godzilla fight other monsters that threaten earth completely disintegrates any chances of that. Godzilla may have moments where he is fed up with the humans, but he will never go all out.

Godzilla is a balancer, destroying man would make him an imbalancer.

Durp,All good examples, but largely none of them come together as a whole save for maybe Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla. And even then there's a less cooperative relationship between the characters and Godzilla. At least in the new film there seems to be some reverance for him from Serizawa and a connection between him and Ford on a narrative level.

I'm not saying these elements aren't used again in Godzilla films, but they were rarely seen again as a combined formula. One I think this film emulates closer to the late Showa films than any other decade.

Personally I would compare Serizawa's sentiments closely to Miki's, both view him as a savior throughout the films. Yuki doesn't share the narrative with him that Ford does, but besides that I don't see much of a difference. Of course there's a limit to this being done as he's not the hero, for the most part, in any of the heisei outside of Spacegodzilla, but most of these aspects have been brought into the films in the best way they could manage to encorporate them.

But they didn't incorporate them as parallel to the new film as the late Showa films did. The Heisei and Millennium series had these elements, but as I mentioned before, they typically weren't all together in the same film nor followed the same formula.

And Miki doesn't seem to have empathy for Godzilla until the latter Heisei films. Furthermore none of them really bid Godzilla farewell with the resounding joy seen in late Showa or the 2014 film. There was some reverance at the end of SpaceGodzilla (minus Sato who, for some reason, said he wasn't finished with Godzilla), but not much else.

Thank you for doing this! :D

Hard for me to do an honest comparison to the 70s films since it’s been eons since I watched any of them. You know them better than I do so I’ll take your word for it. The first thing that came to mind for me at the end of G2014, and which I had seen much more recently was the Heisei Gamera series. It completely reminded me of the feel of those. I had seen others express similar sentiments.

It’s funny that any comparison would be made to the 70s Showa series, the Gamera Showa series, or the Heisei Gamera series (and rightly so), considering how many references were made to the ’54 original and the inspiration everyone involved seem to take from it. That’s the one film they constantly referenced and yet G2014 was as far removed from that film as you could get!

^True. Although I'm not in the least bit disappointed the movie largely has very little to do with the 1954 film, it's still rightfully has roots in the series that have been done before.

To my shock, I find that I entirely agree with the "Stealth-Showa" concept regarding Godzilla.

Edwards has reportedly watched all the old Godzilla films and it's no surprise that when he went to design his own movie it echoed what is arguably the most successful of the three Eras of the Toho Godzilla films. I don't think anyone will deny that the Heisei and Millennium were more well put together than most of the later Showa films, but the Showa series in general established all of what Godzilla is and much of the latter series wouldn't have existed without the Showa series previously established understanding of Godzilla. The lores don't necessarily match, as the Heisei era began with a reboot to the franchise with Return of Godzilla which created a new continuity from the Showa films, but still our understanding of Godzilla comes largely from the Showa films.

Using that fact alone, one could make extensive arguments in favor of the "Stealth-Showa" concept.

When it comes to the realism, BIGBADBEN, hundreds of Ghidorah's would not fall into the "realism" category. A creature like Ghidorah by its very design is meant to be unique and one of a kind. There's no reason to think that Ghidorah was ever spawned from an entire race or species of three headed golden dragons from space.

The meteor concept is sound, though using it AGAIN would bring back that "camp" that Edwards was largely hoping to avoid. Also, space monsters would bring camp back as well. You can't have an alien invasion without camp. It just doesn't happen. Why? Because it's entirely based on nothing but imagination. When we imagine an alien invasion, we have no idea what it would actually be like so we have to guess. Something we don't have to guess nearly as much about is the way they brought this Godzilla to be, as a creature which has existed for who knows how long and I honestly think they should continue to follow that design. It's much easier to say that Ghidorah was found here as a monster of Earth and kept somewhere, possibly sustained in some kind of stasis or at least monitored in whatever deep cavern he happens to be hibernating in, than to say he's a monster from space without a difinitive origin as he lacks one in the original Toho franchise.

Ghidorah's design will have to change for this franchise to become "realistic," as his Toho form is completely invalid for a "realistic" take on a creature that large. Standing upright on two legs alone disqualifies him from "realism." Rather, imagine Smaug with three heads, and that's about as realistic as Ghidorah will ever be and it is very likely they'll be forced to take it in that direction. Ghidorah's bulk will be dropped in favor of a design that can actually move around with at least a moderate level of agility and that is actually capable of flight and remaining competitive with Godzilla. The original Ghidorah design was larger than Godzilla, yes, but as far as being a Godzilla enemy he was one of Godzilla weakest by far with a win/loss ratio of 0/9 against Godzilla. Nine losses across six movies makes him one of, if not Godzilla's least successful enemies, and much of that can be chalked up to his design witohut considering the fact that Godzilla always has to win.

For those who don't know, the Toho Ghiorah would never actually be able to fly with wings that were sideways to his body. If he leaned forward to try and gain lift, he'd fall onto his stomach as wings that small would never be strong enough to lift his massive bulk off the ground. Once on the ground, lift cannot be generated and flight becomes impossible. Standing upright, he'd flap his wings forward and backward as the joints of his wings obviously weren't designed to turn and he'd just throw himself onto his back. Flight for the Toho design of Ghidorah is an impossibility, so for this franchise his design has to change in order to accomodate that ability and that means slimming him down and giving him a new body design in order to accomodate realism.

Also, I'm quite sure some would argue the "Gravity Beams" would help him fly, but Ghidorah's gravity beams have absolutely no effect on gravity. Never have, never will. Kaizer Ghidorah managed to use them to lift and throw Godzilla, but that was Kaizer Ghidorah and he is not King Ghidorah. They are two different creatures with two different though appearingly similar abilities. "Gravity Beams" are a fan given name to Ghidorah's lightning attack and they have never actually held an effect on gravity.

So for Ghidorah to be real in this franchise he's going to have to be extensiely redesigned in order to make flight at least a mildly realistic possibility, his body design has to change to either a quadrupedal or extensively slimmed down bipedal posture, and they have to figure out how to introduce him without ripping off the original scheme of him being an alien. I am in favor of Ghidorah being a monster born on Earth and hidden away in hibernation like Godzilla had been in all honesty.

I love this article! Couldn't have put it any better Gman! Hopefully we'll get a Angurius in the new series, give us a good G vs Gigan deja vu :D

I read your original blog post, and loved it. I think you really hit the nail on the head. I recall walking out of the theatre and thinking almost the exact same thing (except I was pretty grumpy at that point, it took me a while to warm up to the new film)

~B

Looks like i did some more digging to see what else that G14 can relate to.

Anyway here i go with this.

Well, G14 can relate to G54, why? Even though there is no love triangle in the new G14, there is still the love part. Now, what else can we relate here? Simple, Both godzilla's were effected by electricity. The muto's emps hurt godzilla, and in G54 godzilla stepping on the electric lines and cutting through the high tension electrical towers may have hurt his atomic breath in that sentence.

As of right now that's about it, but i am still doing some research on this.