Cancer Man

I was one of the people who saw the fairly hokey American version of Godzilla back in the now fairly distant summer of 1998. I was not too impressed by the slick American version of a franchise that had it's roots back in Japan, but what charm and quality does the original Japanese film have? What made it the success it was and why did it spawn a devoted cult following?

I did not see the original Godzilla, but I did see Gamera: Guardian of the Universe, Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah and Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. Those thee films had that campy charm and I found them surprisingly entertaining.

What do you see in them?

dhmac

Cheesy fun, plain and simple.

(...but, obviously, not so "simple" that the makers of the American Godzilla "got it" - talk about missing the point entirely!)

However, the original Japanese Godzilla, though, is a whole other beast (literally)

adamblast

That Raymond Burr, he's a total babe.

atlantamoi

I was a kid in the 70's when I watched Godzilla movies on TV. Pretty cool stuff for a kid back then.

onebyone

It's total camp, and I love the camp.

Mondo Kane

Sorraffy

American voice overs of the Japanese actors, and the "backyard" movie type explosions

The Cow

I thought the Japanese version before they dubbed in Raymond Burr for the US was better

TomOpus

All of the above

look4sheep

Used to watch it on TV during the weekends when I was a kid, liked it probably cause it was a monster movie, plus godzilla could fly (sort of). Ya, the cheesy factor, although when I was young, it wasn't that cheesy.

Trout

Big things go smash. Me like.


I always liked the various monsters, some look pretty cool (and some of the alien costumes are pretty funky).

milo bloom

The original was an examination of the utter devastation that comes from tampering with nature's powers. The horrifying destruction that does not care for age or gender, wealth or social status. It just destroys.

Jason

Same here.

Plus, big things indeed go smash, and me like

Nick Danger

American nuclear bomb testing creates a monster that destroys Japanese cities, but unlike in 1945, the monster is defeated.

Also, we get to identify with a creature who smooshes rush hour traffic and tears down cubicle-filled buildings.

maingon

i love them campy fun and love seeing "giant" monsters fighting, grew up with godzilla and now days with everything being cgi its nice seeing some old school stuff

resinrats

Nothing more fun than seeing a giant monster destroy stuff. Production was always good enough that I never had a problem believing that these monsters were 200+ feet tall. Modelwork is always more realistic than CGI can ever hope to be. Too bad they don't make these still.

I wouldn't mind another American financed Godzilla film if the US financed it and the Japanese made it. Think of how cool it would be. I'm sure the most expensive Japanese film had a tiny budget. The US could easily tripple that and it would be cheap for US standards.

adamblast

Absolutely. I was just being silly. The Raymond Burr scenes are laughably bad.

UAIOE

I voted "smashing shit up" but to be perfectly honest...it was those model sets.

Miniature models with painstakingly precise detail is something that i have always liked.

You can CGI some office building and paint some details inside, but someone *BUILT* those old sets and put alot of effort into making those look as realistic as humanly possible.

That is a billion times more cool.

Giantrobo

I don't know, there are so many reasons why I love Godzilla and the whole Kaiju genre I'd fill a whole page and I know you guys don't really give that bigga shit about my thoughts on this.

One thing I do know for sure is that Godzilla never scared me; but the Green and Brown Gargantuas always scared the shit out of me when i was a kid.

And I still say that if Spielberg can make realistic Dinos in Jurassic Park then TOHO can get off their asses and make a really great CGI Godzilla. Like I said in another thread, people don't expect much from TOHO and so crappy G films are just written off as "camp fun".

That's sad to me.

rexinnih

Pretty much all of the above but love seeing things smashed up!

Cancer Man

Not to give too much away, anyone who has seen Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah would doubtlessly be scared by that film's pro-Japanese political views. The other Godzilla movie I've seen is not so strident in it's political views and neither is Gamara.

mndtrp

I love the times when Godzilla is getting the beatdown and finally lets loose and whoops some ass. He'll throw his little temper tantrum, let out that awesome yell, flail his arms around a bit, and then bitch-slap whichever unlucky monster happens to be around.
I like how, more often than not, Godzilla is trying to help Japan, and they try to attack him with stupid missiles. Godzilla will march into the city, tell them "Oh, you're really fucked now." and demolish it. Power lines? Ha!! Walk through them, big guy!

Godzilla flicks are great to throw up in the background of a party. It's not entirely necissary to follow along. And how cool is that yell he lets loose?

B5Erik

Well, originally Godzilla was neither cheesy (for the times), nor campy. The original Godzilla movie (Gojira) was deadly serious, and very dark in tone. Godzilla was the representation of the atomic bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki back in 1945. The Americanized version watered that down a little, but the movie still is much darker and more serious than the movies that followed.

With King Kong VS Godzilla Toho decided to go in a campier, more fun direction - and the movies got a little sillier each time until the series had nowhere to go except on hiatus. When the movies came back in 1984/85 they became more serious again, but viewed with a modern eye the style of filmmaking seemed campy anyway.

So what is the appeal for me?

Seeing well built city sets demolished by a guy in a rubber suit. They're just a lot of fun, and I actually like a lot of the Japanese actors - some of them have a lot of personality, enough that it even shows through the bad dubbing. But I've always wanted to be the guy in the Godzilla suit.

Jason

Sure. People tend to forget that, back in the 1960's, those movies had probably the most elaborate, best executed, special effects in the world. Eiji Tsuburaya was a one-man ILM. He was building elaborate models and using sophisticated compositing equipment when Roger Corman was filming bugs walking on a photograph of a building.

chente

I'm in mexico right now and the local cable company aired Son of Godzilla and Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla yesterday. Pretty fun.