The first time I had seen "Godzilla King of the Monsters," was when I was twelve. The movies enjoyed a resurge with my small band of friends. This was the second Godzilla movie I saw, and it struck me as a stand alone, even then.
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The effects in the movies are good, for their own time. The city of tokyo is rendered destroyed by small miniatures. They are only apparent upon a second look. The same is true of the Godzilla suit. You can almost believe that it is a huge radioactive dinosaur that is walking out of the ocean, and the grainy black and white makes it feel, somehow like a piece of literature, and gives it the ability to suck you in more easily.
For the theme we need to understand a little bit of history. During WW2 the United States dropped two atomic bombs on the island nation of Japan. This was a tragedy for the Japanese, and rightly so. The monster, born of radioactivity, is a blatant metaphor for those bombs. This is why Godzilla is a simple city-destroyer: who lives solely for that purpose.
The storytelling is superb. It's done by a narrator, who is a visible character. Half of the story we're in the dark about what has destroyed tokyo, but in the back of our minds we know.
This was, and is an excellent movie. It deserves a place on the DVD shelf, or at least the Netflix que. I fully recommend this.
I am embarrassed to say that I've never seen Godzilla. Oh, I've seen a few clips here and there, but never the full movie. You definitely have some good discussion starting here. The part I think you can expand on is in the paragraph where you mention Godzilla is a metaphor for the atomic bombs. He exists solely to destroy Tokyo, possibly. But why? Who created him in the lore of the movie? Where is the "motive"?
ReplyDeleteMaybe also provide a link to the IMDB listing for the movie so readers can see more data on it?