Genre – Kaiju
Movie Total Runtime – 1 Hour 36 Minutes
Spoilers – Yes

Oh, no – there goes Tokyo.

We’re jumping all the way back to the start of the series to go through them in order. As I mentioned, this is the Japanese cut, so no Steve Martin as played by Raymond Burr. So, lets get started. This is the era of front-loaded credits, which play over the sound of roars, and an orchestral score. I can’t read Kanji, so when the subtitles stop telling me what’s scrolling past, I’m at a loss. Our first scene is a ship at sea, surprised by something atomic then sinking, its SOS reaches the mainland and someone phones Ogata. Ogata can be summed up as “Generic Japanese Dude” Not really bearing any distinguishing characteristics. Generic Japanese Dude and Generic Love Interest discuss breaking off plans because he needs to go look into the distress call. Serious Uniformed Dudes don’t know anything and inform people as much.

Another ship is destroyed and sinks in the same area. Crew families are swarming the office trying to get information they don’t have. Some survivors get pulled from the wreck and are taken to Odo Island. That place sounds familiar… The Islanders are complaining about the lack of fish as another survivor washes ashore. The old guy with an exaggerated frown declares it must be Godzilla. I don’t know if it’s related to some theatrical tradition, but that is not a natural expression.

Mainlanders arrive by helicopter dropping off Nosy Reporter. The Islanders other than old guy don’t talk to Nosy Reporter, so he gets an earful about Godzilla and how they used to sacrifice girls to her, but the ritual has been reduced to a placating dance onshore. The music is not to the taste of the King of the Monsters so that night he comes ashore to lodge his complaint. We don’t see him, just hear his footsteps and see the shaking houses.

We cut to some sort of legal proceeding where the Odo Islanders are making an insurance claim – I think. Maybe they’re suing for damages, but I don’t understand the background to figure out what kind of proceeding it’s meant to be. Witnesses declare that was no typhoon. Paleontologist Dude recommends a research team, which we next see shipping off to Odo Island. Dr. Goro is at the docks to see them off, looking very ominous. I call him that because he reminds me of a clean shaven Goro Majima in appearance, only with the eyepatch on the other side. The characters remark on how Dr Goro is normally a recluse confined to his lab. Generic Japanese Dude and Generic Love Interest reach Odo island to look over the devastation of the village. We find that there is radiation lingering on the island in isolated pockets. Paleontologist Dude is measuring a footprint he is standing in as Nosy Reporter pesters him. The footprint is a hot spot for radiation, but they find remains of a trilobite in it.

The investigation is interrupted by an alarm, and panicked villagers make for the high ground. We hear footsteps booming in the background. Godzilla himself crests the ridge and sneers down at the humans before roaring. The villagers decide the high ground is a poor choice of destination. Having made his cameo, Godzilla lumbers off back to the sea. Some poor sods are carrying swords and I can only wonder “What did they expect to do with those?” I mean, they saw the footprints people were able to stand in.

Anyway, we cut to the Bad Science scene where someone claims dinosaurs peaked only two million years ago, and that this was the Jurassic Period. Look, I’ll give you a pass on a lot of bad science but there was no reason to get that one wrong. Maybe it was a subtitle error, and they missed the hundred. Two Hundred Million years ago was the early days of the Jurassic. Paleontologist dude officially gives the Odo Islander name to Godzilla during this press conference and we get some explaination of “why now?” for the emergence of the monster. We get some scenes of consternation and news distribution, but the only plot development is a plan to antagonize Godzilla with depth charges. We know it won’t work, and Minus One was a retcon, so the JSDF doesn’t know conventional weapons are useless.

Godzilla is next spotted by a cruise ship as he rises from the water just long enough to show he’s not dead. Serious Government Men start discussing new options for killing Godzilla. Paleontologist Dude says it is impossible, since he was birthed by the H-Bomb. We also find that Generic Japanese Dude and Generic Love interest and Dr Goro are technically a love triangle, but Dr Goro doesn’t really stand a chance. She decides to break the news to him so that things are less awkward, choosing to do so on a trip to introduce Nosy Reporter. Dr Goro declines to discuss his research with the Nosy Reporter, but does tell Generic Love Interest, swearing her to secrecy first. The results of what she sees causes her to cover her eyes and scream. They don’t discuss relationship matters.

A potential domestic scene is interrupted as Godzilla makes landfall. The shore machine gun emplacements do about as much as you expect. I’m not sure Godzilla even noticed. He lumbers on, breaking through power lines and tresspassing on a railway track where a train smacks into his foot and gets his full attention. As he trashes bridges on his way back out to sea, I wonder what it’d be like to make miniatures for a Godzilla movie, putting in all that work knowing their fate is to be trashed.

Anyway, the Japanese evacuate part of the coast and begin putting up a giant electric cattle fence. In this scene I notice the first “I can’t ignore it” effects issue. The high-tension wire required to feed this fence are composited onto the main image, but the masked portion wobbles relative to the normal field of view. This is because compositing on film at this time required physically cutting out pieces of film and gluing them on to other pieces of film – frame by frame by frame. It’s painstaking, delicate work. Any errors in positioning become visible in the final product. And the wobble is the result. I do credit the effects team. The do a fantastic job with the tools they had. I just can’t ignore the wobble.

During the evacuation warning, Generic Japanese Guy announces his intent to ask Generic Love Interest’s father, Paleontologist Dude, for permission to marry Generic Love Interest. Paleontologist Dude is too fixated on the Godzilla issue to pay the matter any attention. They have a debate over the morals of killing Godzilla versus studying the monster. The result is Generic Japanese Guy being ordered out of the house before he even gets to relationship matters. The Radio announces a Godzilla sighting and the tanks roll into position behind the electric fence. The artillery on the hill opens up our set piece as the JSDF once again tries to stop landfall. The conventional forces throw everything at Godzilla as he pushes through the fence, and he responds with the first use of Atomic Breath, melting the fence then torching the neighborhood. Notably for me, the fact that even in this film his back plates glowed when using that ability was something I’d thought to be a later introduction. Nope, even as he faces down the JSDF tanks, it glowed.

Realizing that their attacks have been futile, Japanese command redirects people on the ground to rescue and firefighting efforts. This leaves Godzilla free to trash some very realistic buildings. It isn’t until they’re falling apart that anything looks like models. I know exactly how hard it is to make things look real at that scale. The rampage is the big cinematic moment, but there’s not a lot of plot synopsis to go over. The only scene of note is the reporters who narrate the events even onto the attack on the tower they were observing from. We cut to Dr Goro watching the footage of the rampage, and Godzilla’s return to the sea before cutting back to the fight as the JSDF air wing decides if the big guns of the artillery didn’t hurt him, maybe the little guns of the air force can. They have such terrible aim that more of their rockets miss the giant monster than hit. It’s not as if Godzilla was even moving fast, just going at a slow amble.

Rampage over, we watch the aftermath as the wounded are collected, tested for radiation, and the grim reality of the damage is tallied without explicit numbers. But the hospital halls are overflowing with people and individual tragedies. Amidst the suffering, Generic Love Interest tells Generic Japanese Guy about Dr Goro’s research. He’s been working on a superweapon he’s called the Oxygen Destroyer. In his lab, a small pellet device skeletonized an aquarium full of fish in almost an instant. The science behind the Oxygen Destroyer is bullshit, as is to be expected. Dr Goro is himself horrified by what his creation does – literally destroys the oxygen atoms. He says it turns them into a Liquid of some sort, but it’s unclear exactly how that works. Dr Goro is trying to figure out a way to use the device beneficially, but has not come up with an answer, vowing to detroy his work rather than weaponize it.

Generic Japanese Guy goes to Dr Goro to discuss using the Oxygen Destroyer against Godzilla. Dr Goro refuses on the grounds that others would weaponize the device against people. It’s the television that intervenes as calls for prayers for the victims and scenes of the devastation and human cost play out on the broadcast. In a previous shot, the television wasn’t even on, and I did not see anyone change that. Dr Goro turns it off and agrees to one use of the Oxygen Destroyer. He then burns his research notes to ensure the work cannot be readily replicated.

A ship packed with press heads out into the harbor following the ship carrying Dr Goro and Generic Japanese Guy. Dr Goro convinces the others that he has to dive down to deploy the Oxygen Destroyer. As the one with diving experience, Generic Japanese Guy also goes down, on the pretense of giving instruction to Dr Goro, who has no such experience. In the murky depths they find Godzilla spending a lazy afternoon in his Tokyo condo. And I realize the real reason Dr Goro has an eyepatch in the movie. With the diving helmets on, there is so little to differentiate the two men that they’d be difficult to tell apart without such an obvious indicator.

Generic Japanese Guy is hauled to the surface as Dr Goro prepares the superweapon. It is unclear what prompted the surface team to haul him up. Scrubbing bubbles engulf Godzilla and he writhes. Dr Goro cuts his own tether so he cannot be pulled out, ensuring that the Oxygen Destroyer will destroy the knowledge of its creation that is in his own head. Godzilla surfaces to roar before sinking back down and skeletonizing.

There is a moment of memorialization for Dr Goro before ‘The End’.

Title Fight Results – Japan by a Knockout.

Godzilla’s record (Win-Loss-Draw):
Japan: 0-2-0

This movie birthed a legend for good reason – succeeding as both a serious film and a kaiju flick. I don’t really have to tell you that it is a classic, you all already know that.