#There's also way too many car images with the Godzilla/Gojira hashtag

[justinhubbell]

I was listening to the Dead Meat Podcast (a horror podcast on youtube or wherever you get your podcasts) and found the latest episode is on Godzilla 1954! It's a really great dive into the culture surrounding the original movie's release and I was reminded of your love for Goji, so thought I'd shoot you a recommendation 💚

Oh no...not again...

I have a joke about Godzilla that I often tell, and though that is how it’s meant to be taken (as a joke) it rings true for me. Ready?

In total there are 32 Godzilla movies, and one of them is good.

Now before you get your breeches in a bunch hear me out. This fact doesn’t lessen the Godzilla franchise by any means. In fact—if anything—it strengthens it. What other movie can you possibly name with 31 sequels? There is none.

Every Godzilla fan knows that the point of these movies was not to best the original 1954 “Gojira,” but to make stacks on stacks on stacks on stacks...

...with the consequence being that all other Godzilla movies are more or less delightfully campy. In other words, bad.

When Gojira was made Toho Studios—and the Japanese economy at large—was hanging on by a thread. With Gojira they had lightning in a bottle and you better believe they C A P I T A L I Z E D on that -ish! But make no mistake...

Gojira 1954 is the best Godzilla movie ever made.

In no other Godzilla movie is the loss of human life taken so seriously. In no other Godzilla movie are the ramifications of nuclear experimentation presented with such deadly sobriety. This is not just a monster movie. It is a time capsule. It is—in my mind—a legitimate horror film. This movie is violent and the violence is not treated as entertainment.

THIS scene from Gojira makes me cry

THIS scene from Gojira makes me cry

The “Prayer for Peace” song by a children’s choir—you guessed it—makes me cry

[Note: Shinkichi‘s near-death rescue off the coast of Odo Island also makes me cry but I couldn’t find a still of it]

Make no mistake at its core Gojira 1954 is a film about death.

In no other Godzilla movie do we HEAR the monster is before we SEE it and the reveal is I C O N I C

ICONIC ICONIC ICONIC. EYE. CON. ICK.

And BELIEVE me when I say that I haven’t even gotten to the film’s score yet and I’m not going to because HERE is my main point and I’m TURNING HEEL

When Godzilla 2014 was in the works [I was] thrilled like most people, but wary. As it turned out I think the “snub nosed thicc boi” design they came up with is pretty much excellent.

But when I saw the movie I was beside myself with ANGER when story implies that we (Americans) were testing nuclear weapons off of Japan not to kill people but a monster.

This revisionist history is heartless and insulting and we did it to the original film ALSO

Entire scenes from Gojira 1954 were stripped from the American release and replaced because of so-called “Anti-American sentiment.” I still have a place in my heart for the The Raymond Burr “adaptation” because—like so many before me—it was my first introduction to Godzilla. But for them to carry out the same crap in 2014 broke my heart and for this reason

I do not consider American Godzilla movies canonical in the slightest.

They are pro nuclear. They are pro military. They are anti history. We sacrifice TOO MUCH in the name of entertainment and frankly a line was crossed with me that can’t be undone. And If I sound like a stick in the mud I don’t give a damn. HEEL TURN.

NEVER forget that Legendary tried to kill Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi‘s “Shin Gojira”

They wanted us to ONLY watch their version. They made it DIFFICULT to watch that movie in theaters! You might have missed it! and so it was ESPECIALLY delicious when despite American Capitalist tampering Shin Gojira went on to be one of (if not the) highest grossing Godzilla movie since King Kong vs Godzilla 1962 (please don’t get me started on this movie) HALLELUJAH HOLY SHIT WHERE'S THE TYLENOL!!!!!