scraps of poetry and madness

Part of my series of reviews of the Heisei era Godzilla movies. Spoilers within, but we’re talking 80’s Godzilla movies here.

Spoiler alert: Americans ruin everything. Again.

Godzilla 1985 is the Americanized cut of Return of Godzilla. The latter is one of my favorite Godzilla movies. Compared to the rest of the Heisei series, it’s a little darker, slower, and more narrowly focused. It’s almost meditative at times.

Godzilla 1985 is none of those things.

It is, however, pretty much exactly what you’d expect when you give a subtle, even nuanced (by Goji standards) movie to an American studio to adapt for western audiences during the tail end of the cold war. Gone are pretty much any character moments or even character… traits from most of the original cast. Characters exist solely for exposition and, in any given scene, only the bare minimum of dialog necessary for explaining what is happening remains.

However the movie does add something only America can provide: one Raymond Burr. And he’s almost enough to save this movie from itself. Almost.

Reprising his role from the American cut of the OG Godzilla from 1956, Burr is back, for some reason called in by the US Government to advise on the situation unfolding in Japan. The movie still generally follows the events of the original. Godzilla is back, and heading for Tokyo. And America, despite never being asked, has its nose right in the middle of it.

Why is the American government so on-the-edge-of-their-seat obsessed with monitoring the situation in Japan when it doesn’t actually involve them or pose a threat to any American interest? And why is there literally no one else they can call for context other than one random news reporter who happened to be in Japan thirty years ago? Shh. This is America. We don’t ask questions. Not here, in the land of old white generals who’d rather be on the putting green and spunky underlings spewing quips while sipping on a cool, refreshing Dr. Pepper.

Watching this movie gives me some insight into the American pop culture opinion on Japanese Godzilla movies, especially before our own Monsterverse hit the seen. “Cheesy vapid kids movies featuring men in rubber suits stomping around plywood Tokyo.” Now, the Showa era didn’t always do a lot to challenge that perception, but the if American cuts of these movies are the only things most people were familiar with, its no wonder they have only a surface level understanding and appreciation of the series. We’ve filtered out any theme, thought, or heart from movies that are routinely about even bigger ideas than giant irradiated badass lizards.

Godzilla 1985 strips every bit of character and discussion of deeper themes from this movie. Every “idea” the original had is gone. The result is, somewhat ironically, that the only source of any kind of depth of thought comes from Raymond Burr himself. He seems to be the only American involved with this movie with any kind of respect and understanding for the source material and for Godzilla himself:

Nature has a way, sometimes, of reminding Man of just how small he is. She occasionally throws up the terrible offsprings of our pride and carelessness… to remind us of how puny we really are in the face of a tornado, an earthquake, or a Godzilla. The reckless ambitions of Man are often dwarfed by their dangerous consequences. For now, Godzilla - that strangely innocent and tragic monster - has gone to earth. Whether he returns or not, or is never again seen by human eyes, the things he has taught us… remain.

I mean that line would not be out of place in a Japanese Godzilla movie. And Raymond freakin' Burr delivers it with the gravitas that Gojira-san truly deserves. Its a shame then that the above quote accounts for like 50% of Burr’s screen time in the entire movie.

With as much as they cut of the original, I figured they must be adding a lot of Burr-centric scenes! But no, he’s barely in the movie, as underused as any of the original cast. The American cut is shorter just for being shorter’s sake. Which, all things considered, was maybe for the best.

I said that this movie largely follows the plot of the original, but that’s actually not true, in that the original was as much about the Prime Minister of Japan navigating the internal and external politics of Godzilla’s reappearance, as it is about Godzilla’s building-stomping, atomic-breath-blasting return. In the Japanese version, while the government is deciding whether or not to reveal that they believe Goji is back, he sinks a Soviet sub. The Russians assume the Americans are responsible for this, and so to avoid an international conflict, Japan’s hand is forced, and they go public with the news that Godzilla is back and sunk the sub. Immediately the Russians and the Americans send their ambassadors to the Prime Minister to demand they each be allowed to use nukes (on Japanese soil!) to solve the problem.

The Prime Minister and his crew pretty quickly realize that both the USA and USSR actually just want to use this as an excuse to play with some of their new nuclear toys in someone else’s backyard, and so they shut that shit down and say no, you cannot bomb our country to stop Godzilla from destroying our country. The ambassadors pout and go home.

We then meet a Russian official, whose job is to shut down the nuclear control boat that the Russians secretly set up in Tokyo harbor. He is bound by his duty to honor the Japanese government’s wishes, but as he’s trying to power down the targeting computer, Godzilla attacks the harbor and boat is damaged, triggering a launch. Injured, the Russian official does everything he can to complete his mission, and eventually uses his dying breath to try and stop the launch - but is ultimately unsuccessful.

Except that’s not at all what happens in the American version. The USA and USSR are still shut down by the Prime Minister in this one, but when we see the Russian control boat, the English subtitles of Russian dialog tell us that the Russian official is all like, Well too bad, I’m launching the space nuke anyway because fuck you, that’s why. This time, as Godzilla is attacking, he’s all, MOTHERLAND! and uses his dying breath to intentionally fire ze missile.

(And: they don’t even change the Russian language lines! Just the subtitles! So if you actually knew Russian watching this movie, you’d be like, WTF, mate? But of course no red-blooded American would be as unpatriotic to ever know Russian!)

In both versions, the Japanese Prime Minster asks the Americans if they can intercept the missile, but in the American version this comes across as the Westerners sweeping in to save the day, while in the original it was much more of a commentary that the evils and dangers of nuclear weaponry are perhaps necessary or at least unavoidable in this era.

So yeah, Godzilla 1985 was a trip. It’s a shining example of the time period and politics in which it was made. It’s also a bastardization of a great movie, made almost bearable by silver fox Raymond Burr being his Raymond Burr-iest.

That’s okay. I’m sure the next attempt the Americans make on ol' Goji will be better, right?