For the Love of Gojira
Sep 6 | Posted by Dave Fletcher | Add a Comment
When I was a little baby designer, I found solice in a giant radioactive beast named Gojira. While the other schoolyard rats were scurrying around crying about Benji, Luke Skywalker, or god forbid Bambi, I was weeping uncontrollably that those stupid Japanese scientists would dare murder such a heroic beast with an “oxygen depletion device” — all while he was having a little R&R time underwater between smashing up Tokyo powerlines and cardboard huts.
Gojira, (or “Godzilla” for us elitist Americans who couldn’t be bothered pronouncing “go-jeer-a”,) meant “Gorilla Whale” in Japanese. As far as I’m concerned, there is nothing in the world more horrifying and cool than a gorilla that behaves like a furious whale. Nothing.
For those of you unfamiliar with the sorted and seedy history of the rampaging Gojira, here’s the poop: He pokes out of the ocean, fueled by (or inspired by, depending who you ask) the reminents of the American-delivered Atomic Bomb, smites Japan with furious anger several times, and eventually meets his maker with an Oxygen Destroyer, created by the wiley, yet desperate scientist, Dr. Daisuke Serizawa. Of course, using the machine kills everything else in the water too, showing how stupid we humans are in the first place & turning the “evil” Gojira into a sequel-spawning martyr. You’d think us stupid apes would learn…
In later appearances, atomic energy delivers more Gojiras upon the earth (each one oddly more feline-faced in appearance than the last) and in time, the whole franchise was reduced to comedy as the mighty beast found himself fighting every type of idiotic, and laughably horned thing Toho studios could throw at him. Nearly everything after the original was pure cheese (except maybe Mosura tai Gojira), but for a young kid like me, it proved to be priceless creative inspiration. It was an escape from the real world into a land where gigantic monsters could live on an island, scrap like Tyson in the afternoon and still have time to smash up some Japanese real estate after dinner. It was cool, and fit the rigorous daily schedule of any impressionable 7-10 year-old neanderthal.
The sad thing is that today, kiddies are weaned on the über-realism of CGI, with awe-inspiring movies like Jurassic Park, and Lord of the Rings. These films leave so little for stretching the imagination, and separate the real world from fantasy land to such a degree, the idea of rugrats on the playground pretending to be in a battle for Middle Earth seems less plausable than two rubber-suited knuckleheads pretending to be (handsome and steel-jawed) Godzilla vs. (turd-faced & cockroachy) Megalon. When you put some Japanese dude in an ill-fitting monster suit, the connection between the audience and monstrosity isn’t so blurred anymore. You can imagine actually being the beast while leaving your feet firmly planted in a little reality.
The original, 1954 released and subtitled version of Gojira — in it’s 98 minute glory — was released on DVD today, and I’m rushing out into the fleeting summer air to simply own it. To get past that rubber-suited King of Monsters on the packaging, it’s going to take a rainy Fall Saturday afternoon, but that’s entirely what these films were made for, regardless of the director’s intent.
The 1970’s emergence of the Saturday-afternoon monster movie of my childhood — where every creature wasn’t as scary as campy — was clearly the origin of the junkyard of toys and crapola littering every graphic designer’s monitor, desk and surrounding space.
Could it be, without the awe-inspiring radioactive breath of Gojira, our desks and minds would be as barren as monster-mashed Tokyo in 1954?
