Evolution of Godzilla
I’m not sure how old I was when I stumbled onto King Kong and Godzilla. I had to have bee in elementary school and younger than 10 when I saw the original King Kong. I caught the original Godzilla around the same time. One day I was shown the original Rodan and that freaked me out. After that, a friend showed me King Kong vs Godzilla and pointed out that our local video store had a ton of these films. I became a major fan of Godzilla for a few years and then moved on when I couldn’t find the films anymore. I’d catch a flick from time to time and sat through the 1998 film. At the time, I liked it because I hadn’t seen any for a while. Now, I’m not a real fan and am kind of glad that the people behind the real Godzilla wrote the Fish-Eater out of his evolution chain. They renamed it Zilla (stating that the American version took the ‘God’ out of the monster) and he appeared in Godzilla: Final Wars to have the shortest fight with Godzilla in the history of the franchise. I really need to get back into these movies when my son is old enough to enough them.
The point of this post is to say that I think this type of character is overlooked by authors and artists. People love the human monsters like Dracula and Wolfman because they’re easier to connect with. They resemble us more than the enormous bipedal lizard with atomic breath. Still, Godzilla has personality and presence without being able to have words. He even has a kid in some of the movies.
I think the raw power and mystery of Godzilla is part of his appeal. As a character, he has to depend on actions and instinct that fit his monstrous role. He can be a villain and a hero depending on what he is fighting. There are ways to control him and events that bring out a sensitive side. I’ve always found it amazing how such a character has depth and personality. In a book, you would have a lot of trouble creating such a character because they’d have no dialogue. I’m considering trying it though when I make any characters that come from the giltris (lizard people) tribes. In film and television, you have the visual of facial expressions and movements. I’d love to give this a shot though to see if I can do it.
Anybody else a fan of these movies or an author considering trying their hand at a primal monster character?
Legends of Windemere 
I haven’t seen Godzilla the final wars. The Americanized version of the Godzilla aka Zilla was puny. The Godzilla 1985 to Godzilla vs Destroyah, they used all manner technology, not to mention Mechanical Godzilla heck even space ships just kill him. They almost succeeded twice.
Take the monster from Cloverfield, they nuked New York as a last ditch effort to kill the creature. And that monster was just a baby. Before nuking that city, the military dropped all manner artillery on him. The monstrous grinning running creatures, that its version of flea or tick.
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A friend and I tried watching Cloverfield. We were thankful when his daughter woke up and forced us to change to Spongebob. The idiocy of the humans really got in our way.
I’m looking forward to the upcoming Godzilla movie. A little reservation thanks to Zilla, but it looks respectful.
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I grew up watching and loving movies like Godzilla versus the Sea Monster. It seems that nowadays zombies are the mindless monsters that people love to hate. At least moves like Sharknado and Mega Shark versus the Giant Octopus are trying to bring back the fun of mindless monsters. The latter was hilarious!
I don’t have a mindless monster in my book, but I’ll think about adding one in the next. I love scenes in movies where people run screaming from a monster. I guess that’s why I love Teen Titans so much. They battle so many monsters.
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I’m playing with the idea of a book that focuses on a mindless monster, but I don’t know if I could pull it off. I depend a lot on dialogue. Maybe I can write it as an experiment with a new style.
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I love these characters, yes by today’s special effects standards they are cheesy, but I do love them as they were characters that I grew up with.
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Sometimes cheesy is great. 🙂
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I don’t care what they do to Godzilla. I still think he’s cute. 🙂
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I want to see one of his enemies in the new movie.
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Go Godzilla!
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Just imagine a really tiny character with a huge one. Like Mighty Mouse vs. Godzilla. 🙂
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I’m surprised that hasn’t happened.
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I love Godzilla, and I would have to imagine that at the time, the concept of an atomic dragon was very real to a post-WW2 Japan.
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Certainly. I’m amazed such a creature has continued to be popular in these days.
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I thought that “Pacific Rim” captured the feel of the old Gojira franchise very well.
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I never got to see it. I keep hearing that one either loves it or hates it.
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As a teenager I used to rush home to watch Godzilla with King Kong and Mothra. These were reruns that aired regularly on our only cable channel. It was the “raw power” that fascinated me. And that the Asian mouths moved out of sync with the words heard in translation. It did; however, change forever my illusions of Asian culture.
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Oh the bad dubbing was the best. I wonder if someone could make a TV channel that’s exclusively Godzilla-like movies.
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That would be funny to watch. We only had one cable channel back then. If you didn’t want ABC.CBS, NBC, or PBS you had to watch reruns on Channel 17. It was great when the ballgames or State of the Union addressees or some other preemptive show was airing.
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My family didn’t get cable until my sister and I were off to college. ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, FOX, WB, and UPN. How in the world did I survive?
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Crazy how many channels there are to choose from now…like numbers of books. We find something we like and set the DVR…I am sure we miss some really good stuff. We are always finding out about shows after they have aired and then watch on netflix with no commercials. I don’t know if I would have actually watched all of those Godzilla shows if I had so much to choose from back then I consider them part of my youth culture.
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Yet it’s always odd when I can’t find anything that I want to watch.
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When Blue Oyster Cult went off on the Godzilla theme I thought I had seen it all. Talk about having to relate to a monster how about when the Frankenstein monster was with that little girl by the water? Another was “Puttin’ on the Ritz” in the Mel Brooks Young Frankenstein?”
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Love Young Frankenstein. Totally forgot about the Godzilla song, which I haven’t heard in years and years. I feel I need to listen to it a few times now.
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Oh, when I was 11, I loved Godzilla so much I wrote to my local TV station (Channel 13 in LA) to ask when they would show more. I was a much less critical viewer back then. 🙂
And, Rodan freaked me out, too!
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Rodan scared the hell out of me for some reason. I still don’t know why.
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There were those giant caterpillars which ate the people (shudder) but then they got eaten by something even worse: Baby Rodan!
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I didn’t make it far enough to see those. I do remember Mothra though.
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