Saturday Evening Movie Thread - 5/17/2025

Godzilla, from the 80s On

About a year ago, I ran through the largest bulk of the Japanese Godzilla franchise: the Showa Era films. I promised myself I'd return to finish watching the rest, so I have now watched all of the Heisei, Millennium, and Reiwa Era Godzilla films.

And I have thoughts.

I mostly have thoughts about the nature of franchise filmmaking. Like most long-running franchises, the Godzilla franchise is a producer driven effort, individual films carrying marks of writers and directors but the overall movement of the franchise from entry to entry being more about producer whims than any other creative. The one franchise that Godzilla ended up reminding me most of was the Bond franchise, especially through some of the later entries where there were extremely obvious efforts to latch onto popular new trends in the action genre.

I was entertained. I was bored. I was frustrated. I was even touched a couple of times. But mostly, I was fascinated at a franchise searching for purpose.

Origins and Eras

The only film in the entire Godzilla franchise that feels like it was birthed from a creative person looking for something to say is the first film by Ishiro Honda (and cowritten by Takeo Murata). Firstly inspired by The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, it was mostly a pro-nationalist look at the Japanese ethos in a nuclear world, a nuclear world where two nuclear bombs had been dropped on Japan. There's real existential dread contrasting with pro-Japanese bravado, especially around technical and scientific acumen, that comes from a very specific, individualized place. The second movie in the franchise, Godzilla Raids Again, turned the whole thing into a monster smashing fest, and the franchise never looked back in the Showa Era. It followed a steady progression towards sanding down the edges until it was an unabashedly children's franchise by the mid-70s when Toho Studios decided to put the whole franchise on ice for a time after Terror of Mechagodzilla.

Now, Terror of Mechagodzilla is considered the last of the Showa Era Godzilla films. The eras are largely determined based on the Japanese Imperial calendar (a common practice in Japanese culture), and the Showa Era refers to the reign of Emperor Showa (Hirohito) from 1926-1989. When Hirohito died, he was succeeded by Emperor Akihito for the Heisei Era from 1989-2019 which was then followed by the current Reiwa Era ruled by Emperor Naruhito. Notice, there is no Millennium Era in the Japanese Imperial calendar.

The division of the films doesn't quite fit with the actual eras either. The first Heisei Era film, The Return of Godzilla was released in 1984. The first Reiwa Era film, Shin Godzilla, was released in 2016. Plus, the Millennium Era is just made up (the films from 1999 to 2004, six of them in five years).

This is a semantic point that doesn't actually matter, but if Toho is going to be so cavalier with this stuff, I wish they'd call them Movements, rather than Eras. Because each Era really does feel cohesive unto itself in a certain way, and that is untied to the Imperial calendar. There's a progression from beginning to end (not always narrative) that makes them feel of a whole. Certain approaches to the filmmaking and storytelling. The Heisei Era is essentially an attempt at a ground up remake of the Showa Era with a darker tone. The Millennium Era is mostly isolated, disconnected entries uninterested in continuing canon (there is a two-parter there near the end), and it's the most obviously mimicking contemporary action trends. The Reiwa Era only has two live-action films (five total if you want to include the animated trilogy which...well, Toho does), and the trend so far seems to be an effort at realism in the Godzilla franchise.

Now, the obvious question is: Which is my favorite. It's not the question that interests me, though. Short answer for the record is that the Reiwa Era (minus the animated trilogy) is probably the best, but it's only two films, and my favorite single entry is the terribly titled Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack.

What interested me was the producer-driven nature of the franchise.

Producers


From the Showa Era through the end of the Millennium Era, the Godzilla franchise had only two producers. The first was Tomoyuki Tanaka who produced everything from the original and, on his own, through The Return of Godzilla in 1984. From the next film until Godzilla vs. Destroyah in 1995, he coproduced with Shogo Tomiyama. Tanaka died in 1997, and Tomiyama took over sole producing duties for the Millennium Era from Godzilla 2000 until the end of the it with Godzilla: Final Wars. The Reiwa Era is handled by a producing team from Toho, the most prominent members seeming to be Kenji Yamada and Minami Ichikawa.

And that split makes everything clearer, how the different Eras actually have different voices. It's not about the individual filmmakers making the individual films. They're smaller cogs in a larger machine, a studio machine driven more by producers than directors or writers. Directors and writers will have their voices (I found Kazuki Omori's voice pretty distinctive in the four films he wrote, two of which he directed), but the drive of the franchise as a whole goes to the guy who's there every film.

The Showa Era was driven by Tanaka himself, so the progression from Honda film about the Japanese ethos to children's films over 20 years feels surprisingly cohesive. The Heisei Era was driven by the team of Tanaka and Tomiyama, and the combination of Showa Era's attempt to build a loosely connected cinematic universe with the darker edges of a newer time. The Millennium Era was driven by Tomiyama, giving into imitation and dark attempts at importance. The Reiwa Era is driven by that Toho producing team, and it shows a new era of trying to be grounded (probably in line with things like Nolan's approach to Batman and that whole realism in fantasy effort).

Analogy


Godzilla was birthed in importance, as previously noted, and so the franchise has a better argument than most to be taken seriously. Sure, by the time they introduced Godzilla's kid in the 60s, no one was taking it seriously, but there's always that original film with heavy meaning. So, when the franchise gets rebooted from time to time decades after it started, you're putting the franchise into the hands of people who probably want to take it seriously. The first Heisei Era film, The Return of Godzilla, was written by Shuichi Nagahara and directed by Koji Hashimoto, and I can find precious little information about them at all other than Hashimoto was an assistant director on several Showa Era Godzilla films like King Kong vs. Godzilla, so I can't dig into their motives for wanting to make The Return of Godzilla darker with a greater emphasis on the dangers of nuclear power (Godzilla's thing is to attack nuclear power plants in the film) or if they were just following Tanaka's orders. However, that desire to make Godzilla serious again was there, and it has largely remained ever since.

In the Showa Era, they made Godzilla a good guy after a certain point to help explain why he kept coming back movie after movie, also to deal with his rising popularity especially with children. In the ensuing periods, they've found other ways, mostly by taking an anthology approach since the start of the Millennium Era, which has allowed for a more serious approach to the material. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't go to Godzilla movies for dissertations on the positive and negative attributes of whatever issue comes up in the film (ecology comes up more than nuclear power after 1984) especially since they're never actually very good or interesting dissertations. The most common pattern is to have a dull first act with scientists talking about things in the most dull of terms, an hour of monster action destroying miniature buildings, and then a final thirty second wrap up to explain how it's all a metaphor for whatever is the subject at hand. It's just never that well integrated into the actual story of a giant monster smashing buildings with or without another monster or two in the picture.

Take my favorite Godzilla film, Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah.... There's one line near the middle of the film that gives Godzilla analogous meaning when a minor character says that the monster is the reanimated souls of the Japanese dead from WWII come to wreck vengeance upon modern day Japan for forgetting their sins. The rest of the movie doesn't touch on this at all, and the line would actually create better subtext for another Godzilla film (Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah where people time travel to WWII and a minor character gets killed by Godzilla while dealing with some kind of regret over WWII service), so what's it doing there? I dunno. Godzilla needs to mean something, I guess.

Destruction in Miniature


I have a long history of loving miniature work in film. At worst, it's adorable. At best, it's wonderfully convincing (think the bigiatures in The Lord of the Rings). In Godzilla films, they trend much more towards the adorable, though. I complained about it in my first post on Godzilla films, but they just filmed it all wrong. The camera's too high. When it moves, it moves too fast. They didn't use the right camera speeds (there's some very basic math to do to figure out how to scale it right). They didn't detail the miniatures enough. There's no life to the miniatures. In the abstract, I don't mind this. It's adorable.

But that's a horrible contrast to the serious tone the films are trying to take. "We are about serious things. Also, here's some funnily unconvincing miniature work to dominate an hour of the film." I don't think it kills any of the films. I simply end up choosing to enjoy the miniature smashing on its own terms without reference to the more serious efforts at thematic underpinnings, but that harsh contrast between intent and execution is really hard to miss.

It's interesting that Toho did finally managed to get the scale issue right, but it just took until 2016 with Shin Godzilla and the first major use of digital effects (some were used in Godzilla: Final Wars, but mostly around minor monsters). Embracing modern digital effects, the film finally puts Godzilla in what feels like a real place, getting lots of shots of city streets with people running around and Godzilla in his ever-changing form which helps tremendously with the film's overall attempt at realism. It's essentially a procedural (with heavy influences from Steven Soderbergh's Contagion) with a lot of time taken to look at government procedures (an early argument is about the charter that established the Japanese Self-Defense Forces). That ability to integrate the monster in what feels like the real world helps tremendously.

The Future


Godzilla is not going away any time soon, though it seems as though Toho has learned that it needs to actually exert some care over the franchise. The Millennium Era saw six movies released in five years. The Reiwa Era has seen two live action films in nine years. The most recent, Godzilla Minus One has not only been hailed as one of the best Godzilla films, but one of the best monster movies ever. It's an attempt to make Godzilla serious and imbue meaning in the story by focusing on characters in the wake of Japan's WWII loss, showing Japan finding a way to pick itself back up after utter defeat. It is easily the most serious-minded and successful at it since the first film.

And Toho hasn't rushed a sequel. They have rehired Takashi Yamazaki who wrote and directed (and produced the Oscar winning visual effects) to write and direct a follow-up (early word is calling it a direct sequel, though I think writing just began recently). The franchise is far from dead, and it might actually be at one of its strongest points in its history. And that Toho is taking care with the feature film effort, not as a cash grab but as an attempt to give die-hard fans what they want (serious, allegorical Godzilla), it seems like Godzilla's future is bright.

I just kind of prefer silly Godzilla personally.

Movies of Today

Opening in Theaters:

Final Destination: Bloodlines

Hurry Up Tomorrow

Movies I Saw This Fortnight:

The Return of Godzilla (Rating 1.5/4) Full Review "Really, this movie is just kind of...boring. It plods. There are no real humans to fill the gaps between special effects. The special effects are pretty good, but I honestly expected better after a 10 year hiatus." [Max]

Godzilla vs. Biollante (Rating 2.5/4) Full Review "It's a fun overall package that just drags for that opening and becomes stupid in its final minutes. I was entertained in that special, Godzilla way for the bulk of the film." [Max]

Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (Rating 4/4) Full Review "It's one more instance where I kind of wish the franchise would go 100% kaiju with no human characters just once. It's not like anyone cares about the puny humans." [Library]

Godzilla vs. Spacegodzilla (Rating 3/4) Full Review "I mean, I'm still the smallest bit torn on the film, but the more I think about the great action setpieces and Yuki's character journey, the more I like it. It's not great art, but it has enough going for it for me to think that it's a good time at the movies." [Library]

Godzilla 2000 (Rating 2.5/4) Full Review "So, I admire the effort to turn the film in a new direction. I admire the actual effort to treat Godzilla seriously (though, again, I'm not opposed to silly Godzilla that much). I just found characters to be not that interesting, the humans to be largely a waste of space, and the fights often hard to actually see." [Library]

Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (Rating 3.5/4) Full Review "The combination of things just worked for me. Incredibly well. It's pretty easily my favorite Godzilla film. I mean, it's not great cinema, but it's really good entertainment." [Library]

Shin Godzilla (Rating 3/4) Full Review "So, it's not great, but it is a very solid approach to the material, injecting new life in a franchise Toho had intentionally set aside for a decade." [Library]

Godzilla Minus One (Rating 3/4) Full Review "In terms of the human drama, it's the cream of the crop. In terms of the whole package, though, it's solidly good." [Library]

Contact

Email any suggestions or questions to thejamesmadison.aos at symbol gmail dot com.
I've also archived all the old posts here, by request. I'll add new posts a week after they originally post at the HQ.

My next post will be on 6/7, and it will be about the Paddington franchise.