I grew up loving Godzilla. Whenever one of the Toho movies came on TV, usually during lazy Saturday afternoons in the 80s, I would watch it. They all kind of blur together. I remember Perry Mason running around in a couple of them. The Americanized versions of Gojira and The Return of Godzilla inserted Raymond Burr. And I remember the very first VHS tape my family got: Godzilla vs Megalon.
My son is at the age where giant monsters are cool, and I remember that age well. He loves Godzilla. So much so that I have to play the Godzilla Minus One soundtrack every morning when I drop him off at school. I let him watch a couple of the newer Godzilla movies by Legendary. Minus One or Shin Godzilla would be way too intense. But the American movies are dumber than donuts. Or so I believed.
In actuality, these movies rock.
I went and saw Godzilla (2014) in the theater with my friend, and I was expecting a scary giant monster movie. Something like Cloverfield (or the original Gojira). And it felt like we got a goofy kids movie that was trying to have its cake and eat it too. And I’ve seen each entry after. I’ve always thought they had cool effects but they were stupid. The characters all spouted off gobbledygook. And plot was yadda yadda’ed through a two hour running time. It reminded me of the goofy era of Godzilla movies from the 60s and 70s. The ones where he was more of a giant superhero than a destructive force of nature.
What I’ve since come to appreciate is how well these movies are for kids. Before we watched Godzilla: King of Monsters, we tried watching Godzilla vs Megalon. For nostalgia’s sake on my part. And hoo boy. That movie is trash. And it commits the cardinal monster movie sin: you need to have monsters in your giant monster movie. Monster movies fail when they forget to be about the monsters.
Megalon doesn’t show up until an hour in, and Godzilla doesn’t show up until the last 10 minutes of the movie. We get an underground civilization called Sealand. The inhabitants all look like they walked off the set of Xanadu. We have an Ultraman robot rip-off. And then Sealand attacks the surface with Megalon for some underwear gnome-esque reasons. My son was bored after 20 minutes and so was I. It’s so bad.
Compare to when we watched Godzilla: King of Monsters. Or Godzilla vs Kong. Or his favorite, Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire. I had a new found appreciation for the goofy dialogue: it keeps things moving. Monsters appear every 7–15 minutes so kids don’t get bored. The lines are delivered with dead seriousness by A-list actors, but they still get to have fun also. These are perfect movies for a kid with a burgeoning interest in monsters.
My son wants to watch Shin Godzilla and Godzilla Minus One. I won’t let him. Those are too intense. And they both scratch that itch that I was searching for as an adult who had fond memories of giant monster movies. They are both horrifying. And they both show how humanity comes together to stop something so mind blowing as Godzilla. They show the best of us.
And it goes to show that that when a property like Godzilla gets to be old enough, there’s a version of it for everyone. Like Batman – do you want the Dark Knight Detective or do you want a 1960s kitsch version? Both are valid. And it all works.
