Voices: Why we need Godzilla more than ever

May 14, 2014

In an era of 9/11, Katrina, tsunamis and typhoons, is it too soon for Godzilla to return?

The monstrous truth is that the Big G has always been a creature of his times, thundering ashore like a force of nature, yes, but making a gigantic political statement as well.

Think about it: In 1954, a mere nine years after atomic bombs leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki, filmmakers at Japan's Toho Studios came up with the idea of a huge fire-breathing monster spawned by -- no subtlety needed-- American H-bomb tests in the Pacific.

The beast was way bigger than King Kong -- 400-feet high in some versions -- dwarfing anything ever seen on screen. Called Gojira (a morphing of the words for gorilla and whale), the beast destroys Tokyo in scenes reminiscent not only of atomic bombs but of the fire raids during World War II.

"I barely survived the bombing of Nagasaki. And now this!" cries a desperate woman in the Japanese original.

Talk about too soon.

But the Japanese director, Ishiro Honda, and especially special effects genius Eiji Tsuburaya knew exactly what they were doing. Tsuburaya had recreated triumphant scenes of the attack on Pearl Harbor for Japanese war propaganda films. A lumbering 160-foot reptile seemed just a next step.

"When Gojira was made in 1954, that experience was even more recent in people's memories than 9/11 is to us today,'' film historian David Kalat told me. "Everyone involved knew they were making a dark and bitter allegory about real things, disguised as a monster movie."

Even 60 years later, the Japanese black-and-white original remains a grim example of monster noir. "Stark, brutal and genuinely beautiful," says August Ragone, author of Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters.

The Americanized version, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, cut some of the more overt political scenes, adding actor Raymond Burr for English-speaking audiences in 1956.

Godzilla (no one remembers who came up with that iconic name) was a huge hit, sparking 29 sequels or remakes, and the monster craze of the 1960s.

One of the unsung heroes of that craze was Haruo Nakajima, 85, the actor who played Godzilla in the original and 11 other films. Nuclear allegory? Hidden meanings? Nakajima just remembers the 200-pound suit.

"It was a really difficult job, very impossible," Nakijima says. "It could get up to 122 degrees in the suit. But I never complained. Actors don't cry — you just do your job until it's finished!"

As a monster kid of the 1960s, I went along for film after film, even though most were played for laughs, with Godzilla pitted against other giant monsters such as Rodan and Mothra.

Then came 9/11 in 2001, and the toppling of cardboard buildings by a man in a rubber suit didn't seem right anymore. Hollywood responded to 9/11 with shows like 24instead of monsters. Godzilla's popularity faded, even in Japan, where the last film in 2004 did poorly.

More recent films showing computer-generated destruction such as Transformers and especially Man of Steel have made many filmgoers uncomfortable as skyscrapers topple. Comic book writer Mark Waid, among others, calls the trend "destruction porn.''

So is there room for the most "realistic'' Godzilla ever, with Bryan Cranston standing in for last century's Raymond Burr? Well, director Gareth Edwards for sure knows his monster stuff, and last summer's Pacific Rim showed giant monsters can still have viewers suspending disbelief if done just right.

Maybe, just maybe, the fact that Godzilla 2014 is opening during the same week as the museum at Ground Zero, which would have been unthinkable a few years ago, is a sign of hope. Not that we will ever forget, but moviegoers cheering a giant monster shows things are back to a less scary normal.

Either way, I can't wait to see what the Big G has left in him.

USA TODAY Executive Editor Colton has been in love with monster movies ever since he watched King Kong on TV in 1956.