He Picks Up a Bus and He Takes a Big Bite

Got a light, buddy?

Classic rock band Blue Oyster Cult immortalized the Japanese radioactive thunder lizard best in their fun and campy 1977 song. 

The big guy will be stomping our way in a new American re-boot on May 16th. Yep, everyone's favourite kaiju (giant monster in Japanese) will be returning to the big screen, but thankfully without the comic book-ish theatrics of the majority of the long running film series' entries. From what I'm hearing, this new Godzilla pic will reflect more closely the dark and frightening vibe of the very first movie, released in 1954. Let's hope so, for that film was rather on the chilling side, quite unlike the goofy WWF antics of the many sequels.

The Toho film company produced every Japanese 'Zilla flick, and though they are not involved in the upcoming film, director Gareth Edwards made it a point to capture the same feel of the legendary pictures he grew up with. Edwards impressed me with his 2010 giant creature invasion story, Monsters. Thinking back to that work, I think this man has the chops to deliver a very convincing Gojira (as Godzilla is known in Japan) film. I have yet to see the new movie, but with Edwards' credentials behind it, I now have pretty high hopes. 

I grew up on the classic monster movies, both man-sized and giant-sized. The Godzilla and other Toho creature features were shown on TV on a regular basis during the 70's, so I had a steady diet of this funky stuff. Rodan and Mothra and the whole gang of Godzilla-related monsters were fun, but never quite as engaging as my dear old towering dinosaur. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Speaking of ugly, one of my favourites as a kid was War of the Gargantuas, which starred giant hairy Frankenstein-like beasts battling each other for the duration of the picture. Crazy. 

The silliness of most of these movies doesn't keep me riveted to the TV screen any longer. A little bit is fine just for nostalgic reasons, but I guess I've just moved on. But the odd Godzilla movie is still worth the time: the '54 original, maybe Destroy All Monsters, Godzilla vs King Ghidorah, and Godzilla 2000 are among them. I was never a massive fan of this rubber-suited city-stomper, but it was an important part of my sci-fi/horror education as a young lad, so the nostalgia is still there. 

The Japanese fixation with kaiju inspired other countries to release their own behemoth films. One particularly good one was Britain's Gorgo from 1961. While not quite 'Zilla quality, the Brit treatment - minus laughable voice dubbing and monster tantrums - carried a more serious tone that added to the believability - if that's even necessary. 

And to paraphrase rockers Blue Oyster Cult, history shows us repeatedly how nature indicates the foolishness of men. True dat.

Victory dance!