8 Godzilla Films You Need To See

Your typical 400 ft tall, fire-breathing mutant from the Mesozoic period, Godzilla made his screen debut in 1954, less than a decade after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Gojira (Godzilla King Of The Monsters in the US) was intended as a one-off (and a statement about nuclear weapons) but when audiences responded enthusiastically, a franchise was born.

Gojira derives from the Japanese words gorira (gorilla) and kujira (whale) and that’s how the character was conceived, as an amphibious mutant who would wade ashore and punish man for daring to explore the unknown. In most subsequent films, Godzilla became Tokyo’s protector, defending the city against such improbable adversaries as Smog Monsters and three-headed dragons.

Having hitherto distributed mainly dramas, Toho Studios gradually began producing more and more monster movies, in the process creating a cinematic universe that would’ve been the envy of Universal in the 1930s. Just as Universal teamed up their monsters in Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man, House Of Frankenstein et al, Toho’s most popular creations – Rodan, Mothra and Varan – would later appear alongside Godzilla.

It’s worth noting that when the Big G made his Hollywood debut in 1998, the filmmakers ditched the Japanese setting as well as a climactic showdown with another monster….and failed abysmally. Not only could Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla appear/disappear at will, he seemed more interested in product placement than plot.

With a Japanese anime version due in 2017, the time is right to cast an appreciative eye over the big fella’s back catalogue.

The US version of Toho’s third Godzilla movie has some serious flaws: the original score has been eliminated and some dreadful new scenes featuring American actors (including a sequence where a “noted scientist” explains that Kong has a brain the size of a pea) have been added.

It’s worth it, though, if only to see Godzilla (in his first colour film) emerge from a glacier and stomp ashore to smash model buildings and melt toy tanks with his radioactive breath. Meanwhile, two explorers discover King Kong on an island where Japanese actors in black body paint play the “natives”, and the insanity spirals from there.

Following an innocuous first encounter (which sees Kong walk away scratching his head, no match for Godzilla’s death ray), the pair’s climactic fight is all punches, headbutts and flying kicks, setting the standard for Toho’s future monster team-ups. It’s spectacular stuff, so let’s hope the 2020 remake does the pair justice.