Godzilla to Fix Human Absurdity in Sixty-Five Years
Warning on the recurring issue is yet to notice
Within a few seconds of hearing the epilogue, the orchestrated sound of the story quickly becomes familiar for long-time avid supporters in Japan. Their ears are accustomed to rhythm and tones of the original Godzilla, the synthetic monster of Gorilla and Whale (Kujira). “Gojira” in Japanese comes from the connection of the first two letters of Gorilla and the last four letters of Kujira, which subsequently transforms the original six-letter name to Godzilla in English. The songs have projected the image of the King going deeply into the minds of critics since 1954. It was merely 9 years after the World War II when the first mega hit Godzilla appeared tall on the single screen theater in every corner of the island hit by the atomic bomb. Since then, the Godzilla series entertained Japanese movie goers with exotic battle scenes, good and bad scientists, and ever-lasting grief stories of human saga. The first story in the black and white motion picture depicts the human errors after the World War II. Japan started to recover from the nuclear destruction through the economic growth, primarily earning the US dollars by exporting automobiles and consumer electronics to the United States. It has not come to join the rich countries by exporting the movie made in mid 50’s. The success of the record-breaking views initiated the yearly production of the evolving series and yet persistent theme. Along with the titles numbering twenty-nine with latest computer graphic New Monster, better known as Shin-Godzilla in 2016, the entertainment changed it into varying structures but the theme has been unchanged since its debut: irreversible human absurdity. The monster resurrected repeatedly in the frequent atomic bomb tests in the Bikini islands. The error has been so pervasive that the series embedded the escalating humiliation in almost all titles. After seeing the latest movie, the question comes to me, “How long will the movie warn us the recurring issue on human errors?” My answer is, “It is going to be a very long time to come.”
The battle scenes evolved with scientific and technological advancement from multiple destructive methods. The first battle in Tokyo saw Godzilla fighting conventional weapons such as eye-balling missiles from Japanese fighter jets. The jets were very slow and inaccurate to target the Monster, which remained immune to any destructive forces of the Japanese Self-Defense Force (SDF). The Japanese military force was totally helpless but the use of nuclear missile by any military force was out of the question among leaders. To avoid the mass destruction from Godzilla, SDF asked for cooperation from scientists to eliminate the animal with chemical weapon called Oxygen Destroyer, the synthetic drug dissolver to attack the skin of the evil. The method has been repeated in a number of times in later series, including the latest Hollywood version in May 2019. Almost all scientists, including Dr. Serizawa and his family scientists with no alternating destiny for life-time work, have warned that the synthetic chemical destroyers not only eliminate the first target but also spoil the scientific discovery and do unbearable harm on human life. The later movies proved it in a number of ways.
Movie stars were born with the series, which often employed identical roles of journalists, doctors, and even gangs who try to assassinate political figures in foreign relations with Japan. Journalists often appeared in the early titles, claiming that the modern mass media have a mission statement to tell the public the true stories but cannot sentence bad human acts in public. Later stages witness the confusion among the pubic disturbed by the news media, which works against the very thing they are supposed to achieve. In half a way through the series, the camera men and women disappeared with disappointment at their nature of journalism. Star scientists took over the chief role to fight against two foes: the evil monster and opposing bad scientist who lost their ambition with consecutive experimental accidents. The movie shifts its focus to scientific escalation for sustaining the peace on earth.
The main theme of Godzilla remains the same for last sixty-five years, eliminating human errors to fix the course of scientific blunder. Godzilla was created by humans in 1954 when a couple of creators tried to produce a movie similar to King Kong of America in mere 9 years. Within a decade, the Japanese movie invented the imaginary big force with 50 meter high compatible with a giant Gorilla, namely King Kong in 1933. The cinema war began in 1954. The stage and the year differ in two fresh movies but the destructive scientific weapon derives from the human blunders to either create the horror or capture it from peaceful island. Within island, the peace was intact before the greed took over local proxy to tilt the natural balance toward massive humiliation.
Toward the ending of the movie, Godzilla sends the signal to other titans and stand in the central figure on the hill. Titans shift their accordance to the mighty monster on earth. They project the core human natures of being possessed and blindly accorded to the strongest creature which humans created by themselves. The scene is the best focus of totalitarianism in the 20th century. It may be very few people to see such human natures against themselves. The duration of 2 hours of 12 minutes with battles and star scientists is slightly long, but the last roar of the monster up in the air clearly shows the excellent depiction of horrifying human nature. For this particular reason along with legacy sounds to constantly remember the Godzilla’s original message, this movie rates high for the ranking and it is worth waiting for another version with a rivalry of King Kong in late 2020. The human errors in the past are irreversible, so is the emergence of King of Monsters. Godzilla knows that its role will last for a long time. After sixty-five years, the retirement will never come to close in Tokyo and Hollywood.