How Shin Godzilla Makes Godzilla Scary Again

[yuiyoshida]

Right now Godzilla is having a very good decade. The big guy is in the enviable position of having two new franchises built around him, one in Japan and one in America. 2014’s Legendary film was a very well-received Western take on the kaiju genre. His first native film in a decade, Shin Godzilla (previously called “Godzilla: Resurgence“) was just brought to the United States by Funimation. It the first Japanese Godzilla film to get a theatrical release here since Godzilla 2000.

Yet with Godzilla mania running high, we need to admit one thing. Despite being a giant radioactive monster that levels cities: Godzilla is not scary.

However, Shin Godzilla has managed to correct that. This film has is a very different Godzilla than the one we have known for decades. Director Hideki Anno (of Neon Genesis Evangelion fame) has done what seemed impossible: make Godzilla a force of nightmares once again.

How Godzilla Lost His Edge

Once upon a time, almost thirty movies back and sixty years ago, Godzilla was scary.

1954’s Godzilla (or Gojira), directed by Ishiro Honda, is in retrospect a very dark and serious film with Godzilla symbolizing the terrible tragedies of the atomic bomb. It holds up very well actually. If you haven’t seen it, give it a view. The film was released only two years after the end of the American occupation, with the wounds of World War II still very fresh in the minds of the Japanese psyche. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not even a decade old. That movie manages to have both great horror moments and legitimately moving dramatic scenes of a people reacting to destruction. More importantly, Godzilla was filmed as a menacing creature of unbelievable size. He is a beast without a shred of sympathy for humanity.

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http://fandom.wikia.com/articles/shin-godzilla-makes-godzilla-scary?li_source=LI&li_medium=wikia-rail

[Docreed2003]

1. Shin Godzilla is an incredible film! Happy it's receiving so much acclaim!!