Godzilla 1985/ Return of Godzilla (1984)

“Now he is back. And he’s more magnificent, more glamorous, more devastating than ever. Prepare yourself. The greatest star of all has returned,” proclaimed the television promo for Godzilla 1985. The last time movie audiences had seen the giant lizard in action was in Terror of Mechagodzilla.  In the original movie, Godzilla was a metaphor for the atomic bomb, but by the time Terror of Mechagodzilla has rolled around, he had become a defender of the Earth. His adventures became increasingly sillier throughout the decades. Return of Godzilla was Toho’s attempt to bring the monster backs to his roots; as a result, the movie is a direct sequel to the original movie and ignores that more kid friendly movies of the 60s and 70s.  New World Pictures acquired the rights and distributed it in the states as Godzilla 1985. In order to “Americanize” the movie, over twenty minutes of footage was cut, and new scenes with Raymond Burr (reprising his role as reporter Steve Martin from Godzilla, King of the Monsters) were added.  Therefore, it is not surprising that many fans consider Godzilla 1985 to be a complete bastardization of Return of Godzilla. 

This assertion isn’t entirely false – in a fairly dubious piece of re-editing, the Soviet Colonel Kashirin pushes a red button and launches a nuclear missile, while in the original cut he dies trying to prevent it from being launched; it’s fascinating to find a piece of American Cold War propaganda in the middle of a Japanese monster movie. 

 The character arc of the Maki is completely discarded in the New World edit. He begins the movie as an opportunistic reporter looking for the big scoop; when brother and sister, Hiroshi and Naoko, have their tearful reunion, Maki crashes onto the scene with his photographer in tow. It makes for a great human interest story. This reunion has been arranged by Maki; he informs Naoko that her brother is alive and tells her which hospital he is staying at. She, naturally, assumes that Maki is doing this out of the goodness of his heart, rather than for his own ulterior motives.  She later takes him to task for his callous behavior. It clearly has an effect on him, because by movie’s end he is a more compassionate figure.  It is also interesting to note the difference between Japanese and American cinema - if Return of Godzilla was a traditional American blockbuster, the relationship between Maki and Naoko would blossom into a full fledged romance. The movie would end with them locked in a passionate kiss, completely oblivious to the massive destruction that surrounds them. However, the romance is merely hinted at and the only intimate moment the two characters share is a brief hug at the end.

The New World edit also jostles around a few of the scenes; the meeting between Prime Minister Mitamura and the American and Soviet ambassadors happens before Godzilla’s attack on the nuclear power plant, rather than after.  The Prime Minister initially wants to keep Godzilla’s reappearance a secret, but that plan gets shot down after a Soviet submarine is destroyed by Godzilla, and the Russians assume that the Americans are responsible for the act. After it is revealed that Godzilla is responsible for the attack, there is a long debate as whether or not nuclear weapons should be used to stop Godzilla.  This is a crucial plot point in Return of Godzilla, but is only briefly touched upon in Godzilla 1985. There is a scene where the Prime Minister debates this idea with his cabinet before giving his answer to the Russian and America ambassadors.  

However, with all that being said, Return of Godzilla is hardly the masterpiece that many of the fans would have you believe. Maki's character arc is fully realized by the middle of the movie; all attempts at characterizations are abandoned in the second half as Godzilla lays waste to Tokyo.

 
 In a few instances, the editing in Godzilla 1985 is actually better than the Japanese version – the attack of the giant sea louse is great example of this. In Return of Godzilla, the scene is longer and we are given a good look at the sea louse prop and it is pretty laughable. In the New World edit, this scene is fairly brief and we are only given a few  glimpses of the sea louse as it attacks our protagonist – it is a much scarier sequence.  The New World edit is quicker paced and direct to the point – in Godzilla 1985, after Maki reveals to Naoko that her brother is alive, the movie immediately cuts to her running into Hiroshi’s hospital room.  In Return of Godzilla, the conversation between Maki and Naoko is slightly longer, but is fairly redundant.

The added scenes with Steve Martin and the pentagon officials are fairly pointless; Raymond Burr stands around and utters such banalities like, “Godzilla will win.” He is a complete wet blanket and there is really no reason for him to there other than name recognition. At least in Godzilla, King of the Monsters, Steve Martin had the function of narrator - he was an audience surrogate and we saw the events unfold through his eyes.  Still, it is slightly amusing to see Burr reprise a role he played thirty years earlier and under the exact same circumstances.  

As silly as the dubbing in Godzilla 1985 is, it is preferable to the International English version that is on the Return of Godzilla DVD. The dubbing in Godzilla 1985 maybe cartoonish at times, but at least the voice over actors give emotional performances, whereas voice over acting on the International English version is fairly monotonous and actually slows the pacing of the movie. Plus, Godzilla 1985 had some genuinely memorable lines; my favorite is when a wino shouts at Godzilla, “Don’t act like such a big shot, hick, you just got to town. If you want to hang with me, you better learn some manners.” 

It is great that Return of Godzilla is finally available in the United States, but I would like to see a decent print of Godzilla 1985 released on Blu-ray. It may be bastardization, but it is also an interesting relic from the Cold War era.

Credits (for Godzilla (1985)
Cast: Raymond Burr (Steve Martin), Ken Tanaka (Goro Maki), Yasuko Sawaguchi (Naoko Okumura), Yosuke Natsuki (Professor Hayashida), Keiju Kobayashi (Prime Minister Mitamura), Shin Takuma (Hiroshi “Kenny” Okumura), Hiroshi Koizumi (Professor Minami), Kenpachiro Satsuma (Godzilla), Warren J. Kemmerling (General Goodhoe), James Hess (Col. Raschen), Travis Swords (Major McDonough), Eitaro Ozawa (Minister of Finance Kanzaki).
Directors: Koji Hashimoto, R.J. Kizer.
Screenplay:  Shuichi Nagahara, Straw Weisman, Lisa Tomei. Tomoyuki Tanaka (story)
Running Time: 91 min. 103 min (Japanese version)

A Christmas Story (1983)

It has been a tradition in my family to kick off the Holiday season by watching A Christmas Story after finishing Thanksgiving dinner. It’s a movie I have seen countless times since my childhood and it still cracks me up, despite the overexposure. The majority of Christmas movies have a fantasy element to them – It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol, White Christmas, and Miracle on 34^th Street, to name a few – but A Christmas Story is the most relatable out of the bunch, because it has a fairly simple premise: a boy desperately wants a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas. The only fantasy elements we get in A Christmas Story are Ralphie's day dreams.

A Christmas Story is one of the most accurate depictions of childhood ever put onto film. The children in Christmas movies tend to be wide eyed innocents that don’t possess a single selfish bone in their body; this is not the case with Ralphie Parker in A Christmas Story, who behaves like complete shithead at times. After Flick has stuck his tongue to a frozen pole, Ralphie leaves him to freeze in the cold. He doesn’t even bother to inform their teacher, Miss Shields, about Flick’s plight. Later, when Ralphie’s mother wants to know who he heard the f--- word from, instead of ratting out his father, he opts to throw his friend Schwartz under the bus. Yet, despite these acts of cowardice, Ralphie remains a completely sympathetic character – he’s just an awkward kid trying to survive childhood.

 A Christmas Story is a funny movie, but the movie is largely about Ralphie learning to cope with disappointment: He is constantly told, “You’ll shoot your eye out,” by the adults in his life when he reveals he wants a BB gun from Christmas; the Little Orphan Annie decoder ring he gets in the mail turns out to be an advertisement for Ovaltine; he gets a C+ on his Christmas theme, after imagining that it would get him a standing ovation from the class; his crazy aunt makes him a pink bunny costume for Christmas;  the Santa Claus at the department store turns out to be a complete maniac; and he nearly shoots his eye out with the Red Ryder BB gun. Ralphie’s most redeemable quality is his ability to shake off the disappointment and get on with his life. It’s fitting that the movie ends with him sleeping in bed with a smile on his face. 

The Parkers are a fairly interesting family because they are neither a perfect nor dysfunctional family unit that you often see on television. They are a fairly normal family, but like most normal families they have their quirks: the youngest son, Randy, refuses to eat; The Old Man is “one of the most feared furnace fighters in northern Indiana”; Ralphie constantly day dreams; and the mother holds the family together, but isn’t above getting into a petty argument with her husband.  The most famous image from A Christmas Story is the leg lamp that the Old Man wins in a contest. He is completely in awe of his “major award,” while the mother is embarrassed by it. When he suggest they put in by the front window (where all the neighbors can see it), the mother begins to freak out. The leg lamp subplot is not only hilarious, but its denouement shows just what an imaginative director Bob Clark could be; the mother leaves the frame to water the plants and then seconds later we hear an off screen crash. The Old Man emerges from the furnace, wondering what the noise was, only to discover that his precious leg lamp is in pieces. The mother claims it was an accident, but the father suspects foul play.  Was it really an accident? Did the mother do it on purpose? We are never given a clear answer, it is left ambiguous. If A Christmas Story were made today, there would, no doubt, be a shot of the mother knocking over the leg lamp and then giving the audience a wink. She would also be played by a “hot” actress, instead of the natural looking Melinda Dillon.

It is interesting to note that Darren McGavin was in his sixties and Melinda Dillon was in her forties when A Christmas Story was released, which makes them the oldest pair of parents in movie history. Yet, this works greatly in the movie’s favor – the movie is told from Ralphie’s point of view and children tend to view their parents as being old timers. When I was a kid, I thought anyone over the age of thirty was ancient. How times have changed! The great thing about the parents in A Christmas Story is that, despite their squabbles, they still enjoy each other's company – the movie ends with her sitting on his lap in the living room as they watch the snowfall.

This leads me to my final point: What happened to Bob Clark after A Christmas Story? It’s like there are two Bob Clarks; pre-Christmas Story and post-Christmas Story. The pre-Christmas Story Clark made a series of flawed, but interesting movies: Black Christmas is an unsettling precursor to Halloween; Murder by Decree is an eerie Sherlock Holmes thriller; and Porky’s is a better than average sex comedy. His filmography after A Christmas Story is absolutely horrendous; the nadir probably being Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2.  His early movies showed a director with great promise, while his later projects make you wonder, “How does this guy keep getting work?” It is an absolute shame. Well, at least he will always have A Christmas Story.

Cast: Melinda Dillon (Mother Parker), Darren McGavin (The Old Man Parker), Peter Billingsley (Ralphie), Ian Petrella (Randy), Scott Schwartz (Flick), Tedde Moore (Miss Shields), R.D. Robb (Schwartz), Zack Ward (Scut Farkus), Yano Anaya (Grover Dill), Jean Shepherd (Ralphie as an adult – voice), Jeff Gillen (Santa Claus).

Director: Bob Clark
Screenplay: Jean Shepherd, Leigh Brown, Bob Clark
Running Time: 95 min.