Godzilla Essays

The 1954 film Godzilla was not only massively successful in Japanese box offices, but also in pushing the use of special effects forward. While the legacy of Godzilla includes an enormous amount of sequels, spin-offs, and other forms of paratext, its ingenious utilization of practical effects to drive a timely ideological message is what has made Godzilla an enduring film able to capture audiences even today. But, the effects themselves did not make Godzilla a classic film, but the effects in conjunction

GODZILLA: THE PLANET OF THE MONSTERS Godzilla has been one of the greatest works of Japanese culture creating 37 films so far letting us see the magnificence that can have a work, being one of the first franchises to leave Japan after the Second World War. I would dare to say that it was the work that allowed Japan to resurface from its foundations and then become the power that it is now. Called Gojira in its original language, the Japanese, it is a fictitious monster very popular in the twentieth

The scalar utilization of environments in Godzilla contextualizes the ideological connotations of the film and allows for comparison between humanity and Godzilla. The natural environment of people is represented on-screen by miniatures of buildings used to constitute a city. This environment is characterized by tall, thin structures (e.g. skyscrapers) and wind (almost every establishing shot of an inhabited landscape is accompanied by a flag or treetop billowing in the wind), making the city seem

When we think of the 1956 classic “Godzilla: King of the Monsters”, we think of a terrible black and white film about a lizard monster plagued with horrible overdubbing. The audience after finishing the film may feel as if they got nothing from the movie but what they don’t know is that what hides below Godzilla’s faults is an in depth analysis of humans, our shortcomings, and the concept of death. The American remake of the film cut scenes from the Japanese film as a way to introduce Steve Martin

In both movies, “Godzilla”, and “Waterworld”, there are elements of science in which humans have caused the earth to fall into peril. Godzilla is an immense, dinosaurian-like creature who feeds off of the nuclear radiation at Earth’s core. This radiation has caused this creature to mutate, and become as large and destructive as it currently is. This is a metaphor for the dangers of nuclear bombs, and the catastrophes that they can possibly cause, such as death and genetic mutations in DNA which could

Everyone may know the action-packed, atomic breathing, gargantious lizard, bringer/saviour of destruction, and King of Monsters that lives in the vast depth oceans of Tokyo, Japan. His/her name is Gojira (or Godzilla in America). So the movie starts off with the scene being in Honolulu, Hawaii with the sky being pitch black, with bright burning stars illuminating the sky with a beautiful light. There are tourists everywhere having a party in a luau with a night show, and amazing food, and beautiful

Godzilla is an American monster film even though the movie is based on a famous Japanese monster film named Gojira. The story starts with a Japanese cannery ship being destroyed by an unknown sea monster. Because of this event, the U.S. state department was forced to reassign Nick Tatopoulos to the site where the monster was last seen. Godzilla traveled from French Polynesia, Panama, Eastern Seaboard and to New York. After Godzilla’s first attack in New York, the military team together with

In the movie business the director will usually do whatever it takes to try and attract to the audience, whether it be trying to appeal to a bias or just providing a cheap thrill. The movies Godzilla and Frankenstein are no different; they explore the unknown nature of technology and how it can be detrimental to us humans. By exploring these unknowns, movie makers are able to exploit how society feels about technology and push the boundaries of what 's right and wrong. From the first movies being

and unwelcome (Kirszner & Mandell, 2012, p.679). The author’s use of descriptive phrases allows me to see the world as through the eyes of the young boy and I can see reality as the young boy believes it to be (JOLLIMORE, 2009). Just as the monster Godzilla would rise up against those determined to suppress his existence, an immigrant must rise up against oppression in an environment where he was not wanted (Kirszner & Mandell, 2012, p.679). Being an immigrant is likened to being on an island exiled

Gojira, or Godzilla as the film was called in the West, was first released by Toho Studios in 1954, and is one of the best known examples of the Japanese society’s fear and warnings against the destructive side of nuclear technology. In the original film, Godzilla is depicted as an absolute terror. In the opening scene, he attacks in the dead of the night, destroying a series of fishing

on bigoted knowledge. Folklore of many ancient beasts, for instance dragons, have lasted generations. Indeed we know devils do not exist, but they serve purposes other than scaring; they educate. From monumental leviathans, such as Ishirō Honda’s Godzilla, who informs of fissionable threats, or Ray Bradbury’s plesiosaurus, who gives a window en route lonely minds, to insentient revulsions, exemplified via Robert Louis Stevenson’s Mr. Hyde, monsters give mosaic slants that allegorically educate. In

Plan - Different subheadings, driven by key questions, detail history and film, fear itself, origins, today, etc. In 1920, two years after the conclusion of the Great War in November of 1918, a film was released in Germany that captured the spirit of men who had just returned from the front. It was a horror film, The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari, detailing a mad doctor and his sideshow act, a young somnambulist (or sleepwalker) named Cesare that, when awakened by Caligari, could perceive the future

The monster archetype has been one of the most riveting archetypes that surrounds the concept of ‘evil’. It has been portrayed as a supernatural creature with grotesque features that normally brings disruption to the city and needs to be tamed or controlled to bring once again peace to the story. Due to this, it is most commonly depicted with a negative connotation, and with the idea of horror and fear. The monster has been present since the bible, which was written approximately 3,400 years ago

In the article “The Devil in Disguise: Modern Monsters and their Metaphors,” Emma Louise Backe discusses the various kinds of monsters and what they symbolize or represent. The author’s target audience in this article is people who is interested in pop culture. She points out that the meaning of monsters’ changes throughout time, but she defines it as a symbol created from a cultures nightmare. Starting with Frankenstein, Backe states that the famous monster created by Mary Shelly, “represents the

Everyone may know the action-packed, atomic breathing, gargantious lizard, bringer/saviour of destruction, and King of Monsters that lives in the vast depth oceans of Tokyo, Japan. His/her name is Gojira (or Godzilla in America). So the movie starts off with the scene being in Honolulu, Hawaii with the sky being pitch black, with bright burning stars illuminating the sky with a beautiful light. There are tourists everywhere having a party in a luau with a night show, and amazing food, and beautiful

or releasing his anger as she sees what Cuba and the suffering has done to him even as a young boy. In the boy’s continued thoughts, “That monster, that island, and I knew she wasn’t talking about the movie (Suarez, V., 2000),” his mother compares Godzilla to Fidel Castro, the ruthless leader responsible for awful consequences of the Cuban people. In her anger, she declares her anger towards Castro and towards the country. The boy continues and compares the country to a reptile, “Itself a reptile-looking

who has not done anything to anyone expressing these emotions of sadness. Suarez will catch lots of readers attention with this section of the poem because people have a lot of sympathy when it comes to children. In "Isla" Suarez talked about how "Godzilla bellows his eardrum crushing growl (Kirszner & Mandell 2012)." It was quite clever of the

A second film that created one of the most notorious villains in all of cinema and was a pioneer in special effects was Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. Revenge of the Sith is a prequel film that showcases the creation of the monster named Darth Vader, also known as Anakin Skywalker. Unlike other monsters, Anakin is not born evil and for the first half of his life, he is a hero. The film visually depicts Anakin’s fall to the dark side and his transition from a hero to a villain. When Anakin contemplates

Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (Ishiro Honda, 1964) 1964 was the year that Toho decided to shift the kaiju genre 's focus from adults to children, stripping the films from much of their depth and largely turning them into wrestling matches among actors with monster suits. This particularly film though, remains one of the best entries in the category, particularly due to its cast that featured Takashi Shimura, who played in Akira Kurosawa 's "Ikiru" and Eiji Okada, from Hiroshi Teshigahara 's

paint the baby's room, fill the freezer with meals, have evenings out... One windy night, November 13 to be exact, I woke to the house shaking. We opened the front door and a rush of tree branches burst in. A lofty maple had flattened our car like Godzilla and ripped the front porch right off. I didn't stop to grab my "Ideas for Books" file; we didn't look for the cat. We stumbled around to the back of the house--only to be stopped by an emergency worker, shouting, "You're about to step on live wires