How many of you have ever met Godzilla? Anybody? Anybody? I met him once. It was back in South Carolina just after 1998. He was feeling pretty damn bummed out about the way (Roland) Emmerich and (Dean) Devlin treated him in the remake. I took him to a bar and he poured out his troubles over those drinks with the little umbrellas in them. With a tear in his eye he told me, “John, I was a star once. I was the biggest star in Japan. But now, look at me. Those two assholes Emmerich and Devlin have turned me into a parody, a shell of my former self.” I kept my mouth shut and let him get it all out. I knew this was what he needed to do. He took a sip of his drink and continued. “But, you know what, screw this shit!” He threw his drink across the room where it came that close to hitting the bartender in the back of the head. I thought for sure we were going to get kicked out of there, but the bartender just gave us a dirty look and went about his business. I figured it was because he never had a star of ‘Zilla’s magnitude in his two bit watered down, piece of shit bar before. Anyways, back to the big guy. He had already knocked back about a hundred of those little frou-frou drinks and was getting pretty damn wound up.

“I’m a star! I’ve made 25 movies! Has James Bond made 25 movies? Nooooooooooo!!! But now look at me! Look at me!!!” It broke my heart to hear the poor guy go on like that. I felt bad that I too had laughed at him in the Emmerich and Devlin remake. I gave the old boy a pat on the back and told him that it was all going to be okay. He grabbed me and hugged me just like Bitch-tits Bob did to Edward Norton in Fight Club. He needed to. He needed to know that someone believed in him and supported him.

“Big guy, I told him, you’re going to be a star again. I know it, deep down in my heart, I know it. In the next couple of years I’m going to be seeing big things from you, you just wait and see.” I could tell that I was getting through to him. The look of the old Godzilla was coming back into his eyes. We paid the tab and left the bar. We went to a pay phone where he pretended to be from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He called Emmerich and Devlin and told them that they had been chosen to receive an Honorary Oscar for their contributions to the motion picture industry. I could barely keep from laughing when Emmerich started crying and saying that this was the moment he had dreamed of all his life. It was good to have the old Godzilla back.

That was 13 years ago. Godzilla made several films in Japan after the debacle that was the American remake. I remember telling him that I was going to be seeing big things from him; in 2001 those words rang true. He, along with his buddies Mothra and King Ghidorah were the stars of Shusuke Kaneko’s “Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack.” It featured the Godzilla we are familiar with from his days with Ishiro Honda, except this time there are some new twists. For one, King Ghidorah is not a bad guy in the film like he has been in previous films he has starred in with ‘Zilla. Mothra is a little smaller, too, and the twin fairies are gone. The biggest change comes from the Big G himself. He’s still the same Godzilla we have all come to know and love, but this time his eyes are white, without pupils, like a zombie. It may have to do with his new origin story that the screenwriters have come up with. Instead of being the result of man’s folly in playing around with atomic weapons, this Godzilla is the embodiment of the tortured souls who gave their lives in World War II. I guess those souls are pretty damn pissed off if they use Godzilla to take out their aggressions. This is not your American remake Godzilla that runs from a fight and goes down after getting hit with a few piss-ant missiles. This is the bad-ass Godzilla that carries a wallet that says BAD MOFO on it in big black letters. This is the bad-ass Godzilla that gets annoyed with a bunch of screaming, running people and lets them have it with a blast of his radioactive breath. It takes the combined efforts of Baragon, Mothra and King Ghidorah to put a stop to his reign of terror. Will the giant monsters defeat the mighty Godzilla? Will Sookie decide between Bill and Eric? Will the sixth season of Dexter be as good as the last five? My friends, you’re just going to have to watch the movie. We are just going to have to wait and see.

Trivia

Originally scheduled for a March 2002 release, upon the request of director Shûsuke Kaneko, Toho pushed it ahead for the usual release date for Godzilla films (December of 2001) because March already belongs to their Doraemon anime films (According to Toho, they take a seasonal formula for their films: Spring is for Doraemon, Summer is for Pokemon, and Winter is for Godzilla, so they didn’t want any schedule conflict with their films).

Some of the miniature city sets from this film were used in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill: Vol. 1. They were supplied for him by art director Toshio Miike.

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