Godzilla Minus One: Back to Basics
A shape-changing monster reverts to his origins. Plus, a book release update and podcast recommendation.
Last week, I took my son to see Godzilla Minus One in IMAX.1 Based on the reviews and box office numbers; I expected a great kaiju (big honking monster) movie. Explosions! Falling buildings! Screaming civilians! And based on what I’d heard, a return to Godzilla’s roots as a villain instead of an antihero or, worse, a monster with a heart of gold.
It exceeded my expectations. By the time you read this, I’ll have seen it a second time.
I’ve written about how much I’m a fan of Godzilla before. I grew up watching the (mostly) goofy Showa version on TV and in theaters. I saw Toho try unsuccessfully, in my opinion, to return him to a threatening monster during the Heisei era. They nearly pulled it off in the Millenium movies, with the hard-to-categorize Shin Godzilla being the first horror movie in the franchise since the original film in 1954.
Now we’re in a strange era for kaiju flicks. Two studios, Legendary in the U.S., and Toho in Japan, are making movies about the same monsters. But their films couldn’t more different: the Japanese studio with the reputation for camp is making serious films while the pompously named Legendary released a trailer with King Kong and Godzilla charging to the rescue superhero style, with the ape wearing a single glove and the reptile sporting huge biceps and pink spikes.
Even the spin off streaming series on Apple TV has engaged in a little self parody, with Kurt Russell’s character mocking a key scene from Legendary’s 2014 Godzilla.
A Creature of the Cold War
Godzilla originated as a symbol of the evils of the atom bomb. The first movie hit theaters nine years after the U.S. dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and amid a string of nuclear tests on Bikini Atoll. According to Wikipedia (citing commentary on the DVD release) a scene in that movie where Godzilla attacks a ship is a reference to a fishing vessel contaminated by those tests. The fallout killed a sailor and irradiated fish intended for human consumption, freaking out Japan’s populace.
One of the striking elements of Godzilla Minus One is how it expands on this Cold War theme. It goes a step further (or backward) by starting in World War II, with a look at the plight of a kamikaze pilot2 that doesn’t want to die. It follows him after the war ends, with an up close look at the plight of Japan’s citizens struggling to survive in decimated cities.
Godzilla Minus One intertwines historical situations with the kaiju genre, providing a perspective on the Cold War we don’t see very often. In most films, the Cold War is about spies, proxy battles, space races, and unprecedented technological and economic progress.
That’s not how it felt outside the U.S., at least not for the first few decades. In cities all over Asia and Europe, people lived in smoking ruins, fought over food, and the best jobs were roles like searching the Sea of Japan for American mines.
A Real Story
If this makes Godzilla Minus One sound like a somber affair, that’s because it is. But that doesn’t mean it’s not also a fun and touching film. Where it truly stands apart from the rest of the franchise is its characters. It’s filled with three-dimensional people with flaws and problems that make you care about not just whether the giant lizard steps on them, but if they end up happy.
See it. It’s not every day that a subtitled film breaks box office records. There’s a very good reason this time.
Advanced Reader Update
Last week I put out a call for Beta readers for The Great War of the Worlds: Shadows of the Past (heretofore referred to as SotP.) Rachel LaDue of Science Fiction IRL pointed out that I should probably include a page count, details about the book for new readers, and details about the feedback I’m looking for. That’s when I realized…
I am looking for Advance Readers. Not betas! The book will be done, and I’m interested in giving copies to people, seeing what they think, and hopefully creating a little buzz. If you love it, I’d like to hear it. If you find some typos, let me know. If you hate it so much you want a paper copy so you can set it on fire, I’ll see what I can do.
SotP is the first book in a two (or more?) book series that acts as a sequel to H. G. Wells War of the Worlds. There’s a sample chapter here, and some background on the book here.
Here’s the blurb:
It's 1915, twenty years after the Martian invasion failed. The aliens left behind advanced technology and weapons, and now humanity is on the brink of a catastrophic war. Caught in the middle of the chaos are two unlikely heroes: Emil Zimmerman, a young German soldier, and James Brogan, an introverted radio engineer.
Emil dreamed of escaping his small village and making his way to the big city, but finds himself in the trenches fighting for an army that indiscriminately wields deadly Martian weapons. Meanwhile, James just wants to be left alone, but is pulled into a web of conspiracy when he's called upon to repair crucial radios on Long Island.
As the world hurtles towards the brink of destruction, Emil and James find themselves on a collision course with fate, each struggling to survive and make sense of a new reality.
The book will be around 95k words, and I’ll be sending it out in late February or very early March. You can sign up here.
Singular Discoveries
Paul Brown, another Substacker, just wrapped up the first season of Singular Discoveries, his audio series telling unusual stories from forgotten corners of the past. There are stories about the Titanic rescue, a female horse thief forced to disguise herself as a man, a mysterious murder at a British train station, and more.
You can find it here, via your favorite podcast app, or direct from Paul, where you can buy it outright. I enjoyed the first two episodes so much I bought the download and added it to my audio book collection.
He’s 34 now, but you’re never too old to have your old man take you to a monster movie.
For some insight into how those pilots were trained, see this article about Tangen Harada Roshi, who survived the war and become a monk. It doesn’t seem to be paywalled.
Refer a subscriber to my list from this link, to get a free ebook copy of Shadows of the Past!
Eric Goebelbecker
Trick of the Tale LLC
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