Okay, so a version of the Big Green Lizard stomped through New York and local cineplex screens recently, but overall disappointing boxoffice indicated the "King Of The Monsters" may have lost its crown. Not suprising, when yoiu consider that the "real" Godzilla is dead. According, we present...
By Brendan Koerner
(In 1996, two days after receiving his BA in English from Yale University, Brendan Ian Koerner spent the next several months writing and pulling pints in a pub in Ireland. Upon returning to the States in November of 1996, he was hired as a full-time researcher at U.S. News & World Report. An associate editor on U.S. News Culture & Ideas staff since last October, he also enjoys drinking cheap beer on his porch, watching gangster movies, and listening to go-go bands on Washington D.C. radio.)
Some men raise families. Others work until the wee hours of the night adding up numbers all in a row. Some labor in caverns in search of ore. Still others bust into houses and take, take, take.
These are examples of mere males, someday to die and slip into obscurity.
Tomoyuki Tanaka,
who passed away recently at the age of 86, will never suffer such
an ignoble fate. In death, he is every bit as grandiose as in
life. A tower of genius in a sea of mediocrity, he rose from the
islands of Japan to offer the Earth a gift more valuable than all
of Mycenae's golden treasure. For he was the man who dreamed up
the 330-foot fire-breathing, building-stomping, Mothra-beating
creature known to Nippon as Gojira, but to us as Godzilla,
King Of The Monsters!
Wakened from his deep-sea slumber by a series of careless H-bomb tests, Godzilla first took his Tokyo-destroying act to the big screen in an eponymously titled 1954 debut. Curiously, Tanaka's original aim was not to glorify the wanton squishing of human beings and their abodes, but rather to illuminate the dangers of the atomic age. Godzilla, King of the Monsters was all about getting on a moral high horse and condemning the United States for its silly pummeling of helpless Pacific atolls with multimegaton packages. Funny thing was, audiences didn't care one whit for the preaching. As we all discovered at around age 4 or 5, mind-numbing cinematic violence is a whole heck of a lot more entertaining than...well, than just about anything else. Tanaka, super genius that he was, picked up on this vibe like a pterodactyl stealing a stegosaurus egg. If the public--especially those American kiddie-matinee patrons eating their Red Vines and digging on the amateur dubbing jobs wanted mass destruction, then by golly! -- that's what they were going to get.
The second picture, Gigantis, the Fire Monster (a.k.a. Godzilla
Raids Again, a.k.a. 
Godzilla's Counterattack,
depending on which channel you were watching) was no joke:
Godzilla and Anguilasaurus battling to the death in Osaka, and
taking a big chunk of the city down with them. Yippee! The Tanaka
formula only picked up speed as the years rolled on; this was a
man with an uncanny knack for dreaming up the coolest beasts a
few thousand yen could buy. Take Godzilla's most famous foe,
Mothra. Identified in some movies as the fierce goddess of the
island-dwelling Shobijin, and in others as the defender of an
ancient alien race known as the Cosmos (the Godzilla movies were
never all that good at continuity), Mothra was far beyond driven
(sorry for the bit of plagiarism, Dimebag Darrell). In 1964's Godzilla
vs. Mothra (a.k.a. Godzilla vs. The Thing), Mothra
stomped Godzilla so freaking badly, you'd think the vaunted King
of the Monsters was going to run home crying to his mommy like a
6-year-old with bifocals, Depped-up hair, and orthopedic shoes.
Or how about that Mechagodzilla cat? Think "Superman doppelganger," except with a bionic heart and an attitude akin to a Mai Mai warrior after a quadruple espresso. Or the monster god Megalon, sent by the mean old seapeople of Seatopia to teach us landlubbers a lesson or two about subjugation. If Godzilla hadn't always found time for a long snooze in an iceberg or subterranean air pocket, there's not a snowball's chance that he could have whipped these thugs into shape (lesson to the kids: Naptime is important, so lie down on your mat and go to sleep!).
 |
| Mourners of Godzilla gather for the funeral. |
Yet no man or radiation-mutated ancient beast can stand alone. Tanaka, in his infinite wisdom, realized that even a psychopath like Godzilla could use a helping hand, some tea, and some sympathy from time to time. Thus we were introduced to such magnificent, kind-hearted souls as King Sessar in Godzilla vs. The Cosmic Monster (a.k.a. Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, a.k.a. Godzilla vs. The Bionic Monster), Jet Jaguar (same flick), and Angilas in Godzilla on Monster Island (a.k.a. Godzilla vs. Megalon). Godzilla even appears to have been allowed a bit of hanky-panky on the side, for he is the proud papa of a mini titan named Minya.
Even on an off-day, Tanaka was surely a match for the greatest
minds our world has ever known--rolling out of bed after a sake
bender, he still could have beaten Plato in a one-on-one brain
tug-of-war. And when he was on...whoa, Nelly! Tanaka's ultimate
day of triumph--his Normandy, his Crecy, his Hastings--came in
1968 with the release of All Monsters Attack (sometimes
referred to by its odd Japanese direct translation, Strange
Creatures All Attack). No mere one-on-one, this picture
fast-forwarded the audience to 
1999, when 11 monsters attack
11 separate cities around the globe--all at the same time! It's
enough to make you cry in ecstasy. Or pass out. Or vomit dewy
drops of manna. Whatever floats your boat.
Sure, Tanaka's Toho Company relied on firecrackers, foam rubber, and toy trains for their "special" effects. Sure, the quality of the English dubbing makes Shaolin Temple sound like Shakespeare. But through it all, there was soul. Oodles of soul. Enough soul to fill up every heart among us with boundless love. Will Tristar's summer 1998 Godzilla movie measure up? No way! Without Tanaka's bountiful genius to guide them, the folks in Hollywood might as well give up now and try making Willie Ames into a star. Chances would be better.
Those truly starved for a shred of Tanaka's legacy can take cold comfort in a rumored King Ghidorah movie slated for 1999 artfully scheduled to coincide with Nostradamus' prediction that the world will be attacked by a flying monster that year. That is but small solace. To paraphrase Extreme, there's a hole in our hearts that can only be filled by Tanaka. Today, we stand on the brink of the abyss, gazing into a future without Toho Company's Godzilla. Mustering the courage to go on is, to say the least, a challenge.
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