Lunatics Radio Hour
Episode 125 - The History of Kaiju Films: Part 1
Abby and Alan deeply explore Japan's fascinating kaiju film genre, where enormous monsters and social commentary collide. We're peeling back the layers of this cinematic behemoth, from its roots in Japanese Tokusatsu filmmaking and mythology to the nuclear anxieties that colored its creation.
Ever wonder about the origins of these towering terrors? We've got you covered! We're diving into the influence of 1933's King Kong, the prototype of all monster movies. From there, we're moving to the Godzilla franchise, analyzing its evolution from the revered 1954 classic to the camp-filled romps of today. Whether you’re new to the genre or a seasoned kaiju fan, there’s plenty to sink your teeth into!
lunaticsproject.com
Get Lunatics Merch here. Join the discussion on Discord.
Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback. Music by Michaela Papa, Alan Kudan & Jordan Moser. Poster Art by Pilar Keprta @pilar.kep.
Sources
- The Kaiju Film: A Critical Study of Cinema’s Biggest Monsters by Jason Barr
- Criterion article by Steve Ryfle: Godzilla’s Conscience: The Monstrous Humanism of Ishiro Honda
- Unesco.org article on the history of Kabuki theater
- Hollywood Reporter article by Ray Morton: Origin of Kong.
- No film school article by Alyssa Miller: Killer Kaiju: How the Giant Creatures Made Waves in Cinema
- Sideshow.com article by Shane Smith - A Complete Film History of Godzilla
- CBR.com article by Jim Johnson Cloverfield Monster's Confirmed Origin Is Actually Pretty Heartbreaking
- Den of Geek’s multi-part series on the history of Ultraman by Stephen Harber.
- Wikipedia, IMDB + Many Films!
Abby and Alan deeply explore Japan's fascinating kaiju film genre, where enormous monsters and social commentary collide. We're peeling back the layers of this cinematic behemoth, from its roots in Japanese Tokusatsu filmmaking and mythology to the nuclear anxieties that colored its creation.
Ever wonder about the origins of these towering terrors? We've got you covered! We're diving into the influence of 1933's King Kong, the prototype of all monster movies. From there, we're moving to the Godzilla franchise, analyzing its evolution from the revered 1954 classic to the camp-filled romps of today. Whether you’re new to the genre or a seasoned kaiju fan, there’s plenty to sink your teeth into!
lunaticsproject.com
Get Lunatics Merch here. Join the discussion on Discord.
Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback. Music by Michaela Papa, Alan Kudan & Jordan Moser. Poster Art by Pilar Keprta @pilar.kep.
Sources
- The Kaiju Film: A Critical Study of Cinema’s Biggest Monsters by Jason Barr
- Criterion article by Steve Ryfle: Godzilla’s Conscience: The Monstrous Humanism of Ishiro Honda
- Unesco.org article on the history of Kabuki theater
- Hollywood Reporter article by Ray Morton: Origin of Kong.
- No film school article by Alyssa Miller: Killer Kaiju: How the Giant Creatures Made Waves in Cinema
- Sideshow.com article by Shane Smith - A Complete Film History of Godzilla
- CBR.com article by Jim Johnson Cloverfield Monster's Confirmed Origin Is Actually Pretty Heartbreaking
- Den of Geek’s multi-part series on the history of Ultraman by Stephen Harber.
- Wikipedia, IMDB + Many Films!
Hello everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Lunatics Radio Hour podcast, where we explore the history of horror.
Speaker 2:And the horror of history right.
Speaker 1:I'm Abby Brinker sitting here with the one and only Alan Kudin.
Speaker 2:Hello.
Speaker 1:And today, after years in the making, we journey into part one of the history of kaiju together.
Speaker 2:This has taken so long to put together simply because I insisted on watching so many Godzilla movies first.
Speaker 1:And how many Godzilla films are there?
Speaker 2:Alan, Featuring Godzilla, and I only know this because of your outline, so I'm giving you credit. I'm 37. However, there's a 38th, already greenlit, ready to go. Actually, no, there's 39, because there is the upcoming King Kong and Godzilla crossover, and then there's also the new Godzilla what's it called? Negative one?
Speaker 1:There's also a little bit of unplanned timeliness here, because, as we all know, the original Godzilla from 1954 was a response to the cultural anxiety about nuclear warfare right.
Speaker 1:So there is a film in theaters right now Oppenheimer which is all about the dropping of those nuclear weapons and the lead up and all of that. I haven't seen it yet, but I'm about to. So anyway, all this is to just say we did not plan the timeliness of this episode, but there is, you know, another side to the story, if you will, which we're going to get into today, Before we get too far ahead of our skis. Let's talk about the word kaiju. The kaiju actually means giant or strange monster when translated from Japanese.
Speaker 1:Kaiju films are technically a subgenre of a specific type of Japanese filmmaking called Tokusatsu, and so that refers to live action films that rely on special effects, mainly practical special effects. Another example of a subgenre below the Tokusatsu header is superhero films or television right, so power Rangers could be an example, Though the kaiju genre is defined by its action packed plots, clever monster origin stories and thrilling battle scenes. Kaiju films are often filled with political and social commentary, which is sort of going to be a little bit of my thesis statement for this series, not to say that every film that's a kaiju film is deep and thought provoking, but that many of them have more than meets the surface initially.
Speaker 2:That is fair, I'd say. The really really good, famous ones become that way because of their social commentary, their deeper meaning, the monsters and allegory. But there is a whole mess of movies that are just guys in rubber suits beating the crap out of each other in miniature villages and it's just glorious.
Speaker 1:Something for everybody.
Speaker 2:Something for everyone.
Speaker 1:But despite that, kaiju films can have emotional depth, tragedy, sacrifice and commentary on the ethics around scientific advancements. And all of that isn't even to mention the critique of government and bureaucracy which is almost always present. But let's name today's sources, some of which are going to spill over into part two, the kaiju film. A critical study of cinema's biggest monsters by Jason Barr. A criterion article by Steve Rifle Godzilla's consciousness. The monstrous humanism of Ashiro Honda. An UNESCOorg article on the history of Kabuki Theater. A Hollywood reporter article by Ray Morton origin of Kong. A no film school article by Alyssa Miller, killer kaiju how the giant creatures made waves in cinema. A sideshowcom article by Shane Smith. A complete film history of Godzilla. Cbr article by Jim Johnson, cloverfield Monsters confirmed origin is actually pretty heartbreaking. Den of Geek's multi-part series on the history of Ultraman by Stephen Harbour. Wikipedia, imdb and of course, many, many, many films and television series and video games played by all.
Speaker 2:Not to mention manga.
Speaker 1:Of course, kaiju films have a rich history right, which is why we're talking about them today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the Godzilla franchise alone is 70-ish years old.
Speaker 1:The original use of the word kaiju referred to monsters and creatures from Japanese mythology. Early use of the word kaiju can actually be traced back to classic of mountains and seas, which is a classic Chinese text. It's filled with Chinese mythology and fables.
Speaker 2:This is a Chinese book.
Speaker 1:Right, so an early use of the word kaiju can be traced back to this Chinese text.
Speaker 2:Huh and then, just phonetically, it became Japanese.
Speaker 1:I don't know about that.
Speaker 2:Interesting. I'm just surprised it didn't start in Japanese text.
Speaker 1:It might have, but it's just one of the earlier printed examples of it. So when we think about kaiju, creatures and monsters a film that's not at all what the creatures and monsters of Japanese mythology look like. Right, and I'm not trying to equate those two things, but what I do want to do is just paint the picture a little bit, because Japanese folklore is so rich with these incredible stories of different creatures and monsters and animals. So I want to pause and just give a few examples again, not that these translate to modern-day kaiju in any way, but just to sort of set the scene of how some of the legends and folklore evolved in Japan. So one example is kitsune, which is also known as mythical foxes. They were believed to be shapeshifters, symbols of both good and evil, and even had elongated lifespans.
Speaker 1:A kappa is a water god, humanoid, but also seemingly resembles amphibians and reptiles. A creature that calls to mind our episodes both on mermaids and the history of the creature of the black lagoon, because in those episodes we found out that this belief in humanoid aquatic creatures kind of spans multiple cultures globally, which is really cool. Also, shikigami, or a ceremonial spirit thought to be members of a society who had special powers. Again, this is only to name a few. There are many, many, many others. But just sort of to help illustrate the mythology in Japan, predating, of course, like the history of film.
Speaker 2:Of course I do look forward someday to our deep dive into just Japanese mythology.
Speaker 1:I would absolutely love that.
Speaker 2:It's going to be a long one.
Speaker 1:We'll have to bring in an expert for that one. In the 1900s, the word kaiju actually started to be used almost as an equivalent to the word cryptid in Western culture.
Speaker 2:That's actually that makes a lot of sense when watching just modern Japanese movies with subtitles. Anytime they say the word kaiju, it just gets translated straight to monster.
Speaker 1:I think one overlap with cryptid versus. It's like a legendary monster, a legendary creature, right. So, jumping ahead to film history Again, the genre toksatsu really means films that rely heavily on practical effects, Typically action films, which actually has roots in Japanese theater Dating back to the early 1900s. Japanese theatrical productions utilized special effects and puppetry to convey action packed fight scenes to audiences. Specifically, kabuki, which is a classic form of Japanese theater, combines traditional dance elements with drama. It's also known for stunning and elaborate costumes and makeup.
Speaker 2:I that's so interesting. I never really had considered the kabuki influence on kaiju films. Japan and the love of pure visual spectacle they just go hand in hand as well as just so many of the mass mass produced low budget kaiju films. The suspension of disbelief is just a given. Sometimes they're not even painting out the guy wires that, you know, make them the, the gymantis move its little mandibles right. It's just a given, it's just part of the art.
Speaker 1:Quoting from the UNESCOorg's website, the entry on kabuki theater quote kabuki is a Japanese traditional theater form which originated in the Edo period at the beginning of the 17th century and was particularly popular among townspeople. Originally, both men and women acted in kabuki plays, but eventually only male actors performed the plays. Huh, a tradition that has remained to the present day.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 1:Mm. Kabuki plays are about historical events and moral conflict in relationships of the heart. The actors speak in a monotone voice and are accompanied by traditional instruments. Important characteristics of kabuki theater include its particular music costumes, stage devices and props, as well as specific plays, language and acting styles. End quote. This form of theater was inscribed in 2008 on the representative list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity. Though, of course, kabuki and kaiju films are totally different mediums of artistic expression, but I do think it's important to see the relevance between the two and, as you put very eloquently, alan, this sort of way of telling stories through very visually impressive and stunning mediums. Right.
Speaker 2:Very visually stimulating. Yeah, not necessarily impressive.
Speaker 1:Oh, sometimes though.
Speaker 2:I mean, I love them anyways, although. So, just because we're talking about the Edo era, there was one film that I stumbled across just while going down this giant journey of kaiju movies that is the perfect meld of modern kaiju and kabuki, and that was Howl From Beyond the Fog, which is a modern movie. It's from 2019. The movie itself is only 30 minutes long, but it's technically a feature, because the rest of it is how they made it, because the entire thing is done with puppets.
Speaker 2:It's similar to I don't know, I was about to say Team America, but no, it's not at all like that, because everything is like super, super high art. It takes place in the Edo era and the whole premise is that there's a blind woman that befriends this blind lake monster that is a spirit god that lives in the lake, which goes back to the mythology aspect of it, but is a gigantic creature that only comes out when it's foggy. And then stuff happens and people try to force the woman off her home and the monster gets upset and goes in a rampage kaiju style. It really is a blending of everything we're talking about right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting because the next thing I was going to talk about is something called Boon Raku, which is a very traditional form of Japanese puppet theater which dates back to the 1600s in Osaka. So I do think, just even looking at this through the lens of puppetry and creature design, or the design, it's all really interesting to see one country that has such a rich culture and history within its art all around this again, this like visual spectacle, puppetry, creatures, mythology and how that kind of evolves over time.
Speaker 2:I mean we're going to get into this heavily in the pop culture section, if you will.
Speaker 1:This whole thing is a pop culture section.
Speaker 2:Okay, great. So, friedrein, one thing that's really illustrated by this is that it's like the whole how practical effects in movies age so much better than CGI, because for hundreds thousands of years, right, we've been watching stories told through a puppetry or some kind of like practical effect, where you're just suspending your disbelief and then, as soon as early CGI movies came out, they've aged horribly. But practical effect movies like the original Godzilla, nothing but practical effects that it stands. So so well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a good point. I think about that often.
Speaker 2:In what way?
Speaker 1:Just from a filmmaking lens that, if you're going to invest in a special effect of some kind, practical effects seem to have longer shelf lives than digital ones because the technology changes so quickly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's true. I guess they're just more expensive, more difficult to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But not if you're doing puppets.
Speaker 1:Right In the early to mid 1900s we start to see the origins of Tokusatsu film. Emerging Japan, shouzo Makano is often called the founding father of the genre. It's important to note that Shouzo wasn't only a trailblazer when it came to Tokusatsu film. He was also one of the early and important directors of Japanese cinema itself, which proves the point of how culturally important this genre is right.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:That the founding father of you know one of the founding fathers, I'll say, of Japanese cinema overall is also one of the founding fathers of Tokusatsu film. Right, that's how culturally important it is. Shouzo was born in Kyoto in the late 1800s. Quoting from his Wikipedia page, and bear with me on this one Quote, his mother ran a theater and his association with movies began when the motion picture producer Aino Suke Yokotoa of Yokotoa Shokai asked for his help in filming period films.
Speaker 1:Shouzo discovered actor Matsunosuke Onoe working in Naitineret Kabuki troupe and enlisted him into becoming Japan's first film star. He directed over 60 Matsunosuke films a year in the early 1910s, most, if not all, short films. In addition to creating the unique genre of the Japanese period film, mekino also incorporated trick camera techniques and a myriad of other cinematic methods of expression into his films. In 1919, he founded the Mikado Company and began to produce educational films. He later founded an independent production company and from 1923, continued as a director and a producer. End quote Shouzo inspired filmmaker Yoshiro Aemasa, who made the film Journey to the West in 1917.
Speaker 2:1917, that's got to be what. That's got to be a silent film.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course, Sound was 1927. A lot of this like again, we're talking about the founding of cinema in Japan. You know, the very, very early films.
Speaker 2:I'm just trying to picture this. I read Journey to the West within the last year and it's just like such a massive, grandiose story to do that as a silent film Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I would love to track this down.
Speaker 1:I'm sure we can find it. It's probably on Wikipedia. It's also, I will say, not incredibly unique to Japan that a lot of the first short early dabbles into cinema are genre pieces, like a lot of the first short films overall are even before sound. A lot of silent films are Westerns, horror films, science fiction films. That's not just. I want to just call that out. I know we're putting a lot of emphasis on the ties from Kaiju all the way back, but we see that throughout cultures, to be fair.
Speaker 2:That is fair.
Speaker 1:In the first few years of the 1900s, a comic strip called Dreams of the Rare Bit Fiend was released into the world from the mind of American cartoonist Windsor McKay.
Speaker 2:Dreams of the Rare Bit Fiend.
Speaker 1:Rare Bit Fiend.
Speaker 2:That's awesome.
Speaker 1:And I'm actually I think, because this is public domain, I can post the video on social media to actually show everybody what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:That's such a rock and roll title.
Speaker 1:I want to talk about the cartoon strip a little, even though it's kind of a side note, because I'm just really interested in it. So again.
Speaker 2:What year are we?
Speaker 1:Early 1900s.
Speaker 2:OK, and I'm just for some reason I picture like the cartoon strip being a later invention.
Speaker 1:No, no, so every time there's a new cartoon strip it's different. Right, it's a different character, but the main character always has a terrible and upsetting dream after eating Welsh Rare Bit, which is apparently cheese on toast.
Speaker 2:OK, cool.
Speaker 1:The ending of each comic strip is usually the character waking up, regretting eating of the Rare Bit because of the dreams that it caused and kind of recouping from the chaos and terror that the dreams have brought down upon them. How many panels are these? Just a few. I've looked at some of them. What a story. In 1921, the comic strip was turned into a series of animated shorts, one of which the pet involves an animal being taken in by a couple. This animal continues to grow as it consumes more and more, ending when it's the size of what we would consider now to be a kaiju. The pet is considered to be the earliest film of a monster or giant creature attacking a city. Again, this was not a Japanese kaiju film. It predates Godzilla. Godzilla is, hands down, the number one kaiju film, the first kaiju film, but this is just sort of an interesting predecessor that a lot of articles reference as the first giant creature attacking a city.
Speaker 2:On film.
Speaker 1:Correct.
Speaker 2:My one bit of history that I'm going to contribute, and I just wrote it down because I thought you'd be interested. I don't even know where this came from. I'm not giving any sources. Oh good, but the very first kaiju story came from 1908, and it was called the Monster of Partridge Creek. Where I got that fact, I don't know.
Speaker 1:But I wrote it. What are you reading?
Speaker 2:this from. I wrote it down on my list of Godzilla movies. Ok, that's all I got for you, but it's called the Monster of Partridge Creek and it's from 1908.
Speaker 1:All right, I have its Wikipedia page up here. It's a story by a French writer. It was published in the Strand Magazine and apparently it is the story of a very large dinosaur at Partridge Creek in the Yukon, which is in Canada. The illustration of the Monster looks very, very much like a T-Rex eating a deer. Yeah, are you looking at the same?
Speaker 2:thing. I'm looking at the same thing. That is a very apt description of the picture.
Speaker 1:Cool. Ok, well, I'm glad you mentioned it. I had no idea about this.
Speaker 2:The big takeaway of this entire episode is that the Kaiju was invented in France.
Speaker 1:Revisionist history by Alan Kudan.
Speaker 2:I told you I'm going to be throwing opinions left and right. You took the time to Google this.
Speaker 1:So we have to pause here before we go any further, Alan, to discuss the influence of King Kong on the development of the Tokusatsu and Kaiju genres. The first King Kong film debuted in 1933. King Kong was the brainchild of Marion C Cooper, an American filmmaker and notably a pilot in the US and Polish Air Forces. I say notably because you can start to see the correlation between films in this genre and military and political response and commentary, right, we kind of see the format of King Kong is somewhat similar to the format of a Godzilla film, right, hypothetically.
Speaker 2:Not hypothetically. It's very similar.
Speaker 1:There's a Hollywood Reporter article that I'm going to reference a lot, which is wild because it's like this interview with a firsthand source and a lot of this is quite bizarre, but it's history and I'm going to link all the sources in the description so that you guys can read this article if you want to, Because if you're interested in King Kong or in film history at all, read this article.
Speaker 2:OK.
Speaker 1:According to the Hollywood Reporter, article Cooper had even been shot down several times, both in World War I and the Polish-Soviet War.
Speaker 2:And many times at bars.
Speaker 1:Even escaping from a prisoner of war camp. The article describes him as a colorful adventurer with an incredible history. After returning from battle he went on to be a reporter and an explorer, before combining the two and documenting his travels with film. I'm going to quote here from the Hollywood Reporter article Quote during one of the expeditions that he went on, he and his partner made what they called natural dramas. They were sort of documentaries. They would go and film real people and real animals in exotic locations, but then they created a fictional plot. They would edit the documentary footage to create sort of a fiction film based on real footage.
Speaker 2:They made the first reality show.
Speaker 1:They made a lot of money and these things became very popular. On one of their expeditions he watched a family of baboons and that got him interested in apes and then later he thought he'd like to do a story, a natural drama, about an ape. A friend of his, an explorer named Douglas Burden, had gone to Komodo. He was one of the first people to go to Komodo in Indonesian island, where they had the Komodo dragon. End quote Of course, one of the first Westerners, not one of the first people. His first concept for King Kong was a story about a gorilla that escapes or fights this Komodo dragon. Again, according to the article, it points out that at that time gorillas were not super well known to Westerners, who would only be exposed to gorillas starting in the 1800s. So there was this kind of narrative that gorillas were these huge in Western cultures because there weren't naturally any gorillas. People didn't really understand what they were and it made it feel more like a cryptid, say, than an actual animal that existed in the world.
Speaker 2:It's like the taxidermied lion. They shipped just the pelt back to Europe and the person that had a taxidermied into the full animal had never seen a lion. So it looks horrific and super, super weird, because they had no idea what this creature was supposed to actually look like.
Speaker 1:That's wild.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like when we're putting dinosaur bones together today. You're just using. You're using your best educational guess. For some reason it's a hot button topic debating whether King Kong is a kaiju or not. But to your point, if people didn't know what gorillas were, of course this is just a crazy big monster, right.
Speaker 1:And it's sort of interesting because people didn't know what gorillas were. This gave Cooper creative control and influence over this depiction because he could kind of take some liberties with it. He was also inspired by his friend who brought back a Komodo dragon and put it in the Central Park or the Bronx Zoo they weren't sure which zoo, but a zoo in New York. And again you can see the similarity there to the plot of King Kong.
Speaker 2:We just paused for a sec so that I could show Abby the taxidermied lion. The country that the pelt was shipped to was Sweden. All you have to do is type in taxidermied lion. The autofill will give you the rest.
Speaker 1:It's kind of cute. He looks a lot less ferocious than a real lioness.
Speaker 2:Yes, because they gave him human teeth.
Speaker 1:It looks like a cartoon lion. So another inspiration was folklore around the idea of gorillas kidnapping women and bringing them into the jungle, which Cooper wanted to include. The final inspiration of no was a film called Creation. Cooper was struggling to get funding for his idea, especially during the Great Depression. He realized through watching the filmmaking process of creation that he could use sound stages and animation and stop motion to make King Kong instead of traveling to remote places and dealing with an actual gorilla.
Speaker 2:Oh my god, can you imagine just that epiphany happening?
Speaker 1:for the first time. Oh, wow, cool.
Speaker 2:Okay, so we want to make a movie about space. This is gonna be expensive.
Speaker 1:Fun fact he made Kong 12 feet tall simply because he thought that that's how tall gorillas were.
Speaker 2:Wait, King Kong's only 12 feet tall. Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1:But he in the 1933 film, and he made him 12 feet because he thought that that was factually accurate.
Speaker 2:I just imagine being. I mean it's been a while since I've seen I mean 12 feet is tall.
Speaker 1:That's over double your height.
Speaker 2:We have. We have 12 foot ceilings.
Speaker 1:No, we don't Stand up. You think two of you could stand up in here? No way, are you kidding? I'm gonna send a picture of how close Alan's head is to our ceiling. You think that another you could stand on your shoulder?
Speaker 2:Okay, I stand corrected.
Speaker 1:How tall are our ceilings?
Speaker 2:20 feet.
Speaker 1:How tall are they?
Speaker 2:No, they're their eight foot, which is pretty standard.
Speaker 1:Right, okay, so that gives you some context about how big King Kong is. Yeah, 12 feet is no joke.
Speaker 2:He would have to slouch what he could be in our apartment.
Speaker 1:Not comfortably. That would be like you being in a three-foot tall apartment.
Speaker 2:No. Yeah 12 feet down to 8 feet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 6 feet down to 3 feet.
Speaker 2:Okay, he's also a gorilla.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So is 12 feet when he is on all fours or when he's standing up. When he's standing up. Okay, so they go on all fours.
Speaker 1:He could comfortably be in the apartment, okay, in 1933, King Kong debuted, which had a direct influence on Tokusatsu and later Kaiju films in Japan.
Speaker 2:But again there's a big debate whether he's a Kaiju. So for any of the patrons that listened to our horror movie club episode this month, yeah it was about the host, which is a Korean quote-unquote Kaiju movie, and I only say that just because it's a small monster and it's just kind of like it's an animal, it's a weird animal and it's a mutant animal.
Speaker 2:It's a mutant animal Kind of. In the way that King Kong is, he's just like an overly large gorilla. But for me there's no question that King Kong is a Kaiju In just.
Speaker 1:You think King Kong is a Kaiju? Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 2:Go on.
Speaker 1:I think King Kong is just an animal.
Speaker 2:In 19.
Speaker 1:It's like saying Jaws is a Kaiju. What is it?
Speaker 2:62?. It was real early. That's when Godzilla faced off against King Kong.
Speaker 1:Do you think Jaws is a Kaiju?
Speaker 2:No, he's a shark. He's a slightly larger than he's an ornery shark.
Speaker 1:Okay, is the Meg a Kaiju.
Speaker 2:Close.
Speaker 1:yes, what's the difference?
Speaker 2:He's really big, real, real big, and he was like a prehistoric beast, locked away, freed because of I don't know. I haven't seen the Megan forever. I'm assuming it was just super deep in the ocean. And then we do testing and piss him off and he comes and eats people.
Speaker 1:The thing is for those of you who are not patrons and did not listen to Horror Movie Club this month Alan's whole definition of Kaiju really boils down to size of creature.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:I don't agree and we're not going to agree with all of the ways that we you and I specifically define Kaiju films. I believe the first Kaiju film is Godzilla from 1954. And I think King Kong I put in the category as Jaws, which is there's not really an origin story. It's a large gorilla. Maybe at the point when King Kong and Godzilla face off and King Kong is much bigger than 12 feet, we can talk about it being a Kaiju.
Speaker 2:Sure but.
Speaker 1:I don't think the film from 1933, apparently is a Kaiju film.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm agreeing with you. You're talking about King Kong, the film, I'm talking King Kong, the character, right, it's also like in the original film.
Speaker 1:It's like an expedition to where King Kong is and we're taking him out of his place. He's not like Skull Island, right, he's not coming to attack, or it's just a different feel to me.
Speaker 2:Also, in the original he's worshipped, isn't he? I don't know, I'm confusing it with.
Speaker 1:The Jack Black film.
Speaker 2:Well, both the Jack Black film and Skull Island, the legendary remake of being meaning legendary pictures. But yeah, oh, the Jack Black film, holy cow, what a film. I feel like that is still pinnacle. King Kong Sure, it's a retelling of the original. They make him big and mean and he fights dinosaurs, which is cool, and it has Jack Black Like.
Speaker 1:Everybody loves Jack Black.
Speaker 2:But okay so, because he's just a gorilla.
Speaker 1:But he's big, you don't think he's a kaiju. I just think it sort of predates the genre, the original film, sort of predates the existence of the genre, forget the original film or just. I'm talking, you're thinking holistically about him Holistically, king Kong. To me the origin story, like the fact that he's a giant gorilla without a power or an origin story. He's a fringe for me. He's on the cusp.
Speaker 2:That's the mythos from 1933. And possibly also the Peter Jackson remake.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then the legendary monsterverse. There's lots and lots of mythos about the origin of Kong, how his family used to do battle with Godzilla's family, their ancestors, and they have all these temples because they were basically treated they were the world's first gods, like that was. That's also like. A big theme of Kaiju is that these are supernatural forces, basically.
Speaker 1:Right, I don't have a hard stance on it.
Speaker 2:Now answer me this Okay, so you take a normal animal, take a giraffe, okay, make it 800 feet tall 800 feet tall. Is that a Kaiju?
Speaker 1:Nope, it's a large giraffe.
Speaker 2:He's stomping around a city.
Speaker 1:Extra large. Get him back to where he wants to go. He starts I don't know he's not breathing like atomic breath. What he's not like, there's no.
Speaker 2:He could.
Speaker 1:But he's not in your example. You know, he's just a large animal. He doesn't have a power.
Speaker 2:But he's stomping around, okay.
Speaker 1:Stomping around is not a power. I do that every day.
Speaker 2:So they need powers.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying that, I'm just saying I'm trying to get your Again.
Speaker 2:this is.
Speaker 1:There's got to be something special there.
Speaker 2:Something.
Speaker 1:Like Mothra is a giant moth. Yes, but she has little twin friends. She has some mystical elements to her.
Speaker 2:She's the guardian of the planet.
Speaker 1:Right, we love her. A giant giraffe who, king Kong? The story of King Kong is about taking a creature out of their element and bringing them against their will and putting them on display and dealing with the ramifications, because you underestimated their power versus what I think some of the narrative of Kaiju films are.
Speaker 2:That is literally the origin of Godzilla as well there is. He wasn't created by the nuclear bomb. They talk about it in the 1954 film how there's all these undersea caverns, and the bomb blew one up and destroyed his natural habitat. And now he's pissed and so he comes and it's. Instead of being taken from his natural existing environment, he was ousted. He does also have atomic breath.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about Godzilla. In 1954, ashiro Honda introduced the world to Godzilla. This film went on to inspire 37 sequels and remakes, countless comic books, video games, books and, of course, tv shows. Godzilla became a global mega hit associated with action and destruction, but its original intention was much deeper.
Speaker 1:Nine years before the release of Godzilla, on August 6th and 9th 1945, the United States of America dropped two atomic bombs on Japan. The first was on Hiroshima and the second on the city of Nagasaki. The combined bombings killed as many as 226,000 people instantly. Six days later, japan surrendered to the Allies and only two weeks later, world War II was over. This incident remains the only time nuclear weapons were used during combat. The impact of these bombings on Japan can't be understated. The bombing in Hiroshima destroyed about 70% of the city's buildings, and this was, as we all know, an incredibly catastrophic and horrible event with lasting ramifications. Godzilla is a metaphor for nuclear weapons.
Speaker 1:There's another incident I want to talk about that happened just before the film came out, and that's the Lucky Dragon incident. The Lucky Dragon was a Japanese fishing boat that was contaminated by nuclear fallout from a US nuclear test at Bikini Atoll in 1954. The crew endured symptoms from the exposure all survived, with the exception of the chief radio man, who died some months later. This happened in March 1954, quoting from the sideshowcom article by Shane Smith. Quote meaning grill a whale in Japanese Gorgera began life as an idea within the mind of Tomoyuki Tanaka, a film producer for Toho Company. He was flying over the ocean one day in 1954, and he wondered what would happen if a giant beast rose from the depths. I'll lie beasts from 20,000 fathoms end. Quote.
Speaker 2:Which we haven't talked about yet, which, the beast from 20,000 fathoms? Does that predate? What year is that? Does that predate? King Kong? He's old. Okay, I got my story straight here, thanks to good old Wikipedia. The beast from 20,000 fathoms is from 1953, and it's an American film. It is based on a short story called the Foghorn, which has a very iconic scene with a lighthouse being destroyed by this giant beast. And this giant beast is a reedosaurus, which is a type of dinosaur, and it was released from frozen hibernation by an atomic bomb being tested in the Arctic Circle.
Speaker 1:I just want to say that the Foghorn was actually written by Ray Bradbury, who's come up on this podcast many times before.
Speaker 2:He's very famous. This sounds just like Godzilla and actually I guess that's no secret how this was a direct inspiration for the idea for Godzilla.
Speaker 1:Right same. You know, you have kind of an era with these sorts of films coming out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just wild that this came out only one year previously. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Godzilla went through a few different aesthetic versions before filmmakers settled on his look, including a giant octopus and a creature with a mushroom cloud for a head, what which would have been very on the nose. When the director decided to move forward with the project, he knew it was a risky career move. He wanted to make sure the crew was on board fully. If anyone had any doubts about the project, he asked them to step down before production started.
Speaker 2:I can see how this would be a very sensitive film to make. But speaking to your point about Godzilla's design, it's so interesting because it's so, so similar on paper to the Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. But one movie has not only survived the test of time but thrived, and the other is a trivium effect, basically. And I remember we watched this or maybe I just watched this, but this was years ago because I was excited to just see a classic Kaiju movie and the big problem with it is it's a big stop motion, just like King Kong, but they keep showing the monster. Very similar to King Kong.
Speaker 2:King Kong is a hokey movie, I mean, it has some horrific things that happen, but it doesn't follow the rule of you know, let your mind fill in the gaps. It just keeps showing the Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. Does that in spades? They just keep cutting back to it. Just be like, look at our production value and your production value sucks in 1953. But then you get to Godzilla where, yes, they show him many times. However, I don't think there's a single time where they show all of him. His head, like the iconic thing, is his head poking over the ridge, it's his foot stomping through. It's his tail, it's his bits and pieces and it's so dark and underexposed and he only comes out at night, except for the over-the-rid shot, you know. So there's so much left for the mind to infer it's one of the reasons why the first Godzilla is one of the few true horror movies in the genre.
Speaker 1:Right along with the host.
Speaker 2:Yes, along with the host.
Speaker 1:Share with me as I read this rather lengthy quote from the Criterioncom article by Steve Rifle, to help set the stage of the state of cinema in Japan at the time. Quote it was the spring of 1954, and Honda was readying to direct Godzilla as the first movie of its kind produced in Japan and one of the most expensive movies made in the country to date. It was an audacious project for the filmmaker, for Toho Studios and for domestic film industry that had been left devastated and demoralized after World War II but was now resurgent. During the 50s and 60s, the masters of post-war Japanese film Akira Kurosawa, kenji Mizuguchi, masaki Kobayashi, mikio Naruse, nagisa Oshima, kan Ichikawa and many others would produce a bumper crop of exemplary, enduring cinema, acclaimed at home and abroad.
Speaker 1:Even currently, a generation of studio-contracted directors would crank out commercial program pictures for the domestic market dramas, comedies, period pictures, gangster pictures and musicals With efficiency and hit-making skill. Honda was among the latter group, but he would forge a unique path as Japan's foremost director of Kaiju Iga or giant monster movies. End quote. Honda's influence spans far past Kaiju films. His work not only started this subgenre but also went on to inspire and refine the disaster, action and science fiction genres in general. One reason for this is the mass appeal and broad distribution of Honda's work. The criterion article calls out that, while Akira Kurosawa, for example, remains a film-school art house, classic Honda's Godzilla had an intense global impact on audiences.
Speaker 2:Can we just reflect for a moment that when you think of the criterion collection, you don't think of Godzilla movies, right?
Speaker 1:I do, I think of.
Speaker 2:Well, it's not the first thing that comes to mind. I don't know, you think of cinematic masterpieces and I personally. I mean and like, yes, the first Godzilla is a cinematic masterpiece. However, having gone through well, according to my notes, 22 of the 37 Godzilla movies. There's a lot of them that are part of the criterion collection. I don't know what the criteria is to get on that list, but a lot of them made the cut. So good job, buddy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I also think the criterion collection is largely about the preservation of important works.
Speaker 2:All right, good for a myriad of reasons, not only because they are critically acclaimed, or you know right but I mean, like, think about modern-day movies, like I assume things are still being added to the criterion collection. I don't know, I really don't know this surprisingly, but like I don't know, is American pie In the gonna be in the criterion collection? Is the Avengers gonna be in the criterion collection? These were Movies that had a strong impact on a man, on cinema, in one way or the other.
Speaker 1:It's a good point. Films are being made much more now, right, like films in general are just like so much more prolific that it's a larger pool to choose the special ones from just imagining in the year 2077, kids are sitting in film school with their robot teachers and they're like okay, now we're going back and we're going to watch.
Speaker 2:dude, where's my car?
Speaker 1:Man, I really hope I'm alive in 2077. It'd be interesting. One more quote from rifles criterion article quote. But it all started with Honda sober-minded approach to the original Godzilla. Other directors had begged off the project, believing it was ridiculous and that it would likely end up as a laughing stock. But to Honda this was no joke. Working with the special effects genius, eiji Suburaya, who devised the genre signature combination of soup mation, a man and soup monster, and Precisely constructed miniature sets, honda created a monochrome masterpiece of sci-fi horror, punctuated by extensive destruction sequences that elicited real-life fears of nuclear terror. Images of Tokyo smoldering in the wake of the monster, or irradiated civilians setting off Geiger counters, and of the Japanese military Overmatched by the seemingly indestructible foe Help turn Honda's entertainment spectacle into a cautionary tale about the atomic power that had not long ago been unleashed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and quote.
Speaker 2:I also want to say that I mean I Haven't seen all of the Godzilla's, but I have seen the majority. The very first one is the only time that I can think of where you see Godzilla Use his atomic breath on people directly. There's just like people, like not military personnel, and tanks or jets or anything like that, or you know, firing back Just people on the street, terrified for their lives, and they just get burned to death and it's Terrifying, and it's again. This is a movie from 1954.
Speaker 1:This shouldn't be that scary with the effects and it it makes you really unsettled and a lot of that Obviously has to do with the overt correlations between the devastation of the atomic bombs and this film right.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I mean, it's just talk about playing into Relevant fears. There's something they say in the movie. There's characters, they're on a train, air sirens are going off because Godzilla, who's already been identified Like the. Air sirens are going off, which means evacuate, and one of the characters says like, oh geez, I barely escaped Nagasaki. Then we had to deal with the irradiated tuna, now this I'm I'm so over Evacuating and just like I thought, wow, not like.
Speaker 2:First off, that's dialogue that you probably wouldn't be able to write today, right? But instead these are real-life problems, outside of Godzilla of course, that people actually had to deal with on your day-to-day life.
Speaker 1:Well, the interesting thing that maybe is my ignorance, but researching this, I found out a lot of Information about the bombings of Japan which I hadn't realized or I had forgotten over the years. And one of those things was that leading up to the drop of the bombs and I'm not saying that this justifies anything, but leading up to the drop of the bombs, the US handed out leaflets, like from planes like they. They showered Japan with leaflets warning them about bombings and things like that, and it became very political right where if you were caught with a leaflet at a certain point, you were in trouble with the Japanese government, and on and on. But the really interesting thing there is like, imagine living in a Constant state of fear. You're being told from leaflets that are raining from the sky that You're gonna be bombed and and that those leaflets are actually so impactful that a lot of there's a lot of people who kept evacuating, right.
Speaker 1:But but then it was like, well, when is it gonna happen? Hmm, so it's that's just like an interesting detail that it doesn't do anything to alleviate the damage of what happened, but it adds to the fear of the lead-up to it. Right, and especially when the Japanese government at the time was like Pay no mind and not even pay no mind, but if you're caught with a leaflet you might go to jail. You know, it's just like you're getting. You're from all sides, it's just like the. The Japanese people were really Kind of being tortured at that time, before the bombings even happened.
Speaker 2:Mentally well, sure I mean I'm. I don't want to get too far into World War two politics. You know this also comes down to population control. You can't let your populace be afraid of the enemy because you need morale high. So you start imposing very strict penalties For even possessing propaganda.
Speaker 2:Yeah in this case, not prop. I mean, it is propaganda in a way, but it's also it's not, you know a warning, it's a promise. It's hey, this city is gonna blow up, right, gtfo? All I know is I didn't watch 1954 Godzilla until I was in film school had no desire to watch a black and white Hokey monster movie.
Speaker 1:That's when I watched it too, yeah well, there's a good reason.
Speaker 2:You know, having seen it's at least having an idea of like what old-school monster movies were. Like they. They look hokey, they're laughable. I had seen King Kong previously and it's like Stupid, you know it's it's. It's not scary, it's from 1933, 19,.
Speaker 1:You know, we're a, we're a different audience.
Speaker 2:Right, but still, you know that was my idea. And then I watched Godzilla and it was horrifying. What makes 1954 Godzilla so impactful, compared to so so many other Kaiju films, is it focuses on the average person right. Yes, there's a. You know there's the plot, with the military Trying to come up with a solution to deal with this, but there's so many scenes of just the average Joe in their home and a giant foot Stomps it and they lose a loved one.
Speaker 2:Yeah and like, wow you that it's so relatable, which is weird because it's a giant atomic lizard. How is that relatable? Watch it.
Speaker 1:I mean, I also think it's. It's a good note that people of our age, our generation, our first experience with Godzilla was not probably the original film from 1954. There was the film from 1998, there was animated series, there was other ways that we would have intersected with Godzilla without understanding the cultural importance of it, right with it just being sort of this Action monster creature. So I remember the first time when I watched the original and I had this very clear sense of what I thought Godzilla was and what I thought the original was gonna be, and I was like, oh shit, this is something totally different and it's much deeper and it's to your point. It's horrifying, but it's also Poetic and tragic and all these other things. It's a tragedy all right.
Speaker 1:And so it kind of shifted everything for me, which is again why I think part of what I'm trying to highlight today, and more so in part two of this series, is that this genre inherently lends itself really well to deal with big issues, to deal with uncomfortable issues or tragic issues because of the format.
Speaker 2:So anyway, yeah, it's a sad movie and the word tragedy is perfect. Nobody wins at the end.
Speaker 2:Yeah so so many cities in Japan are just fucked. Then at the you know spoils Sorry, spoiler alert for 1954 Godzilla they end up killing him at the end. It's also one of the very few movies where Godzilla dies, and they do so with a very, very heavy heart, because this creator makes another weapon of mass destruction, which is the very thing that caused Godzilla to rise in the first place. They basically have to combat this evil with an even greater evil, and so the creator does it with the heaviest of hearts, so much so that he sacrifices himself, and to do in doing so, he insists on detonating the Superweapon which is called the oxygen destroyer. He insists on detonating it himself, so that not only did he destroy all his notes, but he would die, so that no one could coerce him into ever building another one, which is just like wow, just imagine that gravitas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, truly it's a sad movie.
Speaker 2:It's sad.
Speaker 1:It's sad, it's beautiful, it's many things. Everyone go watch it if you haven't seen it. One thing to sort of highlight here the Godzilla franchise is made up of almost 40 films, right, and and maybe even more if you count Additional films made into additional projects. But regardless, it's a massive, massive franchise. Godzilla as a franchise is also a spectrum From films like the original to films like what's the most ridiculous spin-off.
Speaker 2:What's the most ridiculous? Well, abby, I'm so glad you asked. That's really awesome. Ah, it's either destroy all monsters, there's, it's just a giant royal rumble with monsters because there's gas that makes them go nuts and Aliens are involved. Okay, but personally I think the most ridiculous and I don't know there's it's such a toss-up. There's that there's the son of Godzilla, where it's not about you know, a monster destroying a city and the army and the Ramifications of the people trying to survive this onslaught. It's about Godzilla taking on the trials and tribulations of parenthood, right, so that's a great example.
Speaker 1:So Godzilla, the franchise, is a spectrum from the original, which is about Nuclear weapons and the devastation on humanity, to son of Godzilla, where Godzilla just really figures out how to be a dad right, and everything in between. So we're breaking up this series into parts for many reasons, but one of the reasons is that Part two next time it's going to be quite campy. For the most part there's some stuff we're gonna get into, but quite campy, quite lighthearted action, packed fun, filled over the top, jump the sharky. But we kind of wanted to isolate that a little bit from kind of some of the heaviness and importance of the topics that we discussed today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely Like I've realized that just after the last movie that I watched in preparation for this was the original Godzilla, just to kind of like bring it all back, which I've seen many times. Sure, but just you know, after watching hours and hours of Godzilla through the ages, to go and just reconnect with the roots and you're like, oh damn, this is a heavy movie.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:No flying karate kicks here. That was a reference to Godzilla versus Megalon.
Speaker 1:Okay. So, Alan, I have a question for you before we let everybody go today, which is next time we're going to come back. We are going to be talking about the Godzilla franchise, we're gonna be talking about Ultraman, we're gonna be talking about Gamera, we're gonna be talking about the host in Cloverfield and all different types of modern Kaiju films.
Speaker 2:Power Rangers.
Speaker 1:Power Rangers. What homework you were the one who have. We've both watched a lot of Kaiju films, but you've watched a lot. What films should people watch for next episode, to have a little bit of understanding of what we're gonna talk about?
Speaker 2:How many recommendations should I give? Three, Three Abby, that's unfair.
Speaker 1:People. There's no way people are gonna watch more than three films for this.
Speaker 2:I really should give you one from Godzilla, one from Gamera and one from Ultraman.
Speaker 1:If you so wish. You seemed pretty fucking freaked out watching Cloverfield today.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I'm just gonna assume that you've already seen the original Godzilla, because that's not gonna be talked about. Oh, it will be talked about in part two. I'm probably never gonna not talk about it First, shin Godzilla from 2016.
Speaker 1:Absolutely one of my absolute frickin' favorites.
Speaker 2:So Shin, just meaning new. It's a yet another reboot of the Godzilla franchise and, personally, the reboot movies are the most fun in my opinion because, first off, you don't feel like you're missing out on decades of mythos building. It's not like you're watching Avengers Endgame without ever seeing a Marvel movie. Instead you're watching Iron man 1. But okay, that's my first recommendation. I would suggest Cloverfield.
Speaker 1:You looked absolutely terrified watching Cloverfield today.
Speaker 2:Okay, we're gonna talk about this next time, but I said on the podcast before Cloverfield is one of the few movies that I would never watch again because I had such a pinnacle experience in theaters and for me that was the greatest of all time movie going experience.
Speaker 1:But then you watched it.
Speaker 2:I felt like it was too important to this episode to not revisit, and I'm really glad I did. But I'll go into more detail later. Okay, so we have Shane Godzilla Cloverfield.
Speaker 1:Can I jump in with one? My two cents would be Ultra Q. Watch an episode or two of Ultra Q, which is the first series within the Ultraman universe and it doesn't necessarily tie in with the rest of Ultraman. But if you're here and you're into horror, ultra Q is kind of like a horror anthology, twilight Zone type show, and again, it's not a movie and it's, but to me it's very fascinating on its own. So that would be my two cents, along with the host. But that's just me.
Speaker 2:Okay, here's my third recommendation, and just to be well-rounded to not pick another Godzilla movie, I'm gonna say Gamera, Guardian of the Universe.
Speaker 1:All right. So now you have your homework. So if you choose to accept it, if you don't, again, you certainly don't need to watch all of these movies. This is such a pop culture heavy episode because we're talking about the history of an entire genre, so there's no expectation or requirement to watch all of the films. The important thing is, hopefully, that we will all be a little bit inspired at the end of this to watch stuff out of our comfort zone or watch some films we hadn't previously watched, and approach this genre with a deeper understanding of its cultural significance. But part two is gonna be really fun.
Speaker 2:I agree. I only give that third recommendation because that is the only franchise that is balls enough to make a movie about a giant reptile destroying cities that's not Godzilla and also be successful and also, like he's cool, he's a giant turtle and he's got rocket legs, Like that's kind of neat.
Speaker 1:Also, if you're not aware of Mothra, I would say become aware of Mothra before part two.
Speaker 2:Mothra's fun.
Speaker 1:Mothra is my religion.
Speaker 2:Why is Mothra so cool? Why is Mothra so liked? It's really hard to put a finger on it.
Speaker 1:More to discuss next time.
Speaker 2:Sure, all right, we're just gonna wrap it up there. We're gonna go watch more movies.
Speaker 1:Thank you guys so much. And actually, as a fun surprise, we do have some brand new Kaiju-themed merch in our merch shop. So if you head to lunaticsprojectcom, click on merch at the top of the page, you will be taken to our merch shop and you will see our really fun Kaiju design by our friend Oliveeng. So go check that out if you're looking for some fun and nerdy summer apparel. And otherwise we will be talking a lot about Kaiju over on Patreon and on our Discord, all of which is linked below, and we'll see you in a few weeks. Thanks everybody. Bye, I'll see you in the next video.