Yoshio Tsuchiya | Through the Shattered Lens

“Godzilla has been erased from time …. but now, King Ghidorah is here!”

Whoops! I guess you all shouldn’t have traveled back in time and kept that dinosaur from mutating into Godzilla then!

1991’s Godzilla vs King Ghidorah was the 18th film in the Godzilla franchise and, because the Back To The Future franchise was very popular in Japan at the time that the film was made, it has a plot that revolves around time travel. A group called The Futurians appear in 1990s Japan. They explain that, by the year 2204, Godzilla will have destroyed all life in Japan. However, they have a plan. They’ve built a time machine and they will be going back to 1944 so that they can remove Godzilla from his island home before the nuclear testing begins. For some reason, the Futurians take a few people from the 90s back with them.

After witnessing a dinosaur stepping on a World War II American army platoon, the Futurians arrange for the dinosaur to be transported to the Bering Strait, where it won’t get doused with radiation. Meanwhile, they secretly leave behind three adorable baby dragons that, once nuclear testing begins, will end up being transformed into King Ghidorah.

It turns out that Futurians are liars! I’m shocked too. In 22o4, Japan is actually the most powerful country in the world and it is so economically strong that America, Russian, and Europe are dependent upon it for their survival. The Futurians were just jealous of what a great country Japan was destined to become so they decided to get rid of Godzilla and instead allow King Ghidorah to destroy the country.

Now, if the Futurians were smart, they would have actually destroyed the dinosaur. Instead, they just sent it to the Bering Strait. And if the Futurians were really smart, they wouldn’t have allowed people in 1991 to know what they were doing. To be honest, all of the mistakes made by the Futurians were self-inflicted. By taking people from the 90s back to the past and letting them see where the dinosaur was sent, they basically ensured that those people would immediately go to the Bering Strait in 1991 and give the dinosaur a dose of radiation so that it would become Godzilla and then battle Ghidorah….

WHAT!?

Yeah, I know. It makes no sense. This is one of the least logical Godzilla films that I’ve ever seen and that’s saying something. Godzilla vs Biollante was loved by critics but it was considered to be a disappointment at the box office. For the follow-up, the producers not only brought back a classic Godzilla opponent (and I did smile when the three-headed Ghidorah showed up because he really was the most awesome member of Godzilla’s supporting cast) but they also came up with a plot that was considerably more juvenile than the previous film. The end result is a film that makes no sense from a narrative point of view but it does at least feature a few good fights between Godzilla, Ghidorah, and a robot version of Ghidorah. And it was also a film that did well enough at the Japanese box office to guarantee that Godzilla would return.

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Godzilla Raids Again begins with a plane making an emergency landing on an island near Japan. Soon, another plane lands to help out the first plane. The two pilots, however, are immediately stunned by the sight of Godzilla battling an armored dinosaur with a spikey back. Rushing back to the Japan, the pilots learn that the armored dinosaur was an Ankylosaurus that has been named Anguirus. Anguirus and Godzilla are among the many prehistoric creatures who, having once been thought extinct, have been awakened and set free by nuclear testing. And though Godzilla and Angurius are first spotted fighting on an isolate island, there’s little doubt that they will soon make their way to Japan, where the population is still recovering from the previous Godzilla attack.

First released in Japan in 1955 and subsequently released in the United States in 1959, Godzilla Raids Again was the first sequel to Gojira and, in a nod to continuity that would become extremely rare as the series continued, it actually does provide an explanation as to how exactly Godzilla is still alive after being apparently dissolved at the end of the first film. It’s explained that there are actually several Godzillas. The one that previously attacked Tokyo was destroyed but now a second one is coming. Unfortunately, the man who destroyed the first Godzilla was killed in the process and apparently, he didn’t leave behind any notes explaining how he did what he did.

Once again, Japan is attacked by a giant monster. Once again, cites are in flames and innocent people are dying. The main difference is that, this time, Godzilla isn’t so much trying to destroy humanity as he just doesn’t even seem to realize that humanity is there. Godzilla is more concerned with fighting Angurius and he barely seems to notice the buildings that he’s destroying and the lives that he’s ending. If the first Godzilla film was about the lingering trauma of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Godzilla Raids Again is about being a small country caught in the middle of a conflict between two nuclear superpowers. Godzilla and Angurius are so obsessed with beating each other that they really don’t care about anyone who gets trampled underfoot. While Godzilla Raids Again is nowhere near as dark as the nightmarish first film, it’s still considerably more sober-minded than the Godzilla films that would immediately follow. Godzillla Raids Again may not be as powerful a film as the first one but it still has its moments. The film is at its best when it examines how ordinary citizens react to being pawns in the middle of a war between two super-powered monsters. Some people defy the orders to stay home and instead try to have a good time in what may be their final moments. Others cower in fear. Some turn to religion. Some turn to science. A group of criminals try to bust out of prison. In the end, it’s the brave citizens who are willing to risk and sacrifice their lives who ultimately save the world from Godzilla’s atomic fury.

When Godzilla Raids Again was released in the United States, it was in a heavily re-edited and poorly dubbed version. (The narrator is sure to mention that the United States is willing to help out Japan with its monster problem.) The film was retitled Gigantis and, throughout the Americanized version, Godzilla is referred to as being “Gigantis.” Apparently, the film’s distributor thought that audiences would stay away if they knew that this film was a sequel, despite the fact that Godzilla had been a hit with American audiences. Since Godzilla died at the end of the first film, the distributor felt that audiences would reject the idea of the character returning from the dead. Times certainly have changed.

Of course, Godzilla is forever.

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