What I Watched, What You Watched: Installment #108

It was strange, I was entirely familiar with Godzilla, but realized I had never actually watched it and not only is Gojira available on Netflix Instant, but damn near all the follow-up films as well, which I definitely plan on watching very soon, because not only are they entertaining movies, but they are short. Most interesting will be to see the features Criterion puts together to include with their release as this monster movie is obviously more than just a monster movie with its nuclear war metaphors. It will be fun to listen to commentaries and watch featurettes, which I can only assume there will be several.

This is a fascinating film and I am unaware of how many times such a thing has been done, where an older film is revisited with a lot of the original footage, the same actors and the same story being told, but by injecting a new character and telling the story from their perspective. I can’t say it entirely worked and I didn’t really like the English dub (I would have preferred the original Japanese track with subtitles) or the way some parts of the story were changed, particularly the reveal of the Oxygen Destroyer, but the existence of this film alone is a fascination.

Along with Criterion’s release of Gojira, which is expected to be fully restored, it was also learned a fine-grain 35mm print of Godzilla, King of the Monsters! has been found and is expected to be included with that same release. I was honestly quite impressed with how both of these films looked on the Instant Play, but obviously they could both use a solid restoration.