Godzilla is a unique film.
That's a strange thing to say about a movie that draws on prior giant monster movies and which left so vast a legacy,
but it's true.
There are two obvious answers to where Godzilla came from.
The first is a great film in its own right.
The name Gojira is an amalgamation of the Japanese words for gorilla and whale
(a reflection of how the monster was originally to look)
and a giant monster in a city certainly suggests a connection.
Plus the Japanese always liked King Kong, as testified by the silent comic remake, Wasei Kingu Kongu,
a lost film which, coincidentally is believed to have been destroyed during the US bombings in the 2nd world war.
But here the similarities end.
King Kong is a fairy tale, Godzilla is something else entirely,
as evidenced by its first scene and its second major influence.
Godzilla wasn't the first monster to be created by atomic testing.
The previous year's Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (the feature debut of Ray Harryhausen)
had the same origins and it was apparently the film's Rhedosaurus that inspired producer Tomoyuki Tanaka to change his gorilla-whale into a giant lizard.
But The Beast from 20,000 fathoms has none of Godzilla's social commentary
or emotional core.
Kong and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms represent pretty much the only giant monster movies prior to 1954
and Godzilla borrows from both.
Afterwards however...
Godzilla isn't the only factor in the making of these films,
it didn't come out in the US until 1956 in the horribly recut Godzilla King of Monsters,
with added Raymond Burr.
'Neither man or machine is able to stop this creature.'
Before then we saw radioactive giant ants in Them,
a radioactive giant octopus in It Came From Beneath the Sea
'Maybe one those college boys short circuited his new geiger counter.'
and a giant spider in Tarantula (which is growth hormones rather than radiation but still).
Point is- it wasn't just Japan that had an uneasy relationship with the bomb.
But, perhaps inevitably, it was Japan that best grasped the true horror of it
and its effect on the lives of ordinary Japanese people.
The devastation of a city maybe spectacular,
but the devastation of a village is somehow more personal.
Although in all these films scientists try to figure out what's going on,
it's notable that in all the US films, it's the military that provides the eventual triumph.
'Fire'
The message is still 'fear the bomb' but it's tempered with 'don't worry, our boys will protect you'.
In Godzilla the conclusion is less jingoistic and less certain -
the military are powerless to protect their country...
just as they were in reality.
The eventual solution is altogether darker and we'll come to it later.
US cinema was never really influenced by this aspect of Godzilla,
but then; why would it be?
To them it was just a monster movie.
They never saw the real version.
The Japanese, of course did,
and the sequel, Godzilla Raids Again, came out only 6 months later, starting a franchise.
And what a franchise.
Seven years after Godzilla Raids Again, King Kong Vs Godzilla was released,
followed by a further 26 Japanese films,
plus two US re-imaginings, and more have already announced.
So how can we possibly say that 1954's Godzilla is unique?
Well, although Raids Again followed so quickly, it ditched the sombre tone of the original.
Focussing on the destruction.
and giving Godzilla another monster to fight.
This trend of action over drama set the tone for all the sequels.
Conflicted scientists were replaced with comic relief.
Drama for adults became entertainment for kids
'Do you ever fight?'
'Oh no, I'm chicken.'
and Godzilla changed from terrifying force of nature to Japan's protector from other monsters.
This series ended in 1975 with Terror of Mecha-Godzilla.
But in 1984, Godzilla (or Godzilla Returns) came out as a direct sequel to the original,
ignoring the monster mash-ups in between but still missing the gravity of the 54 version,
and by 1989's Godzilla Vs Biolante we're back to monster's brawls.
This first reboot of the franchise wound up in the surprisingly downbeat Godzilla Vs Desotroyah,
which respectfully back-references the original.
Four years later however, seemingly in response to the disappointing US remake,
the Japanese Godzilla was rebooted once more in Godzilla 2000 for another 6 film series ending in 2004 with Godzilla Final Wars.
This film coincided with the 50th anniversary of the original,
but love 'em or hate 'em, these sequels and reboots bear little or no relation to that film.
The second US remake is an improvement on the first and has a more serious tone
but in the end, it's still big monsters fighting each other.
This year's Shin Godzilla has been very well received
and is the first since the original to have something serious to say about nuclear proliferation,
but still falls short.
The bottom line is - the original isn't what people want from Godzilla any more.
Of course Godzilla isn't the only monster in town,
certainly not if the town is Tokyo,
other screen monsters have been and gone from Yongary to Mega Shark Vs Mecha-Shark
but none has left so indelible an impression.
Not even when a great director like Guillermo Del Toro has a try.
The original Godzilla is unique because it crystallised a moment in time.
Many films use current events to inform their plots and it tends to hurt their longevity,
because people watching now have a different frame of reference to those watching then.
Godzilla somehow avoids this - it does not reference past events, it takes us there.
In a way it has more in common with more realist nuclear catastrophe films -
Peter Watkins disturbing docu-drama The War Game
or the Raymond Briggs animation Where the Wind Blows.
'Can't be anything wrong with you, it's just the after effects of the bomb.'
It's notable that when Ishiro Honda did some uncredited work on Akira Kurosawa's Dreams,
the segments he worked on all involved war and nuclear holocaust.
It's also worth mentioning Isao Takahata's Grave of the Fireflies,
which deals with firebombs rather than nuclear, but is another Japanese film that successfully takes us to that time and place.
In genre terms, the true successors to Godzilla are those films that try to use fantasy and horror concepts to reflect the world as it is now -
what is the 21st century's equivalent to Hiroshima and Nagasaki...
'Knowing how well populated that building is... there's another explosion down there on the second World Trade Centre Tower.'
Cloverfield's urgent found-footage style and sense of a disaster unfolding before our eyes specifically linked it to 9/11,
but it was criticised for turning a tragedy into entertainment -
it fails where Godzilla succeeds perhaps because Cloverfield sought to entertain,
Godzilla to horrify.
The contentious politics of The Host threaten overwhelm where its real power lies -
a story of personal loss, that is more like a kidnap drama than a traditional monster movie.
It may be a very different story but that personal tone links it to Godzilla,
it is an immense catastrophe that still feels small scale.
And it's a lesson that other films would do well to learn.
As digital effects become more advanced,
the line between Superhero movie and Kaiju is increasingly blurred -
these days you don't have to be Godzilla to battle giant monsters.
'I don't see how that's a party.'
In the Godzilla sequels and in modern superhero films,
buildings are knocked down without a mention of the people who must be inside.
The critic Mark Kermode has referred to this as 'weightless destruction' -
the loss of these lives has no significance.
In 1954's Godzilla thousands die, each leaving a heartbroken family behind -
we can't possible feel all that loss. And yet, somehow, we do.
The human cost is always front and centre.
We often say that what sets Godzilla apart is that it deals with horrific real world events in a fantasy context,
but actually that's not true - it's not that it deals with these events, it's how.
Firstly, Godzilla doesn't just reference events,
it addresses them by introducing Professor Serizawa's Oxygen-Destroyer.
This is a weapon of mass destruction that would save Japan,
but Serizawa fears what he might unleash on the world.
Given the film's theme you might expect Serizawa to back off, but in fact, he uses the weapon.
This is Godzilla's most daring moment,
asking its Japanese audience to identify, and empathise, with the decision made by their attackers.
Secondly, it's easy to reference traumatic events, but to do it with this much sensitivity,
to make the events resonate, to make each life count,
to feel a personal connection to those events and people even at a distance of 70 years -
that's great film-making.
In a strange way, Godzilla's big secret isn't that it's really about Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
it's that it didn't have to be.
Viewed simply as a disaster movie it's still a brilliant and emotionally draining film.
How great is Godzilla? T
he film gave birth to a franchise now into its seventh decade,
its success led to Rhodan, Mothra, Varan, and of course...
'Gamera'
in its home country, while Yongary, Reptilicus and Gorgo sprang up in others,
it inspired and continues to inspire directors and films.
And yet few of them even come close to the original.
How great is Godzilla?
It is unique.