Godzilla Misconceptions You Like To Clear Up

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HedorahIsBestGirl
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Re: Godzilla Misconceptions You Like To Clear Up

Post by HedorahIsBestGirl »

I've met an alarming number of people who think that Godzilla is the only monster in his own series. Apparently some people think that one radioactive reptile destroying cities is enough to make over thirty films about.
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JAGzilla
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Re: Godzilla Misconceptions You Like To Clear Up

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HedorahIsBestGirl wrote:I've met an alarming number of people who think that Godzilla is the only monster in his own series. Apparently some people think that one radioactive reptile destroying cities is enough to make over thirty films about.
In the interest of being fair, most of those people probably aren't aware that Godzilla has over thirty films. And it might help that three of his more prominently released movies in the US (G54, G85, and G98) were solo outings. Anybody who hasn't seen it could also be forgiven for assuming G14 was a solo film, given the MUTOs' lack of presence in the marketing. Same with G2K, come to think of it.
Last edited by JAGzilla on Fri Sep 06, 2019 9:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
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HedorahIsBestGirl
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Re: Godzilla Misconceptions You Like To Clear Up

Post by HedorahIsBestGirl »

JAGzilla wrote:
HedorahIsBestGirl wrote:I've met an alarming number of people who think that Godzilla is the only monster in his own series. Apparently some people think that one radioactive reptile destroying cities is enough to make over thirty films about.
In the interest of being fair, most of those people probably aren't aware that Godzilla has over thirty films. And it might help that three of his more prominently released movies in the US (G54, G85, and G98) were solo outings. Anybody who hasn't seen it could also be forgiven for assuming G14 was a solo film, given the MUTOs' lack of presence in the marketing. Same with G2K, come to think of it.
You know what, that is fair. I guess I'm just surprised when I meet people who haven't even heard of Mothra or Rodan.
On the flip side, I know alot of people who think Rodan is Godzilla's archenemy. I had a college roommate who was absolutely convinced that there was a movie from the 90s called "Godzilla vs. Rodan". Turned out he'd seen part of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla 2 on TV and thought that Rodan was Godzilla's main enemy in the film.
The wisest words ever spoken on TK: "When I Saw The Showa Movie's white My Friend's They seid WTF is This Your showing Me to Men Fighting In suit's they found At party city Butt when I Showed Them The Heisei film's they thoght They where pritty fun To Watch"

:Godzilla68: and :Anguirus: were never really friends.

:Hedorah: is best girl, :Baragon: is best boy

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JAGzilla
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Re: Godzilla Misconceptions You Like To Clear Up

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HedorahIsBestGirl wrote:
You know what, that is fair. I guess I'm just surprised when I meet people who haven't even heard of Mothra or Rodan.
Again, lack of widespread marketing would make it easy to be unaware of other kaiju if you've never seen the movies. Where else would people be introduced to them? This isn't like Star Wars or something where the main characters are ubiquitous presences across the pop culture landscape. There are a handful of toys out there off and on, a few (mostly old) video games that probably weren't super widely played by people who weren't already interested in this kind of thing, and the occasional cameo or reference in other media. In the very likely event that you miss those, there's just no reason for these niche characters to be on your radar.
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Re: Godzilla Misconceptions You Like To Clear Up

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Gojira isn't the "only good one", this genre would have died a long time ago if every kaiju film after the 1954 was trash and never gain a fanbase outside of that one film. Nor does a kaiju film need to make a statement to be good, sometimes just need make a solid, entertaining film.

Something I wish casual viewers and critics understood about kaiju films before making some confusing complaints after seeing a film.

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Terasawa
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Re: Godzilla Misconceptions You Like To Clear Up

Post by Terasawa »

AIP never released or distributed Godzilla versus the Sea Monster or Son of Godzilla. It's pretty easy to see how this misconception started:
  • AIP, as "American International Television" (AI-TV), specialized in preparing and releasing foreign genre films for U.S. television during the late 1960s. Sea Monster and SOG went straight to TV during this same period.
  • AIP's Americanizations of kaiju movies were more often than not recorded at Titan Productions in New York. There is no dubbing credit in either island Godzilla film, however, the voices are familiar to anyone that has ever seen/heard Titan's work on similar movies. The voice casts are incredibly similar to Titan's crew that worked on Destroy All Monsters for AIP in 1969.
  • After the first few years in circulation, it's possible that the original Walter Reade Organization logos were spliced out (they were eventually replaced by Alan Enterprises' logo). Obviously, it's impossible to determine who distributed a film if there are no credits, as is the case with these films. Fans would not have been privy to supplemental promotional documents such as press books and photos which indicated Walter Reade Organization was responsible for the distribution of the films. It seems that several early Godzilla film historians also overlooked said documents.
  • Most embarrassingly, the phrase "an AIP dub" is still used by unknowing fans to describe nearly any U.S. version of a Godzilla movie, especially if it's since been replaced on home media by Toho's export versions. So to fans that don't know or don't care, these are often described as "AIP versions."
Unfortunately, high-quality reference works still refer to AIP as the/a distributor for either one or both of these films. The most recent, that I'm aware of, is Stuart Galbraith IV's The Toho Studios Story. Although it's a very good source for information about literally every film released by Toho since the 1930s, I've found that a lot of details about foreign releases presented in the book are inaccurate. I have no doubt that Galbraith did his due diligence and consulted the best sources available to him, this just shows how easy it can be for little mistakes to present themselves in massive, well-researched works.
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Re: Godzilla Misconceptions You Like To Clear Up

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Godzilla isn't a whale-ape hybrid like many say, yes I've actually known people in real life who have told me this and I always tell them that it's his name which means whale-ape but he's actually a dinosaur like everyone who has at least seen 1 or 2 Godzilla films would know.
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