Talkback: Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971)

[bugmolly]

I love Hedorahs back story and the general plot of the movie but some of the imagery in the film its self is really disturbing to me and as a kid this was my least favorite film in the series

[Lain Of The Wired]

So what's this about Godzilla's hand being melted and reduced to a skeletal hand?
I don't think I've ever seen that...

[eabaker]

It doesn't reduce the whole hand to a skeleton, it just burns a spot through to the bone.

[Lain Of The Wired]

It doesn't reduce the whole hand to a skeleton, it just burns a spot through to the bone.

Is there an image showing this?

[eabaker]

It doesn't reduce the whole hand to a skeleton, it just burns a spot through to the bone.

Is there an image showing this?

I've tried doing a couple of Google image searches and haven't found anything.

[Mechagigan]

It looks like at least the fingers are skeletal, to me...

[edgaguirus]

It does look bony, and the white spots on the arm of the suit are strikingly similar to acid burns. Another reminder of why Hedorah was such a dangerous foe for Gdozilla.

[Lain Of The Wired]

It looks like at least the fingers are skeletal, to me...
http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2011 ... VD_017.jpg
http://www.monstrula.de/filme/godzillav ... ehind5.jpg

Yeah, I decided to rewatch it last night, the fingers DO look kinda skeletal, but then again, they COULD just be acid burns, like eabaker said above.

[three]

weird. the damage is really inconsistent when it comes to Hedorah, though.

[Kaijugriffey]

This was always one of my favorites growing up. Probably because it was the first "new" Godzilla movie that we saw added to Giant Monster Week. Even back in my 7-10 year old days I recognized that there was something both special and yet exceptionally weird about this one. Some of the imagery of Hedorah's early forms plus Godzilla tearing it apart at the end stayed with me in dreams for a long time after. None of the other movies at the time had that effect on me, save the ending of Terror of Mechagodzilla.

[UltramanGoji]

It looks like at least the fingers are skeletal, to me...
http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2011 ... VD_017.jpg
http://www.monstrula.de/filme/godzillav ... ehind5.jpg

I think it's definitely supposed to be a skeletal hand, seeing as how Hedorah also reduced a group of people to bones.

It just looks off because it's just the suit's hand painted white.

[Goji]

It doesn't really look that way on film, anyway.

Since Tristar's old DVD release, it's been pretty easy to make out the damage to his hand.

[Lain Of The Wired]

So what about that eye beam? It seemed like the smoke it produced was toxic, which was the most dangerous aspect of it.

[edgaguirus]

The bio here says it creates toxic mist. Considering that everything else about Hedorah was toxic or acidic, it wouldn't surprise me.

[Lain Of The Wired]

The bio here says it creates toxic mist. Considering that everything else about Hedorah was toxic or acidic, it wouldn't surprise me.

Makes sense, Hedorah never really used the beam to strike Godzilla (except the time he uses it, and it hits Godzilla's hand after he strikes that Ultraman pose)

[Dillyziller]

I've heard that apparently Godzilla gets the skin on his hand burned of by Hedorah. I've never noticed this so can I get a screenshot?
EDIT: lol I should look at the past posts before asking. It looks more like his hand just turns white to me.

[Ragnarok]

It was okay. I don't like not liking a Godzilla film, but it's my least favorite of the Showa series so far. (I'm working my way through the series in order now.)

It would've been better if all the scenes featuring that uselss kid had been excised in favor of more scenes hammering home the ecological moral the film was hinting at.

[eabaker]

It would've been better if all the scenes featuring that uselss kid had been excised in favor of more scenes hammering home the ecological moral the film was hinting at.

I don't really think the movie needs to be any more heavy handed.

I also consider Ken's presence as the point of view character is fundamental to what makes this one work. But, then, I've proposed (much earlier in this thread) some pretty far out ideas about what this movie is doing structurally and thematically. Basically, I think the use of a child's perspective drives home the point that it is childish to expect an easy, external solution (like Godzilla) to a problem which can only be addressed by a massive change in human behavior.

[Ragnarok]

It would've been better if all the scenes featuring that uselss kid had been excised in favor of more scenes hammering home the ecological moral the film was hinting at.

I don't really think the movie needs to be any more heavy handed.

I also consider Ken's presence as the point of view character is fundamental to what makes this one work. But, then, I've proposed (much earlier in this thread) some pretty far out ideas about what this movie is doing structurally and thematically. Basically, I think the use of a child's perspective drives home the point that it is childish to expect an easy, external solution (like Godzilla) to a problem which can only be addressed by a massive change in human behavior.

I didn't really think it was all that heavy-handed, to be honest. I just would've liked more character development for Hedorah (yes I know how ridiculous that sounds), and more exposition on how exactly he (it) came into being, and on how even when he was defeated, the earth would always be under constant threat of another Hedorah-type creature so long as we continued to abuse our planet.

I don't say this as some leftwing liberal nutbag (I'm far from it), I say it out of artistic criticism. The hippie stuff, the kid, all that was just unnecessary in my opinion. I appreciate not everyone would agree with that though.

[eabaker]

Hey, I am a left wing liberal nutbag, which is probably part of why I'm apprehensive about a film with an environmental message coming off as so polemical that it would turn off a big chunk of its audience.

I also like the way that Kimura's script is every bit as cynical about the "hippie stuff" as it is about "the institution." In Kimura's world, there are no easy answers, and any single-minded approach to a problem is probably going to fall apart. You need the childish idea of a million man go-go somehow solving all our problems to contrast with the childish idea of trusting in the government/military to solve all our problems, in order to demonstrate all of the things that a rational person would have to contend with to try to implement real solutions to these issues.

And, as I said, the one magical big fix that somehow does work (Godzilla coming along to save the day) is only palatable in such an otherwise cynical context because it is the dream of a child - rather than the politicized fixation of one of the childish adults that populate the movie.