Godzilla 1985

After years of camp sequels, the boys at Toho figured it was time in the early 80's to revive the sagging Godzilla franchise by going back to basics, and so they essentially ignored all the stories after the original Gojira/Godzilla and offered up a "new" sequel which treated Big G as a monster again and not as a giant pal for kids the world over.

I remember going to the American version, this one with Raymond Burr reprising his role from the original Ameerican adaptation. It's interesting in a way that these Godzilla appearances caught Burr on both sides of his career, once as an up and coming film star and again as a mostly retired TV star. Godzilla 1985 was a decent monster movie with just enough of a serious tone to offset the memory of the late 70's monster romps (as fun as they could be). I even snagged a copy of the poster after the run and still have it around here somewhere. I used to keep it up in my classroom much to interest of my students, many of whom only had vague notions of Godzilla.

Surprisingly engaging is Dark Horse's reprint of the original Manga story which adapts the orignal Japanese version of this Godzilla epic. I'm not a Manga fan by any means, but it's hard not to see the craftsmanship in this story. I have a hard time investing in the characters since most of them are drawn as children with glandular problems, but the sequences with Godzilla are actually compelling and border on spooky. He's presented as an eyeless force of nature, largely silent save for his massive honk which shakes the soul. The devastation is enormous and the story shows it.

It's a good monster story, feeling not unlike an old Lee-Kirby monsterwork with a more heinous agenda!

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