The Return of Godzilla

The Return of Godzilla ゴジラ (Gojira) is a 1984 produced by Toho Company Ltd., and the sixteenth installment in the Godzilla series, as well as the first in the Heisei series. The film was released to Japanese theaters on December 15, 1984, and to American theaters on August 23, 1985.

Plot
A Japanese fishing vessel, the Yahata Maru, is trying to find its way to shore in a fierce storm while near an uninhabited island, when a giant monster appears and attacks the boat. The next morning, reporter Goro Maki finds the vessel intact but deserted. As he explores the vessel, Goro finds all the crew dead with their bodily fluids seemingly drained except for one young man called Hiroshi Okumura, who has been badly wounded. Suddenly a giant sea louse attacks Goro but is eventually killed when Hiroshi regains consciousness and stabs it with a hatchet, saving Goro's life.

In Tokyo, Okumura is kept isolated in a hospital room and meets with Doctor Hayashida, who presents him with pictures of Godzilla attacking Tokyo from back in 1954. From looking at the pictures, Okumura confirms that the monster he saw was Godzilla. The news of Godzilla's return is kept secret by the Japanese government to avoid panic until Godzilla attacks a second time and destroys a Soviet nuclear submarine. However, the Russians believe the attack was orchestrated by the Americans, and a diplomatic crisis ensues which threatens to escalate into nuclear war. The Japanese intervene and finally announce that Godzilla was behind the attack. The Japanese arrange a meeting with the Russian and American ambassadors and, after some debate over the issue, Prime Minister Mitamura decides nuclear weapons will not be used on Godzilla even if he were to attack the Japanese mainland, an announcement that the Russians can't come to terms with. The J.S.D.F. are put on alert and begin to search for Godzilla.

Soon, Godzilla appears on an island off the coast of Japan, determined to feed off a nuclear power plant in the outskirts of Mihama. When Godzilla attacks the facility near Mihama and feeds off the reactor, he is distracted by a flock of birds, and leaves the facility almost as quickly as he arrived. After some research, Hayashida determines that like birds, Godzilla follows the Earth's magnetic field in order to navigate, and that he can be lured to any location using a magnetic transmitter. Hayashida forms a plan to construct a transmitter and lure Godzilla to Mount Mihara on Oshima Island, where he will be trapped in the volcano's crater with a controlled eruption. Meanwhile, the Russians have their own plans to counter the threat posed by Godzilla, and a Russian control ship disguised as a freighter called the Balashevo in Tokyo Harbor prepares to launch a nuclear missile from one of their orbiting satellites should Godzilla attack.

Godzilla is later sighted at Tokyo Bay, forcing mass evacuations out of the city and a state of emergency is declared. The J.S.D.F. attacks Godzilla with fighter jets, but their missiles are useless against him. Godzilla then proceeds to the coast, where the waiting military forces, equipped with tanks, rocket launchers and soldiers armed with assault rifles, proceeds to fire on Godzilla, but they are quickly obliterated with a single blast of Godzilla's atomic breath. As Godzilla climbs ashore, he causes the Balashevo to crash into the shore and capsize, damaging its systems and causing the nuclear missile to launch. The ship's captain, Colonel Kashirin, bravely attempts to disarm the missile, but is killed by a small explosion before he can do so. Godzilla then proceeds towards Tokyo's business district, wreaking havoc along the way. There, he is confronted by two Hyper Laser Cannons and the Super X, a piloted craft armed with cadmium weapons constructed in secret to defend Tokyo in case of emergency, in particular a nuclear attack.

Godzilla has a bad reaction to the cadmium shells that are fired into his mouth by the Super X, and falls down unconscious. Unfortunately, the city is faced with a greater threat when the countdown ends and the Russian missile is launched from the satellite, leaving the Japanese government and people helpless to stop it. However, the Americans intervene and shoot down the missile with one of their own before it can hit Tokyo. Unfortunately, the atmospheric nuclear blast creates a radioactive electrical storm, which revives Godzilla once more.

Godzilla has a final battle with the Super X, eventually damaging the aircraft and forcing it to make an emergency landing where he destroys it by toppling a building on it. Godzilla continues his rampage, until Professor Hayashida arrives on Oshima Island and activates his magnetic transmitter, which gets Godzilla's attention. Godzilla leaves Tokyo and swims across the ocean to volcanic Mt. Mihara, where he notices the signal device, which fascinates him. As he walks towards it, he falls into the mouth of the volcano where he is surrounded by bombs. Okumura detonates the charges and causes a volcanic eruption. Godzilla roars as the ground beneath him crumbles and he falls into the volcano's crater, his fate unknown.

Monsters

 * Godzilla (84Goji)
 * Shockirus

Weapons, Vehicles, and Races

 * Super X
 * F-1 CCV Jets
 * Type 74 Tank
 * UH-1B Huey
 * Balashevo
 * Soviet Nuclear Attack Satellite
 * Ballistic Missile Launcher
 * SH-60J Sea Hawk
 * Hyper Laser Cannon
 * KV-107 II Helicopter
 * HSS-2B
 * P-3C Orion Maritime Patrol Plane
 * Delta II Class Nuclear Submarine
 * M110A2 Self-Propelled Howitzer

Alternate Titles

 * Godzilla (Literal Japanese Title)
 * Godzilla 1985 (United States)
 * Godzilla: The Return of the Monster (Godzilla – Die Rückkehr des Monsters; Germany)

Theatrical Releases

 * Japan - December 15, 1984
 * United States - August 23, 1985

U.S. Release
After acquiring The Return of Godzilla for distribution in North America, New World Pictures changed the title to Godzilla 1985. The company radically re-edited the film. Most significantly, they added around ten minutes of new footage, most of it at the Pentagon, with Raymond Burr reprising his role from Godzilla, King of the Monsters!.

Much of the original version was deleted or altered:
 * Shortened and altered: Godzilla roars and the crew fell whereas we see Steven Martin after Godzilla roars.
 * Shortened: Goro's fight with the mutated sea louse (an admittedly wise decision on New World's part); the louse's voice was also changed.
 * Deleted: Goro calling his editor from an island.
 * Deleted: Professor Hayashida showing Okumura photographs of Godzilla's 1954 attack and later discussing the mutant sea lice with an aide at the police hospital.
 * Shortened: The scene where Naoko learns her brother is alive; Goro snaps pictures of them reunited, which angers Naoko because she realizes he only helped her in order to get the scoop.
 * Shortened: The meeting between the Japanese prime minister and the Russian and American ambassadors. Also deleted was a scene after the meeting in which the prime minister explains to his aides how he was able to reach a consensus with both sides. Furthermore, this scene appears before Godzilla's attack on the nuclear power plant in the American version, whereas in the Japanese version it appears afterwords.
 * Deleted: Hayashada and Naoko making a wave generator.
 * Altered: Godzilla's first attack on the nuclear power plant.
 * Added: Part of Christopher Young's score from Def Con 4 in several scenes (including Godzilla's attack on the Soviet submarine, the scene where the SDF armored division arrives in Tokyo Bay, and Okumura's near-death experience during the helicopter extraction in Tokyo).
 * Deleted: A shot of an American nuclear missile satellite in space (probably done in order to make America appear less aggressive).
 * Altered: Almost all of Godzilla's rampage through Tokyo. Scenes of a crowd fleeing Godzilla that appeared later in the Japanese print were moved to an earlier point in the movie (and corresponding footage of them gathering around Godzilla after he is knocked out by the Super X was removed), the Super X fight was re-arranged (in the Japanese version, Godzilla fires his atomic ray at the Super X after being hit with cadmium missiles, not before), and various other scenes of destruction were either placed in a different order or deleted completely. Some fans were particularly upset by the removal of a shot showing Godzilla reflected in the windows of a large skyscraper during the scene in which he attacks the Bullet Train.
 * Deleted: All shots which employed a life-size replica of Godzilla's foot (mostly seen near the end); only one shot of the big foot crushing parked cars during the nuclear power plant scene was kept.

The most controversial change was the scene where the Russian submarine officer Colonel Kashirin valiantly attempts to stop the launch of a nuclear weapon. New World edited the scene and added a brief shot of Kashirin pressing the launch button so that Kashirin actually launches the nuclear weapon. This and a few other changes pertaining to the Americans and Soviets were likely due to Cold War tensions at the time, in order to portray the United States in a more benevolent light and portray the Soviets as villainous.

In addition, the theatrical release, and most home video versions, was accompanied by Marv Newland's short cartoon, Bambi Meets Godzilla.

The American version, even with the added Raymond Burr footage, only runs 87 minutes; 16 minutes shorter than the Japanese print.

It is interesting to note that Raymond Burr's character is never referred to by his full name, only as "Martin" or "Mr. Martin", for the entirety of the U.S. version, though the end credits list him as "Steven Martin". This was to avoid association with comedian Steve Martin, who had begun to become quite popular around the time this film was released in America.

The closing narration, spoken by Raymond Burr, is as follows:

"Nature has a way sometimes of reminding man of just how small he is. She occasionally throws up the terrible offspring of our pride and carelessness to remind us of how puny we really are in the face of a tornado, an earthquake or a Godzilla. The reckless ambitions of man are often dwarfed by their dangerous consequences. For now, Godzilla, that strangely innocent and tragic monster, has gone to earth. Whether he returns or not or is never again seen by human eyes, the things he has taught us remain."

Box Office
The Return of Godzilla was a reasonable success in Japan, with attendance figures at approximately 3,200,000 and the box office gross being approximately $11 million. In terms of total attendance, it was the most popular Godzilla film since 1966's Ebirah, Horror of the Deep.

The American release of the film, Godzilla 1985, however, failed to ignite the North American box office. Opening on August 23, 1985, in 235 North American theaters, the film grossed $509,502 in its opening weekend, on its way to a lackluster $4,116,395 total gross.

New World's budget for Godzilla 1985 consisted of $500,000 to lease the film from Toho, $200,000 for filming the new scenes and other revisions, and $2,500,000 for prints and advertising, adding up to a grand total of approximately $3,200,000. Taking this in consideration, Godzilla 1985, though not a hit, proved to be profitable for New World, and the profit would increase with home video and television revenue.

Reception
The New World version of the film was almost universally lambasted by North American critics, receiving only a 13% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 8 reviews. Roger Ebert, who gave the film a mere one star in the Chicago Sun-Times, wrote: "The filmmakers must have known that the original Godzilla had many loyal fans all over the world who treasured the absurd dialogue, the bad lip-synchronizing, the unbelievable special effects, the phony profundity. So they have deliberately gone after the same inept feeling in Godzilla 1985. Examples: Dialogue: Is so consistently bad that the entire screenplay could be submitted as an example. My favorite moment occurs when the hero and heroine are clutching each other on a top floor of a skyscraper being torn apart by Godzilla and the professor leaps into the shot, says "What has happened here?" and leaps out again without waiting for an answer. Lip-synchronizing: Especially in the opening shots, there seems to be a subtle effort to exaggerate the bad coordination between what we see and what we hear. All lip-sync is a little off, of course, but this movie seems to be going for condescending laughs from knowledgeable film-goers. Special effects: When Godzilla marches on Tokyo, the buildings are the usual fake miniature models, made out of paint and cardboard. The tip off is when he rips a wall off a high-rise, and nothing falls out. That's because there is nothing inside."

Vincent Canby of the New York Times, who had given a positive review to Godzilla vs. Megalon nine years earlier, was similarly unimpressed:

"Though special-effects experts in Japan and around the world have vastly improved their craft in the last 30 years, you wouldn't know it from this film. Godzilla, who is supposed to be about 240 feet tall, still looks like a wind-up toy, one that moves like an arthritic toddler with a fondness for walking through teeny-tiny skyscrapers instead of mud puddles. Godzilla 1985 was shot in color but its sensibility is that of the black-and-white Godzilla films of the 1950s. What small story there is contains a chaste romance and lots of references to the lessons to be learned from "this strangely innocent but tragic creature." The point seems to be that Godzilla, being a "living nuclear bomb," something that cannot be destroyed, must rise up from time to time to remind us of the precariousness of our existence. One can learn the same lesson almost any day on almost any New York street corner."

One of the few positive reviews came from Joel Siegel of Good Morning America, who is quoted on New World's newspaper ads as saying, "Hysterical fun...the best Godzilla in thirty years!"

Video Releases
Toho (2002) Universe (2006) Toho (2009)
 * Released: 2002
 * Region: Region 2
 * Language: Japanese
 * Released: 2006
 * Region: Region 3
 * Blu-ray
 * Released: 2009
 * Language: Japanese

Trivia

 * The Return of Godzilla was the last Godzilla film to be produced and released during Japan's Showa period (昭和時代 Shōwa jidai), which lasted from 1926 to 1989; the reign of Japanese Emperor Hirohito.
 * Thus, this is the first Godzilla film to be made in a different political era compared to Toho's era of films at the time.
 * The screenplay for The Return of Godzilla was first written 1980, but as an entirely different film. Godzilla was to fight a shape-shifting named Bagan, and the Super X played a much smaller role.
 * Teroyushi Nakano, who had worked on the special effects for Godzilla's adventures since 1971, provides his final contribution to the series in The Return of Godzilla. Reportedly, Nakano considered the effects for this film to be his best work in the genre.
 * This film, along with Godzilla vs. Biollante, were the only Godzilla films made in the 1980's.
 * As of 2016, The Return of Godzilla remains to be the only Godzilla film to not get a Region 1 DVD/Blu-Ray release due to rights issues.
 * The Return of Godzilla is the only Godzilla film in the Heisei series to not have "VS" in the title.
 * The Return of Godzilla was the last Toho Godzilla film to be released in a month other than December until Godzilla: Resurgence in 2016.
 * Originally, veteran Godzilla series actor Akihiko Hirata was intended to portray Doctor Hayashida, but Hirata unfortunately passed away prior to the start of filming. Another veteran Toho actor, Yosuke Natsuki, who had previously appeared as Detective Shindo in Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, was cast in the role instead.

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Godzilla – Die Rückkehr des Monsters The Return of Godzilla