Godzilla (1954) (4K UHD Review)

• Reviewed by: Stephen Bjork
• Review Date: Nov 04, 2024
• Format: 4K Ultra HD
• 

Director

Ishirō Honda

Release Date(s)

1954 (November 5, 2024)

Studio(s)

Toho (The Criterion Collection – Spine #594)

• Film/Program Grade: A-
• Video Grade: B+
• Audio Grade: C+
• Extras Grade: A-

Review

Every so often, a film comes along that proves so influential that it can be said to have launched a new movement, style, or an entire genre. Yet even those kinds of landmarks tend to draw heavily from what came before them. There’s nothing really new under the sun, just new ways of doing the same old thing. Still, seismic shifts do sometimes occur. In the early 1950s, a film did end up launching an entire genre, one that’s definitely changed with the times, but it’s still going strong more than seven decades later.

I’m talking about The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.

Not really, of course. Yet in the great cycle of influences, it can be nearly impossible to locate ground zero. Godzilla (aka Gojira) did draw its primary inspiration from The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, but the Ray Harryhausen classic was heavily influenced by the work already done by Harryhausen’s mentor Willis O’Brien in King Kong two decades earlier. If anything can be said to have birthed a new genre, it’s King Kong, yet even that borrowed from O’Brien’s efforts on The Lost World in 1925—a film that was itself an adaptation of the novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Ground zero can be quite elusive sometimes.

Still, the original 1954 Godzilla (aka Gojira) does serve as a something of a ground zero on both a literal and a metaphorical level. When Toho producer Tomoyuki Tanaka first conceived of a giant monster movie in the vein of the previous year’s The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, legendary visual effects master Eiji Tsuburaya wanted to bring the creature to life using the same stop-motion animation techniques that Harryhausen had used. The trouble was that Tsuburaya’s effects team had neither the time, the money, nor the experience to pull off a stop-motion animated creature like Harryhausen’s Rhedosaurus. So, they put the redoubtable Haruo Nakajima (along with Katsumi Tezuka) into an insanely heavy and wildly uncomfortable rubber suit instead, and the rest became history. (Although to be fair, there are a couple of brief stop-motion shots in the final film, one with Godzilla’s tail and the other featuring a firetruck rolling over.) Godzilla wasn’t the first film to turn to what would eventually be known as suitmation in order to bring a giant monster to life, but it’s still the one that launched an entire genre. It certainly birthed all of the Kaiju films that followed in Japan, and it was profoundly influential across the globe as well.

Of course, there’s another ground zero at play in Godzilla, and one that’s far more literal. The monster movies of the Fifties and Sixties usually offered some kind of a McGuffin in order to explain the existence of their various beasties, and during the Cold War era, nuclear radiation offered an easy target. Gordon Douglas had already gotten there first with Them! earlier in 1954, but the nuclear causation in Godzilla was anything but a simple McGuffin. On March 1, 1954, a Japanese fishing boat called the Daigo Fukuryū Maru (Lucky Dragon No. 5) accidentally encountered fallout from the Castle Bravo nuclear testing at the Bikini Atoll. The boat was outside the zone that the U.S. government had declared to be unsafe, but the test ended up being far more powerful than anticipated, and the fallout spread. As a result, the crew members all suffered from acute radiation sickness, and by late September, one of them (Aikichi Kuboyama) had died due to complications from the radiation. For a nation that was still smarting from the nuclear bombs that the U.S. had dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Daigo Fukuryū Maru tragedy was like rubbing salt in an open wound.

Tomoyuki Tanaka ended up drawing as much inspiration from the Daigo Fukuryū Maru as he did from The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, even opening Godzilla with a similar incident where a freighter named the Eiko-maru has an unfortunate encounter with the irradiated monster. The scene resonated strongly with Japanese audiences of the day, but the full story as conceived by Tanaka, writer/director Ishirō Honda, and co-writers Takeo Murata and Shigeru Kayama went much farther than that. Godzilla wasn’t just a monster spawned by man’s dalliance with splitting the atom; instead, it became the living embodiment of nuclear weaponry. While Godzilla may be an inadvertent result of American nuclear testing, it comes to represent that which caused its accidental birth in the first place. Cause and effect become blurred in Godzilla; as Ogata (Akira Takarada) explains, “Godzilla is no different from the H-bomb still hanging over Japan’s head.” The nuclear metaphors aren’t particularly subtle here.

Yet while Godzilla may serve as an obvious proxy for the atomic bomb, Godzilla’s real targets are much broader and more universal than that. Whether or not the ends can ever justify the means of using weapons of mass destruction was very much an open question in 1954, and Godzilla addresses that by abstracting it away from nuclear weaponry itself. Instead, Godzilla offers its own J. Robert Oppenheimer figure in the form Dr. Serizawa (Akihiko Hirata), who has designed a different potential weapon of mass destruction: the Oxygen Destroyer. Serizawa is a tortured soul, scarred (literally and figuratively) by his experiences during World War II, and he fully understands the implications of what he’s accidentally created. Unlike the real Oppenheimer, he wants to keep his discovery hidden from the world to prevent it from being used as a weapon, so he swears his fiancée Emiko (Momoko Kōchi) to secrecy about it.

Yet when Godzilla rampages through Tokyo causing mass death and destruction of its own, Emiko is torn between wanting to find a way to stop the devastation while still keeping her oath to Serizawa. Not coincidentally, she’s also torn between her betrothal to the troubled scientist and the fact that she’s really secretly in love with Ogata. The two conflicts inevitably resolve when she breaks both of her vows by revealing the existence of the Oxygen Destroyer to Ogata, who goes to Serizawa to beg him to allow it to be used against Godzilla. Like the American justification for dropping nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Ogata views using the Oxygen Destroyer as a necessary evil in order to stop Godzilla. Serizawa, on the other hand, recognizes that it’s just using one weapon of mass destruction in order to stop another, and the cycle won’t end once Godzilla is gone. Freed from the yoke of his arranged marriage to Emiko, he chooses to take his secrets the grave to prevent politicians from using the Oxygen Destroyer as a weapon against anyone else. Unlike Oppenheimer, he accepts the consequences not just for what he’s done, but for what might have been done with it by others as well.

The triangle between Emiko, Ogata, and Serizawa wasn’t present in Shigeru Kayama’s original story treatment for Godzilla. It was a later addition by Honda and Murata during the scripting phase, and instead of being merely a tacked-on romantic angle, they worked it into the fabric of the narrative. Honda also shrewdly borrowed Takashi Shimura from his friend Akira Kurosawa in order to play Emiko’s father Dr. Yamane, and Shimura ended up adding necessary gravitas to the proceedings. However heady that the themes of Godzilla may be, it still could have been dismissed as simple giant monster hokum, but that’s just not possible whenever Honda’s camera is trained on Shimura. He’s really the fourth member of the triangle that ties the whole story together. Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus One has been uniformly praised for having compelling characters, but it was hardly the first film in the franchise to do so. As with many other things in life, Ishirō Honda got there first. Godzilla truly is ground zero on multiple levels. If King Kong is still arguably the real father of the giant monster genre, Godzilla is at least its venerable godfather.

Cinematographer Masao Tamai shot Godzilla on 35mm film using spherical lenses, framed at the full Academy aperture of 1.37:1 for its theatrical release. As with far too many Japanese films of the era, the original nitrate negative for Godzilla is long lost at this point. The best remaining elements consist of two dupe negatives and a fine-grain positive print, all of which were scanned at 4K resolution on a pin-registered ARRISCAN scanner in Soft Archive Mode, which compensated for any shrinkage or warping. At the time, Toho completed digital restoration work in 2K, and that’s how it was screened theatrically via DCP. The 4K scans were archived, however, and they were eventually used to create this improved 4K digital restoration. Toho released the new restoration on physical media in Japan in 2023, but this is the first time that it’s been available in in North America with English subtitles.

Criterion had created their own 2K digital restoration of Godzilla back in 2011 using what appears to have been a different scan of the fine-grain positive, which they erroneously described as being a master positive that was struck off the original camera negative. Toho later discovered that it was actually struck in 1983 from one of the dupe negatives instead, so it was a generation further removed. The dupe negatives were created back in 1973 and 1975, so they’re the oldest remaining film elements, and they’re only two generations down from the camera negative. The best parts from all of these elements were used on a shot-by-shot basis to create this new 4K version, with the dupe negatives being prioritized wherever possible.

No High Dynamic Range grade has been applied to any of Toho’s new 4K masters for the Godzilla franchise, but they’ve all taken advantage of 10-bit color in the BT.2020 color space. With Toho’s discs, that can cause issues on some displays if they automatically switch to Rec.709 for SDR content. The colors will look pale and washed out unless you manually switch back to BT.2020. That’s not really an issue with black-and-white films like Godzilla, but it’s still worth noting that while the Toho Godzilla was in BT.2020, this Criterion version has been remastered at Rec.709 instead. Again, that doesn’t result in any obvious differences between the two in black-and-white, but it will be interesting to see what Criterion does if Toho licenses any color 4K masters to them.

In any event, the results of all this scanning and restoration work are genuinely impressive. Given the generational losses involved, there really isn’t true 4K worth of fine detail visible, and yet everything is as crisp and detailed as possible. The grain is moderate and can vary a bit from shot to shot depending on the elements used, but it’s still smooth and managed well by a robust encode. Damage has been significantly reduced compared to the previous Criterion version; there’s still plenty left over, but it’s far less distracting now. Toho definitely applied automated tools in order to remove some of the damage, but it’s barely noticeable here given the fact that the original elements only offered so much detail to begin with. Yet despite the lack of an HDR grade, some of the biggest improvement with the new master are in terms of contrast range. The image is much less washed out, with deeper blacks and far less black crush. There may not be 4K levels of detail in the textures, but there’s now more detail visible in the darkest portions of the frame. Is it a perfect restoration? No, but it’s by far the best that Godzilla has ever looked on home video, and likely the best that it ever will.

Audio is offered in Japanese 1.0 mono LPCM, with removable English subtitles. Rather than using Toho’s restored Japanese audio, Criterion has chosen to use their own 2011 audio restoration that they created using the optical tracks from the dupe positive. The overall sound quality tends to be a bit muffled, and there’s also some distortion on the peaks, but that’s just the nature of the original elements—other releases of Godzilla have been no different. It’s quite clean, however, with background noise, pops, and crackles kept to a minimum. While the fidelity is understandably quite limited, Akira Ifukube’s classic score still serves to do the heavy lifting for the film, both in terms of the music and the sound effects as well. Despite using different sources, there’s not much practical difference between Criterion’s audio and Toho’s, but there’s a touch more audible distortion in the music here than there was on Toho’s disc—for an example, it’s noticeable in the piano theme during the transition at 8:15. Differences like that are minimal, however.

Criterion’s 4K Ultra HD release of Godzilla is a two-disc set that includes a Blu-ray with a 1080p copy of the film, as well as the bulk of the extras—note that this is the same disc that their 2011 release, not a remastered version. It also includes a reconfigured version of the same 16-page booklet with an essay by J. Hoberman and revised restoration notes. Everything comes housed inside a rigid slipcase (and yes, there’s still a Godzilla pop-up when you open up the DigiPack inside). The following extras are included:

DISC ONE: UHD

• Audio Commentary by David Kalat

DISC TWO: BD

• Audio Commentary by David Kalat
• Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (HD – 80:53)
  • Audio Commentary by David Kalat
• Cast and Crew:
  • Akira Takarada (HD – 12:58)
  • Haruo Nakajima (HD – 9:48)
  • Yoshio Irie and Eizo Kaimai (HD – 30:08)
  • Akira Ifukube (Upscaled SD – 50:43)
• Photographic Effects (Upscaled SD – 9:05)
• Tadao Sato (HD – 14:05)
• The Unluckiest Dragon (HD – 9:38)
• Trailer (Upscaled SD – 2:56)

While Godzilla was a major success at the Japanese box office in 1954, Big G didn’t manage to complete the journey across the Pacific to American theatres until 1956—and in significantly different form, too. Producer/distributor Joseph E. Levine ponied up the funds to create an Americanized version of the film, with Terry Morse in charge revising Honda’s original cut and shooting new English-language material for it. Dubbed Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, it was also a major success. To deal with language issues without having to dub the whole film or subtitle everything, Morse added the character of American reporter Steve Martin (Raymond Burr) and the Japanese official Tomo (Frank Iwanaga). Doubles were also used for some the original Japanese actors in order to help blend the new footage in with the old. While Morse did employ dubbing when intercutting these new interactions, he let other scenes play out in Japanese with Tomo serving as interpreter—and Morse freely reinterpreted what was originally said, too. Some of that was a necessary evil since he radically restructured the entire film to operate in flashback from, but there’s no getting around the fact that other alterations were an intentional way of softening Honda’s themes.

In this version, Godzilla is no longer a direct metaphor for the hydrogen bomb, but rather an inadvertent side effect of it—this King of the Monsters was merely reawakened by the Castle Bravo testing, not created by it. Any references to World War II were omitted (or at least left untranslated), and that changed the nature of Dr. Serizawa as well. This time, it’s not so much that he wants to keep the Oxygen Destroyer a secret so that it won’t be used against anyone else; it’s just that he’s worried about it falling into the wrong hands. In Honda’s original take on the character, Serizawa clearly felt that any hands were the wrong hands. Morse’s version left the door open for weapons of mass destruction to seem acceptable as long as the “good guys” were the ones using them. As a result, Godzilla, King of the Monsters! ends up inverting Honda’s critique of the American use of nuclear weaponry against Japanese civilians, turning it instead into a thinly-veiled apologia for their use.

Still, there’s no getting around the fact that Godzilla, King of the Monsters works surprisingly well, and it’s a pretty clever way of re-imagining a Japanese film for American audiences. It’s probably the single most effective Americanization of any film in the franchise, at least until Michael Schlesinger arguably improved upon Gojira Nisen: Mireniamu with his revised Godzilla: 2000. It’s certainly the most audacious (for good and for ill). For decades, it was the only way for American audiences to experience the film, so it’s been culturally significant for multiple generations of American audiences. Now that Honda’s superior original film is widely available, Godzilla, King of the Monsters! may seem like more of a historical curio, but don’t make the mistake of overlooking it. It was an important step in Godzilla’s journey to become an international juggernaut.

Criterion’s 1080p version of Godzilla, King of the Monsters was based on 2K scans of a 35mm fine-grain master positive and a 16mm dupe negative. While it’s obviously a step down from Toho’s 4K master for Godzilla, it’s still perfectly watchable despite having a fair amount of damage on display. Audio is offered in English 1.0 mono LPCM with optional English subtitles. There are also two separate commentary tracks for each version of the film, both of them featuring David Kalat, author of the indispensable A Critical History and Filmography of Toho’s Godzilla Series (seriously, that book belongs on the bookshelf of each and every Godzilla fan).

For the first track, Kalat offers not just a history of Godzilla, but also of the historical context surrounding it: Robert Oppenheimer and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the American nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands; and the tragedy of the Daigo Fukuryū Maru. He points out how important all of that is since Godzilla wouldn’t have felt like mere science fiction to Japanese audiences in 1954, but rather as something urgent and relevant to them. He also covers the cinematic context surrounding the film, from The Lost World and King Kong on forward. Needless to say, he provides plenty of details about the production and original Japanese release of Godzilla.

For the second track, Kalat expands on all of that while addressing the state of foreign film distribution in the United States, which helps explain why Terry Morse took such a radical approach in adapting Honda’s film for American audiences. Naturally, he also explores the differences between the two versions. Kalat scripts his commentaries and reads them dramatically, so they’re packed with information and entertaining to listen to as well. Needless to say, much of this information was derived from A Critical History and Filmography of Toho’s Godzilla Series (a book that he says he’s “gosh-darned proud of,”) but he brings them to vivid life here.

There are four interviews on the disc, three of them newly recorded in 2011 and the other ported over from Toho’s Japanese releases. The first new one is with Akira Takarada, the second with Haruo Nakajima, and then the third pairs effects technicians Yoshio Irie and Eizo Kaimai. The fourth interview with Akira Ifukube was originally recorded back in 2000, and it’s a comprehensive look at his career. There’s also a Photographic Effects montage that’s condensed from Toho’s own DVD-era effects reel. Finally, there’s a 2011 interview with Japanese film critic Tadao Sato and a visual essay by Greg Pflugfelder called The Unluckiest Dragon, which is devoted to the true story of the Daigo Fukuryū Maru.

None of the extras from the Classic Media DVD and Blu-ray releases have been carried forward here, including a commentary with Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski as well as the featurettes Godzilla: Story Development and Making of the Godzilla Suit. Most of Toho’s original Japanese language extras have also been omitted: My Movie Life: Director Ishirō Honda; Oxygen Destroyer; Godzilla Theme; the 8 mm Reduction of Godzilla; and the Tohoscope Version of Godzilla, King of the Monsters!. (The latter was a cropped 2.35:1 version of King of the Monsters that made its way back to Japan, essentially becoming the Japanese version of the American version of the Japanese version.) There were also multiple still galleries and a variety of different trailers.

If you own any of those versions, you’ll definitely want to hang onto them for the missing extras. Yet in all other respects, Criterion’s 4K release of Godzilla is the one to own. The video quality is indistinguishable from Toho’s own 4K release, but the fact that it offers English subtitles on the disc makes it the indisputable winner. Most of the extras are more relevant for English speaking audiences, too (although a subtitled version of My Movie Life: Director Ishirō Honda would have been lovely). Hopefully it’s a sign that Toho will be licensing out more of their 4K Godzilla masters to Criterion to receive the same treatment. The unprecedented success of Godzilla Minus One has clearly opened the door for Toho to be more active with the North American physical media market, so time will tell.

- Stephen Bjork

(You can follow Stephen on social media at these links: Twitter, Facebook, and Letterboxd).