Steve Ryfle, author of Japan’s Favorite Mon-Star, was the first North American to write a book centering on the history of Godzilla. With the release this week for the first time on DVD in North America of the original Gojira, CHUD conducted an interview with the author to get his thoughts on over 50 years of The Big G. Here he pretty much nails the appeal.

We watched everything growing up – this was before video when you could get anything at any time. Growing up we watched any monster movie, but what stood out about the Japanese films in particular are their sense of imagination. They take place – especially the films of the late 50s and early 60s – take place in a kind of alternate reality. I always found a lot of the American giant monster movies kind of boring. I would sit there waiting for the monster to show up. They were so dry a lot of the time, and they were so interested in the cause and the relationship between a nuclear explosion or a genetic experiment or whatever it might be, and the monster. My favorite example is The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, which opened with a nuclear bomb. You see the explosion and you see the monster come out from under the ice – how much more direct can you get?

The Japanese films reinvented the genre in its own image. The films became less and less concerned with that, and had a world where giant monsters just exist. Who wouldn’t want to live in a world like that? I would.

It’s somewhat rare that kaiju films get it right and place you within that world, but it’s certainly worth the wait when they succeed. In a weird way, Godzilla and co. are almost Lovecraftian in nature. There’s a weird mix of fear and fascination that comes with viewing something that not only cannot exist, but cannot be ignored.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 6th, 2006 at 12:59 pm and is filed under Kaiju. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.