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Godzilla ‘82 script review

So after speaking with Will Stout about it at Dragon*Con, I finally dug up and read the script for the never-produced Godzilla: King of the Monsters 3D, and, as I said before, it...it sure is a product of its time. Not bad, mind you. It’s plenty entertaining, and just about as ridiculous as either G’14 or G’98 (though without the latter’s naked hatred for its audience and the franchise itself). I’m gonna’ get into spoilers here, so give it a read for yourself before continuing, if you’d like: http://www.mediafire.com/view/?zmcxlae56j50xgd So GKOM3D, or G’82 (or ‘83, whatever), had some baggage going in for me. Specifically this quote: “Our goal was...to take a very good idea that we felt had not been executed very well and to do the film state-of-the-art, Spielberg-style...” That’s Steve Miner, the film’s attached director, flaunting that oh-so-charming postwar “diet” version of the anti-Japanese-sentiment that colors the majority of “real” filmmakers’ and film-commentators’ opinion of kaiju eiga. That quote didn’t instill a lot of confidence for me at first, since that’s the basic mentality behind G’98. In addition, Miner apparently thought that Honda and Co. were just incompetent, since he assumed that Godzilla was literally supposed to be some ape-whale-hybrid in the original films, and framed the idea of making Goji a dinosaur as some brilliant stroke of genius that only he and his fellow Hollywood higher-breeds could have come up with. If it sounds like I’m bitter...it’s because I am, a bit. I’ve become increasingly intolerant of the superiority complex that westerners tend to have towards tokusatsu films. And it’s somewhat amplified when reading a supposedly “serious” take on Godzilla that features pretty by-the-numbers kaiju action mirrored in a lot of Japanese flicks. Granted, I have to admit that, taking the script in its own context, there’s a fair amount of genuine affection for the Japanese films apparent in this write-up. Godzilla himself is not treated so much as a purely instinctual animal, or even a blindly destructive force of nature; if anything, he’s closest to the Marvel comics interpretation - a curious and intelligent creature who destroys more because he’s forced to raise his ha-er, claw in response to outside aggression. The plot is...well, honestly a bit overdone and confusing, though it probably would have played better onscreen. There’s an accidental nuclear-missile-launch, there’s a badass former-military action hero with an eyepatch (no, seriously), there’s no less than two romantic triangles, way too many characters, a literal Soviet supervillain, a literal evil US general, and, I kid you not, a plucky little boy with his loyal pet lizard that warms Godzilla’s heart what the hell am I even reading. The basic setup is that a nuke is launched from a satellite (ala G’84), crashes into the sea, wakes up Godzilla...or a baby Godzilla (it’s not super clear). Either way, there’s a Soviet sub that had these experimental missiles on it and the crew was killed (again, not super clear why or how) but supposedly they got a shot off at the Baby Godzilla, who winds up ashore. Meanwhile there’s this subplot with a super-evil KGB douche (and the script really wants us to know that this guy just loves being evil) and his apparent rivalry with this kid’s dad (the guy with the eyepatch) who is sharing custody of his magic-trick-loving kid with his at-first-cool-and-well-written-then-becomes-a-sobbing-mess-for-the-entire-final-act ex-wife who is also dating a paleobiologist who theorizes about atomic-powered Protosaurs (shades of both Gigantis and G’14 here) but he is also mackin’ on a reporter who also knows this ex-helicopter-pilot-who’s-a-drunk and do you see how there are too damn many characters? Anyway, the baby Godzilla is found washed ashore somewhere in Baja and it’s revealed that it is SUPER radioactive (and nobody checked apparently) and the paleobiologist theorizes that a string of incidents along the coast means there’s a Gorgo-situation about to cut loose and wreck our shit here (including a fishing boat scene that was lifted directly from this into G’98). Eventually the papa Godzilla makes its way to San Francisco and is just curious and too-big-to-not-cause-damage at first, but when the military tries to kill it, they of course just piss him off. Godzilla goes on a “rampage,” and eventually finds the body of the baby. He flies into a rage and continues destroying SF and fighting the military, even killing our Russian Guyovich but then heads out to sea supposedly to just fuck off, and then he’s killed by the “heroes” with special “anti-nukes” because...he’s too dangerous? Even though the little boy begs him to leave the city and he does anyway so why kill him, and I mean he is dead. Like SUPER dead. Dead as shit. Personally, I actually liked the script quite a bit. As I said, it has too many characters and there’s a LOT of dumb superfluous stuff that could be easily trimmed, but I’ve always been a fan of Stout’s production design that is scattered about the internet, including the Rex-like Godzilla. Although, picturing the action scenes in my head, I can’t help but feel that a man-in-suit/puppetry approach still would have been the best, ala the effects from the scrapped ending of Little Shop of Horrors or the finale of Ghostbusters. Godzilla also does some really ridiculous shit - he literally hides a cable car or something behind his back as a squadron of F-16′s comes at him, and then cracks them into nearby buildings like he’s swinging a baseball bat. Yeah. It was the Japanese making monsters silly. There’s some fun callbacks and references sprinkled throughout. “Godzilla” is still an old Japanese fishing legend, there’s a trilobite found in one of the nets from the fishing boats Godzilla destroyed, one of the characters is watching Rodan on a TV set, there’s an old Japanese dockworker or something named “Eiji,” there’s a tollbooth operator named “J. Landis,” there’s an “Oto Island” with a giant footprint that children are playing in, and a few others. There are some things I’d definitely change if this was to have another pass or two in the writing room: - Cut the Soviet badguys. It’s dated and cartoonish, especially since there’s already a good villain - the American brigadier who wanted Godzilla kept a secret so they could just kill it off without any modern progressive hippy scientists wanting to study it (no, seriously, that’s the reasoning). - Cut the dumb crap with the kid. It kinda’ has no real bearing and doesn’t make sense. He’s not a bad character, but there’s no reason for him to have this half-baked “connection” with Godzilla. All it does is confuse the finale by showing that Godzilla is benevolent, then just killing him anyway. It makes more sense for Godzilla to be in a violent, pained, murderous rage (which he forgets about almost immediately after seeing his dead child’s body) and needs to be “put down.” - Godzilla first uses his atomic breath not against the jets after seeing his dead son (y’know, when it makes dramatic sense), but when Russian Evilmanovich falls into his claw, which he then proceeds to BLAST INTO HIS OWN HAND THEN EAT THE CHARRED REMAINS. Again, cut the shit with the Russians. - How about some women who don’t immediately fall for whatever man is currently in front of them? - Oh, there’s some unfortunately....insensitive portrayals of Polynesian “natives,” complete with thatched huts, almost no clothes, and...*cough* “Native Gibberish.” Mmmmmkay. Overall, yeah, it’s fun and hella entertaining to read. Give it a go, it’s at least amusing to consider how this would have potentially come out. Thoughts?