Gojira to Godzilla: Why and How?

[Zilla103192]

Taking a break from G2 discussion...

In the first film, one of my complaints is the sudden change in Godzillas name. In his introduction from Serizawa, he is referred to as "Gojira" and is referred to as such only a few more times. Then out of nowhere, everyone is calling him Godzilla.And not a single person is confused by this.

What? What happened there?

Now obviously there's some deleted scene that fills this in. But it's never been seen as I am aware.

So what do you think a good "in-universe" explanation for the change from Gojira to Godzilla is?

Godzilla 1998 had it as a simple misread on a news cast. But it's played off more as a joke. G14 has a more serious time too it and wouldn't fit the same kind of jokey explanation.

[UltramanGoji]

The simple, and most likely, explanation is that they just translated it phonetically.

Godzilla IS the direct translation of ゴジラ. ゴ translates to "go", ジ to "dzi", and ラ to "la" or "ra".

[Chris55]

Taking a break from G2 discussion...

In the first film, one of my complaints is the sudden change in Godzillas name. In his introduction from Serizawa, he is referred to as "Gojira" and is referred to as such only a few more times. Then out of nowhere, everyone is calling him Godzilla.And not a single person is confused by this.

What? What happened there?

Now obviously there's some deleted scene that fills this in. But it's never been seen as I am aware.

Asked that a couple of years ago. If I get the chance, I'll see if I can get some clarification.

Mirjahangir: There was something that kind of struck me in the movie is that Serizawa says 'this is Godzilla's name,' he said 'call it "Gojira,"' but then it cut to a radio operator who just says 'Godzilla.' Was there a deleted scene where they said 'okay, this is what we're gonna call it from now on?'

Borenstein: No. We had different thoughts at different times, but ultimately we felt that when Serizawa spoke the line, it made sense for him to say "Gojira" because that's the authentic Japanese name, and then the name basically gets corrupted into an anglicized version in the same way that it does in real life.

http://www.tohokingdom.com/interviews/m ... -2014.html

[The Octopus]

Toho first came up with "Godzilla" in their 1954/55 English language sales catalogue. In the plot synopsis for the 1954 film they spell it as "Godzilla".

[g2vd]

Asked that a couple of years ago. If I get the chance, I'll see if I can get some clarification.

Mirjahangir: There was something that kind of struck me in the movie is that Serizawa says 'this is Godzilla's name,' he said 'call it "Gojira,"' but then it cut to a radio operator who just says 'Godzilla.' Was there a deleted scene where they said 'okay, this is what we're gonna call it from now on?'

Borenstein: No. We had different thoughts at different times, but ultimately we felt that when Serizawa spoke the line, it made sense for him to say "Gojira" because that's the authentic Japanese name, and then the name basically gets corrupted into an anglicized version in the same way that it does in real life.

http://www.tohokingdom.com/interviews/m ... -2014.html

We should sticky this.

[Inferno Rodan]

Didn't basically the reverse of this happen in Shin? He was originally called Godzilla in Maki's notes, and then suddenly everyone called him Gojira.