The Godzilla Series is Not "low-budget" (mostly)

[GodzillaXGomoraFight]

Finally, I want to touch on the point some people mentioned about the Criterion set. In my opinion, I believe there is a limit as to how far you want to go about restoring Godzilla films into a higher definition. Due to the limitations of practical effects and the means taken to bring the monsters to life (ex. wires), I think making the picture too sharp and high-definition will expose the behind the scenes acts that bring the monsters to life. I don't want my Godzilla film to be so sharp that I can see all of the individual wires that allow King Ghidorah to move his heads and fly. It would detract from the experience and I for once might watch a Godzilla film and say that I see a man in a rubber suit rather than the characters I love. That is just my opinion though.

I don't think this argument holds water (no offense to you personally, I just hear this a lot) because the goal of film restoration should always be to present the movie as it appears on the film on which it was printed. If flaws are seen in higher resolution versions its only because those flaws have always been there. With a 4K scan you're not bringing out anything that wasn't already there.

No offense taken. That argument was more or less from what I thought a 4K restoration of the films would do to the movie. I can see where you are coming from because if they were able to hide the fact that they had wires lifting Godzilla's tail when they reviewed the actual footage, then you would not see it in the 4K remaster either. Maybe Toho doesn't want people to realize that the currently existing flaws of the movie are now more evident with the 4K restoration.

[Terasawa]

Maybe Toho doesn't want people to realize that the currently existing flaws of the movie are now more evident with the 4K restoration.

You never know with Toho but I think it's primarily, if not exclusively, a financial reason.

[Tamura]

My whole thing is I don't see what's wrong with wanting to see the work of Toho's miniature and costume departments better than ever, to see a transfer of the original film that went through the camera... not merely a duplicate of it with flaws printed in, potentially. You miss out on so much when you see something multiple generations from the OCN, or a bad transfer. There's an intimacy I can't put my finger on when viewing well transferred original material that is impossible to feel when you're viewing a soft duplicate, or a shitty soft transfer like the one for Destroy All Monsters. It's like you're there with the actors. I just don't think these movies were supposed to look soft and shitty, just a feeling. Sure, you might see wires already visible in current editions more clearly, but what you gain is completely harmless, more often than not. I just don't know what to compare kaiju fans' film transfer humility to. I don't see what's so exotic about not wanting soft and flat to be the baseline for forever.

And it's totally just a money and messed up priorities thing. They've restored two of the films in 4K. Why stop at two?

"Practical effects" hasn't stopped hundreds of other practical effects-filled movies from being released with transfers meeting much higher standards than we're used to.

Should Star Trek have never been released above standard definition? It was made with the knowledge it would be seen only on 525-line CRT TVs... should that show achieve much lower standards than the Godzilla series on video, then? I don't think all the talented people who worked on that show would prefer it to look shitty on modern TVs. There is literally no end to the ethical questions you could come up with. Should films be heard with clearer sound quality than was originally reproducible on contemporary speakers? AIP knew their films would be viewed at lots of drive-ins, should AIP's versions which won't ever be released again be heard in crappy drive-in speaker quality only? This game can keep going on and on when we could just be seeing and hearing higher fidelity versions instead, enjoying the films infinitely more and learning more about them from the finer detail.

[LSD Jellyfish]

I understand the insecurity a lot of fans feel about their favorite movies being called low budget, and while you very persuasively proved that they aren't low budget for Japanese films, it is true that Japanese films have generally had lower budgets than American films going way back. When trying to disprove an argument I try to understand the full thesis of the argument, and I've always seen the argument as "they are lower budget than American films" which again, isn't untrue, except for the implication that "lower budget" means inferior quality, which is the meaning that this term has to a lot of people. It seems pretty classist to me the way that people consider relative amounts of money thrown at movies to decide whether they are "inherently lacking" or "inferior." Tell that to all the craftspeople in Toho's props, miniatures, costumes, and optical departments...

The truth is most people who use the "lower budget" argument don't really give a poop that Toho spent nearly the same amount of money on G54 that they spent on Seven Samurai. I don't think Seven Samurai exists as a low or a high budget movie in their minds, it doesn't need to be validated on those grounds in order for them to accept another movie on the same grounds by much of the same personnel. It has had cachet in general for much longer than G54... since it came out, basically, so it doesn't need any validation at all, really. For these reasons I don't think this comparison will work. The truth is, too, most genre films were considered kid stuff or trash by film critics until only a few decades ago, so this isn't a problem specifically facing kaiju films only. Kaiju fans need to show some solidarity with fans of adjacent genres and sub-genres that have been considered unworthy for years... they could show some solidarity with us, considering we are still dealing with shitty video releases and they, by and large, aren't.

I meant to respond to this a while back, but wasn't sure how to approach it. I pretty much agree with everything you have to say, including the insecurity. My original post was sort of gaslighted by a really obnoxious comment I saw somewhere else, involving a Godzilla fan calling the series low-budget, particularly the Showa series. I stand by my original comments about how "low-budget" is a judgement statement of quality.

Of course the Godzilla series (and nearly all Japanese films by proxy) can be considered low-budget by America standards. But what is interesting to note, is minus some relatively recent new Chinese films, American film making seems to be the most expensive. I am not saying that "money is wasted" or "misappropriated" or that anyone in the craft doesn't deserve what they get monetarily, but I'm curious why in some cases American film making appears to be a lot more bloated in terms of budget. I get the general impression that Japanese film making in general is cheaper to do, even during the golden age of Japanese film making. I'm curious why this is. Are there differences in labor laws/actors unions (if there are). Are there simply less people involved in a production? What about permits, and things like catering? Lots of little questions that go really nitty gritty behind the screen.

What is so expensive that something like Destroy All Monsters lacks? Destroy All Monsters has a large cast. There are many sets for human actors, and many on site filming. There are big elaborate miniature sets that are constructed, and many monsters that engage in a wide variety of postures, poses and function. In essence, I'm asking what would change something like DAM, or any of the other Toho films, if they were given a substantially larger budget. More monster scenes, possibly. I'm asking a lot of questions here which really are mostly speculative and just lead to more questions.

[DirektorSplennic]

I meant to respond to this a while back, but wasn't sure how to approach it. I pretty much agree with everything you have to say, including the insecurity. My original post was sort of gaslighted by a really obnoxious comment I saw somewhere else, involving a Godzilla fan calling the series low-budget, particularly the Showa series. I stand by my original comments about how "low-budget" is a judgement statement of quality.

Of course the Godzilla series (and nearly all Japanese films by proxy) can be considered low-budget by America standards. But what is interesting to note, is minus some relatively recent new Chinese films, American film making seems to be the most expensive. I am not saying that "money is wasted" or "misappropriated" or that anyone in the craft doesn't deserve what they get monetarily, but I'm curious why in some cases American film making appears to be a lot more bloated in terms of budget. I get the general impression that Japanese film making in general is cheaper to do, even during the golden age of Japanese film making. I'm curious why this is. Are there differences in labor laws/actors unions (if there are). Are there simply less people involved in a production? What about permits, and things like catering? Lots of little questions that go really nitty gritty behind the screen.

What is so expensive that something like Destroy All Monsters lacks? Destroy All Monsters has a large cast. There are many sets for human actors, and many on site filming. There are big elaborate miniature sets that are constructed, and many monsters that engage in a wide variety of postures, poses and function. In essence, I'm asking what would change something like DAM, or any of the other Toho films, if they were given a substantially larger budget. More monster scenes, possibly. I'm asking a lot of questions here which really are mostly speculative and just lead to more questions.

I can actually give somewhat of an answer to this. For big budget movies that have lots of special effects there are dozens of studios that do the effects shots. I'll use Endgame as an example since I watched a video on it recently (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SvLzKby0lg very good video). Basically to sum it up without rambling and getting off focus, many, many studios do the visual effects for these movies, while most people think it's just one or two. Just for the people working on the Thanos model, you have a crew that tweaks the motion capture data, you have the crew that models Thanos, you have the crew that rigs him, you have the crew that textures him, you also have a separate crew that does the normal mapping (how lights reacts to the textures) and so on. Each of these take a fuckton of work (I have experience in dabbling with texturing and rendering, and I'm a full time digital sculptor). Then think about all of the CGI shots and you really get a sense of the manpower to produce these visuals and why they're so expensive. You'll also have dedicated studios for environments, explosion simulations, debris simulations, etc. You also have the very expensive mocap suits, you gotta pay people like Robert Downey Jr, etc etc.

The amount of work that goes into creating intricately detailed shots in these movies is unimaginable, and while the work is not as physically grueling as what TOHO did with miniatures, it's still a lot of work that requires a ton of people to pull off, thus making the budget of these movies skyrocket. Now I realize that comparing a giant Disney production to Showa Godzilla movies isn't fair at all, but this was more to explain why these movies cost so much. There's a lot more work that goes into the effects than people think.

[canofhumdingers]

^while I agree with you in principle, Terasawa, there is some validity in the case of high quality modern scans making some things visible, or at least MORE visible (such as wires) than would have been in the theater. For one, if the home video scan is done from the negative or another early generation source, it has less dupe grain than the prints sent to theaters and therefore more or finer detail may be visible. Second, based on highly calibrated industry shootouts specifically designed to test 35mm film, projecting a print in optimal conditions may produce a resolving power* equivalent to a 1080p digital image. In more normal “average” conditions, its much closer to 720p equivalent. As a real world anecdote, I closely follow the Star Wars fan preservations made from film sources. Several of those involved talk about watching the prints projected vs how they appear in HD and 4K scans and specifically stress how fine detail such as grain structure is much more obvious in the digital scans than watching the print up on the silver screen. The effect of light scattering as it is projected through the air apparently has a significant impact on all this.

*obviously film doesn’t have actual lines of resolution, so they talk about its “resolving power” and how the detail/sharpness compares to standardized digital formats/resolutions.

EDIT:
Doh! Didn’t realize there was a page two of this thread I hadn’t read yet...

If it wasn’t obvious, I was responding to this post:

I don't think this argument holds water (no offense to you personally, I just hear this a lot) because the goal of film restoration should always be to present the movie as it appears on the film on which it was printed. If flaws are seen in higher resolution versions its only because those flaws have always been there. With a 4K scan you're not bringing out anything that wasn't already there.

[Terasawa]

I don't disagree. That's why I shied away from bringing in theatrical presentation.

[Great Hierophant]

Disney probably paid Robert Downey Jr. more to play Iron Man/Tony Stark in the last two Avengers movies than Toho spent on all the Godzilla films it made from 1954-2018 combined.

Toho tended to make Godzilla films in periods when major American studios were not making giant monster movies. So to call its efforts "low-budget" is not an apt comparison because there was often nothing higher budget being made at that time. Toho was more often competing with the other Japanese studios, independent American studios and British studios for similar fare. And few of these other films, from the Showa era at least, came close to matching the scope and scale of Toho's stuff.

[DB_Cooper]

Something I've noticed time and time again, is the Godzilla franchise being referred to as "low-budget", or "b-movies". This really irks me. The original Godzilla series and original showa series, for the most part, were considered at the time big-budget special effects extravaganzas.

Godzilla 1954, released was released in the same year as Seven Samurai. The budget for Godzilla 1954, was 100 million yen. The budget for Seven Samurai was 125 million yen. Yes, Seven Samurai cost more to make, but the film was double the length, and required many more onscreen actors. I mention this because I don't think you will ever see Seven Samurai listed as a "low-budget film".

Roughly ten years later, we have Invasion of the Astro Monster, which cost 132,000,000 million yen. Granted, inflation is a thing, but that is still roughly equal to the original Godzilla. Destroy All Monsters had a budget of 200 million yen. Of course, I am skipping many entries in the series between G54, and DAM, so we can ballpark that many of those lower entries like GRA and SoG were roughly 50-100 million yen.

Entries after that, like Godzilla's Revenge and Godzilla vs. Megalon are probably significantly lower. Yes, those movies are low budget movies.

Godzilla 1984 cost 640 million yen to make. Of course after inflation and yada, yada, but it's comparable to the original Godzilla 1954 film, and is full of elborate miniatures and special effects and is overall a well produced film. Nasuica, Valley of the Wind, a film that came out the same year, cost 160 million yen to make. You will never hear this fill referred to as "low-budget". Godzilla vs. Biollante, roughly had the same budget at 700 million, though due to inflation it might be considered a little lower.

But oh skreeonk, Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah had a budget of 1.5 Billion Japanese yen in 1991. You know what came out in 1990, for a budget of 1.2 Billion yen? Akira Kurosawa's Dreams. You will never hear Dreams referred to as a low-budget film.

Now starting with Godzilla vs. MG2, the budget goes down to 1 billion yen. Yes, the budgets go down at this point, and clearly we see that Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla is about the same as well. Pretty much the budgets stay the same till GMK, and GFW becomes one of the most expensive Japanese films ever made. Shin too.

My rant about this, is that it annoys me seeing the Godzilla franchise or films being called "lowbudget films". They're not. They're big studio produced spectacle films. Yeah, if you compare a lot of these budgets to American films, yes they're small. But a lot of Japanese films tend to be less expensive to make than American films in general. It's why I brought up contemporary comparisons with films like Seven Samurai, and Dreams. When people paint the Godzilla series as "low budget", fans or otherwise, it's a valueless judgement statement that really has zero actual meaning. When people picture lowbudget films, they picture Z-grade movies like Plan 9 from outer space, or explorative bargain bin schlock that gets pumped out onto 30 films in 1 dvds. Yes, there's some bad effects in the series. Yes some of it is outdated. But don't get it twisted that these are low budget films.

I had to create an account just to respond to this nonsense.

The Godzilla movies were incredibly low-budget. Your budget numbers sound impressive so long as nobody does a currency conversion or looks at another contemporary movie. Let's just settle on a rough conversion of ¥100 = $1 USD. That's what it's been for a while, but I have no idea what it was back in the day. Destroy All Monsters came out in 1968, the same year 2001: A Space Odyssey came out. Destroy All Monsters had a budget of ¥200m which means it cost about $2m USD. Space Odyssey cost at least $10m, Planet Of The Apes cost $6m, and even Barbarella cost at least $4m. So, yes, a sci-fi movie with half the budget of B-rate nonsense like Barbarella. Even the most modern, live-action, Japanese, Godzilla movie is Shin Godzilla with a budget of $15m. That's what a single episode of The Mandalorian costs to produce, and Shin is the first Godzilla movie to come anywhere close to the original. Godzilla vs. Megaguirus cost less than $1m to produce in 2000. That's the same year Battlefield Earth came out, and that movie cost $44m... and I'd have a hard time picking which was the worse movie.

The reason Seven Samurai would never be referred to as "low-budget" is because we don't generally consider budget with period pieces because, until fairly recently, they were intentionally low-budget. Downton Abbey doesn't have a lot of aliens and explosions that cost money. The exceptions were huge epics like Ben Hur, which Seven Samurai just wasn't. It was a samurai movie which was Japan's equivalent to a western - meaning low budget, quick turn-around, and big profit margins. Nausicaa isn't referred to as "low-budget" because it's anime, and anime is generally expected to have a low budget. Nausicaa cost $1.8m. There weren't any American animated features of note that came out in 1984, so my examples are from 1985: The Black Cauldron cost $44m and The Care Bears Movie cost $2m. That shows the difference in animation budget and you can't claim that Nausicaa is anywhere near the technical achievement of The Black Cauldron. I love Nausicaa, but it's a pretty standardly-animated movie.

Also, let's be up-front about a major point behind the budgets of Godzilla movies: Toho went with a guy in a suit ("Suitmation") because stop-motion was too expensive... I just watched the original Godzilla the other day after having not seen it in probably twenty years. It still gives me goose-bumps and makes me want to cry in sections. I compare it to the first Rambo movie. The original Rambo movie was a gut-wrenching look at the relationship between soldiers and their country post-Vietnam, whereas the sequels were just cartoons. On the same hand, trying to defend the productions of Godzilla sequels is like quibbling over the budget of the 1966 Batman.

It's obvious you have no clue what you're talking about concerning the production of Godzilla movies. Toho has always, and obviously, treated them as the equivalent of movies like Sharknado - cheap to produce, quick to turn around, money-makers. That's exactly what most sci-fi is and is the reason they never got any better until Shin. For every Avengers: Endgame in 2019, there's Ad Astra, Boss Level, Captive State, Escape Room, I Am Mother etc... I'm not saying any of those are bad movies, to be clear. I think I Am Mother is a masterpiece is desperately underrated, but it also only cost $5m. Are you really going to try and argue the literary significance of Manilla?

I love Godzilla movies and have seen all of them multiple times. I don't, however, have any delusions about what they are. The original is powerful and beautiful, and everything the sequels weren't. Shin is a pretty good attempt at social commentary in post-Fukushima Japan. Other than that, the rest of them are mostly fun, campy, sci-fi movies meant to entertain and turn a quick profit. There's nothing wrong with that and trying to defend them as great cinema is baffling. Doubly so since the very examples you give show how low budget they are and contradict your whole argument.

Thank you

[eabaker]

On top of your failure to account for the exchange rates relevant to the eras we're discussing, you're also ignoring differences in film production costs in different countries. Actor and crew salaries, permit and location costs, the differences between a full-time production staff vs. contractors hired project-to-project - all of these things have to be taken into account when determining whether a movie can be termed "low-budget" by the standards of its time and place of origin.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that period pieces aren't generally discussed int terms of big-budget vs. low budget pictures. Big budget historical epics have played a huge role in the history of numerous nations' cinematic outfit, including both the U.S. and Japan.

And very, very few Godzilla movies are campy. True camp requires a self-conscious theatricality and engagement with low-art aesthetics. The Godzilla movies often dismissed as "camp" would be better described as "kitsch."

[Terasawa]

The reason Seven Samurai would never be referred to as "low-budget" is because we don't generally consider budget with period pieces because, until fairly recently, they were intentionally low-budget. Downton Abbey doesn't have a lot of aliens and explosions that cost money. The exceptions were huge epics like Ben Hur, which Seven Samurai just wasn't. It was a samurai movie which was Japan's equivalent to a western - meaning low budget, quick turn-around, and big profit margins.

What? Seven Samurai was the most expensive Japanese film at the time of production. Toho shut down production twice to control escalating costs.

Except for the latter day Showa Series films, the Godzilla movies have always been expensive compared to the average Japanese production.

Toho has always, and obviously, treated them as the equivalent of movies like Sharknado - cheap to produce, quick to turn around, money-makers.

Toho consistently contracted A-level talent to star in its special effect/monster movies throughout the '50s and '60s. Rodan and The Mysterians (not Godzilla movies, but very much of the same style) were among the few color and color/widescreen films made in the Japan in their release years, respectively. King Kong vs. Godzilla, King Kong Escapes, and Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah were among the select few commemorative anniversary productions released by Toho in various years (30th, 35th, and 60th anniversaries, respectively); KKvG was released under the same anniversary banner as Kurosawa's High and Low. I don't think Sharknado was an apt example to illustrate your point.

[MaxRebo320]

Kind of creepy to make an account just to respond to an old post like you claim you did...but yeah, as others have said, you're comparing the budgets of films from two different countries with totally different economies as if they should be put on equal footing. Sure, Seven Samurai's budget of (roughly) $1 million USD is small compared to Ben-Hur's $9 million, but compared to other Japanese films, it was astronomical. But even if all of these economies were equal and Japanese films from the period were indeed low-budget, then I'd say that's just a testament to how great they were.

And despite their status as "B-Movies" being largely debunked, I don't see anybody here claiming the Godzilla movies (barring the original I suppose) to be high art or anything. I'd put them on par with films like James Bond movies - exceptionally well-made entertainment. Not fucking Sharknado...

[Spuro]

On the same hand, trying to defend the productions of Godzilla sequels is like quibbling over the budget of the 1966 Batman.

It's obvious you have no clue what you're talking about concerning the production of Godzilla movies. Toho has always, and obviously, treated them as the equivalent of movies like Sharknado - cheap to produce, quick to turn around, money-makers.

You haven't watched much foreign cinema, have you? Japan simply cannot produce hundred-million-dollar films in the way Hollywood can. "Big budget" means something very different in that industry. There's no grounds to compare Shin Godzilla to Avengers Endgame; they were produced in completely different economical environments. And there's certainly no grounds to compare practically any Godzilla film against the likes of Sharknado. I think the closest you'd get is Godzilla vs Megalon, but even that's stretching things. Megalon was released during a difficult industry-wide economic spiral as Japanese-produced films struggled to compete with the growing popularity of the television industry; a situation the Japanese film industry wouldn't recover from until the 80s.

Let's rewind back to LSD's original post to see his core statement that you conveniently missed:

Yeah, if you compare a lot of these budgets to American films, yes they're small. But a lot of Japanese films tend to be less expensive to make than American films in general. It's why I brought up contemporary comparisons with films like Seven Samurai, and Dreams.

[MaxRebo320]

Comparing these movies to shit like Sharknado is also dumb, considering said film (along with all other Asylum/Sy-Fy junk) is deliberately made to be shlocky. It could have had a budget of $100 million, and it still would have been stupid. Now, there were plenty of B-Grade monster/sci-fi movies (which you seem to think are on-par with Toho's work) that had very little effort put into them probably thanks to them knowingly having shoestring budgets, but as stated, the films simply do not compare.

[DB_Cooper]

On top of your failure to account for the exchange rates relevant to the eras we're discussing, you're also ignoring differences in film production costs in different countries. Actor and crew salaries, permit and location costs, the differences between a full-time production staff vs. contractors hired project-to-project - all of these things have to be taken into account when determining whether a movie can be termed "low-budget" by the standards of its time and place of origin.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that period pieces aren't generally discussed int terms of big-budget vs. low budget pictures. Big budget historical epics have played a huge role in the history of numerous nations' cinematic outfit, including both the U.S. and Japan.

And very, very few Godzilla movies are campy. True camp requires a self-conscious theatricality and engagement with low-art aesthetics. The Godzilla movies often dismissed as "camp" would be better described as "kitsch."

If you had bothered to read what I actually wrote, rather than skimmed it in a huff, you would see I specifically exempted historical epics from my assertion that period pieces were generally low budget. A perfect example of a cheap period piece is the also referenced Western. Les Miserables cost only $61m USD in 2012, and a big chunk of that was for actors. Period pieces don't necessitate special effects like sci-fi generally does. You can go overboard, like Titanic, but the budget really wasn't necessary except for James Cameron constantly proving that a SFX can distract from the flaws in a bad movie. The King's Speech only cost $15m, The Imitation Game cost $14m, both "low-budget" but generally considered great period-piece movies. For another point of comparison, Seven Samurai came out the same year as the Western, Broken Lance, and Broken Lance didn't cost that much more to make because it was a Western but they had to afford Spencer Tracy.

So far as putting budgets into context so far as differing markets, that doesn't disprove my argument. Point of fact, it kind of bolsters mine and weakens yours. Japan is a hard country to put into a useful context because it's the size of California with four times the population and twice the economy. But they've kept at around half the US population for the majority of the post-war period, so that does give us a metric. It became the second biggest economy (behind the US) in 1968, so that gives us another metric... But none of that matters because Godzilla 2000 cost about $10m to make and came out in 1999. Writing aside, looking at them objectively, are you going to say the quality of that movie is better or worse than The Matrix, which came out the same year for the relatively small budget of $60m? Didn't Nakajima even comment how a single miniature cost twice what he was being paid for the film? So the star of the movie made less than a single set piece? That's not a big-budget movie.

All of that is why I'm being very careful to put the Godzilla moves in context with films from the same genre that came out the same year. By 1999 Godzilla could have been believably rendered with CGI. They did it fairly well in the 1998 Zilla movie, and Jurassic Park came out six year prior with SFX that are still impressive. They stuck with a guy in a suit because that's what Godzilla movies are. Aside from the first one, and Shin, they're not intended to be taken seriously because they're campy, low-budget, affairs that are still fun and enjoyable (for the most part). Your argument is like someone getting upset that anyone would dare question the budget of the Adam West "Batman" TV show. There's not much difference between the two. Even if I concede your argument that Japan is a smaller market, so a movie has less opportunity to make money (which I totally agree with), that doesn't make Godzilla movies any less low-budget. A time-space warp doesn't happen that magically makes Godzilla movies huge-budget spectaculars on par with Transformers simply because they're made in a smaller market with tiny budgets. That makes them movies made on tiny budgets. Period. Whether you like the movie or not, there is a huge difference between the scope and scale of the 2014 Godzilla and Shin Godzilla. There is a massive gulf between the production values of Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah and Godzilla: King Of The Monsters. I hate, really hate, Godzilla: King Of The Monsters, but the effects are amazing and it's very apparent where the budgets went. I'm a huge Mothra fan and I wanted to cry when she showed up in that movie because it was so beautifully done. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy it when she shows up in a Toho movie - I'm just saying theres a huge difference in how they're presented visually.

Lastly, your argument that Godzilla movies aren't campy, and your definition of the term, is just your opinion and not based in fact. You don't present one single shred of evidence to back up your argument. The Adam West Batman is campy, and self-aware, but so was Anaconda and you can't convince me that movie didn't take itself seriously. The Wicker Man should have merit badges, and it's trying to be serious. That all aside, are you really trying to argue that Invasion of Astro-Monster was meant to be totally serious? Go read up on the production of the Batman TV show. Everyone involved took that show very seriously, and they were doing some amazingly subversive things with it. I respect the heck out of that show and the 1966 movie, but that doesn't make it Citizen Kane - and there's nothing wrong with that.

What you don't seem to understand is that saying Godzilla movies are low-budget or campy doesn't necessarily make them bad. I love Godzilla, and I'm sure everyone involved with making them put their hearts and souls into their production, but that doesn't make them Shakespeare or Gone With The Wind. And, again, there's nothing wrong with that. If you have evidence to the contrary, then please share it. If I am misunderstanding them, and Minillia (really had to fight my spellcheck on that) is actually a commentary on Japan's treatment in global community post-reconstruction, or something... I'd genuinely like to know because that would mean there's levels to enjoying these movies that I'm missing out on.

Thank you

[Major sssspielberg!]

Thank you

How can you say "Japan is a hard county to quantity" in one breath and then spend 12 paragraphs comparing a uniquely Japanese genre to a bunch of American movies? You understand Japan and America are different but then make multiple comparisons to Hollywood productions as if Hollwood and the Japanese film industry are 1:1.
This attitude is so frustrating. "No SERIOUS SOCIAL COMMENTARY!?!? NOT REAL CINEMA"
"Haha silly monster go boom boom, much camp wow"
Also lmao @ "huge budget spectaculars on the level of Transformers"

[eabaker]

There are some truly bizarre assumptions and misinterpretations going on in this thread - a thread which should have been left buried.

[Spuro]

Aside from the first one, and Shin, they're not intended to be taken seriously because they're campy, low-budget, affairs that are still fun and enjoyable (for the most part). Your argument is like someone getting upset that anyone would dare question the budget of the Adam West "Batman" TV show. There's not much difference between the two.

It’s this rhetoric right here that shows why no one here is taking you seriously. It’s one thing to argue about whether these films qualify as “B-Movies,” but it’s another entirely to compare them all to Adam West’s Batman. Return of Godzilla, not meant to be taken seriously? Get off it.

Even if I concede your argument that Japan is a smaller market, so a movie has less opportunity to make money (which I totally agree with), that doesn't make Godzilla movies any less low-budget. A time-space warp doesn't happen that magically makes Godzilla movies huge-budget spectaculars on par with Transformers simply because they're made in a smaller market with tiny budgets. That makes them movies made on tiny budgets. Period.

Spoken like a true American…

[edgaguirus]

I suspect this topic may soon be locked.

[eabaker]

What you don't seem to understand is that saying Godzilla movies are low-budget or campy doesn't necessarily make them bad. I love Godzilla, and I'm sure everyone involved with making them put their hearts and souls into their production, but that doesn't make them Shakespeare or Gone With The Wind. And, again, there's nothing wrong with that. If you have evidence to the contrary, then please share it. If I am misunderstanding them, and Minillia (really had to fight my spellcheck on that) is actually a commentary on Japan's treatment in global community post-reconstruction, or something... I'd genuinely like to know because that would mean there's levels to enjoying these movies that I'm missing out on.

This paragraph is absolutely bizarre. At no point in my reply post did I suggest that being camp or low-budget was a bad thing. And I never get the "they're not [insert well-regarded work that bears no meaningful thematic, stylistic or generic relationship to the subject]" non sequitur. Nobody here is trying to discuss them on the same terms, or qualitatively evaluate them according to the same criteria; nobody is suggesting that Son of Godzilla should be read in the same way as Gone With the Wind. I'm certainly not sure what you could be asking for in terms of "evidence to the contrary." Evidence of exactly which of the claims nobody has made?

Of the three Godzilla movies that I would argue most fully embrace the camp aesthetic, two are among my favorites in the series (Hedorah and Gigan). Some others that engage with that approach in a less complete way, such as King Kong vs. Godzilla, are also arguably among the very best the series has to offer.

Camp is an aesthetic choice, and describing something as camp or campy is only a value judgment if one considers there to be something objectionable about that choice. Personally, I do not - in fact, I consider camp a very important aspect of the post-modernist movement and of subversive twentieth century art and entertainment in general. And of course the people working on campy products take their work seriously - that's how one ends up with well-produced camp, such as the Batman TV series, or much of the work of people like Brian De Palma and John Waters. But, just as one would not suggest that most Godzilla movies would be interpreted along the same lines as Gone With the Wind, one also wouldn't interpret them along the same lines as Phantom of the Paradise.

As far as I can tell, you're the only one recently who seems to have implied a direct correlation between budget (or tone/style) and quality, but I'm willing to bet that was not your intent.