The Return of Godzilla (1984): The 16th film in the Godzilla franchise, this was the last film produced in the Shōwa era and the first film in the Heisei series. It is at once a sequel to the original 1954 Godzilla and a reboot. The King of the Monsters would return to his roots as an enemy of human beings, if only for a few movies, and it was jarring for kids who grew up with the cute and cuddly version.

Directed by Koji Hashimoto and written by Shuichi Nagahara with a story by Tomoyuki Tanaka, this begins with the Yahata Maru caught in strong currents off the shores of Daikoku Island and a creature that makes its way out of a volcano. Godzilla is not the only creature, as there are also gigantic sea lice called Shockirus.

In the universe of this movie, the Godzilla attack of 1954 happened and people are aware of the kaiju. They are not, however, in the know that it may be back. People are in total fear of Godzilla, with an example being that Professor Hayashida refers to him as a living, invincible nuclear weapon. The Japanese government finally has to reveal that there is another kaiju when it destroys a Russian submarine and almost starts World War III.

Other countries want to nuke the monster but the Japanese government asks them to keep from doing that and allow them to use their new SUPER X weapon and its cadmium shells, which can slow down the nuclear reactor inside Godzilla. Of course, the Russians have set their nuclear weapon to fire automatically on Tokyo but can’t stop the countdown. The American counter-missile destroys it, an EMP pulse stops SUPER X and brings Godzilla back to life. That said, you can always defeat a kaiju — at least for the end of the movie to happen and before it comes back — by blowing it up inside a volcano.

Special effects director Teruyoshi Nakano said, “We went back to the theme of nuclear weapons, since that was the theme of the original film. Japan has now learned three times what a nuclear disaster is, but at that time Japan had already had two. The problem was that Japanese society was gradually forgetting about these disasters. They were forgetting how painful it had been. Everyone in Japan knew how scary nuclear weapons were when the original movie was made, but it wasn’t like that by the 1980s. So in those meetings, we decided to remind all those people out there who had forgotten.”

This was the first Godzilla movie since 1975’s Terror of Mechagodzilla. There was a rumored color remake in 1977, The Rebirth of Godzilla, as well as Godzilla vs. the Devil and Godzilla vs. Gargantua. There was a push in Godzilla’s 25th anniversary to make a new movie and series creator Tomoyuki Tanaka wrote Resurrection of Godzilla that had Godzilla fight Bakan, a shapeshifting monster and dealing with nuclear waste. Steve Miner and Fred Dekker almost made a stop-motion 3D movie as well, but budget kept getting in the way of these new movies. It took the 10,000 members of the Godzilla Resurrection Committee to make the movie happen.

Godzilla was back, even if it wasn’t exactly a box office success. There’s always America, right?

Godzilla 1985: In the same way that Godzilla was re-edited to be Godzilla King of the Monsters in America — and re-released as the American edit in Japan in 1957 as Monster King Godzilla — Toho worked with New World Pictures to release The Return of Godzilla in North America under the title Godzilla 1985. They even brought back Raymond Burr to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the original movie.

New World’s plan was to make a remix with Leslie Neilsen voicing much of the dialogue, turning a very serious movie about nuclear power into a goofy comedy. Raymond Burr disliked this and supposedly that’s where this ended.

Burr’s scenes were done in a day. The reverse shots, where the actors were speaking with Burr, were shot the next day. The major change is that while Soviet Colonel Kashirin dies trying to stop the missile launch in The Return of Godzilla, in this edit, the Russians make the choice to nuke Tokyo. Director R. J. Kizer (Hell Comes to Frogtown, Death Ring) said that New World was a conservative company and demanded this. They also demanded Dr. Pepper product placement all through the movie, even asking Burr if he would drink it in a scene. He stared at Kizer until, well, you don’t see Raymond Burr drinking a Dr. Pepper in this, do you?

I love that New World also decided that they would make a music video for this movie, “I Was Afraid to Love You (Love Theme from Godzilla 1985)” by Jill Elliot.

Interestingly enough, this is one of the first movies to be based on the scientific agreement that dinosaurs evolved from birds and not lizards. Godzilla follows birds due to the homing instinct that he has and that’s the same way that he’s lured to the volcano.

If you read critics’ reviews for this movie, they seem to wonder why Japan keeps making movies that are poorly dubbed with cardboard movies and people in rubber suits. This speaks to me of a lack of imagination and a childhood that wasn’t spent joyously watching Godzilla fight Megalon, Hedorah, Gigan and more. Compared to the CGI American films that came in its wake, this is a lean and frightening take on the creature.