'The Legend Is Reborn'

Another reason Cloverfield isn't Godzilla: As of 2004's all-stops-out Godzilla: Final Wars, Toho, Godzilla's handlers, have decided to give the big fella a vacation of sorts - a five-to-ten year hiatus to avoid saturation and allow some time to rekindle interest in a relaunch. (The 3-D IMAX flick is more of a side project.)

This has happened before. After diminishing returns led to 1975's Terror of Mechagodzilla selling fewer than a million tickets (the lowest in Godzilla history), Toho set him aside for nearly a decade. He returned with a reboot in 1984's Gojira (his proper name and the name of the 1954 original), a film both remake and sequel. Gojira discards the interim films, acting as a direct sequel to 1954's Gojira (probably the first time a sequel has ever had the same name as the original film). While it does describe the continuity leading from the end of Gojira 1954 to the start of Gojira 1984, it acts more as remake. Gone are the team-ups, battles royale, and monster kids. Back are danger to innocent civilians and nuclear fear; 1984's Gojira continues - in explicit discussion - the nuclear themes of the original. Gojira is meaner, considerably larger (to remain proportionately looming over 30 years' worth of expanding Tokyo skyline), and back to his old city-stomping ways.

Also present: Dr. Pepper and Steve Martin. American audiences - who never understood the importance of the original, due to a heavily recut version featuring Raymond Burr in added scenes as American reporter Steve Martin - enjoyed Godzilla but didn't take him seriously. To this end, the American cut of Gojira, called Godzilla 1985, was a different flick, pruned and heavily re-edited, with ten minutes of new footage full of Dr. Pepper cans and the same sin as the 1950s edition: Raymond Burr, inserted to pepper the movie with plenty of English dialogue in a reprisal of his earlier role.

With Classic Media's recent stellar 2-disc special edition of Gojira (1954) including both Japanese and U.S. versions for critical comparison, the more thorough fans might like to compare the versions of the 1984/85 return. It's never been on DVD, and Lakeshore Entertainment (the rights holders) seem to have no plans.