{"id":4581,"date":"2026-01-27T15:00:04","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T22:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=4581"},"modified":"2025-12-09T21:37:26","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T04:37:26","slug":"movie-godzilla-1954","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/27\/movie-godzilla-1954\/","title":{"rendered":"MOVIE: Godzilla (1954)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Godzilla\"Godzilla
<\/u><\/strong>Year: 1954
Rating: Not Rated
Length: 96 minutes \/ 1.60 hours<\/p>\n

While the Godzilla<\/em> franchise often gets flack for its goofier sequels and early American adaptations, there\u2019s a reason it was one of the most influential movies to come out of Japan in the 1950s. For its time, Godzilla<\/em> (1954) had amazing special effects that actually looked good in context (again, even if later Godzilla<\/em> movies did not look as good). And as for its message of post-war Japan being afraid of technologies that could be harnessed for war, Godzilla<\/em> provides a perspective that feels deeply personal to everyone who made this film.<\/p>\n

Much like how Jaws<\/em><\/a> (1975) succeeded by showing very little of the titular monster, Godzilla only makes a few appearances in its own film. There were a few camera tricks used in this movie that helped sell the scale of the enormous lizard. Sure, some of them were through miniatures and a person in a rubber suit\u2014but they worked well. They might not have aged well, but these practical effects helped establish the feel of these Godzilla<\/em> movies for decades to come. I would almost argue that they\u2019re the best they\u2019ve looked for the franchise, but I haven\u2019t watched a lot of the other follow-on movies of that era.<\/p>\n

The one thing that felt markedly different here is how the moral question of unleashing a weapon that could take out an unkillable monster like Godzilla would open a Pandora\u2019s box that could also harm humanity. Similar to how Oppenheimer<\/em><\/a> (2023) looked into the real-world effects of unleashing the atomic bomb on the Japanese, Godzilla seems to understand where the Americans were coming from when they unleashed this destruction on their country. This still does not make it the right decision, especially with the ability of this technology to be abused in the future.<\/p>\n

A sci-fi movie with strong special effects and a moral quandary, I give Godzilla<\/em> 4.5 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n

\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a0\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a0\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a0\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" 1\/2<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GodzillaYear: 1954Rating: Not RatedLength: 96 minutes \/ 1.60 hours While the Godzilla franchise often gets flack for its goofier sequels and early American adaptations, there\u2019s a reason it was one of the most influential movies to come out of Japan in the 1950s. For its time, Godzilla (1954) had amazing special effects that actually looked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,382,2],"tags":[1257,271,1420,294,4390,1124,13,4391,3523,4392,8],"class_list":["post-4581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4-5-stars","category-foreign","category-movie","tag-1257","tag-godzilla","tag-japan","tag-jaws","tag-kaiju","tag-monster","tag-movie","tag-nuclear-weapons","tag-oppenheimer","tag-pandoras-box","tag-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4581"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4589,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4581\/revisions\/4589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}