Release Year: 1954

Genre: Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi, War

Director: Ishirō Honda

Writer: Takeo Murata and Ishirō Honda; story by Shigeru Kayama

Stars: Takashi Shimura, Akihiko Hirarta, Akira Takarada

He's the star of more than 30 films. He saves the world again and again, even if he has to take down a city or two in the process. He defeats every enemy that comes his way, and while things get silly from time to time, he always keeps it classy.

James Bond, right?

Nope. Not even close.

We're talking about the King of the Monsters, the Beast from the East, the one, the only: Godzilla.

The word picture of the big guy that we painted above is the popular version of Godzilla we know and love today, but the Godzilla of the first movie is a different beast entirely.

A prehistoric dinosaur peacefully minding its own business in the ocean, Godzilla is rudely awoken one day by an H-bomb test.

We hate when that happens.

Irradiated and irate, Godzilla takes out its fury at Japan in a series of increasingly brutal attacks that end with the total destruction of Tokyo. The movie's story follows various scientists, professionals, and politicians as they try to figure out what to do to save their nation from the beast's radioactive rage.

1954's Godzilla—the original—is a classic monster flick. What might surprise today's audiences is how earnestly the original film takes the material. The King of the Monsters has starred in some silly movies, featuring the likes of giant lobsters, green-skinned ape extraterrestrials, robot dinosaurs, and an electrified King Kong (trust us, that's the short list). But the original film is pretty somber in its approach to storytelling.

If you guessed that the movie might be a metaphor for the danger of nuclear weapons, you guessed right.

The film uses Godzilla as a symbol for the destructive potential of nukes, and treats that idea with the gravity it deserves. By today's standards, the filmmaking methods may seem crude (what with the man in a rubber suit stomping on miniature train sets), but the film's onscreen destruction is consequential and the suffering of the people caught up in that destruction is vivid. It's a far cry from the crumbling buildings populating today's blockbusters for the sake of pizzazz.

Godzilla struck a chord with its Japanese audience, many of whom lived through the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was a runaway hit. It received a nomination for Best Picture from the Japanese Academy, but lost to Seven Samurai (Source). (A very respectable loss.) It did win Best Visual Effects, though, even with the guy in the rubber suit.

With such a huge success, Toho, the film's production company, made a sequel the next year: Godzilla Raids Again. This kicked off a series of films that, along with the Universal Monster series, became one of cinema's first shared universes.

Sorry, Marvel, but you aren't as original as you think.

Today, the Godzilla franchise is a worldwide phenomenon. Toho's made nearly 30 Godzilla films, and even Hollywood has taken on the Big G. Today, it headlines an American shared universe, the MonsterVerse, and we haven't even touched on the comics, books, cartoons, video games, and tie-ins. Not too shabby for what started as an honest, if B-rated, monster movie with a message.

Now, while you're enjoying this guide to the classic Godzilla, Shmoop's going to get started on a script treatment for that Bond-Godzilla crossover. We can see the tagline now: "They like their cities like their martinis: shaken, not stirred."

Toho, you've got our number.

Godzilla is a 60-year-old movie with an anti-nuclear proliferation message. But nuclear weapons are no longer being tested with the reckless abandon of the 1950s, and it's not like a man in a rubber suit makes a convincing argument for today's CGI-savvy audiences. So why should we care?

We can think of two reasons.

1. Sure, we don't train students today to duck under desks to protect themselves from inevitable death from nukes, and the U.S. and Russia aren't testing nuclear weapons in a bout of environmentally-devastating one-upmanship.

But both those countries still own about 7,000 nuclear devices each. And North Korea is having regular nuclear tests and shooting off ICBMs powerful enough to carry nuclear warheads too close for comfort.

So we can't get too complacent about nuclear annihilation, and the popularity of movies like Godzilla, which were made by the victims of nuclear weapons, keep us from forgetting even if the nukes are disguised as giant reptiles.

2. Godzilla is a hugely important figure in cinematic history, and during his 60-year career, he hasn't stayed locked into one issue.

For example, Godzilla vs. Hedorah (a.k.a. Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster) was released in 1971, when the environmental movement was gathering bioethical steam. The movie is basically Godzilla meets FernGully, and sees the King of the Monsters battling an embodiment of pollution, the aforementioned Hedorah.

On the other hand, 2016's Shin Godzilla (a.k.a. Godzilla: Resurgence) returns the beast to his big baddie ways. This film reintroduces Godzilla as a national disaster of the likes of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant incident, and explores the incompetence of elected officials in handling such situations. Even American filmmakers have gotten in on the act; 2014's Godzilla makes the beast into a balancer of nature in the wake of climate change.

Ultimately, it's up to you how to care about the original Godzilla. If you want to explore how the victims of nuclear war use art to address their grievances, then this film's for you. If you prefer more contemporary environmental problems dressed in bumpy green skin, then choose your adventure.

On the other hand, sometimes it's just fun to watch giant monsters, go head to head in a royal rumble set to awful '90s rock music.

And you know what? Godzilla's got you covered there, too.