There are a total of 28 Godzilla movies to date!

31 Dec

And that doesn’t include Roland Emmerich’s truly abysmal 1998 remake which completely ignored the rich cultural history that the Godzilla franchise had amassed by that point. The remake was so unpopular with die-hard Godzilla fans in fact, that in Ryuhei Kitamura’s controversial ‘Godzilla – Final Wars‘, the original Godzilla (Toho Company Ltd.) battled with the remade version (Sony TriStar’s ‘Zilla‘) and really, really lost…hard!

From Ishiro Honda’s 1954 cult classic ‘Gojira‘, to ’Final Wars’ in 2004, Godzilla has fought alongside and against 26 other monsters in the past 56 years and has been honored with both the ‘MTV Lifetime Achievement Award’ (1996) and his own star on the ‘Hollywood Walk of Fame’ (2004).

Yes, sometimes the plots are a little naive and yes, is it’s a man in a rubber suit but if you haven’t seen any of these films I suggest you do. If I can’t persuade you to watch then take a look at these two videos. The first is a tribute to Godzilla by the self proclaimed Kaiju (giant monster) King Shyaporn and the second is a clip from a 2007 Toho film Always – Sunset on Third Street 2 with the first ever shots of a fully CGI Godzilla.

Up From from the Depths

Always – Sunset on Third Street 2

Quick facts about our reptilian friend

Godzilla’s roar was created by rubbing a thick leather glove over the strings of a contra (double) bass. Try it if you’ve got one lying around.
The 28 films are divided in to three distinct time-frames or series; Showa (‘54 – ‘75), Heisei (‘84 – ‘95) and Millenium (‘99 – ‘04)
Legendary Pictures (the creators of Batman Begins, 300 and Watchmen) are supposedly in talks to reboot the Godzilla franchise sometime in the next 2 years.
The Godzilla theme music, written by Akira Ifukube, was sampled by hip hop artist Pharoahe Monch in his hit song ‘Simon Says‘ (you heard it in Charlies Angels) but was later sued for using it.
Gojira comes from the Japaneese words ‘Gorira’, meaning gorilla and ‘Kujira’, meaning whale. It was also purportedly the nickname of one of the production staff at Toho Company Ltd. but this is yet to be confirmed.