LoEG: Century 2009

[Roger Godpleton]

Everyone will have forgotten about this books in four months time.

[Trout]

I enjoyed this book a lot. As with so many other Moore books, it can be read as a straightforward adventure story, or the references add another layer.

Also, people arguing on the internet, it is only a comic.

- Trout

[DrRocka]

Thank God the annotations are up! Gotta go read it again for like, the 20th time now.....

[TordelBack]

Absolutely, unreservedly, loved this one.  I treated myself to a long indulgent read of all three parts over the weekend, with a Black Dossier chaser, and I can honestly say that I believe Century is among Moore's very best works.  [spoiler]The Boy Wizard archetype towering over and distorting the fictional landscape of the early 21st is an obvious but beautiful conceit, and the death of Quartermain was genuinely moving. [/spoiler]  Plus I finally warmed to Orlando.  More, Moore, MORE!

And I've yet to allow myself a glance at the annotations!

[JOE SOAP]

[spoiler]The Boy Wizard archetype towering over and distorting the fictional landscape of the early 21st is an obvious but beautiful conceit, and the death of Quartermain was genuinely moving. [/spoiler]

Doesn't this harken back to an interview where Moore mentioned seeing giant radioactive monsters in Japanese films as a subconcious/concious comment on American imperialism and the atom bomb or the US male's fear of 'feminism' in Attack of the 50ft Woman? I remember him saying something about America as a giant baby wreaking devastation, maybe it was Honey, I Blew Up the Kid?

[SmallBlueThing]

To be fair, joe, if Moore did say that it's hardly shockingy original or pertinent, as that is EXPLICITELY what japanese giant monster movies are about. See GCSE AO Level Film Studies exam paper 1987 for questions on that exact subject.

SBT

[JOE SOAP]

In fairness he had indicated that in the interview, he wasn't arguing about originality, but it is interesting that he's included the same idea in LOEG.

[Professor Bear]

that is EXPLICITELY what japanese giant monster movies are about.

Though I grant you that's one reading, it's still a debatable and narrow one.
As a long time kaiju enthusiast I remain unconvinced for various reasons, though mostly because the oppressive American censorship of the occupation years was long over and film-makers didn't have to rely on subtext - especially in the horror genre - and Japan's horror-fantasy films tend to be a heavy-handed mirror of how they view themselves as a nation rather than external forces.
Certainly an atomic allegory may have become the case with later films - especially where terrible, terrible English dubs and subs spelled out the metaphor in no uncertain terms from a retroactive western perspective - but that doesn't explain stuff like Godzilla's lengthy child-friendly period even though Japan's population never became less ambivalent towards nuclear energy, or why in the last few decades (with the exception of something like Destroyah which explicitly uses atomic energy only because it's establishing a link with the 1950s Godzilla canon) kaiju flicks have moved towards pseudo-spiritualism and renegade technology as their mcguffin of choice (though arguably this was happening as early as the first Mothra).
I'd argue that Godzilla movies weren't about the effects of atomic bombing, they were about the helplessness of a population at war, which was still an experience close to the hearts of virtually every citizen of Japan for decades after the war actually ended.  It's worth noting, too, that Godzilla wasn't initially the critical darling some assume, being savaged in Japan upon its release precisely because critics saw it as a tasteless cash-in on experiences of postwar depression, and that its box-office was harmed by the then-recent accidental irradiating of the Lucky Dragon and its crew during nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll, and if Godzilla was specifically about the atomic boogeyman, this would imply the makers were ghoulish and opportunistic on a level I would consider unlikely.

[The Adventurer]

The original Gojira was most definitely a parable about the dangers of the Atom. Latter films definitely moved away from that to become simple action/comedy fare.

[Emperor]

Of course, it is also possible to overthink such things - Godzilla was preceded by a couple of King Kong knock-offs, so on one hand they are really just about giant monsters wreaking havoc, as an extension of the disaster movie. I'd agree with the Prof about the sense of helplessness, although we can perhaps cast our net wider, as you can see the giant monsters as forces of nature like the earthquakes, tsunami and volcanic eruptions they've had to deal with over the years.

The Lucky Dragon 5 incident definitely gave Godzilla its focus and the unique edge it needed to help carve out the unique niche, but a lot of the sequels (and other kaiju films) were cash-ins without much thought to subtext.

Although, in the end. it is probably all terribly Freudian:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G46YMyQjBY


Looking through some scientific papers I found some of interest:

An attempt to calculate the cost of Godzilla attacks:
https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2008AM/finalprogram/abstract_148221.htm

This paper makes an interesting argument that it could reflect the piercing of the Japanese isolationist bubble presumably from the arrival of the Black Ships to the end of WWII (they also say it isn't sexual, unlike the Western films with men in rubber suits) but concludes that (perhaps like the zombie) the giant monster might be a flexible tool for touching on a range of topics:
http://www.es.ucsc.edu/~pkoch/EAR65/SECTION%20INFORMATION/SECTION%207/SECTION%207%20BROPHY%20READING.pdf

This paper suggests that it is part of the Japanese concept of The Other:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0022-3840.1995.00053.x/abstract

This is a longer piece that suggests the kaiju films have reflected changing attitudes amongst the Japanese to themselves and others:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Eb2yf9nqJksC&pg=PA75

[House of Usher]

By the way, did anyone else notice an appearance by [spoiler]Superhans[/spoiler] from [spoiler]Peep Show[/spoiler] in one panel?

[Goaty]

Now it £2.49 in iBooks!