Godzilla 1985 (Return of Godzilla) Review Pt. 2

This is Part 2 where I'm comparing the U.S. version, Godzilla 1985, with the original Japanese version, The Return of Godzilla, the title it is known for internationally.

In Part 1, I covered how I approached this review as far as the breakdown. You haven't seen Part 1, I recommend that since it explains most of the movie differences between the two. In this part I won't go into too much detail as the "Second Act" is a bit of mess as far as the editing goes.

At least the "Third Act" is pretty much intact.

First quick recap on Act 1:

Scenes were trimmed like the Russian Submarine scene with a Will Farrell look alike Captain. Or cut out altogether with the introduction of the reporter, to make room for Actor Raymond Burr and introduction of the U.S. War Room and that silly looking Dr. Pepper machine. They were sponseres for the U.S. version at that time. Now I ended here last time at the 20 minute mark as this is where some of the editing goes a bit loony. There's an introduction of the Russian Ambassador that was cut from the JP version that was from the 44:00 mark. This is the start of the re-arrangement of the film.

In the U.S. we get the big introduction of GZ at the nuclear plant at 26:00 mark. The U.S. version ends ACt 1 with this. The Jp Version we get GZ intro at the 32:00 mark. This is how Act 2 starts.

Act 2: 

Just way to much editing was done to this section and we'll be here all day. Let's save this for NYU Film School. That's what they get paid for. Here I will give the highlights in the differences.

***Gold Nugget***

36:00 to 38:00

Exclusive to the U.S. version as this Whole scene is not in the JP version whatsoever.

Black & White footage is shown in the war room with introduction of Reporter Steve Martin (Raymond Burr) explaining GZ. Ok who is the friggin stupid american studio head who thought that stupid american movie audeinces needed this to remind us why we are seeing this in the first place?

The 2 big differences in this section:

***Gold Nugget No. 2

Exclusive to the JP Version: Approximately 10 minutes are spent at the Conference with the Americans and Russian trying to convince the Japanese to use nuclear weapons. Most of this is cut with just a few trimmings showing up in the U.S. version.

***Gold Nugget No. 3 

-JP Version. When GZ attacks Tokyo Bay a Russian ship blows up and a nuclear missile launches by mistake. Here the Russians are the good guys and asks Americans to send a missile to counter attack.

-U.S. Version. Here the Russian on the ship launches the missile to destroy the world. Brahahahaha.

Russians here are the bad guys. Remember that in the 80's we were still in the cold war with the Russians. (Learn your history young ones).

In a nutshell a lot of these scenes were cut and with some leftover scenes move to an earlier part of the movie. 

Act 3: 

Only trimmings were done concerning the couple as they spend some scenes looking at each other. Besides that it's pretty much left intact with GZ fighting the Super X. 

So overall, The U.S. version for of its edits doesn't suffer as they is a lot of filler in the JP version.

After going over the unrated and translating the spanish dub amd making edit listings for this blog which I got a kick out of, it'll be a while before I visit the JP version again. If they release the Blu-ray versions on both, they'll both be in the collection regardless.

Thanks for reading both parts and reviews for GZ vs KK and KK Escapes Blu-ray will be reviewed next weekend as I'm still waiting for amazon to deliver the damn things.

Introductions of the movies: Jp version on the big TV Screen
and the American version on the laptop.

 The JP version starts with the Godzilla name (above) then goes to the credits with scenes from inside the volcano.

The American starts with credits with the flames in the background then shows the Godzilla 1985 title at the end of the credits. (below)

Some editor was trying to be fancy, lol..