Life lessons from Godzilla

I am not an expert on monster movies, but I have seen a few in my time. At first it was because my kids were little and it was a rainy Saturday. Later I came to appreciate them for the life lessons that they taught.

The first is that no matter how bad we have been, we can become good. Godzilla became the defender of Japan, taking direction from a 10-year-old boy when necessary.

I remember when he went up against The Smog Monster, a giant creature spawned by industrial waste. This movie was notable for its gratuitous scenes of women in miniskirts and Go-Go Boots frantically dancing The Frug in Japanese night clubs while Smoggy’s depredations began, soon to become his unwitting victims.

The producers must have known that if they wanted dad to bring the kids to their next movie, they had better throw him a little something. But wait! Here comes Godzilla to the rescue! (Loud cheers.) Everyone seems to have forgotten how when he first came on the scene it was him that was doing all the squishing and squashing in downtown Tokyo.

I believe this was also the film in which Godzilla first exhibited his powers of flight. Impossible, you say? Not when the principles of rocket propulsion are applied. With enough rockets you could make the Empire State Building fly, and so it is with Godzilla who curls into a ball and tucking his head between his legs emits a rocket like plume of fiery breath, propelling himself through the air like a reptilian comet.

Then there is Mothra, a giant moth (what a surprise) that does the bidding of the twin sisters, two delicate teenagers who speak exactly the same words simultaneously. Mothra, becomes Godzilla’s ally although once he, too, flapped his giant wings to the dismay of Japan’s urban population. Gammra never sees the light. He is one mean, giant turtle, and evidently beyond redemption. He also flies, defying the laws of aerodynamics, again with the rockets.

Leaving Japan to its own devices for a bit, let us not forget The Terminator, that unstoppable force of evil, who reforms in the sequel and ends up protecting people instead of terminating. It turns out that he was so cool that the public liked him better than the hero.

Just like Godzilla and Mothra, the public demanded that he become worthy of emulation, probably because the kids were buying up their action figures and parents were horrified to think that their little ones were role modeling on the insensate forces of evil. The answer? Convert them to Good Guys and sweep their past misdeeds under the rug.

Is this at all familiar?

Bill Abrams resides (and monster watches) in Pine Plains.