Gojira was remixed for the United States, using much of the original footage but splicing in a white, English-speaking protagonist played by Raymond Burr. What got cut out was the antinuclear politics. The Hollywood version contains only two muted references to radiation. And it ends on a much happier note: “The menace was gone,” the narrator concludes. “The world could wake up and live again.” The Japanese Gojira was a protest film, hammering away at the dangers of the U.S. testing in the Pacific. The English-language Godzilla, by contrast, was just another monster flick.
