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Godzilla (1954 film)

Godzilla (ゴジラ) is a 1954 Japanese epic kaiju film directed and co-written by Ishirō Honda, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. Produced and distributed by Toho Co., Ltd., it is the first film in the Godzilla franchise. The film stars Akira Takarada, Momoko Kōchi, Akihiko Hirata, and Takashi Shimura, with Haruo Nakajima and Katsumi Tezuka as Godzilla. In the film, Japan's authorities deal with the sudden appearance of a giant monster, whose attacks trigger fears of nuclear holocaust in post-war Japan.

Godzilla entered production after a Japanese-Indonesian co-production collapsed. Tsuburaya originally proposed for a giant octopus before the filmmakers decided on a dinosaur-inspired creature. Godzilla pioneered a form of special effects called suitmation in which a stunt performer wearing a suit interacts with miniature sets. Principal photography ran 51 days, and special effects photography ran 71 days.

Godzilla premiered in Nagoya on October 27, 1954 and received a wide release in Japan on November 3. It was met with mixed reviews upon release but was a box-office success, winning the Japanese Movie Association Award for Best Special Effects. The film earned ¥183 million in distributor rentals, making it the eighth-highest-grossing Japanese film of that year. In 1956, a heavily-re-edited "Americanized" version, titled Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, was released in the United States.

The film spawned a multimedia franchise that was recognized by Guinness World Records as the longest-running film franchise in history. The character Godzilla has since become an international popular culture icon. The film and Tsuburaya have been largely credited for establishing the template for tokusatsu media. The film received reappraisal in later years and has since been regarded as one of the best monster films ever made.

The film was followed by the sequel Godzilla Raids Again, released on April 24, 1955.

Plot
When the Japanese freighter Eiko-maru is destroyed near Odo Island, another ship—the Bingo-maru—is sent to investigate, only to meet the same fate with few survivors. A fishing boat from Odo is also destroyed, with one survivor. Fishing catches mysteriously drop to zero, blamed by an elder on the ancient sea creature known as "Godzilla". Reporters arrive on Odo Island to further investigate. A villager tells one of the reporters that something in the sea is ruining the fishing. That evening, a storm strikes the island, destroying the reporters' helicopter, and Godzilla, briefly seen, destroys 17 homes and kills nine people and 20 of the villagers' livestock.

Odo residents travel to Tokyo to demand disaster relief. The villagers' and reporters' evidence describes damage consistent with something large crushing the village. The government sends paleontologist Kyohei Yamane to lead an investigation on the island, where giant radioactive footprints and a trilobite are discovered. The village alarm bell is rung and Yamane and the villagers rush to see the monster, retreating after seeing that it is a giant dinosaur. Yamane presents his findings in Tokyo, estimating that Godzilla is 50 meters tall and is evolved from an ancient sea creature becoming a terrestrial creature. He concludes that Godzilla has been disturbed by underwater hydrogen bomb testing. Debate ensues about notifying the public about the danger of the monster. Meanwhile, 17 ships are lost at sea.

Ten frigates are dispatched to attempt to kill the monster using depth charges. The mission disappoints Yamane, who wants Godzilla to be studied. When Godzilla survives the attack, officials appeal to Yamane for ideas to kill the monster, but Yamane tells them that Godzilla is unkillable, having survived H-bomb testing, and must be studied. Yamane's daughter, Emiko, decides to break off her arranged engagement to Yamane's colleague, Daisuke Serizawa, because of her love for Hideto Ogata, a salvage ship captain. When a reporter arrives and asks to interview Serizawa, Emiko escorts the reporter to Serizawa's home. After Serizawa refuses to divulge his current work to the reporter, he gives Emiko a demonstration of his recent project on the condition that she must keep it a secret. The demonstration horrifies her and she leaves without mentioning the engagement. Shortly after she returns home, Godzilla surfaces from Tokyo Bay and attacks Shinagawa. After attacking a passing train, Godzilla returns to the ocean.

After consulting international experts, the Japan Self-Defense Forces construct a 30 meter tall and 50,000 volt electrified fence along the coast and deploy forces to kill Godzilla. Dismayed that there is no plan to study Godzilla for its resistance to radiation, Yamane returns home, where Emiko and Ogata await, hoping to get his consent for them to wed. When Ogata disagrees with Yamane, arguing that the threat that Godzilla poses outweighs any potential benefits from studying the monster, Yamane tells him to leave. Godzilla resurfaces and breaks through the fence to Tokyo with its atomic breath, unleashing more destruction across the city. Further attempts to kill the monster with tanks and fighter jets fail and Godzilla returns to the ocean. The day after, hospitals and shelters are crowded with the maimed and the dead, with some survivors suffering from radiation sickness.

Distraught by the devastation, Emiko tells Ogata about Serizawa's research, a weapon called the "Oxygen Destroyer", which disintegrates oxygen atoms and causes organisms to die of a rotting asphyxiation. Emiko and Ogata go to Serizawa to convince him to use the Oxygen Destroyer but he initially refuses, explaining that if he uses the device, the world's superpowers will surely force him to construct more Oxygen Destroyers for use as a superweapon. After watching a program displaying the nation's current tragedy, Serizawa finally accepts their pleas. As Serizawa burns his notes, Emiko breaks down crying.

A navy ship takes Ogata and Serizawa to plant the device in Tokyo Bay. After finding Godzilla, Serizawa unloads the device and cuts off his air support, taking the secret of the Oxygen Destroyer to his grave. Godzilla is destroyed, but many mourn Serizawa's death. Yamane believes that if nuclear weapons testing continues, another Godzilla may rise in the future.

Cast

 * Akira Takarada as Hideto Ogata
 * Momoko Kōchi as Emiko Yamane
 * Akihiko Hirata as Dr. Daisuke Serizawa
 * Takashi Shimura as Dr. Kyohei Yamane
 * Fuyuki Murakami as Dr. Tanabe
 * Sachio Sakai as Hagiwara
 * Ren Yamamoto as Masaji Yamada
 * Toyoaki Suzuki as Shinkichi Yamada
 * Toranosuke Ogawa as the President of the Nankai Shipping Company
 * Hiroshi Hayashi as the Chairman of Diet Committee
 * Seijiro Onda as Oyama, Diet Committee member
 * Kin Sugai as Ozawa, Diet Committee member
 * Shoichi Hirose as a member of the Diet Committee
 * Kokuten Kōdō as the old fisherman
 * Yū Fujiki as Eiko-Maru wireless communications officer
 * Kenji Sahara as a reporter and a partygoer
 * Ishirō Honda as a substation worker
 * Haruo Nakajima as Godzilla, a newspaper reporter, and a substation engineer
 * Katsumi Tezuka as Godzilla and a newspaper deskman

Cast taken from Japan's Favorite Mon-Star, except where cited otherwise.

Themes
In the film, Godzilla symbolizes nuclear holocaust from Japan's perspective and has since been culturally identified as a strong metaphor for nuclear weapons. Producer Tomoyuki Tanaka stated, "The theme of the film, from the beginning, was the terror of the bomb. Mankind had created the bomb, and now nature was going to take revenge on mankind." Director Ishirō Honda filmed Godzilla's Tokyo rampage to mirror the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and stated, "If Godzilla had been a dinosaur or some other animal, he would have been killed by just one cannonball. But if he were equal to an atomic bomb, we wouldn't know what to do. So, I took the characteristics of an atomic bomb and applied them to Godzilla."

On March 1, 1954, just a few months before the film was made, the Japanese fishing vessel Daigo Fukuryū Maru ("Lucky Dragon No. 5") had been showered with radioactive fallout from the U.S. military's 15-megaton "Castle Bravo" hydrogen bomb test at nearby Bikini Atoll. The boat's catch was contaminated, spurring a panic in Japan about the safety of eating fish, and the crew was sickened, with one crew member eventually dying from radiation sickness. The event led to the emergence of a large and enduring anti-nuclear movement that gathered 30 million signatures on an anti-nuclear petition by August 1955 and eventually became institutionalized as the Japan Council against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs. The film's opening scene of Godzilla destroying a Japanese vessel is a direct reference to these events and had a strong impact on Japanese viewers, with the recent event still fresh in the mind of the public.

Academics Anne Allison, Thomas Schnellbächer, and Steve Ryfle have said that Godzilla contains political and cultural undertones that can be attributed to what the Japanese had experienced in World War II and that Japanese audiences were able to connect emotionally to the monster. They theorized that the viewers saw Godzilla as a victim and felt that the creature's backstory reminded them of their experiences in World War II. The academics have also claimed that as the atomic bomb testing that woke Godzilla was carried out by the United States, the film can in a way be seen to blame the United States for the problems and struggles that Japan experienced after World War II had ended. They also felt that the film could have served as a cultural coping method to help the people of Japan move on from the events of the war.

Brian Merchant from Motherboard called the film "a bleak, powerful metaphor for nuclear power that still endures today," and on its themes, he stated: "It's an unflinchingly bleak, deceptively powerful film about coping with and taking responsibility for incomprehensible, man-made tragedy. Specifically, nuclear tragedies. It's arguably the best window into post-war attitudes towards nuclear power we've got—as seen from the perspective of its greatest victims." Terrence Rafferty from The New York Times said Godzilla was "an obvious gigantic, unsubtle, grimly purposeful metaphor for the atomic bomb" and felt the film was "extraordinarily solemn, full of earnest discussions".

Mark Jacobson from the website of New York magazine said that Godzilla "transcends humanist prattle. Very few constructs have so perfectly embodied the overriding fears of a particular era. He is the symbol of a world gone wrong, a work of man that once created cannot be taken back or deleted. He rears up out of the sea as a creature of no particular belief system, apart from even the most elastic version of evolution and taxonomy, a reptilian id that lives inside the deepest recesses of the collective unconscious that cannot be reasoned with, a merciless undertaker who broaches no deals." Regarding the film, Jacobson stated, "Honda's first Godzilla... is in line with these inwardly turned post-war films and perhaps the most brutally unforgiving of them. Shame-ridden self-flagellation was in order, and who better to supply the rubber-suited psychic punishment than the Rorschach-shaped big fella himself?"

Tim Martin from The Daily Telegraph said that the original 1954 film was "a far cry from its B-movie successors. It was a sober allegory of a film with ambitions as large as its thrice-normal budget, designed to shock and horrify an adult audience. Its roster of frightening images—cities in flames, overstuffed hospitals, irradiated children—would have been all too familiar to cinema-goers for whom memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were still less than a decade old, while its script posed deliberately inflammatory questions about the balance of postwar power and the development of nuclear energy." Martin also commented on how the film's themes were omitted in the American version by stating, "Its thematic preoccupation with nuclear energy proved even less acceptable to the American distributors who, after buying the film, began an extensive reshoot and re-cut for Western markets."

Crew

 * Ishirō Honda – director, co-writer
 * Eiji Tsuburaya – special effects director
 * Kōji Kajita – assistant director
 * Teruo Maki – production manager
 * Choshiro Ishii – lighting
 * Takeo Kita – chief art director
 * Satoshi Chuko – art director
 * Akira Watanabe – special effects art director
 * Kuichirō Kishida – special effects lighting
 * Teizō Toshimitsu – monster builder
 * Hisashi Shimonaga – sound recording
 * Ichiro Minawa – sound and musical effects

Personnel taken from The Criterion Collection.

Development
In 1954, Toho originally planned to produce In the Shadow of Glory (栄光のかげに), a Japanese-Indonesian co-production that would have starred Ryō Ikebe as a former Japanese soldier who was stationed in the Dutch East Indies during the Japanese occupation of Indonesia, and Yoshiko Yamaguchi as his half-Indonesian love interest. However, anti-Japanese sentiment in Indonesia put political pressure on the government to deny visas for the Japanese filmmakers. The film was to be co-produced with Perfini, filmed on location in Jakarta in color, a first for a major Toho production, and was to open markets for Japanese films in Southeast Asia.

Producer Tomoyuki Tanaka flew to Jakarta to renegotiate with the Indonesian government but was unsuccessful. On the flight back to Japan, he conceived the idea for a giant monster film, inspired by the 1953 film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and the Daigo Fukuryū Maru incident, which happened in March 1954. The film's opening sequence is a direct reference to the incident. Tanaka felt the film had potential because nuclear fears were generating news and monster films were becoming popular because of the financial success of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and the 1952 re-release of King Kong, the latter of which earned more money than previous releases.

During his flight, Tanaka wrote an outline with the working title The Giant Monster from 20,000 Miles Beneath the Sea (海底二万哩から来た大怪獣) and pitched it to executive producer Iwao Mori. Mori approved the project in mid–April 1954 after special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya agreed to do the film's effects and confirmed that the film was financially feasible. Mori also felt the project was perfect as a vehicle for Tsuburaya and to test the storyboarding system that he instituted at the time. Mori also approved Tanaka's choice to have Ishirō Honda direct the film and shortened the title of the production to Project G (G for Giant), as well as giving the production classified status and ordered Tanaka to minimize his attention on other films and mainly focus on Project G.

Toho originally intended for Senkichi Taniguchi to direct the film, as he was originally attached to direct In the Shadow of Glory. However, Taniguchi declined the assignment. Honda was not Toho's first choice for the film's director, but his wartime experience made him an ideal candidate for the film's anti-nuclear themes. Several other directors passed on the project, feeling the idea was "stupid," but Honda accepted the assignment because of his interest in science and "unusual things" and stated, "I had no problem taking it seriously." It was during the production of Godzilla that Honda worked with assistant director Kōji Kajita for the first time. Afterwards, Kajita would go on to collaborate with Honda as his chief assistant director for 17 films over the course of 10 years. Science fiction films lacked respect from film critics and so Honda, Tanaka, and Tsuburaya agreed on depicting a monster attack as if it were a real event, with the serious tone of a documentary.

Writing
Tsuburaya submitted an outline of his own that was written three years prior to Godzilla and featured a giant octopus attacking ships in the Indian Ocean. In May 1954, Tanaka hired sci-fi writer Shigeru Kayama to write the story. Only 50 pages long and written in 11 days, Kayama's treatment depicted Dr. Yamane wearing dark shades, a cape and living in a European-style house from which he emerged only at night. Godzilla was portrayed as more animal-like by coming ashore to feed on animals, with an ostensibly gorilla-like interest in females. Kayama's story also featured less destruction, and borrowed a scene from The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms by having Godzilla attack a lighthouse. Kayama added his own critical stance on nuclear weapons by opening with a voice-over detailing and criticizing the 1952 and 1954 hydrogen bomb tests. This was followed by a montage of shots that included real footage of the Daigo Fukuryū Maru aftermath, its victims, and the paranoia that followed. Kayama also repurposed ideas from an early story he had written about a giant lizard that strolled on hind legs.

Takeo Murata and Honda co-wrote the screenplay in three weeks and confined themselves in a Japanese inn in Tokyo's Shibuya ward. On writing the script, Murata stated, "Director Honda and I...racked our brains to make Mr. Kayama's original treatment into a full, working vision." Murata said that Tsuburaya and Tanaka pitched their ideas as well. Tanaka requested that they do not spend too much money, but Tsuburaya encouraged them to "do whatever it takes to make it work." Murata and Honda redeveloped key characters and elements by adding Emiko's love triangle. In Kayama's story, Serizawa was depicted as merely a colleague of Dr. Yamane's. Godzilla's full appearance was to be revealed during the Odo Island hurricane, but Honda and Murata opted to show parts of the creature as the film built up to his full reveal. Honda and Murata also introduced the characters Hagiwara and Dr. Tanabe in their draft, but the role of Shinkichi, who had a substantial role in Kayama's story, was cut down.

Honda toned down much of Kayama's political criticism, especially the opening, because he felt it was inappropriate to use the Daigo Fukuryū Maru incident and wanted to depict Godzilla like an invisible fear.

A novel, written by Kayama, was published on October 25, 1954, by Iwaya Shoten as Monster Godzilla (怪獣ゴジラ).

Creature design
Godzilla was designed by Teizō Toshimitsu and Akira Watanabe under Eiji Tsuburaya's supervision. Early on, Tanaka contemplated having the monster be gorilla-like or whale-like in design because of the name "Gojira", a combination of the Japanese words for gorilla (ゴリラ) and whale (クジラ), but he eventually settled on a dinosaur-like design. Kazuyoshi Abe was hired earlier to design Godzilla, but his ideas were later rejected since Godzilla looked too humanoid and mammalian, with a head shaped like a mushroom cloud; however, Abe was retained to help draw the film's storyboards.

Toshimitsu and Watanabe decided to base Godzilla's design on dinosaurs and, by using dinosaur books and magazines as a reference, combined elements of a Tyrannosaurus, Iguanodon and the dorsal fins of a Stegosaurus. Despite wanting to use stop motion animation, Tsuburaya reluctantly settled on suitmation. Toshimitsu sculpted three clay models on which the suit would be based. The first two were rejected, but the third was approved by Tsuburaya, Tanaka, and Honda.

The Godzilla suit was constructed by Kanju Yagi, Yasuei Yagi, and Eizo Kaimai, who used thin bamboo sticks and wire to build a frame for the interior of the suit and added metal mesh and cushioning over it to bolster its structure and finally applied coats of latex. Coats of molten rubber were additionally applied, followed by carved indentations and strips of latex glued onto the surface of the suit to create Godzilla's scaly hide. This first version of the suit weighed 100 kilograms (220 pounds). For close-ups, Toshimitsu created a smaller scale, mechanical, hand-operated puppet that sprayed streams of mist from its mouth to act as Godzilla's atomic breath.

Haruo Nakajima and Katsumi Tezuka were chosen to perform in the Godzilla suit because of their strength and endurance. At the first costume fitting, Nakajima fell down inside the suit since it had been created by using heavy latex and inflexible materials. This first version of the suit was cut into two and used for scenes requiring only partial shots of Godzilla or close-ups, with the lower half fitted with rope suspenders for Nakajima to wear. For full-body shots, a second identical suit was created, which was made lighter than the first suit, but Nakajima could still be inside for only three minutes before passing out. Nakajima lost 20 pounds during the production of the film. Nakajima would go on to portray Godzilla and other monsters until his retirement in 1972. Tezuka filmed scenes in the Godzilla suit, but his older body made him unable to fully commit to the physical demands required by the role. As a result, few of his scenes made it to the final cut, as very few scenes were considered usable. Tezuka filled in for Nakajima when he was unavailable or needed relief from the physically-demanding role.

Godzilla's name was also a source of consternation for the filmmakers. Because the monster had no name, the first draft of the film was not called Gojira but rather titled G, also known as Kaihatsu keikaku G ("Development Plan G"), but the "G" of the title stood for "Giant." Nakajima confirmed that Toho held a contest to name the monster. The monster was eventually named Gojira. One explanation that is chalked up to legend is that a hulking Toho Studios employee's physical attributes led him to be nicknamed Gojira. In a 1998 BBC documentary on Godzilla, Kimi Honda, the widow of the director, dismissed the employee-name story as a tall tale and stated that she believed that Honda, Tanaka, and Tsuburaya gave "considerable thought" to the name of the monster: "the backstage boys at Toho loved to joke around with tall stories, but I don't believe that one." In 2003, a Japanese television special claimed to have identified the anonymous hulking Toho employee as Shiro Amikura, a Toho contract actor from the 1950s.

Special effects

The film's special effects were directed by Eiji Tsuburaya. For the effects footage to sync with the live-action footage, Honda and Tsuburaya would develop plans early during development and briefly meet prior to the day's shoot. Kajita would shuttle Tsuburaya to Honda's set to observe how a scene was being shot and where the actors were being positioned. Kajita also ushered Honda to the effects stage to observe how Tsuburaya was shooting certain effects. Honda edited the live-action footage, and he left blank leaders for Tsuburaya to insert the effects footage. At times, Honda had to cut out certain effects footage. Tsuburaya disapproved of these decisions because Honda's cuts did not match the effects; however, Honda had final say in those matters.

Tsuburaya originally wanted to use stop motion for the film's special effects but realized that it would have taken seven years to complete based on the current staff and infrastructure at Toho. Settling on suitmation and miniature effects, Tsuburaya and his crew scouted the locations that Godzilla was to destroy and were nearly arrested after a security guard overheard their plans for destruction but were released after they showed police their Toho business cards. Kintaro Makino, the chief of miniature construction, was given blueprints by Akira Watanabe for the miniatures and assigned 30 to 40 workers from the carpentry department to build them, which took a month to build the scaled down version of Ginza. Most of the miniatures were built at 1:25 scale, but the Diet Building was scaled down to a 1:33 scale to look smaller than Godzilla. It proved to be too expensive to use stop-motion extensively throughout the picture, but the final film included a stop-motion scene of Godzilla's tail destroying the Nichigeki Theater Building.

The buildings' framework were made of thin wooden boards reinforced with a mixture of plaster and white chalk. Explosives were installed inside miniatures that were to be destroyed by Godzilla's atomic breath. Some were sprayed with gasoline to make them burn more easily; others included small cracks so they could crumble easily. Optical animation techniques were used for Godzilla's glowing dorsal fins by having hundreds of cells, which were drawn frame by frame. Haruo Nakajima perspired inside the suit so much that the Yagi brothers had to dry out the cotton lining every morning and sometimes reline the interior of the suit and repair damages.

The typhoon waves were created by stagehands who overturned barrels of water into a water tank where the miniature Odo Island shoreline was built. Multiple composition shots were used for the Odo Island scenes. Most of the Odo Island scenes were filmed near rice fields. Toho hired en masse part-time employees to work on the film's optical effects. Half of the 400 hired staff were mostly part-timers with little to no experience. An early version of Godzilla's full reveal was filmed that featured Godzilla, via hand-operated puppet, devouring a cow. Sadamasa Arikawa thought the scene was too gruesome and convinced Tsuburaya to refilm it. Optical effects were utilized for Godzilla's footprints on the beach by painting them onto glass and inserting it onto an area of the live-action footage. Special effects photography lasted for 71 days.

Filming
On the first day of filming, Honda addressed a crew of 30 to read the script and to leave the project if they did not feel convinced since he wanted to work only with those who had confidence in him and the film. Most of the film was shot in the Toho lot. Honda's team also filmed on location in the Shima Peninsula in Mie Prefecture to film the Odo Island scenes, which used 50 Toho extras and Honda's team establishing their base in the town of Toba. Local villagers were also used as extras for the Odo Island scenes. The dance ritual scene was filmed on location in Mie Prefecture, with local villagers performing as the dancers. The cast and crew commuted every morning by boat to Toba, Mie, and worked under harsh weather temperatures. Honda worked shirtless and so suffered a blistering sunburn on his back that left permanent scars.

Toho had negotiated with the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) to film scenes requiring the military and filmed target practices and drills for the film. Honda's team followed a convoy of JSDF vehicles for the convoy dispatch scene. Two thousand girls were used from an all-girls high school for the prayer-for-peace scene. The filmmakers had little co-operation from the JSDF and had to rely on World War II stock footage, provided by the Japanese military, for certain scenes. The stock footage was sourced from 16 mm prints. Honda's team spent 51 days shooting the film.

Music and sound effects
The film's score was composed by Akira Ifukube. After meeting with Tomoyuki Tanaka, Eiji Tsuburaya, and Ishirō Honda, Ifukube enthusiastically accepted the job. After learning that the main character was a monster, Ifukube said, "I couldn't sit still when I heard that in this movie the main character was a reptile that would be rampaging through the city." Ifukube was not shown the final film and had only a week to compose his music. Within that time, he was shown only a model of Godzilla and the screenplay. Tsuburaya briefly showed Ifukube some footage but with the effects missing and Tsuburaya attempting to describe how the scene would unfold. Ifukube recalled, "I was very confused. So I tried to make music that would remind you of something enormous." Ifukube used low-pitch brass and string instruments.

It was Honda's idea to make Godzilla roar, despite the fact that reptiles do not have vocal cords. Shimonaga and Minawa were originally tasked with creating the roar, but Ifukube became involved after taking interest in creating sound effects. Ifukube and Honda discussed what type of sounds were going to be used in certain scenes and other details concerning sounds. Minawa went to the zoo and recorded various animal roars and played them back at certain speeds. However, the sounds proved unsatisfactory and went unused. Ifukube borrowed a contrabass from the Japan Art University's music department and created Godzilla's roar by loosening the strings and rubbing them with a leather glove. The sound was recorded and played at a reduced speed, which achieved the effect of the roar used in the film. The technique would be adopted by Toho as a standard method in creating monster roars in the following years.

There are conflicting reports as to how Godzilla's footsteps were created. One claim states that they were created with a knotted rope hitting a kettle drum that was recorded and processed through an echo box. Some Japanese texts claim that the footsteps were sourced from an explosion with the ending clipped off and processed through an electronic reverb unit. However, Ifukube told Cult Movies that the footsteps were created using a primitive amplifier that made a loud clap when struck. The optical recording equipment contained four audio tracks: one for principal dialogue, one for background chatter, ambient noises, tanks, planes, and one for the roars and footsteps. An independent audio track was used to prevent bleeding over other audio.

The music and sound effects of Godzilla's rampage were recorded live simultaneously. While Ifukube conducted the NHK Philharmonic orchestra, a foley artists watched Godzilla's rampage projected on a screen and used tin, concrete debris, wood, and other equipment to simulate sounds that would sync with the footage. A new take would be needed if the foley artist had missed a cue. Many of Ifukube's themes and motifs associated with Godzilla were introduced in the film, such as the March, the Horror theme, and the Requiem. The "Self Defense Force March" had become synonymous with Godzilla that Ifukube later referred to it as "Godzilla's theme." Ifukube considers his music for the film his finest film score.

Marketing
During production, Mori devised promotional strategies to generate public interest such as a radio play, Monster Godzilla (怪獣ゴジラ); 11 episodes were produced based on the screenplay and were aired on Saturdays on the NHK radio network from July 17 to September 25, 1954. In an attempt to build mystery, Mori banned reporters from the set and kept the special effects techniques and other behind the scenes crafts secret. Nakajima's suit performance as Godzilla would not be revealed until the 1960s. However, Godzilla's image was widely publicized. Godzilla's image was added to the company stationary, cut-out pictures and posters were displayed in theaters and stores, large advertisement balloons were flown to major Japanese cities, and a Godzilla doll was mounted onto a truck and driven around Tokyo. The film's theatrical trailer debuted in theaters on October 20, 1954.

Theatrical
Godzilla was first released in Nagoya on October 27, 1954, and released nationwide on November 3, 1954. At the time of the film's release, it set a new opening day record for any Toho film by selling 33,000 tickets at Toho's cinemas in Tokyo and selling out at Nichigeki Theater. As a result, Toho's CEO personally called Honda to congratulate him. Honda's wife, Kimi, commented "that sort of thing didn't usually happen." An 84-minute cut of the Japanese version was theatrically released in West Germany on April 10, 1956, as Godzilla. That version removes the Japanese Diet argument, the acknowledgement of Godzilla as a "child of the H-bomb," references to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and an altered translation of the mother holding her children.

From 1955 to the 1960s, Godzilla played in theaters catering to Japanese-Americans in predominantly Japanese neighborhoods in the United States. In the summer of 1982, an English-subtitled version was shown at film festivals and art house cinemas in New York, Chicago, and other U.S. cities, including The Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where it was screened in late August of that year. Later that year, the film was re-released theatrically in Japan on November 21, to commemorate Toho's 50th anniversary. Since its release, the 1954 film remained unavailable officially in the United States until 2004.

To coincide with the film's 50th anniversary, art-house distributor Rialto Pictures gave the film a traveling tour-style limited release, coast-to-coast, across the United States, on May 7, 2004. It ran uncut with English subtitles until December 19, 2004. The film never played on more than six screens at any given point during its limited release. The film played in roughly sixty theaters and cities across the United States during its $7 1/2$-month release. In October 2005, the British Film Institute theatrically released the Japanese version in the United Kingdom.

On April 18, 2014, Rialto re-released the film in the United States, coast-to-coast, using another limited-style traveling tour. That coincided with Godzilla's 60th anniversary but also celebrated the American Godzilla film, which was released that same year. To avoid confusion with the Hollywood feature, the Rialto release was subtitled The Japanese Original. It was screened in 66 theaters in 64 cities from April 18 to October 31, 2014.

For its 67th anniversary, a 4K remaster of the film, along with other Godzilla films, was screened in Alamo Drafthouse Cinema locations on November 3, 2021.

American version
After the film's success in Japan, Toho sold the American rights to Joseph E. Levine for $25,000. A heavily-altered version of the film was released in the United States and worldwide as Godzilla, King of the Monsters! on April 27, 1956. This version trimmed the original down to 80 minutes and featured new footage with Canadian actor Raymond Burr interacting with body doubles mixed with Honda's footage to make it seem as if he were part of the original Japanese production. Many of the film's political themes were trimmed or removed completely. It was this version of the original Godzilla film that introduced audiences worldwide to the character and franchise and the only version to which critics and scholars had access until 2004, when the 1954 film was released in select theaters in North America. Godzilla, King of the Monsters! grossed $2 million during its theatrical run, more than what the 1954 film grossed in Japan.

Honda was unaware that Godzilla had been re-edited until Toho released Godzilla, King of the Monsters! in Japan in May 1957 as Monster King Godzilla. Toho converted the entire film from its original scope to a widescreen 2.35:1 scope, which resulted in an awkward crop for the entire film. Japanese subtitles were given to the Japanese actors since their original dialogue differed greatly from the original script and were dubbed in English. Since the release of the film, Toho had adopted the epithet "King of the Monsters" for Godzilla, which has since appeared in official marketing, advertisement, and promotional materials.

Japan
In 1985, the Japanese version of Godzilla was released on LaserDisc in Japan by Toho, followed by a VHS release in 1988. Toho released the film on DVD in 2001 and on Blu-ray in 2009. In 2008, Toho remastered the film in high-definition and premiered it on the Japanese Movie Speciality Channel, along with the rest of the Godzilla films that were also remastered in HD. In March 2021, Toho premiered a 4K remaster of the film on the Nippon Classic Movie Channel, along with seven other Godzilla films also remastered in 4K. The 4K remaster was downscaled to 2K for broadcast.

International
The American version was released on VHS and DVD by Simitar Entertainment in 1998 and Classic Media in 2002. In 2005, the British Film Institute released the Japanese version on DVD in the United Kingdom that includes the original mono track and several extra features, such as documentaries and commentary tracks by film historians Steve Ryfle, Ed Godziszewski, and Keith Aiken. The DVD also includes a documentary about the Daigo Fukuryū Maru, a Japanese fishing boat that was caught in an American nuclear blast and partially inspired the creation of the film.

In 2006, Classic Media released the Japanese and American version on a two-disc DVD in the United States and Canada. This release features trailers and audio commentaries for both films by Ryfle and Godziszewski (separate from the BFI commentaries), two 13-minute documentaries titled "Godzilla Story Development" and "Making of the Godzilla Suit," and a 12-page essay booklet by Ryfle. This release also restores the original ending credits of the American film, which until recently were thought to have been lost.

In 2009, Classic Media released Godzilla on Blu-ray. This release includes the same special features from the 2006 Classic Media DVD release but does not feature the American version. In 2012, the Criterion Collection released a "new high-definition digital restoration" of Godzilla on Blu-ray and DVD. This release includes a remaster of the American version, Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, as well as other special features such as interviews with Akira Ikufube, Japanese film critic Tadao Sato, actor Akira Takarada, Godzilla performer Haruo Nakajima, effects technicians Yoshio Irie and Eizo Kaimai and audio commentaries on both films by film historian David Kalat.

In 2014, Classic Media reissued Godzilla and Godzilla, King of the Monsters! on DVD, to commemorate the release of Legendary's Godzilla film. This release retained the same specs and features as the 2006 DVD release. In 2017, Janus Films and the Criterion Collection acquired the film, as well as other Godzilla titles, to stream on Starz and FilmStruck. In 2019, the film and the American version were included in the Godzilla: The Showa Era Films Blu-ray box set released by the Criterion Collection, which included all 15 films from the franchise's Shōwa era. In May 2020, the Japanese and American version became available on HBO Max upon its launch.

Box office
During its initial Japanese theatrical run, the film set an opening record with the highest first-day ticket sales in Tokyo, before it went on to sell 9.69 million tickets; it was the eighth best-attended film in Japan that year. The film earned ¥183 million (just under $510,000) in distributor rentals during its initial run, with total lifetime gross receipts of US$2.25 million. Adjusted for inflation, the film's original Japanese box office run in 1954 was equivalent to ¥13.7 billion in 1998.

During its 2004 limited theatrical release in North America, the film grossed $38,030 on its opening weekend and grossed $412,520 by the end of its limited run. For the 2014 limited re-release in North America, it grossed $10,903 after playing in one theater in New York and grossed $150,191 at the end of its run. In the United Kingdom, the film sold 3,643 tickets from limited releases in 2005–2006 and 2016–2017.

Critical response in Japan
Prior to the release of the film, skeptics predicted the film would flop. At the time of the film's release, Japanese reviews were mixed. Japanese critics accused the film of exploiting the widespread devastation that the country had suffered in World War II, as well as the Daigo Fukuryū Maru incident, which occurred a few months before filming began. Ishiro Honda lamented years later in the Tokyo Journal, "They called it grotesque junk, and said it looked like something you'd spit up. I felt sorry for my crew because they had worked so hard!"

Others said that depicting a fire-breathing organism was strange. Honda also believed that Japanese critics began to change their minds after the good reviews the film received in the United States: "The first film critics to appreciate Godzilla were those in the U.S. When Godzilla was released there as Godzilla, King of the Monsters! in 1956, the critics said such things as, 'For the start, this film frankly depicts the horrors of the Atomic Bomb', and by these evaluations, the assessment began to impact critics in Japan and has changed their opinions over the years."

As time went on, the film gained more respect in its home country. In 1984, Kinema Junpo magazine listed Godzilla as one of the top 20 Japanese films of all time, and a survey of 370 Japanese film critics published in Nihon Eiga Besuto 150 (Best 150 Japanese Films), had Godzilla ranked as the 27th best Japanese film ever made. The film was nominated for two Japanese Movie Association awards. One for best special effects and the other for best film. It won best special effects but lost best picture to Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. Kurosawa later listed the film as one of his 100 favorite films.

Critical response internationally
Godzilla received mostly critical acclaim from Western reviewers.

Owen Gleiberman from Entertainment Weekly described the film as more "serious" than the 1956 American cut, but "its tone just veers closer to that of solemn American B-horror cheese like Them! The real difference is that the film's famous metaphor for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki looks more nuttily masochistic than ever." Luke Y. Thompson from Dallas Observer defended the film's effects as products of their time and felt that viewers would be "surprised by what they see." He stated, "This ain't your standard goofy monster rampage." Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian awarded the film four stars out of five, praised the storytelling as "muscular" and the nuclear themes as "passionate and fascinatingly ambiguous", and stated, "the sheer fervency of this film takes it beyond the crash-bang entertainment of most blockbusters, ancient and modern." David Nusair from Reel Film Reviews awarded the film one-and-a-half stars out of four and stated that it turns into a "terminally erratic narrative that's more dull than engrossing." Nusair criticized Honda for his "inability to offer up even a single compelling human character," found the film's ending to be "anticlimactic and pointless," and concluded that "the film is entirely lacking in elements designed to capture and hold the viewer's ongoing attention."

Roger Ebert from the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film one-and-a-half stars out of four and stated that "regaled for 50 years by the stupendous idiocy of the American version of Godzilla, audiences can now see the original Japanese version, which is equally idiotic, but, properly decoded, was the Fahrenheit 9/11 of its time." Ebert criticized the effects as looking "crude," felt the effects of the 1933 film King Kong to be "more convincing," and concluded, "This is a bad movie, but it has earned its place in history."

Keith Uhlich from Time Out awarded the film four stars out of five; calling the film "Pop Art as purge;" and praised the film's characters, themes, and Godzilla as a "potent and provocative metaphor, a lumbering embodiment of atomic-age anxieties birthed from mankind's own desire to destroy." Desson Thomson from the Washington Post called the film's effects "pretty extraordinary" and "amazingly credible" for their time. Thomson felt some of the acting was "ham-handed" but said that "there's a surprisingly powerful thrust to this film." Mick LaSalle from the San Francisco Chronicle called the film a "classic," stating, "Such moments go beyond spectacle. Godzilla is a collective metaphor and a collective nightmare, a message film that says more than its message, that captures, with a horrified poetry, the terrors that stomped through the minds of people 50 years ago."

Legacy
Since its release, Godzilla has been regarded as one of the best giant monster films ever made, and critic Allen Perkins called the film "not just a classic monster movie, but also an important cinematic achievement." In 2010, the film was ranked No. 31 in Empire magazine's "100 Best Films Of World Cinema". In 2013, Rolling Stone ranked the film No. 1 on their "Best Monster Movies of All Time" list. In 2015, Variety listed the film amongst their "10 Best Monster Movies of All-Time" list. In 2017, the Visual Effects Society added the 1954 film amongst their list of seventy most influential films in visual effects of all time. In 2019, Slant Magazine ranked it the 10th best science-fiction films ever produced and Time Out Film ranked the film No. 9 on their "50 best monster movies" list.

The film spawned a multimedia franchise consisting of 36 films in total, video games, books, comics, toys, and other media. The Godzilla franchise has been recognized by Guinness World Records as being the longest-running film franchise in history. Since his debut, Godzilla became an international pop culture icon, inspiring countless rip-offs, imitations, parodies and tributes. The 1954 film and its special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya have been largely credited for establishing the template for tokusatsu, a technique of practical special effects filmmaking that would become essential in Japan's film industry after the release of Godzilla. Critic and scholar Ryusuke Hikawa said: "Disney created the template for American animation. In the same way, (special-effects studio) Tsuburaya created the template for the Japanese movie business. It was their use of cheap but craftsman-like approaches to movie-making that made tokusatsu unique." Tsuburaya would later reuse footage of Godzilla from the film for the first episode of Kaiju Booska (1966-1967).

Steven Spielberg cited Godzilla as an inspiration for Jurassic Park (1993), specifically the 1956 American localization Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, which he grew up watching. Jason Notte of HuffPost credited Godzilla, King of the Monsters! for heralding foreign films to a wider Western audience, declaring it "the most important foreign film in American history."

American films
In 1998, TriStar Pictures released a reboot, titled Godzilla, directed by Roland Emmerich. Emmerich wanted his Godzilla to have nothing to do with Toho's Godzilla but chose to retain key elements from the 1954 film, stating, "We took part of [the original movie's] basic storyline, in that the creature becomes created by radiation and it becomes a big challenge. But that's all we took."

In 2014, Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures released a reboot, also titled Godzilla, directed by Gareth Edwards. Edwards stated that his film was inspired by the 1954 film, and attempted to retain some of its themes, stating, "Godzilla is a metaphor for Hiroshima in the original movie. We tried to keep that, and there are a lot of themes from the '54 movie that we've kept."

title: Godzilla (1954 film)


text:
The Return of Godzilla

The Return of Godzilla (ゴジラ) is a 1984 Japanese kaiju film directed by Koji Hashimoto, with special effects by Teruyoshi Nakano. Distributed by Toho and produced under their subsidiary Toho Pictures, it is the 16th film in the Godzilla franchise, the last film produced in the Shōwa era, and the first film in the Heisei series. In Japan, the film was followed by Godzilla vs. Biollante in 1989.

The Return of Godzilla stars Ken Tanaka, Yasuko Sawaguchi, Yosuke Natsuki, and Keiju Kobayashi, with Kenpachiro Satsuma as Godzilla. The film serves as both a sequel to the original 1954 film and a reboot of the franchise that ignores the events of every Shōwa era film aside from the original Godzilla, placing itself in line with the darker tone and themes of the original film and returning Godzilla to his destructive, antagonistic roots. The film was released theatrically in Japan on December 15, 1984. Critics praised Godzilla's return, Koroku's score, themes, special effects and darker tone. The following year, a heavily-re-edited localized version, titled Godzilla 1985, was released in the United States by New World Pictures; it features new footage, with Raymond Burr reprising his role from Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956), itself an American localization of Godzilla (1954).

Plot
The Japanese fishing vessel Yahata Maru is caught in strong currents off the shores of Daikoku Island. As the boat drifts into shore, the island begins to erupt, and a giant monster lifts itself out of the volcano. A few days later, reporter Goro Maki is sailing in the area and finds the vessel intact but deserted. As he explores the vessel, he finds all the crew dead except for Hiroshi Okumura, who has been badly wounded. Suddenly a giant Shockirus sea louse attacks him but he is saved by Okumura.

In Tokyo, Okumura realizes by looking at pictures that the monster he saw was a new Godzilla. Maki writes an article about the account, but the news of Godzilla's return is kept secret and his article is withheld. Maki visits Professor Hayashida, whose parents were lost in the 1954 Godzilla attack. Hayashida describes Godzilla as a living, invincible nuclear weapon able to cause mass destruction. At Hayashida's laboratory, Maki meets Okumura's sister, Naoko, and informs her that her brother is alive and at the police hospital.

A Soviet submarine is destroyed in the Pacific. The Soviets believe the attack was perpetrated by the Americans, and a diplomatic crisis ensues, which threatens to escalate into nuclear war. The Japanese intervene and reveal that Godzilla was behind the attacks. The Japanese cabinet meets to discuss Japan's defense. A new weapon is revealed, the Super X, a specially-armored flying fortress that will defend the capital. The Japanese military is put on alert.

Godzilla attacks the Mihama nuclear power plant in Shizuoka Prefecture. While feeding off the reactor, it is distracted by a flock of birds and leaves the facility. Hayashida believes that Godzilla was distracted instinctively by a homing signal from the birds. Hayashida, together with geologist Minami, propose to the Japanese Cabinet, that Godzilla could be lured back to Mount Mihara on Ōshima Island by a similar signal, and a volcanic eruption could be started, capturing Godzilla.

Prime Minister Mitamura meets with Soviet and American envoys and declares that nuclear weapons will not be used on Godzilla, even if Godzilla were to attack the Japanese mainland. Meanwhile, the Soviets have their own plans to counter the threat posed by Godzilla, and a Soviet control ship disguised as a freighter in Tokyo Harbor prepares to launch a nuclear missile from one of their orbiting satellites should Godzilla attack.

Godzilla is sighted at dawn in Tokyo Bay heading towards Tokyo, causing mass evacuations. The JASDF attacks Godzilla but fails to stop its advance on the city. Godzilla soon emerges and makes short work of the JSDF stationed there. The battle causes damage to the Soviet ship and starts a missile launch countdown. The captain dies as he attempts to stop the missile from launching. Godzilla proceeds towards Shinjuku, wreaking havoc along the way. Godzilla is confronted by four laser-armed trucks and the Super X. Because Godzilla's heart is similar to a nuclear reactor, the cadmium shells that are fired into its mouth by the Super X seal and slow down its heart, knocking Godzilla unconscious.

The countdown ends and the Soviet missile is launched, but it is destroyed by an American counter-missile. Hayashida and Okumura are extracted from Tokyo via helicopter and taken to Mt. Mihara to set up the homing device before the two missiles collide above Tokyo. The destruction of the nuclear missile produces an electrical storm and an EMP, which revives Godzilla once more and temporarily disables the Super X.

An enraged Godzilla bears down on the Super X just as it manages to get airborne again. The Super X's weapons prove ineffective against the kaiju, resulting in even more destruction in the city as Godzilla chases it through several skyscrapers. Godzilla finally destroys the Super X by dropping a skyscraper on top of it. Godzilla continues its rampage until Hayashida uses the homing device to distract it. Godzilla leaves Tokyo and swims across Tokyo Bay, following the homing device to Mount Mihara. There, Godzilla follows the device and falls into the mouth of the volcano. Okumura activates detonators at the volcano, creating a controlled eruption that traps Godzilla inside.

Development
After the box office failure of Terror of Mechagodzilla, Toho attempted to reinvigorate the franchise several times during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The first attempt was the announcement of a color remake of the original 1954 film entitled The Rebirth of Godzilla in 1977, but the project was shelved. A year later, it was announced that Toho would develop a film jointly with UPA studios entitled Godzilla vs. the Devil, though this, along with UPA producer Henry G. Saperstein's proposed Godzilla vs. Gargantua, also never materialized.

Godzilla series creator Tomoyuki Tanaka took charge of reviving the franchise in 1979, Godzilla's 25th anniversary, intending to return the series to its dark, anti-nuclear roots in the wake of the Three Mile Island accident. Hoping to win back adult audiences alienated by the fantastical approach to Godzilla films taken during the 1970s, Tanaka was further encouraged in his vision by the contemporary success of adult-oriented horror and science fiction movies like King Kong, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Alien and The Thing. A draft story entitled Resurrection of Godzilla was submitted by Tanaka and Akira Murao in 1980, and had Godzilla pitted against a shape-shifting monster called Bakan in the backdrop of an illegal nuclear waste disposal site. In 1983, Murao and Hideichi Nagahara collaborated on a revised script for Resurrection of Godzilla, however, the project was cancelled due to budgetary concerns. That same year, American director Steve Miner proposed directing a Godzilla film at his own expense. Toho approved of the project, and Miner hired Fred Dekker to write the screenplay and paleosculptor Steve Czerkas to redesign the monster. The project was however hampered by Miner's insistence on using prohibitively costly stop-motion animation and shooting the film in 3D, and was thus rejected by major American movie studios. Under pressure from a 10,000-member group of Japanese Godzilla fans calling themselves the "Godzilla Resurrection Committee", Tanaka decided to helm a Japanese film for "strictly domestic consumption" to be released jointly alongside Miner's movie.

In an effort to disavow Godzilla's increasingly heroic and anthropomorphic depiction in previous films, Tanaka insisted on making a direct sequel to the original 1954 movie. He hired screenwriter Shuichi Nagahara, who wrote a screenplay combining elements of the previously cancelled The Resurrection of Godzilla and Miner's still unproduced film, including an intensification of hostilities during the Cold War and a flying fortress which fires missiles into Godzilla's mouth. Koji Hashimoto was hired as director after Ishirō Honda declined the offer, as he was assisting Akira Kurosawa with Kagemusha and Ran, and felt that the franchise should have been discontinued after the death of Eiji Tsuburaya.

Composer Akira Ifukube was offered to score the film but respectfully declined. At the time, it was rumored that Ifukube refused to participate in the film due to the changes made to Godzilla, stating, "I do not write music for 80-meter monsters". However, this quote was later clarified, by Ifukube's biographer Erik Homenick and Japanese Giants editor Ed Godziszewski, as a joke spread by fans which was later misinterpreted as fact. Ifukube declined to score the film due to his priorities, at the time, teaching composition at the Tokyo College of Music.

Special effects
The special effects were directed by Teruyoshi Nakano, who had directed the special effects of several previous Godzilla films. The decision was made by Tanaka to increase the apparent height of Godzilla from 50 to 80 m so that Godzilla would not be dwarfed by the contemporary skyline of Tokyo. This meant that the miniatures had to be built to a $1/40$th scale, and this contributed to an increase in the budget of the film to $6.25 million. Tanaka and Nakano supervised suit-maker Noboyuki Yasumaru in constructing a new Godzilla design, incorporating ears and four toes, features not seen since Godzilla Raids Again. Nakano insisted on infusing elements into the design that suggested sadness, such as downward-slanting eyes and sloping shoulders.

Suit construction took two months, and consisted of separately casting body-part molds with urethane on a pre-built, life-size statue of the final design. Yasumaru personally took charge of all phases of suit-building, unlike in previous productions wherein the different stages of suit-production were handled by different craftsmen. The final suit was constructed to accommodate stuntman Hiroshi Yamawaki, but he declined suddenly, and was replaced by veteran suit actor Kenpachiro Satsuma, who had portrayed Hedorah and Gigan in the Showa Era. Because the 110 kg suit wasn't built to his measurements, Satsuma had difficulty performing, being able to last only ten minutes within it, and losing 12 pounds during filming. Hoping to avoid having Godzilla move in an overly human fashion, Nakano instructed Satsuma to base his actions on Noh, a traditional Japanese dance.

Taking inspiration from the publicity surrounding the 40-foot tall King Kong model from Dino De Laurentiis's 1976 film of the same name, Toho spent a reported ¥52,146 (approximately $475.00) on a 16-foot high robotic Godzilla (dubbed "Cybot") for use in close-up shots of the creature's head. The Cybot consisted of a hydraulically powered mechanical endoskeleton covered in urethane skin containing 3,000 computer operated parts which permitted it to tilt its head, and move its lips and arms. Unlike previous Godzilla suits, whose lower jaws consisted of wire-operated flaps, the Cybot's jaws were hinged like those of an actual animal, and slid back as they opened. A life-size, crane operated foot was also built for close-up shots of city destruction scenes. Part of the film was shot on location on Izu Ōshima, where the climax of the story takes place.

Theatrical
The Return of Godzilla was released on December 15, 1984, in Japan where it was distributed by Toho. The film sold 3.2 million tickets in Japan, earning ¥1.7 billion in rentals at the Japanese box office. The film grossed a total of US$14,000,000 at the box office.

Home video
In May 2016, Kraken Releasing revealed plans to release the original Japanese version of The Return of Godzilla and its international English dub on DVD and Blu-ray in North America on September 13, 2016. However, it was also revealed that the Americanized version of the film, Godzilla 1985 would not be featured in the release due to ongoing copyright issues concerning music cues that New World Pictures borrowed from Def-Con 4 for use in Godzilla 1985.

Exported English dub
Shortly after the film's completion, Toho's foreign sales division, Toho International Co., Ltd, had the film dubbed into English by Matthew and Elizabeth Oram's company in Hong Kong. No cuts were made, though credits and other titles were accordingly rendered in English. The international English dub features the voice of news anchor and radio announcer John Culkin in the role of Goro Maki, and actor Barry Haigh as Prime Minister Mitamura. The English version fully dubs all dialogue into English, including that of the Soviet and American characters. The international English dub was released on VHS in the U.K. by Carlton Home Entertainment on July 24, 1998.

In 2016, the international English dub was included on the U.S. DVD and Blu-Ray releases from Kraken, though the audio mix was not the original monaural track that was originally heard on Toho's English language prints. The English dialogue was originally mixed with an alternate music and effects track that contained different music edits and sound effects from the Japanese theatrical version, most notably a distinct "cry" produced by Godzilla during the film's ending. The U.S. home video version instead uses the conventional music and effects track used for the regular Japanese version mixed in DTS 5.1 surround sound instead of mono.

Godzilla 1985
After the film's lackluster performance in the Japanese box office and the ultimate shelving of Steve Miner's Godzilla 3D project, Toho decided to distribute the film overseas in order to regain lost profits. New World Pictures acquired The Return of Godzilla for distribution in North America, and changed the title to Godzilla 1985, bringing back Raymond Burr in order to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Godzilla: King of the Monsters!.

Originally, New World reportedly planned to re-write the dialogue in order to turn the film into a tongue-in-cheek comedy starring Leslie Nielsen (à la What's Up, Tiger Lily?), but this plan was reportedly scrapped because Raymond Burr expressed displeasure at the idea, taking the idea of Godzilla as a nuclear metaphor seriously. The only dialogue left over from that script was "That's quite an urban renewal program they've got going on over there," said by Major McDonahue. All of Burr's scenes were filmed in one day to suit his schedule. He was paid US$50,000. The reverse shots, of the actors he was speaking to, were filmed the next day, and the American filming was completed in three days. One of the most controversial changes done on the film was having Soviet Colonel Kashirin deliberately launch the nuclear missile rather than die in attempting to prevent its launch. Director R. J. Kizer later attributed this to New World's management's conservative leanings.

The newly edited film also contained numerous product placements for Dr Pepper, which had twice used Godzilla in its commercials. Dr Pepper's marketing director at one point insisted that Raymond Burr drink Dr Pepper during a scene, and the suggestion was put to the actor by Kizer. Burr reportedly responded by "[fixing] me with one of those withering glares and just said nothing."

Roger Ebert and Vincent Canby gave the film negative reviews.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: The Return of Godzilla


text:
Johann Gottlieb Fichte

Johann Gottlieb Fichte ( 19 May 1762 – 29 January 1814) was a German philosopher who became a founding figure of the philosophical movement known as German idealism, which developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Kant. Recently, philosophers and scholars have begun to appreciate Fichte as an important philosopher in his own right due to his original insights into the nature of self-consciousness or self-awareness. Fichte was also the originator of thesis–antithesis–synthesis, an idea that is often erroneously attributed to Hegel. Like Descartes and Kant before him, Fichte was motivated by the problem of subjectivity and consciousness. Fichte also wrote works of political philosophy; he has a reputation as one of the fathers of German nationalism.

Origins
Fichte was born in Rammenau, Upper Lusatia, and baptized a Lutheran. The son of a ribbon weaver, Fichte was born into a pious family that had lived in the region for generations. Christian Fichte (1737–1812), Johann Gottlieb's father, married on Maria Dorothea Fichte, nee Schurich (1739–1813) somewhat above his class. It has been suggested that a certain impatience which Fichte himself displayed throughout his life was an inheritance from his mother.

He received a rudimentary education from his father. He showed remarkable ability from an early age, and it was owing to his reputation among the villagers that he gained the opportunity for a better education than he otherwise would have received. The story runs that the Freiherr von Miltitz, a country landowner, arrived too late to hear the local pastor preach. He was, however, informed that a lad in the neighborhood would be able to repeat the sermon almost verbatim. As a result, the baron took Fichte into his protection and paid for his tuition.

Early schooling
Fichte was placed in the family of Pastor Krebel at Niederau near Meissen, and there received a thorough grounding in the classics. From this time onward, Fichte saw little of his parents. In October 1774, he attended the celebrated foundation-school at Pforta near Naumburg. Freiherr von Miltitz continued to support him, but died in 1774. The Pforta school is associated with the names of Novalis, August Wilhelm Schlegel, Friedrich Schlegel, and Nietzsche. The spirit of the institution was semi-monastic and, while the education was excellent, it is doubtful whether there was enough social life and contact with the world for Fichte.

Theological studies and private tutoring
In 1780, Fichte began study at the University of Jena's Lutheran theology seminary. He was transferred a year later to study at the Leipzig University. Fichte seems to have supported himself during this period of poverty and struggle. Without the financial support by von Miltitz, Fichte had to end his studies without completing his degree.

From 1784 to 1788, Fichte precariously supported himself as tutor for various Saxon families. In early 1788, he returned to Leipzig in the hope of finding a better employment, but eventually he had to settle for a less promising position with the family of an innkeeper in Zürich. He lived in Zürich for the next two years (1788–1790), where he met his future wife, Johanna Rahn, and Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. He also became, in 1793, a member of the Freemasonry lodge "Modestia cum Libertate", with which Johann Wolfgang Goethe was also connected. In the spring of 1790, he became engaged to Johanna. Fichte began to study the works of Kant in the summer of 1790. This occurred initially because one of Fichte's students wanted to know about Kant's writings. They had a lasting effect on his life and thought. However, while Fichte was studying Kantian philosophy, the Rahn family suffered financial reverses. His impending marriage had to be postponed.

Kant
From Zürich, Fichte returned to Leipzig in May 1790. In early 1791, he obtained a tutorship in Warsaw in the house of a Polish nobleman. The situation, however, quickly proved disagreeable and he was released. He then got a chance to see Kant at Königsberg. After a disappointing interview on 4 July of the same year, he shut himself in his lodgings and threw all his energies into the composition of an essay which would attract Kant's attention and interest. This essay, completed in five weeks, was the Versuch einer Critik [sic] aller Offenbarung [sic] (Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation, 1792). In this book, according to Dieter Henrich, Fichte investigated the connections between divine revelation and Kant's critical philosophy. The first edition was published without Kant's or Fichte's knowledge and without Fichte's name or signed preface. It was thus believed by the public to be a new work by Kant.

When Kant cleared the confusion and openly praised the work and author, Fichte's reputation skyrocketed. In a letter to Karl Reinhold, Jens Baggeson wrote that it was "...the most shocking and astonishing news... [since] nobody but Kant could have written this book. This amazing news of a third sun in the philosophical heavens has set me into such confusion". Kant waited seven years to make public statement about the incident; after considerable external pressure he dissociated himself from Fichte. In his statement, he inscribed, "May God protect us from our friends. From our enemies, we can try to protect ourselves."

Jena
In October 1793, Fichte was married in Zürich, where he remained the rest of the year. Stirred by the events and principles of the French Revolution, he wrote and anonymously published two pamphlets which led to him to be seen as a devoted defender of liberty of thought and action and an advocate of political changes. In December of the same year, he received an invitation to fill the position of extraordinary professor of philosophy at the University of Jena. He accepted and began his lectures in May 1794. With extraordinary zeal, he expounded his system of "transcendental idealism". His success was immediate. He excelled as a lecturer due to the earnestness and force of his personality. These lectures were later published under the title The Vocation of the Scholar (Einige Vorlesungen über die Bestimmung des Gelehrten). He gave himself up to intense production, and a succession of works soon appeared.

Atheism dispute
Fichte was dismissed from the University of Jena in 1799 for atheism. He had been accused of this in 1798 after publishing the essay "Ueber [sic] den Grund unsers [sic] Glaubens an eine göttliche Weltregierung" ("On the Ground of Our Belief in a Divine World-Governance"), written in response to Friedrich Karl Forberg's essay "Development of the Concept of Religion", in his Philosophical Journal. For Fichte, God should be conceived primarily in moral terms: "The living and efficaciously acting moral order is itself God. We require no other God, nor can we grasp any other" ("On the Ground of Our Belief in a Divine World-Governance"). Fichte's intemperate "Appeal to the Public" ("Appellation an das Publikum", 1799) provoked F. H. Jacobi to publish an open letter in which he equated philosophy in general and Fichte's transcendental philosophy in particular with nihilism.

Berlin
Since all the German states except Prussia had joined in the cry against Fichte, he was forced to go to Berlin. There he associated himself with Friedrich and August Wilhelm Schlegel, Schleiermacher, Schelling, and Tieck. In April 1800, through the introduction of Hungarian writer Ignaz Aurelius Fessler, he was initiated into Freemasonry in the Lodge Pythagoras of the Blazing Star, where he was elected minor warden. At first Fichte was a warm admirer of Fessler, and was disposed to aid him in his proposed Masonic reform. But later he became Fessler's bitter opponent. Their controversy attracted much attention among Freemasons. Fichte presented two lectures on the philosophy of Masonry during the same period as part of his work on the development of various higher degrees for the lodge in Berlin. Johann Karl Christian Fischer, a high official of the Grand Orient, published those lectures in 1802/03 in two volumes under the title Philosophy of Freemasonry: Letters to Konstant (Philosophie der Maurerei. Briefe an Konstant), where "Konstant" referred to a fictitious non-Mason.

In November 1800, Fichte published The Closed Commercial State: A Philosophical Sketch as an Appendix to the Doctrine of Right and an Example of a Future Politics (Der geschlossene Handelsstaat. Ein philosophischer Entwurf als Anhang zur Rechtslehre und Probe einer künftig zu liefernden Politik), a philosophical statement of his property theory, a historical analysis of European economic relations, and a political proposal for reforming them. In 1805, he was appointed to a professorship at the University of Erlangen. The Battle of Jena-Auerstedt in 1806, in which Napoleon defeated the Prussian army, drove him to Königsberg for a time, but he returned to Berlin in 1807 and continued his literary activity.

Fichte wrote On Machiavelli, as an Author, and Passages from His Writings in June 1807. ("Über Machiavell, als Schriftsteller, und Stellen aus seinen Schriften" ). Karl Clausewitz wrote a Letter to Fichte (1809) about his book on Machiavelli.

After the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, when German southern principalities resigned as member states and became part of a French protectorship, Fichte delivered the famous Addresses to the German Nation (Reden an die deutsche Nation, 1807-1808), which attempted to define the German Nation and guided the uprising against Napoleon. He became a professor at the new University of Berlin, founded in 1810. By the votes of his colleagues Fichte was unanimously elected its rector in the succeeding year. But, once more, his temperament led to friction, and he resigned in 1812. The campaign against Napoleon began, and the hospitals at Berlin were soon full of patients. Fichte's wife devoted herself to nursing and caught a virulent fever. Just as she was recovering, he became sick with typhus and died in 1814 at the age of 51.

His son, Immanuel Hermann Fichte (18 July 1796 – 8 August 1879), also made contributions to philosophy.

Philosophical work
Fichte's critics argued that his mimicry of Kant's difficult style produced works that were barely intelligible. On the other hand, Fichte acknowledged the difficulty, but argued that his works were clear and transparent to those who made the effort to think without preconceptions and prejudices.

Fichte did not endorse Kant's argument for the existence of "things in themselves", the supra-sensible reality beyond direct human perception. Fichte saw the rigorous and systematic separation of "things in themselves" and things "as they appear to us" (phenomena) as an invitation to skepticism. Rather than invite skepticism, Fichte made the radical suggestion that we should throw out the notion of a world-in-itself and accept that consciousness does not have a grounding. In fact, Fichte achieved fame for originating the argument that consciousness is not grounded in outside of itself. The phenomenal world as such, arises from consciousness, the activity of the I, and moral awareness.

Central theory
In Foundations of Natural Right (1797), Fichte argued that self-consciousness is a social phenomenon. For Fichte, a necessary condition of every subject's self-awareness is the existence of other rational subjects. These others call or summon (fordern auf) the subject or self out of its unconsciousness and into an awareness of itself as a free individual.

Fichte proceeds from the general principle that the I (das Ich) must posit itself as an individual in order to posit (setzen) itself at all, and that in order to posit itself as an individual, it must recognize itself to a calling or summons (Aufforderung) by other free individual(s) — called to limit its own freedom out of respect for the freedom of the others. The same condition applies to the others in development. Mutual recognition (gegenseitig anerkennen) of rational individuals is a condition necessary for the individual I. The argument for intersubjectivity is central to the conception of selfhood developed in the Foundations of the Science of Knowledge (Grundlage der gesamten [sic] Wissenschaftslehre, 1794/1795).

According to Fichte, consciousness of the self depends upon resistance or a check by something that is not self, yet is not immediately ascribable to a particular sensory perception. In his later 1796–99 lectures (his Nova methodo), Fichte incorporated this into his revised presentation of the foundations of his system, where the summons takes its place alongside original feeling, which takes the place of the earlier Anstoss (see below) as a limit on the absolute freedom and a condition for the positing of the I.

The I posits this situation for itself. To posit does not mean to 'create' the objects of consciousness. The principle in question simply states that the essence of an I lies in the assertion of self-identity; that is, consciousness presupposes self-consciousness. Such immediate self-identity cannot be understood as a psychological fact, or an act or accident of some previously existing substance or being. It is an action of the I, but one that is identical with the very existence of this same I. In Fichte's technical terminology, the original unity of self-consciousness is an action and the product of the same I, as a "fact and/or act" (Thathandlung; Modern German: Tathandlung), a unity that is presupposed by and contained within every fact and every act of empirical consciousness, although it never appears as such.

The I can posit itself only as limited. It cannot even posit its own limitations, in the sense of producing or creating these limits. The finite I cannot be the ground of its own passivity. Instead, for Fichte, if the I is to posit itself, it must simply discover itself to be limited, a discovery that Fichte characterizes as an "impulse," "repulse," or "resistance" (Anstoss; Modern German: Anstoß) to the free practical activity of the I. Such an original limitation of the I is, however, a limit for the I only insofar as the I posits it as a limit. The I does this, according to Fichte's analysis, by positing its own limitation, first, as only a feeling, then as a sensation, next as an intuition of a thing, and finally as a summons of another person.

The Anstoss thus provides the essential impetus that first posits in motion the entire complex train of activities that finally result in our conscious experience both of ourselves and others as empirical individuals and of the world around us. Although Anstoss plays a similar role as the thing in itself does in Kantian philosophy, unlike Kant, Fichte's Anstoss is not something foreign to the I. Instead, it denotes the original encounter of the I with its own finitude. Rather than claim that the not-I (das Nicht-Ich) is the cause or ground of the Anstoss, Fichte argues that not-I is posited by the I in order to explain to itself the Anstoss in order to become conscious of Anstoss. The Wissenschaftslehre demonstrates that Anstoss must occur if self-consciousness is to come about but is unable to explain the actual occurrence of Anstoss. There are limits to what can be expected from an a priori deduction of experience, and this, for Fichte, equally applies to Kant's transcendental philosophy. According to Fichte, transcendental philosophy can explain that the world must have space, time, and causality, but it can never explain why objects have the particular sensible properties they happen to have or why I am this determinate individual rather than another. This is something that the I simply has to discover at the same time that it discovers its own freedom, and indeed, is a condition for the latter.

Dieter Henrich (1966) proposed that Fichte was able to move beyond a "reflective theory of consciousness". According to Fichte, the self must already have some prior acquaintance with itself, independent of the act of reflection ("no object comes to consciousness except under the condition that I am aware of myself, the conscious subject"). This idea is what Henrich called Fichte's original insight.

Nationalism
Between December 1807 and March 1808, Fichte gave a series of lectures concerning the "German nation" and its culture and language, projecting the kind of national education he hoped would raise it from the humiliation of its defeat at the hands of the French. Having been a supporter of Revolutionary France, Fichte became disenchanted by 1804 as Napoleon's armies advanced through Europe, occupying German territories, stripping them of their raw materials and subjugating them to foreign rule. He came to believe Germany would be responsible for carrying the virtues of the French Revolution into the future. Disappointed in the French, he turned to the German nation as the instrument of fulfilling it.

These lectures, entitled the Addresses to the German Nation, coincided with a period of reform in the Prussian government under the chancellorship of Baron vom Stein. The Addresses display Fichte's interest during that period in language and culture as vehicles of human spiritual development. Fichte built upon earlier ideas of Johann Gottfried Herder and attempted to unite them with his approach. The aim of the German nation, according to Fichte, was to "found an empire of spirit and reason, and to annihilate completely the crude physical force that rules of the world." Like Herder's German nationalism, Fichte's was cultural, and grounded in aesthetic, literary, and moral principles.

The nationalism propounded by Fichte in the Addresses would be used over a century later by the Nazi Party in Germany, which saw in Fichte a forerunner to its own nationalist ideology. As with Nietzsche, the association of Fichte with the Nazi regime came to color readings of Fichte in the post-war period. This reading of Fichte was often bolstered through reference to an unpublished letter from 1793, Contributions to the Correction of the Public's Judgment concerning the French Revolution, in which Fichte expressed anti-Semitic sentiments, such as arguing against extending civil rights to Jews and calling them a "state within a state" that could "undermine" the German nation.

However, attached to the letter is a footnote in which Fichte provides an impassioned plea for permitting Jews to practice their religion without hindrance. Furthermore, the final act of Fichte's academic career was to resign as rector of the University of Berlin in protest when his colleagues refused to punish the harassment of Jewish students. While recent scholarship has sought to dissociate Fichte's writings on nationalism with their adoption by the Nazi Party, the association continues to blight his legacy, although Fichte, as if to exclude all ground of doubt, clearly and distinctly prohibits, in his reworked version of The Science of Ethics as Based on the Science of Knowledge (see § Final period in Berlin) genocide and other crimes against humanity:
 * If you say that it is your conscience's command to exterminate peoples for their sins, [...] we can confidently tell you that you are wrong; for such things can never be commanded against the free and moral force.

Economics
Fichte's 1800 economic treatise The Closed Commercial State had a profound influence on the economic theories of German Romanticism. In it, Fichte argues the need for the strictest, purely guild-like regulation of industry.

The "exemplary rational state" (Vernunftstaat), Fichte argues, should not allow any of its "subjects" to engage in this or that production, failing to pass the preliminary test, not certifying government agents in their professional skills and agility. According to Vladimir Mikhailovich Shulyatikov, "this kind of demand was typical of Mittelstund, the German petty middle class, the class of artisans, hoping by creating artificial barriers to stop the victorious march of big capital and thus save themselves from inevitable death. The same demand was imposed on the state, as is evident from Fichte's treatise, by the German "factory" (Fabrike), more precisely, the manufacture of the early 19th century".

Fichte opposed free trade and unrestrained capitalist industrial growth, stating: "There is an endless war of all against all ... And this war is becoming more fierce, unjust, more dangerous in its consequences, the more the world's population grows, the more acquisitions the trading state makes, the more production and art (industry) develops and, together with thus, the number of circulating goods increases, and with them the needs become more and more diversified."

The only means that could save the modern world, which would destroy evil at the root, is, according to Fichte, to split the "world state" (the global market) into separate self-sufficient bodies. Each such body, each "closed trading state" will be able to regulate its internal economic relations. It will be able to both extract and process everything that is needed to meet the needs of its citizens. It will carry out the ideal organization of production. Fichte argued for government regulation of industrial growth, writing "Only by limitation does a certain industry become the property of the class that deals with it".

Women
Fichte believed that "active citizenship, civic freedom and even property rights should be withheld from women, whose calling was to subject themselves utterly to the authority of their fathers and husbands."

Final period in Berlin
Fichte gave a wide range of public and private lectures in Berlin in the last decade of his life. These form some of his best-known work, and are the basis of a revived German-speaking scholarly interest in his work.

The lectures include two works from 1806. In The Characteristics of the Present Age (Die Grundzüge des gegenwärtigen Zeitalters), Fichte outlines his theory of different historical and cultural epochs. His mystic work The Way Towards the Blessed Life (Die Anweisung zum seligen Leben oder auch die Religionslehre) gave his fullest thoughts on religion. In 1807-1808 he gave a series of speeches in French-occupied Berlin, Addresses to the German Nation.

In 1810, the new University of Berlin was established, designed along ideas put forward by Wilhelm von Humboldt. Fichte was made its rector and also the first Chair of Philosophy. This was in part because of educational themes in the Addresses, and in part because of his earlier work at Jena University.

Fichte lectured on further versions of his Wissenschaftslehre. Of these, he only published a brief work from 1810, The Science of Knowledge in its General Outline (Die Wissenschaftslehre, in ihrem allgemeinen Umrisse dargestellt; also translated as Outline of the Doctrine of Knowledge). His son published some of these thirty years after his death. Most only became public in the last decades of the twentieth century, in his collected works. This included reworked versions of the Doctrine of Science (Wissenschaftslehre, 1810–1813), The Science of Rights (Das System der Rechtslehre, 1812), and The Science of Ethics as Based on the Science of Knowledge (Das System der Sittenlehre nach den Principien der Wissenschaftslehre, 1812; 1st ed. 1798).

Wissenschaftslehre

 * Ueber [sic] den Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre oder der sogenannten Philosophie (1794)
 * Grundlage der gesamten[sic] Wissenschaftslehre (1794/1795)
 * Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo (1796–1799: "Halle Nachschrift," 1796/1797 and "Krause Nachschrift," 1798/1799)
 * Versuch einer neuen Darstellung der Wissenschaftslehre (1797/1798)
 * Darstellung der Wissenschaftslehre (1801)
 * Die Wissenschaftslehre (1804, 1812, 1813)
 * Die Wissenschaftslehre, in ihrem allgemeinen Umrisse dargestellt (1810)

Other works in German

 * Versuch einer Critik[sic] aller Offenbarung (1792)
 * Beitrag zur Berichtigung der Urteile des Publikums über die französische Revolution (1793)
 * Einige Vorlesungen über die Bestimmung des Gelehrten (1794)
 * Grundlage des Naturrechts (1796)
 * Das System der Sittenlehre nach den Principien [sic] der Wissenschaftslehre (1798)
 * "Ueber [sic] den Grund unsers [sic] Glaubens an eine göttliche Weltregierung" (1798)
 * "Appellation an das Publikum über die durch Churf. Sächs. Confiscationsrescript ihm beigemessenen atheistischen Aeußerungen. Eine Schrift, die man zu lesen bittet, ehe man sie confsicirt [sic]" (1799)
 * Der geschlossene Handelsstaat. Ein philosophischer Entwurf als Anhang zur Rechtslehre und Probe einer künftig zu liefernden Politik (1800)
 * Die Bestimmung des Menschen (1800)
 * Friedrich Nicolais Leben und sonderbare Meinungen (1801)
 * Philosophie der Maurerei. Briefe an Konstant (1802/03)
 * Die Grundzüge des gegenwärtigen Zeitalters (1806)
 * Die Anweisung zum seligen Leben oder auch die Religionslehre (1806)
 * Reden an die deutsche Nation (1807/1808)
 * Das System der Rechtslehre (1812)

Correspondence

 * Jacobi an Fichte, German Text (1799/1816), with Introduction and Critical Apparatus by Marco Ivaldo and Ariberto Acerbi (Introduction, German Text, Italian Translation, 3 Appendices with Jacobi's and Fichte's complementary Texts, Philological Notes, Commentary, Bibliography, Index): Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici Press, Naples 2011, ISBN 978-88-905957-5-2.

Collected works in German
The new standard edition of Fichte's works in German, which supersedes all previous editions, is the Gesamtausgabe ("Collected Works" or "Complete Edition", commonly abbreviated as GA), prepared by the Bavarian Academy of Sciences: Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 42 volumes, edited by Reinhard Lauth, Hans Gliwitzky, Erich Fuchs and Peter Schneider, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1962–2012.

It is organized into four parts:
 * Part I: Published Works
 * Part II: Unpublished Writings
 * Part III: Correspondence
 * Part IV: Lecture Transcripts

Fichte's works are quoted and cited from GA, followed by a combination of Roman and Arabic numbers, indicating the series and volume, respectively, and the page number(s). Another edition is Johann Gottlieb Fichtes sämmtliche Werke (abbrev. SW), ed. I. H. Fichte. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1971.

Selected works in English

 * Concerning the Conception of the Science of Knowledge Generally (Ueber [sic] den Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre oder der sogenannten Philosophie, 1794), translated by Adolph Ernst Kroeger. In The Science of Knowledge, pp. 331–336. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1868. Rpt., London: Trübner & Co., 1889.
 * Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation. Trans. Garrett Green. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1978. (Translation of Versuch einer Critik [sic] aller Offenbarung, 1st ed. 1792, 2nd ed. 1793.)
 * Early Philosophical Writings. Trans. and ed. Daniel Breazeale. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988. (Contains Selections from Fichte's Writings and Correspondence from the Jena period, 1794–1799).
 * Foundations of the Entire Science of Knowledge. Translation of: Grundlage der gesammten [sic] Wissenschaftslehre (1794/95, 2nd ed. 1802), Fichte's first major exposition of the Wissenschaftlehre. In:
 * Foundations of Natural Right. Trans. Michael Baur. Ed. Frederick Neuhouser. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. (Translation of Grundlage des Naturrechts, 1796/97.)
 * Foundations of Transcendental Philosophy (Wissenschaftslehre) Nova Methodo [FTP]. Trans. and ed. Daniel Breazeale. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992. (Translation of Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo, 1796–1799.)
 * The System of Ethics according to the Principles of the Wissenschaftslehre (translation of Das System der Sittenlehre nach den Principien [sic] der Wissenschaftslehre, 1798). Ed. and trans. Daniel Breazeale and Günter Zöller. Cambridge University Press, 2005.
 * Introductions to the Wissenschaftslehre and Other Writings. Trans. and ed. Daniel Breazeale. Indianapolis, and Cambridge: Hackett, 1994. (Contains mostly writings from the late Jena period, 1797–1799.)
 * The Vocation of Man, 1848. Trans. Peter Preuss. Indianapolis. (Translation of Die Bestimmung des Menschen, 1800.)
 * The Vocation of the Scholar, 1847. (Translation of Einige Vorlesungen über die Bestimmung des Gelehrten, 1794.)
 * A Crystal Clear Report to the General Public Concerning the Actual Essence of the Newest Philosophy: An Attempt to Force the Reader to Understand. Trans. John Botterman and William Rash. In: Philosophy of German Idealism, pp. 39–115. (Translation of Sonnenklarer Bericht an das grössere Publikum über das Wesen der neuesten Philosophie, 1801.)
 * Outline of the Doctrine of Knowledge, 1810 (Translation of Die Wissenschaftslehre, in ihrem allgemeinen Umrisse dargestellt published in From The Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Trubner and Co., 1889; trans. William Smith.)
 * On the Nature of the Scholar, 1845 (Translation of Ueber [sic] das Wesen des Gelehrten, 1806.)
 * Characteristics of the Present Age (Die Grundzüge des gegenwärtigen Zeitalters, 1806). In: The Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte, 2 vols., trans. and ed. William Smith. London: Chapman, 1848/49. Reprint, London: Thoemmes Press, 1999.
 * Addresses to the German Nation (Reden an die deutsche Nation, 1808), ed. and trans. Gregory Moore. Cambridge University Press, 2008.
 * The Philosophical Rupture Between Fichte and Schelling: Selected Texts and Correspondence (1800–1802). Trans. and eds. Michael G. Vater and David W. Wood. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2012. Includes the following texts by Johann Gottlieb Fichte: Correspondence with F.W.J. Schelling (1800–1802); "Announcement" (1800); extract from "New Version of the Wissenschaftslehre" (1800); "Commentaries on Schelling's System of Transcendental Idealism and Presentation of My System of Philosophy" (1800–1801).
 * Addresses to the German Nation (Reden an die deutsche Nation, 1808), ed. and trans. Gregory Moore. Cambridge University Press, 2008.
 * The Philosophical Rupture Between Fichte and Schelling: Selected Texts and Correspondence (1800–1802). Trans. and eds. Michael G. Vater and David W. Wood. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2012. Includes the following texts by Johann Gottlieb Fichte: Correspondence with F.W.J. Schelling (1800–1802); "Announcement" (1800); extract from "New Version of the Wissenschaftslehre" (1800); "Commentaries on Schelling's System of Transcendental Idealism and Presentation of My System of Philosophy" (1800–1801).

Works online in English

 * J.G. Fichte. "The Wissenschaftslehre is Mathematics" ("Announcement", 1800/1801). *
 * Addresses to the German Nation (1922). (Trs. R. F. Jones and G. H. Turnbull.) IA (UToronto)
 * The Destination of Man (1846). Alternative translation of The Vocation of Man. (Tr. Mrs. Percy Sinnett.) IA (UToronto)
 * Doctrine de la science (Paris, 1843). French translation of Foundations of the Entire Science of Knowledge. Google (Harvard) Google (Oxford) Google (UMich)
 * Johann Gottlieb Fichte's Popular Works (1873). (Tr. William Smith.) IA (UToronto)
 * New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge (1869). Translation of Versuch einer neuen Darstellung der Wissenschaftslehre. (Tr. A. E. Kroeger.) Google (Harvard) Google (NYPL) IA (UToronto)
 * On the Nature of the Scholar (1845). Alternative translation of The Vocation of the Scholar. (Tr. William Smith.) IA (UToronto)
 * The Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1848–49). (Tr. William Smith.)
 * Volume 1, 1848. Google (Oxford) IA (UToronto) 4th ed., 1889. IA (UIllinois) IA (UToronto)
 * Volume 2, 1849. IA (UToronto) 4th ed., 1889. Google (Stanford) IA (UIllinois) IA (UToronto)
 * The Science of Ethics as Based on the Science of Knowledge (1897). (Tr. A. E. Kroeger.) Google (UMich) IA (UToronto)
 * The Science of Knowledge (1889). Alternative translation of Foundations of the Entire Science of Knowledge. (Tr. A. E. Kroeger.) IA (UToronto)
 * The Science of Rights (1889). (Tr. A. E. Kroeger.) IA (UCal)
 * (German) Versuch einer Critik [sic] aller Offenbarung (Königsberg, 1792; 2nd ed. 1793). Gallica Google (Oxford) Google (Oxford)
 * The Vocation of Man (1848). (Tr. William Smith.) Google (Oxford) 1910. Google (UCal)
 * The Vocation of the Scholar (1847). (Tr. William Smith.) IA (UCal)
 * The Way Towards the Blessed Life (1849). (Tr. William Smith.) Google (Oxford)
 * "On the Foundation of Our Belief in a Divine Government of the Universe"; alternative translation of "On the Ground of Our Belief in a Divine World-Governance" (trans. anon. n.d.).

title: Johann Gottlieb Fichte