I enjoyed both of the Godzilla articles (Tempo, May 18), especially since you gave equal space to the old series and the new Roland Emmerich-Dean Devlin epic that opened Wednesday. Say what you want about the effects of the originals, but those movies still provide thrills, mayhem and good old-fashioned escapism missing from many of today’s science-fiction efforts. Let’s hope the filmmakers remembered to lift those qualities, and not just the big lizard, for the new one.
I have one minor correction to Michael A. Lev’s interview with producer Shogo Tomiyama, however. In the original series, Godzilla left Japanese shores twice, not just once. He stomped through Hong Kong in “Godzilla vs. Destroyer” (1995), as the article noted, but also torched New York in “Destroy All Monsters” (1968), a monster-studded fan favorite finally released on home video this month.
