Thoughts After Seeing Gojira

A few random thoughts:

1.  Why does it feel like they are mourning Gojira as much as they are mourning Serizawa?  This becomes all the more important when we remember that Yamane-sensei had not wanted to kill Gojira.  And why does it seem so tragic to kill Gojira at the end of the film?  He seems so helpless in the sea.  In the final analysis, is Gojira as much a victim as the humans are?  If we think about Yamane's final words, then it seems that the real "bad guys" are the ones who keep building and testing nuclear weapons.  In other words, the bad guys are the U.S. (and the Soviet Union, but mostly the U.S. because it tests the bombs in the Pacific).

2.  How does one interpret Serizawa in terms of the Manhattan Project?  Supposedly, the generals were running the project, but most of the scientists simply wanted to push the frontiers of science.  Many of them signed a letter demanding that President Truman not use the atomic bomb against human beings.  But if we believe Serizawa, then it was inevitable that their research would be used to ends that the scientists could not control.  If anything, the fact that Serizawa uses the weapon to kill a beast (not innocent civilians), and that he sacrificed his life to protect his research, makes Japan look better (more ethical, more moral?) than the U.S., which may have been a point of the film.

Also, it's interesting that Yamane wanted to study Gojira in the hope of discovering ways to survive nuclear weapons.  It's almost as if he expects Japan to be bombed again, but he wants to be prepared this time.

3.  It must have been harrowing for many in the audience to watch Tokyo burn all over again.  To see the scenes of evacuation, the hospital, the children (shades of Grave of the Fireflies).  The mother with the children, whose father can't have died in the Pacific War because the kids are too young.  So what is the point?  Clearly the film wants us to think that the father died in the war.  But if the kids were too old, then much of the effect would have been lost.  The commuting train scene is particularly uncomfortable because they are sort of joking (or half-joking) about something that was terrifying, and is about to be terrifying again.
I should note that the hospital scene reminds me of documentary footage of hospital scenes in the aftermath of the atomic bombings.  Except that the Hiroshima/Nagasaki footage is so graphic that it can make one sick just to watch it.

We should remember that for the audiences in the big cities especially, every filmgoer probably had a relative or knew someone who had died in a raid designed to kill civilians.

4.  The politics are interesting.  Note that during the hearings, the older men are obsessed over diplomatic relations, etc., while the women demand openness and are concerned for the people.  It's clear where the film's sympathies lie.

5.  The destruction of Tokyo is all the more significant because we had just watched the tour bus scene in Tokyo Story, casting its wondrous gaze at how beautiful the reconstructed Tokyo is.   The path of Gojira is very specific.  I will show it to the class on Google Maps.