As a result, what the film least needed was an American striding around doing his rugged individualism routine and mouthing such lines as, "I'm afraid my Japanese is a little rusty." Indeed. Maybe, Raymond Burr was the real monster in Godzilla: King of the Monsters! His only virtue, as far as I can tell, is that he helped to build up enough good will for the Godzilla films that there would inevitably be a market for this wonderful and long overdue re-release.



So the Guardian is up to playing politics again, huh? Using the excuse of the presence of an American actor to label Americans in general. Apparently we all stride around with "rugged individualism" and "mouth all our lines". If this guy looked deeper, he would see that Burr's character was a very tired, depressed and world weary individual whose emotions are those of a man who has seen too much horror.

His monotone voice and his stiffness of motion (and occasional lack of eye contact) give him the appearance of a man just going thru the motions of life as opposed to one who enjoys it. He's seen too much.

I do believe that part of the character's history is his firsthand witness of the WW2 horrors in Japan. And here he is again seeing it for the second time with Godzilla.

Reporters in war zones and disaster areas have a tendency to become depressed over what they see, and rightfully so. And to that end, I think that this was part of Mr. Burr's method when he portrayed the character.




Last Edited By: TheCreep Jun 18 09 10:50 PM. Edited 1 times.