Godzilla Minus One Gets New Version Fans Will Love
If someone had told us a year ago that a Godzilla movie would be in the running for the best movie of 2023, we would have laughed in their face. Then, in the present, we would track that person down and apologize because they were right—Godzilla Minus One is that good. Now Minus One is following in the footsteps of another contender for Movie of the Year—Oppenheimer—and going black and white for a new Japanese re-release.
Godzilla Minus One Gets A Black And White Re-Release
The new monochrome iteration of Godzilla Minus One will be retitled Godzilla-1.0/C (for Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color). The black-and-white version of Minus One will hit theaters on January 12, 2024. The catch? So far, this new take on the instant classic is only scheduled to run in Japan.
At least for now. Given that the movie broke records in the USA for the highest-grossing live-action Japanese film, it’s safe to assume that the release of Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color will expand to other countries following its Japanese debut. After all, why would TOHO ignore easy money?
Director Takashi Yamazaki Explains The Intricate Process
Except that money isn’t the prime motivator between the black-and-white rerelease. A desaturated vision of post-WWII Japan has been on the mind of Godzilla Minus One director Takashi Yamazaki for a while. “We are now able to announce Godzilla-1.0/C, which we have been working on for a long time,” said Takeshi in a press release for the new version of the movie.
According to Takashi, this new interpretation of the movie isn’t simply Godzilla Minus One with the color turned all the way down. Rather the movie was de-colored “cut by cut,” using “various mattes,” essentially as if the editors were working on an entirely new film. The director was in his own words, “aiming for a style that looked like it was taken by masters of monochrome photography.”Takashi’s official statement ended with the director asking viewers to “Please live and resist further fear at the theater.” a fancy way of saying, “Please come see my movie!”
Other Popular Black And White Re-Releases
Directors releasing special black-and-white editions of their popular color films is nothing new. Years before Godzilla Minus One, George Miller famously released a colorless version of Mad Max: Fury Road titled the Mad Max: Fury Road Black & Chrome Edition when the film came to Blu-ray. James Mangold did the same thing with Logan a few years later with Logan Noir. Even the four-hour-long Snyder Cut of Justice League received the black and white treatment with Zack Snyder’s Justice League: Justice is Gray.
An Opposite Trend
This trend is the opposite of a similar trend in the ’80s, where famous black and white movies were artificially “colorized” to appeal to those who found black and white movies “boring.” The difference is that adding color to Night of the Living Dead adds no artistic merit to the film and, in many ways, makes it look worse.
Taking the color away from something as self-important and grandiose as Justice League, on the other hand, can add a sense of weight and gravitas to a movie where grown-ups run around in capes and tights.
Godzilla Minus One Returns To Theaters In January
Usually, a director releasing a black-and-white version of a film translates as “artsy” to the audience. Whether the reduced color palate will actually give Godzilla Minus One new depth and make certain details “pop” in a way they didn’t before or if it’s just artifice remains to be seen.
