By Bill Engar

ATLANTIS MODELS HAS RESURRECTED GODZILLA!
 
SYNOPSIS:  Don’t be wary of this particular sequel!  Atlantis has given Godzilla fans and modelers alike a treat in the form of a perfectly executed reboot of the classic Aurora Godzilla model kit with extra “Glow Parts.”  Buy, build, or collect with confidence.

In 2020, Atlantis began using square boxes as a nod to classic Aurora Company plastic model kits from the late 1960's and early 70's.  This is the BIG square box just shy of ten inches on a side!  And it's crammed full of classic Godzilla plastic!

The back of the box isn't just blank cardboard - you get a nice photo of a built-up model!  Godzilla's appearance matches the classic movie monster as seen in King Kong vs Godzilla.

This side of the box provides kit specs:  8-1/2 inches tall, 48 parts.  At 1/500-scale, this makes Godzilla about 350 feet tall!

This is what greets you when you first open the box.

It’s rare when my expectations are exceeded after opening a model kit, but they definitely were here.  Atlantis Models has converted many of their latest kits to a square-box format, but this is the large, roughly 10X10X4 format that Aurora used back in 1970.  One of Aurora’s strategies was to put their models in a bigger box than was needed to provide the illusion that modelers were getting more than was actually there.  Atlantis certainly doesn't do this here.  That extra-big Aurora-format box is needed to fit Godzilla.  What else would you expect from the King of the Monsters?

Here is a shot of all the plastic that comes in the kit -- There is a bunch of it between the figure, base, and glow-parts, at right.  That glow-sprue is 9.25" square by itself!

Aurora first tooled and released Godzilla in 1964.  The latest Godzilla movie at that time was the third installment, Godzilla vs King Kong.  In that Toho film, Godzilla sported a distinctly reptilian appearance to distinguish him from his simian rival.  Godzilla had bigger eyes and alligator-like jaws faithfully depicted in the Aurora kit of 1964, which is now the Atlantis kit of 2020.

This is just the plastic for the figure alone - remember, Godzilla is a big guy!

The first Aurora incarnation of Godzilla came in a long box.  Being one of the later entries in Aurora’s wildly successful line of monster kits, the company went all out to impress young modelers who already had built the likes of The Mummy, Phantom, Frankenstein’s Monster, The Creature, Wolfman, and Dracula.  Godzilla was a big figure with a lot of plastic but he also came with a very detailed diorama base.

This view shows all the parts to the base in addition to the sprue containing Godzilla's hands, forked tongue, and lower jaw.  Normally, you'd have to buy an aftermarket resin kit to get an enhanced base like this--but Aurora Models included it with Godzilla originally, and Atlantis faithfully represents it here.

Aurora’s monsters were huge sellers for the company from their 1962 debut, but by the late sixties, the sales slowed.  In 1969, they revitalized the line by including glow-in-the-dark parts!  Key features such as hands and heads were duplicated in a separate mold from the original kit masters and grouped on a new sprue with a handful of other key pieces from the kit that would make a creepy, glowing display.  The new square boxes left no doubt that these latest kits had the special parts.  Box art was updated by Aurora—for better or worse, some might say—with a depiction of the parts of the figure that would glow if built with those parts. Atlantis’ box reflects this 1970 version, the first time it has reappeared since its debut a half-century before.  This model kit will probably become a collector’s item in its own right with a big, new “A” version of the Atlantis trademark and a special logo commemorating the 65th anniversary of the first Godzilla movie.

The photo of the glow-parts in the dark with NO enhancement whatsoever.  Parts had been sitting out on a table about five feet away from room light for a few minutes, and the light was turned out for this photo.  The plastic has a nice, bright glow!  This sprue takes up the bottom of that 10X10-inch box.

In Atlantis’ Godzilla, a new square glow-sprue with duplicates of the other parts fills the entire bottom of the box.  Other parts are molded in a nice, reptilian-green plastic that might have a hint of metallic sheen similar to the original issue.  Modelers who want to do little to no painting should be delighted by this choice of lizard-green plastic.

Godzilla's dorsal plates have an otherworldly appearance.  Of course they're included in duplicate with the glow-parts.

It needs to be made clear that the 1964 kit with all its original parts is included.  All the glow-parts are duplicates of pieces that are already in the box.  So a standard, green Godzilla can be made with no painting if the modeler so chooses.  I’ll probably build my Godzilla like the classic non-glow variety and the square sprue is cool enough on its own that I’ll hang it on my wall as-is.  Or, I might just get another kit so I can incorporate the glow-feature!

Godzilla as he appeared in King Kong vs Godzilla.

Quality of the glow-plastic is top notch; just like the stuff I remember as a kid.  The photos you see of the glow-plastic have had no enhancement whatsoever, and no black light was used.  The camera for the photo was my budget-conscious, so-2018 iPhone 8.  Yours is most likely much better.  What you see is what you get!
 
For a moment, I thought I’d received duplicate parts to the base.  Nope.  There are no less than FOUR sets of ruined buildings, each with two parts that will be glued together and then fastened to the base to provide a nice diorama scene for your completed Godzilla model.  While the bases that came with all the classic Aurora monster model kits were great, this one is exceptional.
 
Parts have no major sinkholes and should fit together well enough.  While I wouldn’t expect fit like a modern state-of-the-art kit, Atlantis has consistently tweaked and adjusted their vintage tooling so that the model you get is in many cases better than the original.  Anyone who has built a few snap-kits and maybe a glue-kit or two should have no trouble assembling Godzilla; you will need glue and a hobby knife to cut and trim parts.  If you wish to paint Godzilla, hobby paints for styrene are recommended.

Promotional materials for Godzilla depicted him as green.  In fact a promotional poster for the U.S. release of Godzilla King of the Monsters shows a green Godzilla.  In King Kong vs Godzilla (1962), the first movie shot with color film, it was revealed that Godzilla is dark-gray, or black with dark gray highlights.  The original Aurora box portrayed him in a nice, reptilian-green and of course, the plastic was green.  With this in mind, you can finish your Godzilla however you want; either color is "authentic!"

It's not easy being green.  Especially when you're not green.  Another view of Godzilla featured in King Kong vs Godzilla resembles the Atlantis Godzilla model.

The theater poster for Godzilla King of the Monsters (USA, 1956) shows Godzilla wearing green!

Note that if you paint over the glow-plastic with anything but a translucent color, you’ll lose the glowing feature.  A suggestion is to pick the parts you’d like to glow, and use an airbrush to feather the lines between the glow-parts and whatever color you choose to paint the regular plastic.  Another suggestion would be to leave the edges of Godzilla’s famous dorsal plates in glow-plastic, and airbrushing the rest the body color you choose.  Leave the claws on his hands and feet in natural plastic, and some of the "nubs" on top of his tail unpainted.  If you also left the inside of his mouth raw glow-plastic as well (or maybe painted it with a transparent-red), you’ll get an interesting effect when the lights go off.  

Original Aurora artwork for Godzilla as he appeared in 1964.

Polar Lights re-released godzilla in 2000, also in long-box format.

Above is our Amazon link showing price and availability of Atlantis Models' Godzilla.  Why not order one up today?

​When Godzilla uses his "atomic breath," his dorsal plates usually glow, suggesting some sort of Van der Graaf generator there.  It's totally bogus scientifically, but it sure looked great on a movie screen and you can simulate it with your Atlantis model thanks to the glow-in-the-dark plastic! 

​Regardless of how you choose to build your Atlantis Godzilla, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the return of this historic model kit.  Atlantis put a lot of effort into this release and it shows--check it out for yourself!

​We’d like to thank Atlantis for sending us a sample.  Dem Brudders give this kit four enthusiastic thumbs up!

Atlantis has reproduced artwork from the original Aurora Godzilla instructions.

SPECIAL THANKS TO ATLANTIS MODELS FOR PROVIDING A SAMPLE OF THIS KIT TO REVIEW!!!

BONUS MATERIAL:  MORE ABOUT GODZILLA

If you’re not familiar with the Godzilla franchise, the best place to start is by watching the original 1954 film.  You can’t go wrong with either version; the original Japanese release of 1954 (with subtitles if you don’t understand the Japanese language), or the 1956 adaptation for audiences in the USA.  This one had a dubbed English soundtrack and the addition of new scenes for the American release with Raymond Burr.  Burr, as reporter “Steve Martin,” does little more than comment on events portrayed in the film.  Still, both movies were landmark entries in horror film history and they are every bit as entertaining as they were about two-thirds of a century ago when they first debuted!

Two events shaped the creation of the first Godzilla movie; the original King Kong film of 1933, and World War II.  Producer Tomoyuki Tanaka and director Ishiro Honda decided that an impossibly large, angry monster sharing features of reptiles and dinosaurs would be a good allegory for the nuclear weapons used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Prior to the end of U.S. occupation of Japan (1953), it would have been much more difficult to release a film portraying, even symbolically, the horrors of nuclear warfare.  The monster scenes were filmed to depict a drawn-out nuclear explosion and in several scenes, Godzilla’s head even resembles the mushroom cloud from a nuclear blast.

Godzilla's looks over the years.  The movies vary widely in tone and execution.  In some of the movies, he's about as scary as the Cookie Monster.  Instead of a destructive force, he became the "good guy" in many of the films!  So his value as a political statement was, frankly, as random as his route through Tokyo.

1933’s King Kong was hugely successful upon its original debut, and it saw re-releases to theaters every four years after its initial run.  The 1952 theatrical release inspired development of Godzilla’s special effects.  Producers made the decision to avoid the stop-motion technique used for Kong, instead putting actors (Haruo Nakajima and Katsumi Tezuka) inside a suit to interact with miniatures (models!).  Filming this "Suitmation" action in slow-motion helped provide the illusion of size and mass.  The original Godzilla had much of this action filmed in a dark studio to effectively simulate a nighttime destructive rampage and the visuals are still striking even after years of special effects expertise has improved upon the techniques first tried in Godzilla.  Perhaps it's the extensive and impressive model work that is one aspect of these films that has made me a longtime fan of the series.

Does Godzilla have the upper hand in this movie?

Film-noir techniques helped make the dark tone of that first film an engaging experience for  filmgoers.  After success in Japan, Godzilla was reworked with the Raymond Burr scenes added and the film made a profit in the United States.  Soon afterwards, rights were sold for television.  Like the classic Universal monster movies of the 1930’s, Godzilla was introduced to many young plastic model builders this way.
 
During the 1960’s and 1970’s, it was common for local TV stations to show horror movies late on Friday nights.  Our local version of “Nightmare Theater” came on at 11:30, after Perry Mason, which always followed the 10:00 news.
​
Somehow, I managed to stay up with Brudder Dick that late for the first time when I was about six years old, and saw The Blob, giving me nightmares for weeks.  A year or two afterward, I was old enough to have sleepovers with my friends in the neighborhood, and it was great sport to stay up late and watch Nightmare Theater on Friday nights.

This is how I saw the original Godzilla King of the Monsters!  Getting permission to stay up beyond normal bedtime was tricky, even on Friday nights.  Adding in the complicated logistics of planning a sleepover often required negotiating skills like Henry Kissinger.  Then, there was the random chance that the night would be spoiled by getting a really bad B-grade movie, like The Brain that Wouldn't Die.

The event was a classic Friday night celebration for me and three or four of my neighborhood pals since we scored a late hamburger meal at the local drive-in.   Back at home, after getting sugar-charged with a big bag of candy, we were delighted when the original Godzilla King of the Monsters movie came on Nightmare Theater.  We knew we were in for a fright.  Somebody there had already seen it and told us how scary it was.  I must say at age seven or eight, it was a rather intense late-night experience.   This particular friend had one of the scarier basements in the neighborhood, where we resided in front of the TV for the movie in laid-out sleeping bags.  As I recall, one of the other kids was so scared, he insisted on sleeping with the lights on after the movie was over.  Looking back, it was a perfect evening!

I also saw the original, somewhat trippy Mothra vs Godzilla in similar fashion, and Godzilla vs King Kong as well.  Recall that it was this movie that likely inspired the design of the Aurora/Atlantis Godzilla.  It was cool seeing two horror film superstars, Godzilla and King Kong, together in one big late-night movie and it was more enjoyable than Frankenstein meets the Space Monster.
 
After the original 1954 Godzilla, many additional Godzilla movies were made of varying quality and some, such as Godzilla vs Megalon, are so bad they’re funny.  I recall seeing this one in a movie theater as the “B” feature to Midway, a popular summer movie of 1976.  I laughed until my sides hurt.  This movie is known for Godzilla's infamous flying-kick.
 
Another Godzilla movie I enjoyed was Godzilla vs King Ghidora, 1991.  This movie provided some insight to the origins of the Godzilla character and had a time travel theme with a riff on Back to the Future (including a slightly groan-worthy bit part featuring “Major Spielberg” that you’ll just have to see to disbelieve).  The miniature work in this one is pretty amazing, too.

Godzilla in his distinctly reptilian guise graces the cover of a vinyl record album sound track from the third Godzilla movie of 1962.

During the 1990's, many wondered if Hollywood, USA could come up with a Godzilla film that was better than the Japanese-produced Toho films.  After the debut of Tristar's Godzilla in 1998, the answer was a resounding "no."  In spite of star-talent, audiences and Godzilla fans in the USA and elsewhere did not respond well to this interpretation of Godzilla.

Toho's Godzilla 2000 had a release in theaters in the USA, and I remember going to my local theater with my kids to see this movie.  This one was pretty well-done and on DVD or Blu Ray disc, with a good sound system, you’ll feel Godzilla’s footsteps!

It was over fifteen years before an American studio attempted another Godzilla movie.  Godzilla (2014) was better-received than the 1998 version.

Space prohibits further examination of Godzilla movies, but #36, Godzilla vs Kong, is in final production with an expected 2021 release.  At over 65 years and 36 movies to date, Godzilla is the world's longest-running film franchise (sorry, Mr. Bond!).

Get ready for Kong vs Godzilla with your own Atlantis Godzilla!

Godzilla uses his "Atomic Breath" in Godzilla vs King Kong (1962)

Don't forget to check out Atlantis Godzilla on Amazon!

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COMING SOON:  THE SCIENCE OF GLOW-IN-THE-DARK
Stay tuned.  Brudder Bill uses his experience in the nuclear industry to explain how Glow-in-the-Dark works.  SPOILER:  It's completely, 100% safe.