Godzilla Raids Again - English Version

English Version

Instead of merely re-dubbing the film, Henry Rybnick and Edward Barrison planned on a radically altered Americanized version called The Volcano Monsters which was planned for a 1957 release. All scenes with Japanese actors would be cut, saving just special effects scenes, and these would be altered to reduce the apparent size of the monsters to a more dinosaur like scale. In addition, all scenes with Godzilla breathing fire were to be cut. A totally new script was written by SF screenwriter Ib Melchior, and Ed Watson to be shot with American actors. New special effects footage was to be shot as well, and to that end Toho sent the suits for Godzilla and Anguirus to the United States.

The Volcano Monsters never went into production because the studio that was supposed to produce it, AB-PT Productions, closed its doors in 1957. In 1958, producers Paul Schreibman, Edmund Goldman and Newton P. Jacobs bought the rights to Godzilla Raids Again and planned to dub the film since The Volcano Monsters fell through. While the finished product was much closer to the Japanese original than The Volcano Monsters would have been, it still differed greatly from Toho's original movie. Instead of marketing the film as a sequel to the original Godzilla movie, Schriebman decided to rename the monster "Gigantis" and change his trademark roar to Anguirus' roar to convince the audience that they were seeing an entirely new monster. This act of changing Godzilla's name and roar was greatly criticized by fans and critics.

Schreibman, Goldman and Jacobs hired Hugo Grimaldi to dub and edit the film. George Takei, who would later play as Lt. Hikaru Sulu in the original Star Trek television series, was among the voice-actor cast. The film was dubbed at Ryder Studios in New York.

Various Edits and Changes:

• A prologue, in which a story of the atomic bomb and "mechanical monsters" was added.

• Stock footage from educational films and earlier U.S. films such as Unknown Island which featured dinosaurs were inserted before the scenes from the first Godzilla movie are shown.

• One infamous dubbed line in the U.S. release used the slang term "banana oil". George Takei has noted on Late Night with Conan O'Brien that the phrase was used to synchronize with the mouth movement of the original Japanese word, "bakayarou", loosely meaning "idiot" or "bonehead".

• Godzilla's roar was altered at times to sound like Anguirus' roar.

• Tragic hero Kobayashi, played by Minoru Chiaki in his only science fiction role, was dubbed as a bumbling oaf.

• An entire subplot, which had Kobayashi looking for his future wife through a matchmaker, was all but removed. All that remains of this subplot is the final conclusion where Hidemi discovers a picture of a young woman in Kobayashi's wallet. The change reduced the subplot to little more than the disclosure of a secret crush.

• Masaru Sato's music score was mostly replaced with stock music from films like Kronos and Project Moonbase.

In 1959, Warner Brothers theatrically released Gigantis the Fire Monster on a double bill with Teenagers From Outer Space.