I cant begin to tell all of you how excited I am to have this today.  The Godzilla movies, and this one in particular, are more than just a man in a rubber suit.  Godzilla speaks to the social and political issues of the time.  For the Japanese the fear of living in a nuclear world was so large that it permeated into everything else.  Movie about a monster?  Yeah, its going to be monster created by atomic radiation.

However, there have already been hundreds of internet sites and dozens of books written about these topics.  Look at the features on this set!

New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition

Audio commentary by David Kalat (A Critical History and Filmography of Toho’s Godzilla Series)

New high-definition digital restoration of Godzilla: King of the Monsters!, Terry Morse’s 1956 reworking of the original, starring Raymond Burr

Audio commentary for Godzilla: King of the Monsters! by Kalat

New interviews with actor Akira Takarada (Hideto Ogata), Godzilla performer Haruo Nakajima, and effects technicians Yoshio Irie and Eizo Kaimai Interview with legendary Godzilla score composer Akira Ifukube

Featurette detailing Godzilla’s photographic effects

New interview with Japanese-film critic Tadao Sato

The Unluckiest Dragon, an illustrated audio essay featuring historian Greg Pflugfelder describing the tragic fate of the fishing vessel Daigo fukuryu maru, a real-life event that inspired Godzilla

Theatrical trailers

New and improved English subtitle translation

PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic J. Hoberman

The disc, in case the above wasn’t clear enough, includes the Japanese and American versions of the movie.  Tons of extras and loads of history on these discs.

My love for Godzilla is recent, but as strong as my loves of wrestling and comic books.  Giant monster movies are just plain fun.  You can always sit down and watch Godzilla, or Gamera, or Mothra, or on and on and enjoy the hell out of it.  Then you can watch it again and look for layers of meaning behind everything.  No opinion is wrong.  As citizens of any country know, certain themes and ideals become part of the collective unconscious.  Godzilla and the rest say so much while entertaining the hell out of all of us.  Its a thrill to see Godzilla get the Criterion treatment.