How Godzilla Minus One’s Black & White Version Is Different From Original Explained By Director Only4Media.com

Summary

• Godzilla Minus One
  director Takashi Yamazaki explains how
  Godzilla Minus One / Minus Color
  is very different than the original film.
• Godzilla Minus One / Minus Color
  is a black-and-white version of the original film, set for release in the US on February 12.
• Yamazaki and his team went beyond simply removing the color by masking different portions of each shot and adjusting the contrast, giving the film a composition similar to that of a professional still photographer.

Godzilla Minus One’s director explains how Godzilla Minus One / Minus Color is a whole different version than the original. Godzilla Minus One is a Japanese version of the kaiju monster story produced by Toho International and directed by Takashi Yamazaki. After the film was released in US theaters in December 2023, a black-and-white version of the film, titled Godzilla Minus One / Minus Color, landed in theaters in February 2024.

In conversation with The Wrap, Yamazaki explains how different Godzilla Minus One / Minus Color is from the color film theatrical version. The director points out that the original 1954 version of Godzilla is in black-and-white, so Yamazaki and his team wanted to see “what a ‘Godzilla’ film would look like created with modern technology in black-and-white.” To create this effect, however, Yamazaki and his team did not simply remove the color, but rather “went back to the colorist, and we actually mask[ed] different portions of each shot.” Check out Yamazaki’s full quote below:

The original 1954 ‘Godzilla’ is, of course, in black and white. But that in and of itself made us interested in what a ‘Godzilla’ film would look like created with modern technology in black-and-white. But simply removing the color alone wouldn’t evoke the same type of emotion we were trying to instill in audiences, which is why we went back to the colorist and we actually mask[ed] different portions of each shot and adjust the contrast by hand, as opposed to simply hitting the remove color button. [This process makes it look] like it was composed by a professional still photographer.

For us, removing the color in some way increases the reality, feeling almost like a documentary and making audiences feel that Godzilla actually exists. [This version of the film is] way scarier than ‘Godzilla Minus One’ with color, even the team members working on it, we’d get goosebumps…Because, in many ways, it does feel like a different film.

Godzilla Minus One / Minus Color Makes Godzilla Minus One Even Better

The Black & White Shows The Artistic Excellence

Godzilla Minus One had an incredible run in theaters during its initial release. Not only is Godzilla Minus One critically acclaimed, holding a 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, but the film has also been successful at the box office. By the end of its run, Godzilla Minus One grossed over $104.3 million at the worldwide box office, including an impressive $56 million from North America.

The film had a relatively short run in theaters, but its success extended thanks to the second release. Toho announced the release of the black-and-white Godzilla Minus One / Minus Color, which brought it back to theaters, returning to the top 10 three weeks after dropping out. This rendition of the film hit Japanese theaters first on January 12 and followed in the United States. This release offered audiences another chance to experience the stirring monster story.

Godzilla Minus One / Minus Color also showed viewers the true artistry behind Godzilla Minus One. Unlike some opinions about the Hollywood Monsterverse, Godzilla Minus One is not a spectacle-driven film focused on action. Rather, Godzilla Minus One is an artistic and viscerally felt film wherein deeply human characters experience real terrors in a post-war environment. As far as Yamazaki’s was concerned, Godzilla Minus One / Minus Color was an even better version of an already stellar film.

The Black And White Look Pays Homage To Classic Godzilla

The Early Godzilla Movies Are All In Black & White

As director Takashi Yamazaki said, the early Godzilla movies were in black and white, and he wanted to create something of a tribute to those classics with the Godzilla Minus One / Minus Color version of the movie. Gojira was released in 1954, and by that time, color movies had been around for two decades. The reason for making the first Godzilla movie in black and white was a stylistic choice, and it was also something that many Japanese movies preferred in those days.

Even masters like Akira Kurosawa used black and white in many of his masterpieces. What this did, in the case of Godzilla, was allow the filmmakers to show the terrible monster without the obvious use of miniatures and people in monster suits. As later movies that began using color showed, the Godzilla design became almost comical in color as the suits looked fake, and the miniatures were obvious. There was no danger of that in Godzilla Minus One, and Yamazaki just wanted to honor what came before.

Other Modern Movies With Black And White Versions

The Mist, Mad Max: Fury Road, & Logan

The most iconic movie that was shot in color and black and white by the director is the Stephen King adaptation of The Mist. Frank Darabont, who directed the Stephen King masterpiece Shawshank Redemption and Oscar-nominated Green Mile, had King’s blessing. However, the studio would not allow him to make the movie in black and white for theatrical release. With that in mind, they did allow him to have the black and white version to add to the home video release, and it is the chosen version for many fans.

A more recent version of a color movie that was also released in black and white is Mad Max: Fury Road—Black & Chrome. This movie followed the same path as the Godzilla Minus One movie in giving it a special title to signify that it is a black-and-white (or chrome) version. Director George Miller wanted this movie in black and white, and he did it without his cinematographer, John Seale, who at least complimented the movie’s new design (via The Guardian):

“It’s beautifully dramatic when you take away the colour of wardrobe and make up and so on. You’re stripping everything back and bringing the actors to the fore. It may be a great action movie but George also got some wonderful performances, which I think the new version will emphasise.”

There was even a comic book movie that tried this with Logan: Noir. The movie was shot in color, but director James Mangold said that the intention was that it would look just as good in black and white as it did in color (via IndieWire). “People are looking for things that connect to the past, things that look different, things that are new, but also old again.” Like Godzilla Minus One, the idea of putting Logan in black and white was paying tribute to the past while delivering a modern-day story.

Source: The Wrap