Cal State Long Beach Gets Into The "Godzilla" Act

Banner: Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros.

With the Legendary Pictures/Warner Bros. Godzilla stomping his way into theaters on May 16, it seems that everybody is getting into the act in posting articles on the Big G.

My alma mater, California State University, Long Beach, is no exception. The campus's online newspaper, the Long Beach Union Weekly, posted an article on Godzilla. Unfortunately, it has a few things a bit wrong.

First off, their opening paragraph notes that this is Godzilla's 50th anniversary, not the 60th as it actually is:

Godzilla turns 50 this year, and as a commemoration of one of cinema’s greatest monsters, we at the Union have compiled a timeline to inform you of the essential facts about the lovable lizard. Use this guide to familiarize yourself with the King of all Lizards (not to be confused with The Lizard King) so you may impress your friends who are bored with your irrelevant and useless academic knowledge. Finally, get ready for the summer film since you’ll have a bunch of free time after graduation.

If Godzilla turns 50 this year, I guess all the events that took place ten years ago (Hollywood Walk of Fame induction, the Hollywood premiere of Godzilla Final Wars, etc.) didn't really happen.

Then they get into some of the movies and kind of flubbed some of them (and skipped a bunch). For example, they called the 1954 Godzilla "an environmentalist film." This is the first time I've ever seen Godzilla referred to as an "environmentalist film" rather than an allegory of the atomic bomb. Oh, well.

Maybe I am just getting nitpicky in my old age. I did send them a note correcting their 50th anniversary error.

At least the university's sister publication, The Beach Review (for alumni), did publish a blurb on The Monster Movie Fan's Guide To Japan about three years ago as did the Political Science Department in the department's newsletter.

To read the article, go here.