Charles Liu
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
So do you have a favorite monster?
We all do, presumably.
At the moment, my favorite monster is Godzilla.
Godzilla is classic.
It is the longest running movie franchise of all time.
Is it really?
The first Godzilla movie came out in 1954.
Well, those are monsters of a different kind, right?
Those are the monsters in our imagination.
Right.
Things that we think are frightened and scary, they must be a monster.
But then, turns out it's just a train.
It can still smoosh you, but it's just a train.
Right, right, and there's a tunnel, and it's all of the above.
And so humans will do that.
Okay.
Now, the thing about Godzilla, which is extra special to me, is that it can be that kind of subway monster.
Loud, scary, and it burns you with its atomic breath and everything like that, right?
But, culturally, when it came to the United States, it took on a different kind of life.
You see, in Japan, monsters since time immemorial have not necessarily been these evil, scary creatures.