The MonsterVerse Cut An Original Godzilla Actor’s Cameo: Where It Was

Godzilla (2014), the first film in the MonsterVerse franchise, cut a cameo featuring the Japanese actor Akira Takarada, who portrayed the main character in the original Godzilla film from 1954. Directed by Gareth Edwards, Godzilla (2014) is a reboot of Toho Studio’s kaiju films featuring the giant dinosaur-like monster known as Godzilla, which has been adapted into upwards of thirty films earning its nickname as the “King of Monsters” within the monster movie genre.

The reboot is the first installment within the MonsterVerse franchise, which was followed by Kong: Skull Island (2017) and Godzilla: King of Monsters (2019), with Godzilla vs Kong to be released in November 2020. The revival of Godzilla follows Ford Brody, an explosives disposal technician in the U.S. Navy, that returns to Japan fifteen years after the collapse of the Janjira Nuclear Power Plant to help his father discover the cause of the nuclear meltdown. As the star of the original Godzilla franchise, it only made sense that Takarada’s cameo would involve him meeting the main character of the reboot, portrayed by Aaron Taylor-Johnson.

If Takarada’s cameo had made it into the theatrical cut of Godzilla, it would have appeared during the early scenes of the film. Returning home to San Francisco to his wife Elle (Elizabeth Olsen) and his son Sam (Carson Bolde) after completing a tour in the U.S. Navy, Ford Brody is forced to cut their reunion short and travel to Japan in order to help his father Joe (Bryan Cranston). As Brody arrives in Japan, he’s greeted by an immigration officer, portrayed by Takarada. Within the Godzilla deleted scene, Takarada’s minor character has a brief conversation with Brody, in which he welcomes him to Japan.    

Despite the fact that the cameo had been planned since the early days of the film’s production, the cameo was among the scenes that was eventually forced to be cut in order to make the film a more appropriate length. During a Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures’ press junket for Godzilla, Edwards stated that the decision to remove the cameo was one of his biggest regrets since Takarada was a prominent figure within the original Godzilla franchise, appearing in six of the Godzilla kaiju films as the leading character and ship captain Hideto Ogata.

While Takarada’s cameo never made it to the screen, there was another Easter-egg featured within thereboot with the aim of paying homage to the original 1954 Godzilla film that was included within the final cut. Dr. Ishirō Serizawa, the scientist for Project Monarch portrayed by Ken Watanabe, was influenced by two important figures from the original movie. Not only is the character named after Ishirō Honda, the director of past Godzilla movies including the original, but his surname was influenced by Dr. Daisuke Serizawa, a character from the original Godzilla film who was responsible for killing the King of Monsters. Naming the character after a known nemesis of Godzilla not only stood out as a small treat for fans of the original, but it subverted the audience’s expectations by insinuating that Serizawa was an enemy of Godzilla.  

While the Easter-egg is pretty minor in comparison to Takarada’s cameo, the addition of small details that pay tribute to the original movies can help contribute to Godzilla‘s authenticity as a true Godzilla reboot. While past American Godzilla film adaptations, including Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla from1998, have received criticism for taking liberties with the basic character design of the Japanese monster to the point that the iteration was denounced by Toho for its deviation from the original, the MonsterVerse recreation depicts Godzilla in a way that’s more faithful to the original and demonstrates that even the small details can make a big difference.