I'm not so sure if black-and-white conversions from color movies guarantee worthy alternatives, but sometimes a movie's subject matter beckons such, as with Mad Max: Fury Road Chrome and Nightmare Alley 2021. (Also, word has it that Squirm looks damn spiffy in black and white; if only a print could be found!)
Due to its brooding Moby Dick-meets-Lord Jim-meets-Jaws ambiance (and I've come to infer that the blend also contains traces of Norman Spinrad's Star Trek: "The Doomsday Machine"), Takashi Yamazaki's Godzilla Minus One is fascinating to behold in black and white, making it an ideal companion piece to Godzilla 1954/56, far more so than the black-and-white Godzilla Raids Again, one of those rarities (along with Return of the Fly and Curse of the Fly) that screams for colorization.
There are times when the black-and-white Godzilla Minus One feels like kaiju noir, which I suppose also goes for the seventy-year-old take. It's not so much in its Godzilla portions, but rather among its human characters, as they strive to overcome an allegorical opponent and in the process achieve redemption. Sadness, desperation, hope and doubt (in particular through Ryuunisuke Kamiki's dejected Ensign Koichi Shikishima) come to constitute their black-and-white wasteland.
With that said, Godzilla Minus One, as it stands in color, doesn't distract from its motivation. It's subdued in its palette, with just enough greyish-greens, golden-browns and electric-blues to enliven its scope. On that basis, I still prefer that version to its black-and-white variant, but either way, Godzilla Minus One is here to stay, gaining perpetual praise, no matter which pigmentation one favors.
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