Mothra (1961)

[Julia Bristow]

or added in an audio commentary track for The H-Man

[eabaker]

Why isn't this film talked about more?

The Rolisican secret service makes sure it stays that way. You've been warned.

Those guys are good. They've even managed to keep their country off our maps for the last five decades, despite the international cultural significance of New Kirk City.

[gzilla46]

I never noticed that till now...[the lack of discussion]

SFX wise the Larva scenes that utilized the 30-40 ft prop-suit thingy is some of the best model work of the era. IMHO.



I remember this sticking out like a sore thumb in G X MG. Why? Because it look far better then the rest of the movie!

And this isn't a hyperbole on my part.

Is Bireley's a restaurant? I want to go to Bireley's now.

[eabaker]

^ http://www.angelfire.com/tn/traderz/bireleys.html

[gzilla46]

^ http://www.angelfire.com/tn/traderz/bireleys.html

Do they still make them?

[eabaker]

^ http://www.angelfire.com/tn/traderz/bireleys.html

Do they still make them?

You can't get them in the US, but I believe they're still available in Japan.

[20th Century Boy]

This movie was absolutely great. If you look at my signature, you'll notice that it is my third favorite kaiju film ever (maybe even second, since my opinion is on the verge of changing!). The characters were interesting and lots of fun to follow. The plot is like a classic fairy tale, except modernized to feel like an original monster movie. The music was wonderful, even though it wasn't Akira Ifukube composing. The Mothra song has arguably become one of the most iconic songs in fantasy film history. One of the things I like most about the film is its tone. It proves you don't have to be dark, gritty, or violent to make a good monster movie. There were even good moments of humor, something even the original Godzilla lacked! I could probably talk about this film for hours, but the bottom line is that it's one of my favorite movies of all time and I'd gladly show it to someone who hasn't seen a kaiju film before.

[Julia Bristow]

What the hell is a Bireley's?

[eabaker]

What the hell is a Bireley's?

It's a brand of pasteurized fruit drink.

[tymon]

Why isn't this film talked about more?

The Rolisican secret service makes sure it stays that way. You've been warned.

Reminds me those damn Saradians preventing Godzilla vs. Biollante's R1 release for all those years...

[murasaki07]

I really enjoyed the original Mothra. I just watched it recently and felt the plot was really interesting. I stayed entertained throughout the whole film and its one of the few kaiju flix that my gf enjoyed which is always a plus. Some plots in showa films wander off a little which I don't always mind but it was cool that this one didn't. I felt that everything that happened was somehow tied to Mothra and not a silly subplot.

[Rody]

...And Mothra herself - at least in this first appearance - raises moral/ethical questions of a complexity rare in these movies. She is simultaneously a righteous savior of enslaved innocents, and the indiscriminate destroyer of the guilty and the innocent who stand in her path.

It's remarkable how in both her stand-alone & in MvsG, Mothra can be a sign of hope one moment, yet intimidate you in the next.
It's no wonder Mothra is so popular. She and Godzilla really are the epitome of daikaiju (and I don't even mean the films; I mean the characters).

This is indeed an excellent film. I do agree that the pacing seems a little slow at times, but otherwise the story is brilliantly written, the characters are stronger than usual, and the special effects are great as always.

[eabaker]

It's no wonder Mothra is so popular. She and Godzilla really are the epitome of daikaiju (and I don't even mean the films; I mean the characters).

I think this is a big part of why MvsG is such a fan favorite: it's a story about two of the most distinctive of all monster personalities.

[Gamera vs Rodan]

Just finally watched this and thought it was great!

[Dust_pan]

Definitely my most favorite kaiju film of all time, for reasons already explained in great detail in this thread. I disagree with those who say that the pacing was bad. Other than a few drawn out city destruction scenes, I thought that everything went smoothly and evenly. Not once did I get bored of the characters, the story, the settings, or the monster.

[GodzillaFanatic2001]

This is gonna be a big bump.

I just rewatched this, and what a great film. Perhaps it's because I watched the film in Japanese this time, but the humour really stuck out to me. Some of the dialogue was really
funny! Also, a great score, really quite beautiful at some parts. A great addition to Toho's repertoire.

In other news, what exactly do we know about the alternate ending? Wikipedia has a startling amount of info concerning this part, and it's
hasn't been released anywhere as far as I know, corrrct?

[Ivo-goji]

This is my favorite kaiju movie of all time bar the Godzilla series. Truly a work of art. Everything about it is perfect- the characters, the acting, the effects, the music, the tone and themes, it's just so excellent.

[Zarm]

Ah, Mothra. The film so good that every other appearance of Mothra is basically just a remake of this film (or Godzilla vs. Mothra). Well, I’ll get to that latter one in a few weeks, but sarcasm aside (I really just wish Mothra had a little more variation in basic plotlines), I have to say… this movie really is good enough to warrant that!

I attribute a lot of that to Sen-chan. Sen-chan is the hero Japan deserves (if not, perhaps, the one it needs right now). My new dream for the ultimate Godzilla spin-off is a buddy-cop movie between Sen-chan and Captain Gordon… just going around and saving whatever needs to be saved, kaiju-optional. I would watch the heck out of that. It is a failure of time and space themselves that a matchup of both characters in their prime is not possible.

I’ll be honest; a couple of weeks ago, Gojira didn’t do much for me. I was tired, the mood wasn’t there… it’s not that I don’t recognize the absolute quality of the film overall, but this particular viewing just left me cold. (That’s one of the reasons I didn’t review it… along with ‘what the heck could I possibly say about or add to the dialogue on an absolute classic of the genre?!’). And last week, Rodan was… just okay. The destruction scenes and final act were pretty great, but the pacing felt a little dull, the characters a little shallow, and the incessant Meganula chirps… well, I had low expectations. But Mothra blew them all away (no hurricane-wind pun intended!), redefining my expectations for this long-overdue Showa rewatch. The film was well-paced, full of engaging characters, interesting setpieces, numerous tones and a variety of situations, colorful, and funny, too.

It’s strange, too- because Nelson is such an over-the-top bad guy, and Sen-chan kinda cartoonish in his antics, that it seems like this should be the same slog that King Kong Escapes was; a live-action cartoon that just voerdoes it. But somehow, Mothra manages to find a balance that the latter film never did, using its OTT elements to inject a little fun into the proceedings without overdoing it.

Having watched the series out of order, with Millenium preceding Showa, it was good to see Chujo again- but frankly, he wasn’t that interesting a character (the same of which could be said for Michi, who I would have liked to see more of, as she was a good double-act with Sen-chan). Perhaps they were decent characters, and were simply overshadowed by the larger-than-life personalities surrounding them.

Sen-chan was, if you couldn’t already tell, my favorite character. Bumbling but brave, expressive, funny, clever (a great tactic to retreat up a stairwell then double-back, forcing all of his opponents into single file), this ‘snapping turtle’ absolutely stole the show. He is probably going to end up in the top 10 favorite kaiju film characters for me- just head-and-shoulders above the best.

Nelson was equally entertaining as an oh-so-sinister figure, whose smarmy charm and evil grimaces were at the same time cartoony and refreshing. And his very ‘Telltale Heart’ fate, being driven mad by his crimes, was a unique (if dark!) villain comeuppance. (Not as spectacular as his originally, planned, partially-shot comeuppance, apparently- kidnapping the boy, being chased by the heroes up a mountain, and then being blown by Mothra's wings into a volcanic crevice! Wow! That could have been a much cooler climax than we got...)

The Shobijin make their first appearance here, and they are… a bit different than normal. They communicate by song, which was dropped in subsequent appearances, and have ‘no use’ for spoken language generally, due to their telepathy. I do love the idea that- based on what we’ve seen in future films- they basically decide to go along with the ‘Secret Fairy’ show (was that supposed to be ‘sacred fairy’ and got mistranslated? They don’t seem that ‘secret’…), and basically spent every night summoning Mothra for help right in front of everybody, including Nelson, who had no clue that their song had a non-entertainment purpose. It makes them canny and clever, and gives a nice bit of personality to actresses who got very little screentime in the film.

Though I will say that whenever they do appear on miniature sets, those sets are fantastically constructed and extremely realistic. The miniaturization effects in general are pretty great (with only some fringing/outlines on the bluescreen work to serve as somewhat of a low point). And the use of quick inter-cutting (with some sub-par dolls, admittedly), and even an on-camera switch to what appears to be a hand-animated double of the actress, to portray Nelson picking the Shobijin up, was jaw-dropping. It was really effectively realized, using every trick in the book.

In fact, the effects throughout this are top-notch. The ship in the storm, the island shots and water scaling, the Mothra egg above the gathered worshipers in split-screen… and most especially, the use of bluescreen to put human characters in with miniatures (like the atomic heat rays). This really is an effects tour-de-force, and almost everything works beautifully. The bluescreening doesn’t quite hold up to modern eyes, and a few of the models (especially the cars) in New Kirk City were a little off (an effect of the budget being stretched, which is why they were planning the alternate climax mentioned above, but Columbia studios shot the idea down), but by far and large, this has some of the best effects I’ve seen in a Showa-era film, particularly astounding for its era. The montage-esque shot, with the flying carriage going overhead and Mothra swimming beneath, was both striking and trippily-60s; a real standout effect, like the picking-up scene earlier.

(On the downside, Toho throughout the ages really have to work on their ‘wrinkly sky’ problem. Just smooth out the blue drop-cloth, guys!)

The most important effect for the story, of course, was Mothra. A surprisingly passive and little-glimpsed element in the story, Mothra doesn’t show up until well through the movie, spends most of the larval form getting firebombed, and as Imago, has only a few minutes of wandering around aimlessly and searching… but thankfully, the story is engaging enough that it works. Both suits/props look good- in fact, the modern versions have remained largely unchanged from this iconic look. The Mothra portrayed here is a little less gentle (in a modern film, I suspect Mothra would be the one saving the baby on the bridge, not Sen-Chan), and a little dumber; the Shobijin talk about her as more of an animal led by instinct that an intelligent, communicative presence. (One can also assume that her silk is insulated/contains asbestos, as she seemed unscathed by the little barbecue they had planned for her…)

The fictional nation of Rolisica (a Russia-America hybrid that seemed to my perhaps-biased eyes to lean a lot more on the American side) and its New Kirk City were an interesting patchwork, with the odd Japanese-English language hybrid (which was not subtitled in Japanese for a surprising number of occurrences, at least on the print I saw) that can often be found in this era. Not a lot to say about them- just a clever plot device to avoid offending anybody while still making a pointed commentary. More recent films *ahemShinGodzillaahem* seem to have abandoned such pretense at subtlety or inoffensiveness. Though honestly, it’s not like anybody was ever beyond fooled as to the intent. In that way, there’s been little change from 1961 to 2016; Japan still seems to see the Western powers (or at least the USA) as a sort of nuclear bully, making unilateral decisions and bossing everyone else around as if they had an entitlement to authority with every nation they come across.

…Okay, that may be fair.

For all the slightly-shabbyness of the final models compared with the rest of the film, and the somewhat-anticlimax of the climax (especially compared to the alternate idea), we do get a surprisingly faith-based climax, with the characters openly professing belief in God; that was a bit of a (pleasant) surprise (and unusual for the genre, which tends to be far more mystical than religious).

The music in this one didn’t jump out at me as much as the pseudo-themes of Rodan did, but that was perhaps in part because of how familiar a number of the pieces were, so well-known that they went subliminally-undetected. The themes used for Mothra continue to be used (I would assume, should we ever get another Japanese Mothra appearance) to this day, and always complement the action nicely. I particularly like the thin, jingly version of the Mothra theme that the Shobijin are ‘speaking’ with when they’re first encountered.

Oh, a total side note… who was that deep-voiced guy speaking at the end? That wasn’t supposed to be Mothra, was it? Maybe it was just one of the many natives of the Island that the post-Showa era didn’t see fit to retain. I kind of like a native population (even if it is kind of just a Kong rip-off) rather than the more modern portrayals of the twin (or occasionally triplet) fairies and Mothra living all alone on their jungle island. It’s nice for their to be a population for Mothra to be goddess of.

Overall, I enjoyed Mothra a TON, and unless a number of other movies strike me differently than they did in years past, I think it’s safe to say that this will be in my Showa top 5.

[Great Hierophant]

I have a question about the credits for the English Language version as found on the Icons of Sci-Fi Toho Collection. The credits are very comprehensive, but they completely omit the actors (Frankie Sakai, Hiroshi Koizumi, Kyoko Kagawa) who play the three lead characters. It did not look like there were any missing sections to the opening credits, the fade from credit to credit is smooth. Was it just an oversight when Columbia Pictures added English credits back in the day?

[Ivo-goji]

Bumping since I don't know where else to pose the question, but does anyone in the community know anything about the serial novel this film is based on, The Luminous Fairies and Mothra? The only way I've heard anything about it is from the commentary published with the Icons of Sci Fi Toho Collection DVD. They talk about how the novel was more political than the film and how it included elements about the Infant Island people's mythology that was cut from ShinIchi Sekizawa's script because of time constraints.

Supposedly the inhabitants of Infant Island had a six-day creation story similar to that of the Bible, which they relate to "Bulldog" Fukuda. In this story, two deities, Ajima the God of Eternal Night and Ajiko the Goddess of Day Light are responsible for creating the island. Ajima and Ajiko conceived a giant egg, containing Mothra, and two human beings, who populated Infant Island. They then conceived a clutch of small eggs, which hatched into caterpillers, which became moths and flew away. Ajima became infuriated for some reason and tore his own body into four pieces. Ajiko was grieved by this and commited suicide, breaking her own body into four pieces, which then became the Shobijin (reduced to just two Shobijin in the film).

I've never been able to dig up more on The Luminous Fairies and Mothra, and searches only turn up a summary like this I made on another forum in 2012, so I'm guessing not much is known about the novel outside of what's mentioned in the DVD commentary.