Toho Kingdom

One of the things that always disappointed me with this movie is that they didn't really do anything to update Mothra all that much. She's pretty much exactly the same as she was in the 60s. The closest thing to an update or change is the addition of an ancient enemy, Battra.

Compare that to the rest of the returning monsters for the Heisei series. King Ghidorah's origin is completely different from his Showa counterpart, and I liked it. It showed they weren't obsessed with tying their hands to the old content and willing to update the monsters with some fresh ideas. And the time travel aspect and tying his creation into Godzilla's origin almost made them perfect mortal enemies in my mind. And with the Son of Godzilla, they had the neat idea of actually having him, ya know, GROW UP as the sequels progressed. Granted Little Godzilla sucks and I want to punch him in the face, but actually having him grow from film to film immediately set him apart from Minilla. And then you look at Mechagodzilla and MOGUERA, who have completely different origins and identities from their Showa selves. That's not to say I prefer one version over the other (actually, I prefer the Showa in most cases) but the attempts at recreating these monsters and giving them new origins was actually kind of neat. It kind of makes me wish Gigan, Angurias, and some of the others got in on the fun. Even Rodan got a new evolved form in "Fire Rodan", and having him share the same nest as the Baby Godzilla, tied him close to the Godzilla family of sorts.

And then you look at Mothra in 92 and its just...yeah, I've seen that before. And unfortunately, Mothra is one that they typically stay pretty faithful to, but in a bad way where it just feels like I'm seeing the same things over and over again. Tokyo SOS felt like it included a Mothra greatest hits clip show. Credit to the Rebirth Trilogy for at least giving Mothra new powers and forms as the series progressed and trying to evolve the history and personalities of the fairies. They didn't completely succeed, but hey, A for effort.

GojiDog wrote: She's pretty much exactly the same as she was in the 60s. The closest thing to an update or change is the addition of an ancient enemy, Battra.

She has a completely different design, power set, and background story.

Anyone else notice Godzilla's beam has a weird sound effect in this movie? It's almost like they tried to 'Mothra-ize' it.

KaijuCanuck wrote:Anyone else notice Godzilla's beam has a weird sound effect in this movie? It's almost like they tried to 'Mothra-ize' it.

I rewatched the film a couple of hours ago and I din't notice that until you mentioned that, that is really strange!

However, what's even more weird is that in some scenes, the atomic breath has the same sound effect that Shin Godzilla has everytime he unleashes his laser beam. Just when I thought that Shin took that sound effect from Destoroyah's beam and not from any previous incarnation of the character

Yeah, that's one of three weird sound effects decisions (that I'm aware of) in this movie. Godzilla reverting back to a Showa-esque roar (I love those, but this incarnation needed to keep the '84-'91 roar) and the lazy bullcrap use of the Rodan roar for Battra are the others.

JAGzilla wrote:Yeah, that's one of three weird sound effects decisions (that I'm aware of) in this movie. Godzilla reverting back to a Showa-esque roar (I love those, but this incarnation needed to keep the '84-'91 roar) and the lazy bullcrap use of the Rodan roar for Battra are the others.

Agreed. I love the Showa roar for Godzilla but it doesn't fit this particular incarnation, the 84-91 roar is what I would have liked to be the definitive roar.


Maybe Godzilla's softening up.

An Indiana Jones Family film with a kaiju beam war fight at the end.

Battra looks amazing in his larval form...that's the highlight of the
film as far as I'm concerned.

I used to think this was one of the 10 worst Godzilla movies, and I don’t know how to explain it, but one day this movie just clicked for me and it’s been middle of the pack for me ever since. Is it a technically good film? Not especially. It’s not even unique among the other Godzilla movies. But at the same time I don’t think it’s nearly as bad as several others that came before and since. I even enjoy the absurd English version.

One common criticism I see lobbied against this movie is that it’s too derivitive of the original Mothra and Mothra vs. Godzilla, and it certainly is. But at the same time I’ve just come to accept that and enjoy it as an updated (if not better) version. A lot of the Godzilla films recycle ideas and scenes from earlier films, this one just seems to get the most flak for it. And yes, it might be the most blatantly derivative entry in the series. I guess what I’m saying is I don’t especially care. I can look past that and enjoy it.

“You scum, you bastard, you’re worse than I thought...” *splash*

How faithful is the English dub to the original dialogue?

Is it me or the plot of this movie a mixture of Mothra (1961) with Mothra destroying the city just to rescue the fairies, Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) a greedy bastard exploiting the fairies for greed and Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971) where environmentalists can whine that humans are destroying the planet

Freebleeper wrote:Is it me or the plot of this movie a mixture of Mothra (1961) with Mothra destroying the city just to rescue the fairies, Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) a greedy bastard exploiting the fairies for greed and Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971) where environmentalists can whine that humans are destroying the planet

Agree with all but Vs Hedorah. Hedorah is entertaining and at least somewhat more subtle about the enviormental themes. I think the better comparison would be a bad episode of Captain Planet.

^ I don't know if 'subtle' is the word I'd use, considering pollution literally spawns a gigantic sludge monster that kills everything, and a significant portion of the movie consists of montages of smog-belching factoryscapes and garbage floating in the ocean. Hedorah is certainly more artistic, though, and feels like some actual thought and effort went into it.

Andrew the Gojifan wrote:

GigaBowserG wrote:

Jeff-Goldblum1 wrote:Mothra places a purity seal on the spot of water in the ocean that Godzilla was dropped in. Presumably to keep him in place. But there is no explanation in the following film regarding this.

It's a scene recycled from the Mothra vs. Bagan draft. In that, the seal is meant to keep Bagan from reawakening, unless mankind screws up again and wakes him. But for this movie... I guess it was just included because it sounded cool in the original script? If it was supposed to lock Godzilla away, it did a very poor job of it.

Maybe it was to make Godzilla`s soul... pure?
I mean, Godzilla becomes way more sympathetic after he escapes, but that`s probably just a result of circumstances, or is it?

It was temporary binding spell meant to keep him in time out long enough that by the time he got out his temper had fizzled out. Remember Mothra rarely kills.

Nothing more, nothing less.

JAGzilla wrote:^ I don't know if 'subtle' is the word I'd use, considering pollution literally spawns a gigantic sludge monster that kills everything, and a significant portion of the movie consists of montages of smog-belching factoryscapes and garbage floating in the ocean. Hedorah is certainly more artistic, though, and feels like some actual thought and effort went into it.

Yeah, Hedorah is a pretty expressionist movie; it's hardly a style I'd associate with subtlety. I think what makes Hedorah's (at least) equal heavy-handedness work so much better is the consistency among the theme and the storytelling technique. That kind of fervent messaging plays a lot in such a formalist work, where every image and sound is crafted to help pound things home, as opposed to the more workmanlike Godzilla vs. Mothra, which offers lip service dialogue about the environment but doesn't really do anything stylistic to help drive the points home.

eabaker wrote:

JAGzilla wrote:^ I don't know if 'subtle' is the word I'd use, considering pollution literally spawns a gigantic sludge monster that kills everything, and a significant portion of the movie consists of montages of smog-belching factoryscapes and garbage floating in the ocean. Hedorah is certainly more artistic, though, and feels like some actual thought and effort went into it.

Yeah, Hedorah is a pretty expressionist movie; it's hardly a style I'd associate with subtlety. I think what makes Hedorah's (at least) equal heavy-handedness work so much better is the consistency among the theme and the storytelling technique. That kind of fervent messaging plays a lot in such a formalist work, where every image and sound is crafted to help pound things home, as opposed to the more workmanlike Godzilla vs. Mothra, which offers lip service dialogue about the environment but doesn't really do anything stylistic to help drive the points home.

Yes I agree that Godzilla vs. Hedorah is sending more a style than Godzilla vs. Mothra is more straightforward, but despite they're both sending the same messages to me.

Freebleeper wrote:

eabaker wrote:

JAGzilla wrote:^ I don't know if 'subtle' is the word I'd use, considering pollution literally spawns a gigantic sludge monster that kills everything, and a significant portion of the movie consists of montages of smog-belching factoryscapes and garbage floating in the ocean. Hedorah is certainly more artistic, though, and feels like some actual thought and effort went into it.

Yeah, Hedorah is a pretty expressionist movie; it's hardly a style I'd associate with subtlety. I think what makes Hedorah's (at least) equal heavy-handedness work so much better is the consistency among the theme and the storytelling technique. That kind of fervent messaging plays a lot in such a formalist work, where every image and sound is crafted to help pound things home, as opposed to the more workmanlike Godzilla vs. Mothra, which offers lip service dialogue about the environment but doesn't really do anything stylistic to help drive the points home.

Yes I agree that Godzilla vs. Hedorah is sending more a style than Godzilla vs. Mothra is more straightforward, but despite they're both sending the same messages to me.

Nobody's debating that point.

eabaker wrote:

Freebleeper wrote:

eabaker wrote:
Yeah, Hedorah is a pretty expressionist movie; it's hardly a style I'd associate with subtlety. I think what makes Hedorah's (at least) equal heavy-handedness work so much better is the consistency among the theme and the storytelling technique. That kind of fervent messaging plays a lot in such a formalist work, where every image and sound is crafted to help pound things home, as opposed to the more workmanlike Godzilla vs. Mothra, which offers lip service dialogue about the environment but doesn't really do anything stylistic to help drive the points home.

Yes I agree that Godzilla vs. Hedorah is sending more a style than Godzilla vs. Mothra is more straightforward, but despite they're both sending the same messages to me.

Nobody's debating that point.

Thank you and note both the greedy jerks have the Hitler moustache?

Freebleeper wrote:

eabaker wrote:

Freebleeper wrote:

Yes I agree that Godzilla vs. Hedorah is sending more a style than Godzilla vs. Mothra is more straightforward, but despite they're both sending the same messages to me.

Nobody's debating that point.

Thank you and note both the greedy jerks have the Hitler moustache?

Hahaha! I'd actually never thought about that!

eabaker wrote:

Freebleeper wrote:

eabaker wrote:
Nobody's debating that point.

Thank you and note both the greedy jerks have the Hitler moustache?

Hahaha! I'd actually never thought about that!

It still makes me wonder if they were referring to him in a way to say they regretted to align with the Nazis during World War II.

https://youtu.be/yuCmc1I6qqE

This song from this movie proves how cool the Heisei Series is.