Talkback Thread #12: Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972)

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Godzilla vs. Gigan



Discuss the 1972 Godzilla movie, which introduces one of Godzilla's most popular villains: Gigan. And please, let's keep it civil.

[Chris55]

My #1 favorite Godzilla movie. Yeah it's got the stock footage etc. Doesn't matter. I love the overall look of the movie. Just something about it.

[Guardian7]

My least favorite film of Godzilla (I have both the American and Japanese versions of this film - neither are good. Though the Japanese one is mildly better).
The human element really sucked in this one. except for Tomoko Tomoe- Gengo's girlfriend (Yuriko Hishimi) she out shined them all! (Which really wouldn't have taken much! LOL)
Kaiju stuff was cool and it was great to see Anguirus in action.
Gigan was a beautiful foe and had a great and unusual look!
Always fun to see Ghidorah!

If they had cut all the human stuff out I might have liked it better.

G7

[Legionmaster]

It's so much fun. And has the best score of basically any of the movies. And has Gigan, who is awesome. And the Nebula M Spacehunter aliens are classic body snatchers.

[Hellspawn28]

I love the movie due to nostalgic reasons. I also like the whole setting that the movie took place at, and it has that artistic feel to it as well. The ending was great too.

One of my personal favorite Showa movies.

[DaikaijuSokogeki!]

This film was my favorite Godzilla film for the LOOOONGEST time. It was all so much fun, and I still think it is. On a filmmaking sense, the film's truly bad. But from a fun sense, this film's a classic. The characters don't get in the way of the action at all, which works since the only point of this film was to see Godzilla and Anguirus rock. Gigan's an insanely strange and creative kaiju design, and the SPFX (stock footage aside) can be pretty solid when they want to be (case in point: the sequence at the oil refinery). Although the film was slapped together quickly, it has a strange charm to it. The music works absolutely perfectly even though it's all stock, especially considering that's what most of Ifukube's later scores are (burn).

So yeah, highly underrated Godzilla film. I enjoyed it immensely when I was 4 and I continue to to this very day.

[HayesAJones]

This movie is simply pure fun. It's no masterpiece, but it's incredible entertaining. Gotta love the Godzilla and Anguirus tag-team duo!

[TokyoVigilante]

Probably one of my favorite human cast in a Godzilla film. While they don't undergo or heavy development and are mostly two-dimensional, the film doesn't suffer from too many characters and you can identify who is who easily (Unlike in say, Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla).

The Nebulans are one of the best that Toho has devised. Peace through total Destruction, while not exactly bursting with originality or depth, is a disturbing notion. Not to mention, the idea of humanoid cockroaches inhabiting the bodies of our dead to parade around in neon orange blazers is unsettling in its own right.

Gigan is a classic. He's such a great looking creature and one of the coolest Godzilla has ever fought. Anguirus is looking great here, Godzilla and Ghidorah, not so much.

It's a fun movie. One of the best to come from the 70s era. But I wouldn't rate it very high in comparison with the rest of the franchise. But it is respectable in a few areas.

[ZigraDude]

Godzilla vs. Gigan is one of my favorite Godzilla movies. It's the best example of a cheesy "Golden-Age" Toho monster flick. The human scenes are just fun to watch and the monsters are great. Sure, Godzilla wasn't looking his best in this film, but he certainly fared better than the King Ghidorah suit. Aside from the film's lowpoints (My biggest complaint is the lighting with the stock footage, but even that isn't a major problem to me), it's an overall fun monster flick. The dubbing IMO makes the movie a little more fun if you ask me. I even like the Godzilla March theme at the end of the film. Overall, my favorite Godzilla movie from the 70's and one Godzilla movie I watch often.

[g2kmaster]

Love it, love it, love it. One of the first Showa films I saw and after seeing it on the big screen, I wouldn't be surprised that if I sat and thought about my 10 favorite Goji films, this would make it to the top 10. And I love the dub!

[Mac]

I can understand why people like this film, nostalgia and all, but this film isn't underrated. The movie is legitimately terrible.

The battles are ponderous, sloppy and slow, and when things do pick up and get exciting, its usually on account of stock footage. The scene with Anguirus debating whether to help his downed foe in the face of Gigan's chainsaw and Gigan swooping down on Godzilla are probably the only well-shot scenes in the whole battle. In the end, the Monsterland set and the variety of colorful characters are the only reason to watch this film in my book.

[Dash 7]

I love this movie. It's fun.

Mostly for Yuriko Hishimi! Besides that, I think Gigan is an excellent foe for the big G and really well designed. The pyrotechnics in the refinery scene are excellent. I also like the idea of the Nebulans, to me they are some of the more sympathetic and well-written of the G-series aliens. The only real gripe i have with the movie is the gratuitous stock footage. They could have left it out and the movie would have been fine.

[Tyler]

Toho should make Shukra vs. Momagon. "You're a hard bitch."

[GotengoXGodzilla]

This is a fun Godzilla film. Yeah, the stock footage gets old, but the fights are enjoyable and the characters are actually entertaining to watch. In fact, I'd say that the characters are more fun to watch than the actual monsters. It seems like a tribute to the 60s Godzilla films, like Invasion Of The Astro Monster, so I'd say that its a great one to watch.

[DaiKamonohashi]

This is, quite literally, my favorite film of all time. Out of everything, not just Godzilla or Tokusatsu films. Just ever.

Actually, this is also one of the few films in which I prefer the dubbed version over the original Japanese (Ted Thomas as Kubota is legendary in my mind!) - though the Japanese has one line that destroys me in fits of laughter every time:

http://imgur.com/EL508.jpg

Really, you could cut all the monster scenes and I would still be massively entertained by this film as its human cast is my favorite set of characters in the entire film. Despite the faults of the film due to the limitations of the period in which it was made, I have a really hard time finding it in myself to call this a "bad" film. Given their difficulties at the time, I would say that Fukuda and Nakano succeeded in crafting an extremely lively and fun film, which also has some very stylish cinematography at times to boot.

In conclusion: Godzilla Vs. Gigan > Life

[DrKaiju1954]

One of my first and favorite Godzilla movies.The cheesy factor is the reason why i love it plus the action is great.Seeing Anguirus and King Ghidorah is always great.

[Jesse]

I love this movie. It's my favorite of the Showa series. It's goofy, has some of my favorite monsters, and the fight scene at the end lasts fairly long. I just never got King Ghidorah though. He looks terrible, especially compared to what he looked like in "Ghidorah the Three Headed Monster." When stock footage was used from GTHM, it looked so much better, even though they were constantly changing from day to night. I, even as a kid, never understood how Ghidorah stood his own against Godzilla, Mothra, and Rodan but was pretty much pwned in this movie. Whatever.

[Showa Gyaos]

Uh.....used to like it when I was younger, but I can't stand the film anymore. I just find it boring. *SPOILER ALERT*Godzilla suddenly regains his strength after getting his ass kicked by Gigan and King Ghidorah, while Anguirus just sits there and watches for 10+ minutes. I believe that the addition of King Ghidorah was unnecessary, since he seemed to do more damage than Gigan any way. Overall, I think it's a low point in the Showa series.

[Hellspawn28]

Are we going to get a talkback thread for Godzilla vs. Megalon, and Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla soon?

[SuperSaiyan4Godzilla]

Such a lovely film.