Do you delineate between the "Godzilla Showa Era" and the "Kaiju Showa Era"?

[Pkmatrix]

I never really differentiated between them as, at least as a kid, the idea that any of the movies - even the Godzilla movies - could be related to each other never clicked with me. This idea that all the Showa era Toho films were all somehow linked together is something I was only introduced to when I started visiting fan sites online in the early 2000s. I was another one of those who just thought of Godzilla, Rodan, etc. as actors, with each movie just being a different one they starred in, and that was that. I mean, for a long time I thought the only Godzilla movie with a sequel was Godzilla 1985.

So, because of that, I didn't differentiate between the two because in my mind there was nothing to differentiate. They were just other movies from the same studio starring the same actors. To me, it was like trying to find a way to string together The Terminator with Predator, True Lies, and Kindergarten Cop just because they all had Schwarzeneggar in them.

[mikelcho]

I never sought out other Toho kaiju movies to get more of the storyline (because there isn’t one), but because I wanted to see “more of the same.”

Same here. War of Gargantuans, for example, I don't ever recall seeing it as a kid and linking it to any of the Godzilla films in terms of storyline connection but stylistically, it fit a similar mold. It was a lot like how a Joel Silver-produced film (Commando, Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, Action Jackson) had an almost auteur-like approach to its casting or style or how Joe Dante's movies and many of his peers at New World Pictures utilize a lot of the same cast and environment without feeling connected in the same universe but appeal very directly to those who enjoy the films.

I liken it to the Hammer Horror run, where there were a few ongoing series but you had the same creative personnel working on most of those movies for nearly 20 years with practically no story continuity.

Actually, the way I see it, only two of the Hammer Frankenstein had any sense of continuity and they were the first two:

*The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)
*The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958).

The rest of them, I think, due to the flashback scene in The Evil of Frankenstein (1964), were basically sequels to a first story that was never chronicled (as an aside, I've always wondered, in the second film, why Baron Frankenstein didn't even try to get revenge on Paul and Elizabeth from the first film, the first for betraying him and the second for marrying his betrayer (and thus being guilty by association, at least in the Baron's eyes). That was a missed opportunity right then and there).

Only twice in the Hammer Dracula series was there, again, any sense of continuity. The first example was:

*Dracula (1958; a.k.a. Horror of Dracula in the U.S.)
*The Brides of Dracula (1960)
*Dracula, Prince of Darkness (1966)
*Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968)
*Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970).

The second example was:

*Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972)
*The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973).

Other than that, you're absolutely right - none of the rest of the Hammer films had any sense of continuity, nor were any them connected to each other in any way, shape or form (the four Hammer mummy films are a perfect example of this, as they're what I call a "series in title only" (for a literary example of this, see the novels The Book of Fate (2006) and The Book of Lies (2008), both by Brad Meltzer)).

[Terasawa]

I’m afraid you completely missed my point.

I was comparing Toho’s special FX output from the Showa era to Hammer’s output from 1955 to the late ‘70s. My point was that I've always been interested in seeing more than just Toho’s Godzilla films because I knew I’d be getting something similar to those, just as I’d watch any Hammer film beyond the Dracula series. I don't care about the internal story continuity, or it's at least far less important to me than the fact that nearly any Hammer film feels like a Hammer film, ditto with Toho's SFX productions.

[mikelcho]

I’m afraid you completely missed my point.

I was comparing Toho’s special FX output from the Showa era to Hammer’s output from 1955 to the late ‘70s. My point was that I've always been interested in seeing more than just Toho’s Godzilla films because I knew I’d be getting something similar to those, just as I’d watch any Hammer film beyond the Dracula series. I don't care about the internal story continuity, or it's at least far less important to me than the fact that nearly any Hammer film feels like a Hammer film, ditto with Toho's SFX productions.

Okay, I guess I did miss the point entirely. Thanks for clarifying.