Japan Release: 1972
Running Time: 89 minutes

Godzilla vs. Gigan

地球攻撃命令 ゴジラ対ガイガン
[Chikyu Kogeki Meirei: Gojira tai Gaigan]

Gengo Kotaka, a down on his luck artist, has landed a job with a organization in charge of the World Children's Land amusement park. The park's central attraction is a giant Godzilla tower, and Gengo is brought in to add more designed monsters to the park. Despite being appreciated by his boss, the artist is uneasy about the organization. His suspicion mounts when he runs into a girl named Machiko Shima as she flees from the company's Committee Office. Gengo confronts the girl, who believes her brother, who had worked for the organization, was kidnapped by them. After reading her sibling's journal, she believes the organization's plans are placed on tapes. It's because of this that she stole one from the Committee Office. The tape only offers a garbled message to the confused listeners. The signal carries to Monster Island, though. There Godzilla and Anguirus quickly decipher the message and begin a plan of action. With Earth's monsters already in place, the organization's true motives begin to take focus. They summon Gigan and King Ghidorah, who begin their descent toward Earth. As their plan goes into motion, the space monsters will fight against the Earth's forces for the fate of the planet...

Live Action Science Fiction KaijuGodzilla

Titles

Godzilla vs. Gigan

Godzilla on Monster Island
US Distributor: Cinema Shares (1977) / Time: 89 Minutes

Earth Destruction Directive: Godzilla vs. Gigan
[Literal Translation]

War of the Monsters
[UK Title]

Monsters

Aliens, SDF & Misc.

Staff

Cast

Posters

Box Office

Toho Stock Footage

DVDs and Blu-rays

CD Soundtracks

Background and Trivia

• Cinema Shares submitted the movie to the US copyright office on April 19th, 1985 using the title Godzilla on Monster Island with an alternate title given of Godzilla versus Gigan. Later Toho submitted the movie themselves on April 22nd, 1988 under the registration number PA0000382931. It used the titles Godzilla vs. Gigan and Godzilla tai Gaigan, the former being the international title and the latter a hybrid of the Romaji title.
• The movie reuses music from 10 different Toho films along with the Mitsubishi Pavilion attraction. In total, the score comes from:
  The Big Boss (1959)
  Battle in Outer Space (1959)
  Atragon (1963)
  Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964)
  Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964)
  Frankenstein vs. Baragon (1965)
  King Kong Escapes (1967)
  Destroy All Monsters (1968)
  Latitude Zero (1969)
  Will to Conquer (1970)
  Mitsubishi Pavilion (Expo '70)
• Director Jun Fukuda has said that it was producer Tomoyuki Tanaka who decided to reuse past Akira Ifukube scores to create the soundtrack for this movie in an effort to keep the budget low. Noted in Age of the Gods (self-published).
• Originally the main title was to be comprised of music from The Big Boss (1959) and Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) before launching into the main title of Battle in Outer Space (1959). However, director Jun Fukuda felt that the main theme for the 1959 film would be too familiar for fans and wanted something less recognizable for this sequence. As a result, music from the Mitsubishi Pavilion was used here instead. This is noted in Godzilla Toho Champion Festival Perfection (ISBN: 4048669990). The unused version of the main title, with the music from the 1959 film, also appeared as the first track on Toshiba's soundtrack release (TYCY-5356).

Concept Art

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