GODZILLA-THON #10 - Godzilla's Revenge (1969)

Director Ishiro Honda, fresh off the success of the monster mash-up melee, Destroy All Monsters, returned the next year to helm this entry, All Monster's Attack (known as Godzilla's Revenge in America). Unfortunately, and quite surprisingly, it would be considered the series' nadir by a majority of fans. The film's biggest issue is that it is unquestionably a children's film, aimed squarely at kids, starring a kid. That isn't a death sentence in and of itself, but the loss of special effect supervisor Eiji Tsuburaya left director Ishiro Honda scrambling to get the effects work finished... himself! Since he was no expert in that field, the work done for this film was minimal, resulting in most of the Godzilla footage shown having been recycled from his previous three efforts. There's a positive message within the film that kids should hear - stand up to bullies, don't back down - but once you've past a certain age any appeal this entry may have had in your halcyon days is likely expired.

Ichiro is a young latchkey kid who spends most of his time alone, daydreaming about a better life. His current life is full of emptiness and bullies, but the bullies hurt the most because they terrorize him and make him feel humiliated. Ichiro's best friend is Shinpei, a toy maker and inventor on the outskirts of town who lets him spend time in his shop. When he gets to be alone, Ichiro fantasizes about being on monster Island, where Godzilla's son, Minilla, is the size of a small child and has somehow gained the ability to speak Japanese. And, uh, he can also change his size according to will. Don't ask. Anyway, Minilla has his own bully - a large cat-faced reptile monster named Gabara (also the name of Ichiro's bully). Try as he might to stand up to Gabara, Minilla always gets his little ass whooped. Luckily, he has Godzilla around to teach him the important monster things, like breathing fire. Ichiro is interrupted from his dreams by a couple of thieves who have stolen 50 million yen, holding him hostage until they can form a plan. Ichiro wills himself back to monster Island to get a final word of advice from Minilla, watching him defeat Gabara (with the help of Big Daddy G) and giving him the confidence to stand up to his own bullies. Ichiro breaks free and alerts the police, who arrest the robbers. The next day, we see Ichiro finally stand up to his schoolyard bullies and take them down, earning the respect of his peers now that he resorts to violence, too. Wait, what was the message again?

The film's biggest detriment is the lack of new Godzilla footage. It's even more frustrating because the fight between Godzilla, Minilla, and Gabara is actually pretty good. Haruo Nakajima, still inside the suit since the original film, had become so adept at maneuvering inside of it that the fight choreography looks impressive. The movements look as fluid as ever, giving Godzilla is bit of grace he had been lacking before. The suit used here appears to be from Destroy All Monsters, which makes sense given how little it was needed for this film. That's another major downside of using stock footage from the three previous films: each suit had a different look. It is glaringly obvious when they switch from '66 to '67 to '69 and then back again. Hell, in some scenes the suit literally changes from shot to shot. No level of editing can change mismatched suits.

The storyline with Ichiro isn't all terrible. Following a kid around isn't an ideal plot for any of these films, especially one where it isn't exactly established whether or not Godzilla exists at all in the real world. But Tomonori Yazaki is a precocious little shit, curious about enough to investigate but he's never really annoying in his actions. He seems fairly reasonable, making his troubles with a school bully weightier because we don't like to see him abused. His lack of friends and a family life is what led to his overactive imagination, giving Minilla the chance to imbue him with some confidence. According to one of the adults at the end, Minilla is a god for children, and he gives them strength just as the gods adults pray to do for them. It's certainly a unique perspective to view these characters from. Thankfully they only went this route for one film.

All the footage we see of Ebirah, Kumonga, and Kamacuras has been recycled from their respective films. The only new footage is also populated by a new monster - Gabara. He's ugly. Oddly enough, other than his weird cat face he sort of looks and sounds like Titanosaurus, an antagonist that won't be seen until 1975's Terror of Mechagodzilla. I can only assume maybe this suit was reused for his design? Either way, I'm grateful Gabara never showed up in another film because he's terrible. Even his special abilities - electrocuting things that he touches - is bizarre. But it does make for a funny scene when he zaps Minilla.

Scoring duties this time around were handled by Kunio Miyauchi. Akira Ifukube would return again later, and to be perfectly honest his talents would have been wasted here. Miyauchi reprises some of Masaru Satoh's themes (or they're literally reusing them here) from previous entries, and whatever work he himself contributed has a brassy sound to it. Not typical for a Godzilla film, but it works well for this installment. It's adventurous, whimsical, even a bit playful. Again, more of the James Bond type of sound that was popular during those days.

The score also gave us "Monster March", an annoying and mildly catchy Godzilla tune as howled by some Japanese youngster.

This would be the final film where Eiji Tsuburaya, one of Godzilla's "fathers" who designed all of the special effects up to this point, would be credited. His involvement here was non-existent, really, with Sadamasa Arikawa handling the set duties since Tsuburaya was too sick to perform. He died the next year, which may be part of the explanation for why Godzilla took that year off from films. Tsuburaya left behind an enduring legacy that will be remembered for generations, gifting us with some of the most memorable monsters to ever grace screens.

Following his most kid-friendly adventure yet, Godzilla would go on to become a savior for all sizes of people when he saved the planet from a flying bob of sludge in the eco-conscious entry Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster. 

GODZILLA-THON #9 - Destroy All Monsters (1968)

The dream team is back, baby! After the diminishing returns Godzilla had been facing for the past couple of years, producer Tomoyuki Tanaka decided to bring back director Ishiro Honda and composer Akira Ifukube for what was intended to be the Big G's last hurrah. The big question was, though: if we're going to do one last film, who does Godzilla face? Gary Oldman from The Professional knows - EVERYONE! Toho threw down the gauntlet here, bringing back many fan favorites, many of which hadn't ever been in a film with Godzilla before. Not only was this just about the coolest idea Toho had ever come up with outside of creating Godzilla, but the inclusion of monsters created for other properties gave fans even more incredible work to marvel at watching. Think of it as The Avengers (2012) of monster movies. The plot would once again involve mind control as executed by an evil alien race, this time all women (!), but the real meat here, the real reason why everyone is tuning in, is for that glorious monster action. And, brother, believe me when I say this pull out all the stops to deliver one helluva time!

Don't ever ask how, but in the year 1999, mankind has managed to wrangle all of the planet's monsters into one location - Monster Island (called Monsterland here). Godzilla, Minya, Anguirus, Gorosaurus, Rodan, Mothra, Kumonga, Manda, Varan, and Baragon. All living on an island that looks like it would be small for any one of them, where we're told food is plentiful and they all get along. Sounds like a bullshit PR piece SeaWorld would've put together. But it's working. At least, it is until communications with the island are lost and the monsters escape to begin attacking world capitals. We soon figure out the Kilaaks are the ones behind it, an alien race composed of all females (and they procreate how?) who wear glittery silver spandex hoodies. The have the monsters under the control of a mind-altering signal, one that is emanating from a location on the moon. Hey, we have a base there now! Capt. Yamabe (Akira Kubo) goes up with a team of his best men to stop the aliens by destroying the signal. It works, but the Kilaaks unleash their most powerful weapon as a last-ditch effort: King Ghidorah. The monsters of the Earth must unite to fight their common enemy, all while humanity fights against the alien invasion.

Alien mind control is used a lot in these films. It's a good way to allow Godzilla, our supposed hero by this point, to cause worldwide destruction without actually looking like the bad guy. His mind was under control, after all. And when he does get his head clear, you can always tell he feels really bad about what he did. This was, however, the first entry to have the aliens use a human appearance as their cloaking device, revealing a more hideous, sci-fi origin when their true selves are exposed. In this case, the Kilaaks are extremely sensitive to cold, so when the temperature drops considerably in their environment they revert back to looking like silver slugs that live in rocks. It's funny later on when the military learns of this, and the commander can only help but grin and say something about how friggin' easy an attack this is going to be now.

We know the returning faces - Godzilla, Minya, Anguirus, Rodan, Mothra, Kumonga - so who are the new guys? Gorosaurus was featured in King Kong Escapes (1967), where he fought Kong. Manda was a chief opponent as an undersea dragon in Atragon (1963). Varan appeared in his own film, produced in 1957. And, finally, Baragon was best known as the opponent to the title star in Frankenstein vs. Baragon (1965). Of all these, only Gorosaurus gets an appreciable amount of screen time, teaming up with Godzilla at the climax to help finish off King Ghidorah. Varan gets little more than two shots during the entire film. This was due to the suit being in such a state of disrepair since the filming of that feature over a decade prior. Baragon was being used on the Ultraman TV series (monsters were often redressed for other programs, Godzilla included), so his appearance was extremely limited here. In fact, the script called for Baragon, not Gorosaurus, to destroy Paris. But in typical Toho fashion, even though the monster change had to be made the script change wasn't, leaving Gorosaurus with not only Baragon's ability to burrow underground, but also his roar and in some cases even his name, since the media refers to him in the film as Baragon.

There were to be two more monsters added to the fray - Maguma (from 1962's Gorath) and Ebirah, last seen fighting Godzilla in Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster, but budgetary concerns caused both to be scrapped from the production. Also of note, there was a brief scene filmed where Godzilla fights with Manda, which makes no sense in the context of the film since both are under the same mind control. The footage is said to be shown at conventions from time to time, though it has yet to show up on any official release. 

Despite their being an abundance of kaiju, everyone gets a good amount of screen time with the exception of the two previously mentioned monsters. After the introduction at Monster Island, the film does an adept job of cutting back and forth between human/alien drama and monsters causing a melee across the globe. Some of the sets aren't as distinct as others (Godzilla destroys a seaboard that looks nothing like NYC), but for the most part it looks pretty rad to see Gorosaurus demolish the Arch de Triumph, or to see Rodan flattening Moscow. I can vividly recall seeing the extended trailer for this film on my VHS of Grandpa's Sci-Fi Hits, which was hosted by Al "Grandpa Munster" Lewis. The promise of an international incident as carried out by all my favorite monsters looked astoundingly epic to my young brain. Even now, all these hardened cinematic years later, I can say it's an ambitious entry that really put a lot into the story.

Interestingly, director Gareth Edwards, who is helming the upcoming 2014 reboot Godzilla, has expressed a desire to make a sequel to his film something akin to this film. I really do applaud his ambition, but I hope they set that universe up further with a second film before throwing too many names into the mix. Plus, I don't see that being a successful idea unless Toho grants the rights to use other monsters. Right now, Legendary can only use Godzilla.

A final film is never a final film when a series is successful. Even though producer Tomoyuki Tanaka declared this would be Godzilla's final feature film, the success it enjoyed meant another movie was in the works, this one coming out just a year later. Only to call it a new film is almost disingenuous considering almost all of the fights are culled from stock footage. And that's not even to mention the undeniably child-centric tone and core message about bullying and standing up and... oh, Christ, is there anything good to be said about Godzilla's Revenge? 

GODZILLA-THON #8 - Son Of Godzilla (1967)

Godzilla had been well on his way to becoming a children's icon starting around the release of Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965), with Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster (1966) doing even more to soften the Big G's image so he could appear less threatening. Director Jun Fukuda, who helmed that entry, clearly had no qualms with making the big brute more loveable. Fukuda's next foray into the series would make Godzilla his least intimidating incarnation yet by giving him a son. Minya, or Minilla (a portmanteau or Mini-Godzilla), is easily one of the most divisive kaiju to appear in the films. You either love him or absolutely hate everything about him. In some ways, he is the Jar Jar of this universe - bumbling, well-meaning, always annoying no matter what he's doing, slightly cute, slightly revolting. The series certainly lost an appreciable amount of credibility by so blatantly pandering to kids. But at this point, kaiju films were losing their luster in theaters, so Toho really had no other option but to try marketing to an undiscerning crowd. There needed to be some kind of shake-up to the series, which was part of the reason director Jun Fukuda and composer Masaru Satoh were brought on board. Producer Tomoyuki Tanaka wanted to see how another creative team could handle bringing Godzilla to life. The two films Fukuda made before director Ishiro Honda and composer Akira Ifukube were brought back (for yet another "final" film) are unique in their own right in many ways. Each takes place on an island locale, the human drama is small in scale and surprisingly engaging, and Godzilla takes on a much more protective role. While it's hard to argue the quality didn't dip after Honda's run with the series, fans can readily admit Fukuda's entries are a lot of fun to watch.

A team of scientists on a small island have been working tirelessly to conduct weather experiments designed to help cultivate currently unusable lands so that food can be harvested for the ever-expanding world population. They are alone aside from a handful of massive 7-foot-tall praying mantises. A nosy reporter shows up one day (that's some real dedication, btw) and annoys some of the men, but he's allowed to stay and become the cook after proving himself useful. The group performs an experiment that goes awry, causing a radioactive fallout to cover the island. It also causes the mantises, known as Kamacuras, to grow to an even larger size. The men follow the Kamacuras' to find them digging an egg out of a pile of rubble, eventually cracking it open to reveal a giant turkey, er, Minya, Godzilla's son. The Kamacuras' are just about ready to have a meal of Minya when Big Daddy G shows up and promptly exterminates two of the three bugs. Their other buddy wisely retreats. Now that they can spend some quality time together, Godzilla teaches his son the art of being a monster, including how to blow fire. Except Minya can only blow smoke rings unless under heavy stress, like when daddy accidentally steps on his tail. When Reiko, a native girl, mistakenly wakes up Kumonga, the giant spider, Minya comes to her aid as best he can before getting wrapped up in webbing. And his cries can only mean one thing - Big G is gonna have to step in and save the day. Which he does because that's what he always does. Meanwhile, the scientists figure out a way to make their experiment go off without a hitch just as they escape the island, covering it in a thick layer of snow that blankets a now-hibernating Godzilla and son.

Part of what makes this entry an easy watch is the return of some of the series' familiar faces. Akihiko Hirata returns, this time in the role of a benevolent scientist; and Akira Kubo, one of our lead astronauts from Invasion of Astro-Monster is back, this time as the unflappable reporter whose curiosity vexes some of the men. Even as a kid, I remember the films having a comfortable feeling because I kept seeing the same faces pop up in all the Showa entries. Hirata's presence always lends an air of gravitas to these productions, whereas Kubo brings with him a sense of wonder and confidence.

I really dug the island setting Fukuda employed for this film and its predecessor. Godzilla has stomped the hell out of Tokyo and every other coastal city by now, so why not see how he fares on one of the many islands out in the Pacific? The change of scenery gives the Big G some new grounds to literally stomp upon, as well as explaining how he comes across many of his opponents - they live there. But it isn't just the island alone that makes these installments fun; it's also Masaru Satoh's jazzy, atypical scores. His work on Son of Godzilla is very similar to his last effort, losing the pomp & circumstance of Ifukube's deadly serious scores in favor of what feels like a fun tropical romp with our favorite giant lizard.

Minya. Minilla. Godzilla's seed. When I was a kid, I assumed there was some Mama Godzilla out there somewhere, and that maybe she'd show up at the end of the film or something. When that didn't happen after a few viewings (kids sometimes think movies might end differently upon subsequent viewings; I know I did) I just figured Godzilla must be some asexual reptile that made his own egg. Maybe it got lonely being out there, with nothing to do but smash Tokyo and eat villagers. Regardless of his reasoning, he made a son. Minya looks like a buttered turkey when he hatches, so it's no wonder Kamacuras wanted to have a bite. Luckily, he's able to grow very quickly... and then just stop. Honestly, he grows to around 1/3 of Godzilla's size in no time, but when we see him again 32 years later in Destroy All Monsters he's still the same little shit. He can't even breathe fire any better. He's not intolerable or anything, but he also ain't exactly cute. Mostly, he just wanders around, gets fascinated by girls, and causes just enough mischief that Godzilla has to be roused from his slumber to whoop some ass. He only appears in 3 out of 28 films in the series, and considering Godzilla's new-found status as friend to children everywhere, it was a smart PR move to have him baby-up.

New attitude, new look. Godzilla was bound to get an updated visage once again, especially with this entry's special effects being handled primarily by Sadamasa Arikawa, with pioneer Eiji Tsuburaya only listed as a supervisor. The alterations this time around were much more severe, with Godzilla's head in particular being remolded to look more human and less reptile. His eyes have been enlarged even further, his dorsal fins are rounded and less severe, the tail shortened, and his nose made more snub. Fittingly, he does have a more fatherly appearance than ever before. Kids may have dug the design, but it's a far cry from the apex looks provided in the early '60s. This suit was dubbed MusukoGoji, and it would appear later on in Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972) during the water scenes.

The new monsters this time around have never been fan favorites. Kamacuras, a praying mantis, and Kumonga, the spider. Both monsters would eventually go on to be "featured" in Godzilla: Final Wars as alien-controlled opponents. I use "featured" in quotes because anyone who has seen that film knows each battle lasts about as long as it took to write this sentence. Godzilla has fought insects many times throughout the series, and he's scheduled to do so again with the new film coming this year. Insects are known for their ruthlessness in nature, so they make good opponents for their natural enemy - a lizard. Kamacuras doesn't have much of an attack ability, which explains how Godzilla destroyed two of them in record time. At least Kumonga can shoot webs, similar to Mothra in larva form, but that shit doesn't hold up too well to fire. And Godzilla has plenty of that.

The American version of Son of Godzilla doesn't deviate too much from the Japanese version. The major difference being that the opening pre-credit sequence featuring an airplane almost running into a seafaring Godzilla is cut. A couple of monster's get new names, too -  Kamacuras is referred to as Gimantis, and Kumonga is rechristened Spiga. The American version bypassed theaters, instead premiering on TV in 1969.

Tomoyuki Tanaka must have sensed that Godzilla was getting a bit too soft (plus box office returns were getting low), causing him to bring back the dream team of director Ishiro Honda and composer Akira Ifukube for what was intended to be Godzill'a cinematic farewell, Destory All Monsters (1968). But we all know that just wasn't true...