1godzillafan's Toku Corner (Ultra Q)

Godzilla vs. Monster Zero is the English title to the film, though it also adopted the simple title of Monster Zero over here.  The Japanese title to the movie is Giant Monster War, while the International title to the film is Invasion of Astro-Monster for some reason.  I'm assuming the Astro-Monster is King Ghidorah, but there is really no "astro-monster" identified in the movie.  A lot of English speaking Godzilla fans have adopted International titles as the official titles of these movies, though this particular one is a good example of why I never will.  Fuck that title.  Monster Zero forever!

Yes, this is the hill I'm going to die on.

Premise:  A new planet is discovered in our solar system (to further rub it into Pluto's fucking face) hiding behind Jupiter.  An international space mission is launched to land on "Planet X" and study it.  The astronauts, Glenn and Fuji, land on Planet X, but immediately discover that there is life on the planet.  The aliens of Planet X welcome them warmly, but request the help of the people of Earth.  Their planet has been invaded by a space monster that they have dubbed "Monster Zero," which is revealed to be King Ghidorah.  They hope that the leaders of Earth will agree to loan them the monsters Godzilla and Rodan, who had successfully chased Ghidorah off of their planet (total shade in not wanting Mothra), and in return they offer a miracle drug that will cure most diseases in the world.  Humanity agrees to their terms and Godzilla and Rodan are transported to Planet X to combat the space monster.  Godzilla and Rodan succeed in driving Ghidorah away.  However, the aliens double cross the Earth, reveal they've been in control of Ghidorah all along, and now control Godzilla and Rodan.  They demand the Earth's surrender otherwise they will unleash the three monsters on the populous and destroy the world.

So, elephant in the room.  This is the Godzilla movie that has this:



As if that weren't enough to love this movie, here are some more reasons why I enjoy it.

So this is the first film of the Godzilla series to introduce alien invasion, something that they would drive into the ground into the Showa era.  I guess the previous film, Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, featured an alien with a space monster, but this one has flying saucers and lasers and dudes in Devo costumes pretending to be aliens and shit.  That alone is worth celebrating!  It's not really original because it wasn't Toho or Ishiro Honda's first alien invasion flick though, as they had The Mysterians and Battle in Outer Space under their belts.  They just took that template and added Godzilla to it.  That may just be enough for me to prefer Godzilla vs. Monster Zero to either.

Despite that, Godzilla vs. Monster Zero doesn't really have a lot of monster action in it.  Godzilla and Rodan have two fight scenes with Ghidorah, and they don't last very long (it's likely that the two fights combined might be shorter than their fight with Ghidorah in the last film).  There are some decent rampage scenes, but it does constantly cut back to human interaction more than anything.  Surprisingly enough, Godzilla vs. Monster Zero is a human story that uses the monsters as props.

How is that human story?  It's nothing award worthy, but it's a fun little rocketship adventure with characters doing space stuff, running into space problems, and coming up with a technobabble solution that makes the Earth safe again in the climax.  It's not a strong character piece as the characters exist to be reactionary to Planet X, so their development is reduced to stern declarations and scowling.  There's not a lot to the main character of Fuji, who is more or less a gung ho character who's only arc is getting over a chip on his shoulder about his brother-in-law.  The way he does this is because said brother-in-law invents a purposeless noise machine that winds up killing the Planet X aliens with its obnoxiousness.



The most memorable character is Glenn, because he's the rare English speaking character in a Godzilla movie who is actually a pretty decent actor.  In this case, that actor is Rebel Without a Cause supporting player Nick Adams, who was loaned off to Japan for a few films at the time (he also starred in Frankenstein Conquers the World).  Unfortunately he is dubbed over in the native Japanese version, which makes the English version a must-see so one can actually see his performance, which is actually pretty good.  Unlike a lot of other English characters in these Japanese creature features, Glenn actually has quite a bit to do in this movie, including probably the most personal stakes of the cast as he has a fairly interesting romance subplot where he discovers his girlfriend is actually an alien spy.

This was one of the last films Adams made, as he died of a prescription drug overdose in 1968.  Godzilla vs. Monster Zero didn't release the US until after his death in the 70's.

Godzilla films aren't going to be everyone's cup of tea, because sometimes even the good ones are rambunctiously silly, in which Godzilla vs. Monster Zero definitely is.  Hell, there are movies that I've ranked higher that may actually be even sillier (number 10 is definitely up there on the "Holy shit, this is dumb" meter).  Godzilla vs. Monster Zero holds its silliness proudly and delivers probably the most amusing alien invasion storyline of the entire series.  It's goofy, and I love it because it's goofy.  I love it because it's dead serious about its goofiness too.

Now, who's ready for a top ten?

Godzilla Raids Again is the International title to the film.  The original Japanese title is Godzilla's Counterattack, while here in the United States it has only been released under a Godzilla title on home video.  In the film's original release by Warner Brothers (in a double feature with Teenagers from Outer Space), Godzilla was renamed "Gigantis" and the film was titled Gigantis, the Fire Monster.  There are conflicting reports as to why the film wasn't advertised in the US as a Godzilla sequel (I believe the original Godzilla was fairly successful and well regarded at the time), but since there were only two Godzilla movies at the time, it's most likely one American studio didn't want this movie to have the baggage of being a sequel to another American studio's movie, so they turned it into a brand new one (albeit still with a lengthy flashback sequence to the first movie that Gigantis is totally not a sequel to).

As an interesting side note, the original producers of the American edit of Godzilla, King of the Monsters offered to distribute this film in the US the year after, but they weren't interested in a sequel to Godzilla either.  The catch was that they only wanted the monster footage and wanted to drastically alter the premise, turning Godzilla and Anguirus into a Tyrannosaurus and an Ankylosaurus who had survived into modern day and were accidentally unleashed in Chinatown (oof).  This film was to be called The Volcano Monsters and they even had the Godzilla and Anguirus costumes shipped to the US to film new footage for the film, but the company went out of business, the film was scrapped, and the costumes were lost.  The concept was later reworked into the movie Reptilicus.

Premise:  A pair of pilots for a fishing company, Tsukioka and Kobayashi, land on an island off the coast of Japan after Kobayashi has engine troubles.  While waiting for help, they hear the roars of giant beasts battling.  The discover that a new Godzilla, of the same species as the one that recently attacked Tokyo, is locked in combat with a giant spiky creature that they have never seen before.  Returning to Japan, they warn the mainland of Godzilla and the new monster, now identified as an ancient dinosaur known as an Anguirus.  The country tries to lure Godzilla away from Japan with flares, but a botched jailbreak that ends in an explosion accidentally lures the monster straight into Osaka.  Anguirus is also lured to the fire and the two monsters battle one last time in the heart of the city with Godzilla the victor, who returns to the sea with Osaka in ruin.  With Godzilla taking refuge on an icy island out at sea, the citizens of Japan take one last ditch effort to stop Godzilla by burying him in ice.

I probably can't stress enough that this list isn't "the DEFINITIVE ranking of Godzilla movies" by any measure.  I may be a Godzilla fan, but I stray from "the norm" opinion quite a few times, and I can't with confidence say "If you're interested in Godzilla movies, then you'll love so and so..."  If you want that, then I think the consensus of Godzilla fans agree that the must-sees are the original, Godzilla vs. Mothra, and GMK (some will throw Godzilla vs. Biollante in there too for good measure), while everything else is just gravy with some leeway for personal preference.  I'm not a huge GMK fan, myself, but it's probably a strong starting point for those who are curious about the franchise, that I'll agree, so if you're looking for the easy access ones, those are probably your safest bet.

This list is more or less me sorting out which ones are special to me, and whether or not they're special to anyone else is secondary.  I don't know anything about good film criticism, but I do love a monster movie.  Godzilla Raids Again is one that I have an affection for, yet for years have seen nothing but a constant dogpiling on by even other Godzilla fans.  Meanwhile, I'm sitting there a little confused, unable to comprehend the dismissive dislike, thinking to myself...



I have what may be a little bit of an unfair bias when it comes to this movie though.  You see, it's easy to take for granted just how easy access a lot of popular movies are, especially in a day in age where almost everything you want is available with the click of a button on streaming.  And even if you don't hop onto the streaming bandwagon, just about every store has their own Marvel Cinematic Universe section in their electronics department.  Even back in the day of VHS, it was a rare day to walk into a video store and not instantly see a Star Wars trilogy three-pack on video tape.  Being a Godzilla fan though, that was something entirely different.  Finding these movies was like a treasure hunt.  You had to search every corner of a video store looking for ones you didn't have and check every pawn shop twice.  The ones you couldn't find, you had to go through every week's brand new TV Guide with a fine tooth comb, so you can see if that one you don't own is playing and if it were then it was time to scream "MOM!  I NEED A BLANK TAPE!"

Those who are going to grow up with every movie in high definition through a mixture of Criterion, Sony, and Netflix have absolutely no comparison to what that was like.  It was a fucking adventure, man!

Growing up, Godzilla Raids Again was a sort of holy grail for me.  It was only released on VHS once, through a defunct Video Treasures line.  The only other Godzilla movie that had only a defunct VHS available at the time was Godzilla vs. Hedorah, however that one at least had the decency of playing on the Sci-Fi Channel every once in a while, which means it wasn't nearly the white whale that Godzilla Raids Again was.  Godzilla Raids Again was never on TV.  I wonder in retrospect if maybe it was and I overlooked it because it might have been playing under the Gigantis, the Fire Monster title, though I don't recall that title being in my TV Guide either.  This movie was that one that kept slipping away, and I remember the intense joy I felt in finally winning a copy off of eBay as a teenager, and not having to pay $70 to do it either (I think I paid $25, maybe...don't remember).  I had that feeling of immense satisfaction, because at long last I had that one missing piece of the puzzle to this franchise that I loved so much.

I still remember popping the film in and watching it for the first time.  When it finished, I believe it was official, I had just seen the greatest Godzilla movie of all time.

Okay, I might have been a little too excited.

Still, I enjoyed the movie a lot.  And that feeling though...that feeling was wonderful.  Every time I watch Godzilla Raids Again, I still get a glimmer of giddiness because I associate the movie with that feeling of "Finally!" contentment of completion.

But if you were to ask any other Godzilla fan (ungrateful bastards) what was wrong with the movie, the response would more than likely be akin to "It doesn't live up to the original."  You could also ask the same person to list their favorite Godzilla movies, and Godzilla vs. Megalon would probably make the list, so I'm not going to be too concerned about "living up to the original" when I talk about Godzilla sequels.  Granted, this definitely isn't like going from Frankenstein to Bride of Frankenstein, but rather going from Bride of Frankenstein to Ghost of Frankenstein.  I've always liked to akin Godzilla Raids Again as the original Godzilla's Jaws 2.  Sometimes a monster movie doesn't need to be an allegory for anything.  I am content to let a monster movie be a monster movie.

Probably the best sequel comparison one can make is Son of Kong, because it was made under incredibly similar circumstances to the quicky King Kong sequel.  Godzilla Raids Again is very much a movie made very fast in reaction to the success the first film had, as the studio pushed it into production hoping to keep the gravy train flowing.  They saw how much money they were making, thought maybe if we did it faster and a little cheaper they could make even more profit.  For better or worse, it worked.  Godzilla Raids Again was released six months later (!) and was a box office smash too.  It didn't make as much as the original, but it definitely pulled in the Yen.

I wonder if Toho considered doing the same for Seven Samurai.  I can see it now:  Eight Samurai!  And none of this three-hour long nonsense, make it seventy minutes so we can squeeze in more showtimes!

Ishiro Honda was off making a film called Love Makeup at the time (he would very soon return to monster movies with Half Human), so an efficient filmmaker was brought in to make the film fast with a "Get 'er done!" attitude, which turned out to be Motoyoshi Oda, who had recently done Toho's own take on The Invisible Man a year prior.  Oda has none of the craft or spirit that Honda brought his movie, though he seems somewhat interested in making something that is at the very least enjoyable.  The film isn't as haunting or harrowing as the original, but there are a few shots and camera tricks in this movie that I enjoy.  I like how feral he portrays Godzilla and Anguirus, and this is probably the most aggressive fight in the history of the Godzilla franchise.  These are two monsters who are going for the kill, wanting to take a shot to the throat and draw blood.

The suitimation effects don't always hold this aspect up, however.  Head Godzilla effects director Eiji Tsuburaya is given a very tall order for this movie, as he has to produce new costumes and effects in a fast tracked production with a very short period of time.  Godzilla's costume in particular, looks a little weird.  He has a similar look to the original film, but it's very slimmed down, so suit actor Haruo Nakajima could move more freely.  It always looked to me like they didn't have time to reformat the look of Godzilla to work with the new body shape, so in the end his face looks a little derpy.  The Anguirus costume is pretty good though, and I've always been an Anguirus fan, so his first appearance gets high marks from me.  But not helping the look of the monsters is that, to help the production move faster, a lot of the close-ups of Godzilla and Angurius were hand puppets.  The original Godzilla used a hand puppet at times, though sparingly and effectively.  These ones are used to more comical effect, as they aggressively bump into each other in what may be the most satanic version of Sesame Street you've ever seen.  I love them, though.

One effect in this movie that I find interesting is the camera speed.  In most Godzilla movies, the camera is overcranked for a slow motion effect to create a sense of extra mass.  In this one, which is attributed to be a happy accident by a cameraman who accidentally undercranked the camera, the monster footage is sped up.  Instead of fixing it, they decided they liked the effect and left it into the final film.  I quite like it too, as the speed really adds to Godzilla and Anguirus's aggression.  But it may not speak wonders of the movie if the films most enjoyable effects are an "accident."

On the human side of things, Godzilla Raids Again might have one of the slightest human plots in the franchise.  It tells a far less personal and dramatic story than the previous film, and there is no real human conflict to speak in the film.  The movie shows Godzilla and Anguirus's rampage through the eyes of a pair of pilots who spend most of the movie either palling around with little care about the fact that giant monsters exist or staring into the distance as the monsters attack each other.  None of this is really all that compelling nor does it go anywhere, but it's just an excuse to show some working class heroes in the middle of a monster battle that the 50's Japanese audience can relate to.  The characters are likable enough, to the point where one of them is taken out during an areal raid on Godzilla, which is a decently sorrowful moment, though if the plot were stronger for these characters it might have hit harder.  The only returning castmember from the original film is the wonderful Takashi Shimura as Dr. Yamane, who is only in the film briefly to give exposition of the previous Godzilla attack.  But still, any reason to have Takashi Shimura in your movie is a good reason to have Takashi Shimura in your movie.

A few words on the Gigantis, the Fire Monster dubbed version:  The most obvious being that Godzilla is renamed "Gigantis" in the film, while Anguirus is called "Angilas."  The movie mostly tosses a lot of Godzilla's backstory out and tries to convince us that both Godzilla and Angurius are the same species of dinosaur, called "the Angilosaurus."  How exactly this is supposed to work when they look so different, I'm not sure, but to try and sell this idea they mixed the roars of the two monsters, so both Godzilla and Anguirus are heard with each other's roars at various points in the movie.  The dub is pretty bad, though of note is that one of the supporting voices in the film is a very young George Takei of Star Trek fame.  Takei also loaned his voice to the English dub of Rodan.

I'm probably destined to be an outsider, because Godzilla Raids Again is movie that barely registers with other Godzilla fans in a franchise that's usually dismissed by movie fans as a whole.  This is a movie made for weirdos like me who could watch movies on Mystery Science Theater like Lost Continent or Black Scorpion on a rainy day and have it cheer them up, but I guess to other Godzilla fans being too much like a standard, run-of-the-mill monster movie makes the franchise look worse.  I think I've read one too many butthurt bitchfit essays from bitter fans about Roger Ebert's negative review of the original film, about how the well-seasoned movie critic was in a worthless profession and "doesn't GET IT!" and deep down I somewhat feel that most feel that having a "just monsters fighting" direct sequel to a much stronger movie somehow deflates it, so they try to distance themselves from it.  From my own experience, I've spent over thirty years with people trying to tell me my favorite movie franchise is garbage and talking to me like I'm an idiot while doing so, so I can imagine these folks probably have lived through the same.  I personally became desensitized to it, while I've noted a lot of Godzilla fans doubled down on "gotta analyze the THEMES AND CRAFT to all these movies!"  It seems that when a movie comes along that doesn't have those allegories that the fan favorites have, it's met with the angry rage of "YOU'RE MAKING GODZILLA LOOK WORSE!"

Sigh.  Look, I'm not here to yell at people who "don't get" the rubber lizard movie.  I'm not going to make it my mission in life to try and explain the rubber lizard movie to people who clearly don't like the rubber lizard movie.  As the old saying goes, "I don't know art, but I know what I like."  And I like Godzilla Raids Again every time I watch it, so that counts for something to me.

The title Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla is what happens when you have too many films titled Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla in your goddamn franchise and you're too lazy to think of something unique (seriously, you could have called the thing Godzilla vs. Kiryu, for fucks sake).  Needless to say, the above title is the English and International title, while Japan got the film with the slightly stylized title of Godzilla X Mechagodzilla to differentiate from the other films with the Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla title.  Yikes.

Premise:  Since Godzilla's attack in 1954, Japan has been raided by many monsters, including Mothra in 1961 and Gaira in 1966.  Japan's Self-Defense Force has evolved to combat these monsters and drive them back.  However, in 1999, Japan's biggest fear is realized and another Godzilla appears.  Lieutenant Akane Yashiro heads into battle with her maser tank group, but things go horribly wrong and most of her comrades are killed.  With the threat of the new Godzilla looming, the government commissions a giant mechanical Godzilla to combat the creature, built around the bones of the original Godzilla from 1954.  Four years later, Akane is promoted as the head pilot of the Mechagodzilla, codenamed "Kiryu," but she still battles the trauma of her failed first battle against Godzilla and the soldiers who lost their lives because of her.  However, she is determined to lead Kiryu into battle against the monster when Godzilla surfaces once again and hopefully kill it with the ultimate weapon, the Absolute Zero Cannon, a weapon that can freeze any target in its path.  Kiryu proves effective against the beast, but Godzilla's roar causes Kiryu to malfunction, awakening the soul of the original Godzilla inhabiting the machine, causing Kiryu to let Godzilla escape and the giant mech then rampages through Japan until it's power supply runs dry.  Prime Minister considers pulling the plug on the Mechagodzilla program, leaving Japan defenseless, but when Godzilla rises again they find they must launch Kiryu once again and hope that the ghost in the machine doesn't awake.

So, the last three write-ups ran a little long, so I'm going to try and keep this short and sweet, just like this movie.

Earlier in this list I tore into that anime trilogy that recently came out.  What did I expect from it?  Something that wasn't meandering psudo-philosophic nonsense for one.  Also, we kind of already had an anime movie.  Well, a movie that very much was anime influenced, that is.  Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla is in many ways a failure as a story, but it feels more like an homage to a storytelling method than it is as a story itself.  It is in some ways similar to the very first Star Wars movie, where it a throwback to a serialized technique that tells a story in multiple parts and it throws us straight into the meat what's going on and goes through motions that technically complete the character arc of the movie, but ends with the larger picture still in play and the implication that the story goes on far longer than the end of the film itself.  Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla feels like the opening chapter in an anime saga, setting up pieces and plot points that may come into play further down the line.

The big weakness of this is that the structure feels a tad off.  The ghost in the machine concept is a neat premise to toy around with, but in the end it largely goes nowhere.  It's more of a "Hey, aint this weird?" idea in this film that they explore a bit further in the followup film, Godzilla:  Tokyo SOS, but as a result there is no conclusion to the Kiryu "character journey" in this film.

The film instead focuses on it's female lead, Kiryu's pilot Akane.  Akane isn't an original character in the Godzilla franchise by any means, as director Masaaki Tezuka and screenwriter Wataru Mimura basically just copied their character template for the lead in their previous film, Godzilla vs. Megaguirus.  Both films centered on a female soldier who has a vendetta against Godzilla, though Megaguirus's lead was more aggressive and vindictive.  Akane's story is more about conquering one's inner demons and personal guilt, which I think showed more character growth than her previous incarnation.  The story of the original Godzilla's spirit being trapped inside of Kiryu instead becomes less about Kiryu himself and more about Akane accepting that Kiryu is somehow a living creature, and trying to balance some inner peace through both it and herself with a mutual respect.

Still, it must suck to be Kiryu.  And that's an avenue the film never quite explores.  Missed opportunity.

The film doesn't really have time to address anything that's too irrelevant to Akane's storyline, however, because the film zips by at a mere 88 minutes, the shortest runtime a Godzilla film has sported since the end of the Showa era in 1975.  The film moves at a clip, wanting to keep the action flowing.  Masaaki Tezuka makes the action a bit absurd, but it feels flashy and animated, keeping in that anime spirit.  It's a slightly more polished film than his previous, Godzilla vs. Megaguirus, and he keeps his visuals ambitious.  Sometimes they pay off, sometimes they don't, but the result is entertaining nonetheless.

The fact that this movie moves so fast and action-focused pays off a bit confusingly at the end, because it's clear Tezuka really wanted the film to end right after the climactic battle between Godzilla and Kiryu, and he ends it with a gorgeous image of Akane standing on Kiryu's shoulder, watching Godzilla retreat into the sunset (this is one of my favorite shots of the franchise).  Tezuka unfortunately miscalculates a few story threads that were left dangling and is forced to tack on a post-credit epilogue that wraps certain character arcs up.  Post-credit tags should be meant for finishing your damn movie, they should just be neat little rewards for bothering to stay that long.  Tezuka's other two films, Megaguirus and Tokyo SOS, both have post-credit scenes also, but they're just little extra surprises rather than a full scene that concludes the movie.  Though, arguably, Megaguirus's post-credit scene is a better ending than the one in the movie itself.

I have some inner conflict about whether or not Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla or Godzilla 2000 is my favorite of the Millennium series, but what's weighing G2K down is the fact that it's original Japanese edit is far less entertaining than the English dub.  Taking the films as they're originally meant to be seen, Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla is easily the more entertaining film (though the American version of 2000 would win if that were the sole contender).  Those who go into it expecting a story will likely be disappointed, but those looking for some fun spins on Godzilla action will find this movie does it better than most.