The Godzilla Thread - Plus other giant monsters, no matter how popular or obscure

[Man vs persistent rat]

Jesus, Godzilla vs. Spacegodzilla was bad. I had been really enjoying rewatching through the Heisei films until this, but it combines so many bad elements - annoyingly dumb science (Godzilla works best when it hand-waves fast enough for you not to think about that), a deeply unwelcome appearance by baby Godzilla, slow and listless plot, little dramatic impetus, uninspired music. The effects are good, but the film itself was a drag. On to Destoroyah now, and hoping for something better. Curious how the smaller spider monsters have the same dramatic effect as the baby Godzillas in the Emmerich. I guess the Jurassic Park raptor vibe was in the air at the time.

Edit: GvD was back to the usual standard, Destoroyah looking more menacing than Battra, with some Biolante levels of overwhelming mass. Music still feels like it peaked in previous films, with an excessive reliance on the already dated 60s-type raspy fanfare to accompany everything. Super X is a welcome return although doesn't stand out as well as previous incarnations. The melodrama of the ending is well-earned, both in the film, and also the series.

Edit 2: Godzilla 2000 has so many Skeleton vs. Attack Helicopter gif looking effects.

 

[ProfDongs]

My copy of Criterions Showa collection got delivered today and its a real nice package. The case is basically a coffee table book with the first half of it being text and art with a general introduction of Godzillas history and then a paragraph about each movie after that. The art is fantastic and the colors are really vibrant and bright for the most part, each movies gets its own individual full page art and the style is very different from movie to movie. A few US dubs are included but from the sounds of it they missed a few, although I have no interest in any of those. Discs 1-7 are the movies, with 2 on each generally, and disc 8 is all of the supplemental material. The price was very steep, but they don't skimp on what they give you at least.

 

[Overcast]

Jesus, Godzilla vs. Spacegodzilla was bad. I had been really enjoying rewatching through the Heisei films until this, but it combines so many bad elements - annoyingly dumb science (Godzilla works best when it hand-waves fast enough for you not to think about that), a deeply unwelcome appearance by baby Godzilla, slow and listless plot, little dramatic impetus, uninspired music. The effects are good, but the film itself was a drag. On to Destoroyah now, and hoping for something better. Curious how the smaller spider monsters have the same dramatic effect as the baby Godzillas in the Emmerich. I guess the Jurassic Park raptor vibe was in the air at the time.

Edit: GvD was back to the usual standard, Destoroyah looking more menacing than Battra, with some Biolante levels of overwhelming mass. Music still feels like it peaked in previous films, with an excessive reliance on the already dated 60s-type raspy fanfare to accompany everything. Super X is a welcome return although doesn't stand out as well as previous incarnations. The melodrama of the ending is well-earned, both in the film, and also the series.

Edit 2: Godzilla 2000 has so many Skeleton vs. Attack Helicopter gif looking effects.

Space Godzilla just felt like weird filler to me. Like, you could skip it and you probably wouldn't miss out too much on the greater scheme of things.

 

[XYZpdq]

Space Godzilla just felt like weird filler to me. Like, you could skip it and you probably wouldn't miss out too much on the greater scheme of things.

So basically most 90s Godzilla, yeah.

 

[Damocles_Sword]

I remember first getting cartoon network in the early 90's and it had a bunch of great old cartoons. G-Force, the centurions, pirates of dark water. They even had a ton of the old Hannah Barberra cartoons, including Godzilla. Being a big godzilla fan I was enthusiastic to see it. And it starts out great. Beating jungle drums and godzilla just fucking NYC's shit up. The police, the army helpless against godzilla, and as the screen turns to flames and the theme is chanting Godzillas name and I'm all pumped up for the animated carnage I'm about to watch, there it appears.

(C) 197whatever Hannah-Barberra and that rational, cynical part of my mind that knows what's about to happen starts to warn me.

NO. NONO. NONONONONO. And the theme continues.

And godzookie.

Motherfucking godzookie.

And that beating jungle drum and chanting becomes fucking clown music, and the burning wreck of a city becomes the cartoonist antics of this infected green shit weasel, making me wish I was watching scrappy doo.

I'm not kidding either. Scrappy doo may have been a narcissistic proto troon, but for the most part he wasn't actively trying to murder everyone. Godzookie was the devil. The group would be on monster island picnicking and there's Ghidora being held in a forcefield, a switch nearby. The group would plead with godzookie not to touch the switch, as Ghidoras gravity beams would suck their intestines straight out of their assholes. This motherfucker would get this evil look on his face, the look of someone who would gleefully end someone's life. And that motherfucker would slam that switch.

None of that typical "oopsie, I'm the comic relief, and I chased a butterfly over to the switch and accidentally pulled it" bullshit, no, he was deliberate about it, it was the best animation on the show. And the real fuckadoo about it was the kids would summon godzilla like he was a fucking dog doing tricks for them.

Fuck godzookie.

 

[Godzilla1984]

I remember first getting cartoon network in the early 90's and it had a bunch of great old cartoons. G-Force, the centurions, pirates of dark water. They even had a ton of the old Hannah Barberra cartoons, including Godzilla. Being a big godzilla fan I was enthusiastic to see it. And it starts out great. Beating jungle drums and godzilla just fucking NYC's shit up. The police, the army helpless against godzilla, and as the screen turns to flames and the theme is chanting Godzillas name and I'm all pumped up for the animated carnage I'm about to watch, there it appears.

(C) 197whatever Hannah-Barberra and that rational, cynical part of my mind that knows what's about to happen starts to warn me.

NO. NONO. NONONONONO. And the theme continues.

And godzookie.

Motherfucking godzookie.

And that beating jungle drum and chanting becomes fucking clown music, and the burning wreck of a city becomes the cartoonist antics of this infected green shit weasel, making me wish I was watching scrappy doo.

I'm not kidding either. Scrappy doo may have been a narcissistic proto troon, but for the most part he wasn't actively trying to murder everyone. Godzookie was the devil. The group would be on monster island picnicking and there's Ghidora being held in a forcefield, a switch nearby. The group would plead with godzookie not to touch the switch, as Ghidoras gravity beams would suck their intestines straight out of their assholes. This motherfucker would get this evil look on his face, the look of someone who would gleefully end someone's life. And that motherfucker would slam that switch.

None of that typical "oopsie, I'm the comic relief, and I chased a butterfly over to the switch and accidentally pulled it" bullshit, no, he was deliberate about it, it was the best animation on the show. And the real fuckadoo about it was the kids would summon godzilla like he was a fucking dog doing tricks for them.

Fuck godzookie.

Pallet cleanser from Godzilla oldfag:



Fuck Roland, but goddamn this is legit good.

Edit:
No, I'm serious.
Hanna-Barbera Godzilla done right.

 

[RumblyTumbly]

Yes! The Godzilla show based on the 98 film is actually good and worth checking out.

 

[Muttnik]

Zilla Jr. from the cartoon is even pretty lovable and badass. It was a good cartoon follow-up from a shitty movie. Wish it hadn't been cancelled so soon.

 

[RumblyTumbly]

It was also clear to me that the Zilla show was clearly made by fans.

Emmerich, if you've listened to him talk about the film, never had any respect for Godzilla and wasn't concerned with doing it right. I doubt that Devlin and Emmerich could have done a good job anyway, but achieving something recognizable as Godzilla wasn't even a concern for them (at least not for Emmerich).

The show felt like it was at least worked on by fans. They gave Godzilla his atomic blast back, they had a Destroy All Monsters-esque three parter, they introduced their own version of Monster Island, and they even found a sneaky way to kinda sorta get their own version of Mechagodzilla into the show.

They wanted to do a good job and they did! The show worked for me as a fan, and I often cite it as part of my feelings towards the 1998 film: Yes it was bad, but good things came out of it, including this show, the 90s Toho films finally getting released in the states, and the Millennium series starting up.

 

[Godzilla1984]

If nothing else, we got the Godzilla equivalent of early South Park Kenny:

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Sooooo for no particular reason at all, proooobably thanks to Monster Island Buddies... and the need for the Kong vs Godzilla trailer, I've been watching the Godzilla films, some were rewatches, others were first-time viewings for me--which was actually the majority of the Showa movies. I kinda have been going back-and-forth between the English dub and the original Japanese, depends on what the DVDs start out with, or if the durations between the versions were listed. I'm considering making a list of my favorites best-to-worst, figured while it's still fresh (would take a day-or-two breaks between movies, if I didn't watch more than one back-to-back), I might as well start listing them.

Starting with most favorite:

Godzilla (although... tbh I think it's a tie for first place for me?)
Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster
Mothra vs. Godzilla
Godzilla vs. Hedorah
Godzilla vs. Biollante
The Return of Godzilla
Son of Godzilla
King Kong vs. Godzilla
Ebirah, Horror of the Deep
Invasion of Astro-Monster
Terror of Mechagodzilla
Destroy All Monsters
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla
Godzilla vs. Megalon
Godzilla vs. Gigan
Godzilla's Revenge
Godzilla Raids Again

Bonus: The Godzilland OVAs are like smack-dab in the middle, it's a cute watch.

I practically grew up with the Heisei series, but I'm gonna rewatch them in Japanese before putting them on the list, even my biased favorite, Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth, is gonna have to wait, and the Legendary Monsterverse and Shin Godzilla will be added on later, the former after I rewatch Kong: Skull Island. I'm slowly picking through the Godzilla: The Animated Series, and I'm not looking forward to rewatching the anime trilogy, though >_>.

Now I've never actually sat down to watch the entire Millennium series start-to-finish (not counting Godzilla 2000), so that's pretty much somewhat-new territory for me. I also should go back to watch older monster movies, like I haven't sat down to watch Rodan and War of the Gargantuans, nor have I seen Space Amoeba and Mothra I think will be in Japanese. I also have not seen Rebirth of Mothra outside of the second movie, so I might count that on the list. And then there's Gamera. Got a lot on my plate to go through lol.

Also wasn't sure where else to mention this, but I've been slowly reading through the novelizations. The Godzilla novel adds a scene where Serizawa visits the Filipino miners who got rescued from the sinkhole who're slowly dying from radiation poisoning. The one miner is not happy to see him and practically blames the incident on him. They even drag out the Janjira nuclear power plant meltdown for what it's worth, like fuck, going through Joe's thoughts while he's watching his life crumble in those few short minutes was rough. Was reading that part in church waiting for the sacrament meeting to start, and I think I would've shed a tear if I wasn't in public.

I would've jumped right into the KotM novelization ('cause I've heard it's pretty good) immediately, but I wanted that natural transition because I dunno lol. I took a peek at the prologue for KotM, though, and it's in Godzilla's POV. It's fucking sweet, I hope there's more instances of that in the book.

 

[Sundae]

Pallet cleanser from Godzilla oldfag:

View attachment 994641

Fuck Roland, but goddamn this is legit good.

Edit:
No, I'm serious.
Hanna-Barbera Godzilla done right.

Yes! The Godzilla show based on the 98 film is actually good and worth checking out.

Not to mention the show's kick-ass theme:

 

[Kari Kamiya]

This fandom is weird.

I wonder why I never got deeper into it before now.

 

[RumblyTumbly]

My theory is that the US based Godzilla fan base is weird because we all grew up a fan of this stuff, and everyone in our home country took a shit on it every chance they got. That and trying to get a hold of all the films in the pre-internet/pre-streaming/pre-DVD days was like the most ambitious scavenger hunt I ever did.

That kind of abuse makes you crazy.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

My theory is that the US based Godzilla fan base is weird because we all grew up a fan of this stuff, and everyone in our home country took a shit on it every chance they got.

And this is just for Godzilla fans, and not the tokusatsu fanbase as a whole? Although I suspect Might Morphin' Power Rangers didn't help in that regard. Seemed things was "more normal" before the '90s.

 

[RumblyTumbly]

And this is just for Godzilla fans, and not the tokusatsu fanbase as a whole? Although I suspect Might Morphin' Power Rangers didn't help in that regard. Seemed things was "more normal" before the '90s.

Oh yeah, it absolutely applies to tokusatsu as a whole.

Power Rangers was the one thing in the genre that got any kind of wide spread pop culture acceptance, and even that they had to American-ize the hell out of to get people to like it. Still, I do look back on Power Rangers fondly as it was the one time where people in the US kind of got the appeal of tokusatsu and accepted it to some degree.

I do remember having kind of a chip on my shoulder when I was younger as I'd be watching Godzilla, Gamera, and all that stuff, and kids would make fun of me, but then they'd turn around and watch Pokemon and I'd be like "The fuck?".

 

[Kari Kamiya]

I do remember having kind of a chip on my shoulder when I was younger as I'd be watching Godzilla, Gamera, and all that stuff, and kids would make fun of me, but then they'd turn around and watch Pokemon and I'd be like "The fuck?".

Well that was because Pokemon was animated. It's hypocritical, but they didn't have men in rubber suits beating each other up. That's why a lot of people didn't really care for tokusatsu, it was just too silly to them--even though old Hollywood monster flicks were like this, too, and you could consider the live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies (...and show) to be tokusatsu.

But that silliness is why it's so charming. These are grown adults wearing funny rubber costumes making silly poses and then mock wrestle each other. It's great, but that makes people look at you funny. Niche genres tend to do that. Anime going mainstream I think also helped in that it got people to pay more attention to Japan, and they start to admit they remember these shows airing on TV many years ago, or renting old VHS tapes for family movie night. Or thanks to MST3K, it made riffing them fun, but that still has gotten other people to appreciate it over the years.

But you do have a point. I don't really remember any other kids in elementary school liking Godzilla or Gamera all that much--the live-action movie was the only one the kids would talk about, although there was the one (weird) kid who had mentioned the cartoon which I would catch sometimes. It wasn't just Pokemon back then that was stealing the spotlight, I still remember the playground fights over Pokemon and Digimon, which is even more crazy since Digimon seemed to be much more close to kaiju movies than Pokemon (yet it still was accused of being a rip-off). Power Rangers seemed to have been like the exception rather than the rule, but it wasn't enough. High-schoolers seemed to have been a bit more accepting, least where I went.

So yeah, I see what you mean. I didn't feel that craziness/isolation, though? I had my brothers and Dad with me liking these movies, so that was enough for me. I didn't even care enough to search out other fans online until years after social media kicked off, but mostly I would just find them by coincidence like when Shin Godzilla was coming to U.S. theaters.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

I got confirmation from Big Bad Toystore my metal cyborg boy's finally coming. Been waiting for him since April.

The figurine in question:

 

[OvercookedBacon]

Haven't read through the whole thread, but my opinion on the first US Godzilla flick is it's a good giant monster movie, but not a good Godzilla movie if that makes sense?

That being said, my taste in Godzilla movies tends to veer towards the Showa stuff, the wackier the better. Also I had a Japanese VHS copy of the 90s vs King Ghidorah, got that at a convention when I was like six or so.

 

[RumblyTumbly]

I got confirmation from Big Bad Toystore my metal cyborg boy's finally coming. Been waiting for him since April.

The figurine in question:
View attachment 1616603

Christ...that looks amazing!

Haven't read through the whole thread, but my opinion on the first US Godzilla flick is it's a good giant monster movie, but not a good Godzilla movie if that makes sense?

It does make sense. If they had named it literally anything else, it would have probably gained some level of acceptance akin to something like Anaconda. But when you throw Godzilla's name on it, it raises certain expectations for the character, and when those aren't met, fans get mad.

The 98 film is not the worst movie I've ever seen, but it is very much a product of its time. If you ever wanted to know what Jurassic Park would have been like if it was made by the minds behind Independence Day, then that's basically what this is.