Showa Godzilla Part 2 (1965-1969): Decline of the King
Preceded by Showa Godzilla Part 1 (1955-1964): A Monster in the Making.
All of the movies are labeled and organized in order, so if you want to read or skip a particular movie you can go straight to it, although most of this is written in retrospect of the previous film in the series, and obviously all of them contain spoilers.
Invasion of Astro-Monster/Monster Zero (1965) - Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (1966)/Son of Godzilla (1967)- Destroy All Monsters (1968) - All Monsters Attack (1969)
Invasion of Astro-Monster/Monster Zero (1965)
Invasion of Astro-Monster, otherwise known by its cooler localized name in the U.S., Monster Zero, is an insane movie, even more so than Vs. Kong. This film takes Ghidorah’s alien themes, being straight up set in space for most of the movie. Following two astronauts, Fuji and Glenn (who’s played by American actor Nick Adams, who speaks English the entire movie, which is a point I’ll get to a little later), we learn of a small planet between Jupiter and Saturn that was previously unknown, nicknamed Planet X. Sent to explore the planet, the two discover they aren’t alone and are taken in by seemingly friendly humanoid aliens called the Xiliens. Taken into the Xilien base underground, it soon starts shaking as their leader starts calling battle orders, much to the confusion of the astronauts.
The Xiliens soon explain that they’re constantly attacked by a monster they call Monster Zero. Looking out onto their cameras, however, we soon discover Monster Zero is actually Ghidorah. After Ghidorah leaves, the Xiliens beg the humans for help, asking to borrow Godzilla and Rodan in the hopes of defeating Ghidorah and being free from a life of fear under the planet’s surface. In return, they offer the cure for all illnesses contained in it (or just cancer in the Japanese version). The astronauts agree and return to Earth.
When they get back, Fuji meets up with his sister and her boyfriend, Tetsuo, an inventor, who he finds to be a bit of a loser who hasn’t done enough to make him worthy of his sister, proven further when he presents his newest creation, a machine that emits a loud, high-pitched siren that otherwise doesn’t seem to have much use. Somehow, however, he manages to sell it to a woman named Namikawa, with whom Glenn seems to be romantically involved with as the two drive off together after the transaction. Tetsuo, unbeknownst to the others, is kidnapped by Xiliens after this.
As Glenn and Fuji become increasingly suspicious about the Xiliens, they arrive to take Rodan and Godzilla and simply use tractor beams and transportation bubbles to pluck the two monsters out of their sleeping spots, Rodan out of a mountain, and Godzilla out of a lake, and take the two back to Planet X without the human’s permission. The monsters, arriving on the planet, quickly confront Ghidorah (which is actually a different, weaker Ghidorah as compared to the King Ghidorah seen in the last film, who wouldn’t appear again until Destroy All Monsters, but we’ll get to that) and defeat him quickly, sending the monster flying off, and Godzilla does a dance in victory.
Godzilla’s victory dance.
Fuji and Glenn, also having been brought to the planet, quickly decide to search the base while the battle is going on. They discover that the women are all identical, and all look exactly the same as Namikawa, much to Glenn’s confusion. They’re soon caught up to by several guards, who take them back, with less of an actual punishment than a slight scolding. Having completed their mission, the Xiliens give the astronauts an audiotape that holds the instructions for the cure. They leave Godzilla and Rodan behind, wondering if they’re doing the right thing abandoning the monsters.
When they get back and present the tapes, it reveals that the Xiliens actually plan to take over the Earth and how Ghidorah, Godzilla, and Rodan are under mind control, able to be used for the human’s destruction if they don’t surrender. Glenn, furious at Namikawa, enters her office, only to find her in her native outfit. She admits that while she initially came to spy on the humans, she did fall in love with Glenn. Soon, however, more of the Xiliens arrive and kill her for not following orders. As she dies, however, she slips a note in Glenn’s back pocket, and he’s kidnapped.
Finding himself in a prison with Tetsuo, the two read the note and find out that the machine Tetsuo created has a severe effect on the alien’s technology, as well as hurting them physically since they have some sort of electronic aspect to them. The two use a prototype Tetsuo has on him and defeat their guards, escaping. At the same time, the Xiliens prepare to unleash the monsters on the world. As the three begin their destruction, Glenn and Tetsuo meet up with Fuji, and together with the military, they construct a machine to amplify the noise machine. As they blast it as loud as they can, the Xiliens are quickly discombobulated and, forced into surrender, destroy themselves. The monsters, free from control, fight briefly, defeating Ghidorah once more as he flies off into space. Fuji finally acknowledges Tetsuo’s achievement, finally worthy of his sister’s love.
As far as cheesy alien invasion storylines go, this is one of the best in the whole series (There’s plenty more where this came from). With its breakneck speed, relatively easy-to-follow story, and a ridiculously fun, but still fairly serious story, Astro-Monster is an incredibly enjoyable film. The score is relatively similar to the last few movies, using a lot of themes and motifs and keeping, if not even going beyond, Ghidorah’s spacey, alien tone, adding almost more of a mysterious and slightly creepy tone representing the Xiliens’ clear villainy.
Visually, it has some interesting shots too, with a lot of fully black backgrounds used for the Xiliens’ base room. Ghidorah and Rodan look more or less the same as in the last movie, but Godzilla’s suit is different and is a massive step down from the last, fantastic suit, the face especially. With the head being a lot bigger in proportion to the face, many of his features are weird looking, namely his eyes and brow, which have been moved up way too far, and an odd, sort of bumpy looking mouth (the head all around is sort of tumorous looking, and not in a good way). His body is also quite lumpy as if he’s gained a few pounds during his nap following the fight with King Ghidorah. All around though, it’s not intrusive enough to be necessarily terrible.
Godzilla’s lumpy face in Invasion of Astro-Monster.
While not the most necessary-to-watch film in the series, Astro-Monster is still a fun ride. If you enjoy the campier nature of Vs. Kong as opposed to the more serious films and can’t take the cheesiness of the Showa era seriously, this is definitely one of the best alternatives that goes all-in with its hokeyness while sparing absolutely no expense in its action. It can be a little long, the longest film in the series other than the original so far at just over an hour and a half, but the pace is so fast that it barely feels like that. Easily one of the most entertaining aspects of the film is a small, incredible detail that took me a while to notice: Nick Adams, who plays Glenn, does not say a single word of Japanese the whole film, most likely due to this being the first-ever joint effort between Toho and an American studio.
It’s hilarious in both the Japanese and English version, since either way, someone’s mouth is moving at completely the wrong time, and it’s amazing to think that the entire movie was read off without Adams needing to understand what his co-actors were saying for the entire production of the film. According to others on set, though, Adams and Fuji’s actor, Akira Takarada, got on great, frequently joking around on set. Sadly, Nick Adams died young in February of 1968, which was labeled as either accidental, suicide, or undetermined, and still remains a mystery to this day, seeing as he had large amounts of paraldehyde and other sedatives in him during the autopsy; some of his acquaintances even suspected murder. Regardless of cause or reason, he’s one of the best aspects of the film, a thoroughly charismatic presence that added to the film’s already wonderfully cheesy tone.
Nick Adams (Glenn) and Kumi Mizuno (Ms. Namikawa).
Ebirah, Horror of the Deep/Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster (1966) and Son of Godzilla (1967)
The following two movies, which were some of the few films in the era not directed (or co-directed by) Ishiro Honda, but rather by Jun Fukuda, mark a lot of the problems of trying to keep a series running with a film every single year for five years in a row, as well as being, respectively, the 7th and 8th films in the series; these two movies are what happens when you run out of ideas. That isn’t to say they aren’t without entertainment value.
Ebirah, Horror of the Deep, localized as Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster, wasn’t actually originally supposed to be a Godzilla movie, but rather a King Kong movie called Operation Robinson Crusoe: King Kong vs. Ebirah, likely based somewhat on the concept of the novel Robinson Crusoe, which follows the adventures of shipwrecked man to keep it simple and not as… of the book’s time, let’s just say, but Kong was soon replaced by Godzilla, and would soon get his movie the following year with King Kong Escapes.
The story follows some people out on a boat who crash after Ebirah, a gigantic lobster, attacks them, so we’re starting off strong knowing the villain of this movie is an expensive delicacy as compared to the planet-destroying space dragon of the last few movies. They soon wash up on an island and find themselves in the hands of a terrorist organization known as Red Bamboo, who have enslaved the population of the nearby Infant Island (where Mothra lives) to create a yellow juice that keeps Bubba Gump away. The crashed people come across a native girl, and together they hatch a plan to wake up Godzilla (who just sort of happens to be on this island in some cave).
They hit him with a makeshift lightning rod, and he quickly beats up Ebirah, destroys Red Bamboo, and in by FAR the worst fight in the entire series gets pecked for a brief minute by a giant condor for absolutely no reason before blasting it out of the sky. As the crashed people and the natives escape and Godzilla puts an end to Red Lobster by ripping off his claws rather brutally, Mothra comes to save them in a huge net; Godzilla tries to fight her just for fun I guess, but she just kinda knocks him over and leaves before the island explodes, Godzilla just barely escaping, and the movie ends.
It’s not a good movie, by any stretch of the imagination. It still takes itself seriously, which is pretty much an impossible tone to even begin to have when your main threat is a big lobster who gets destroyed twice by Godzilla, but I guess that was to be expected when it was initially supposed to fight King Kong instead, which may have been a more equal match. The music is recycled stuff from the previous films for the most part, and it’s very clearly low budget and cheap-looking. The Godzilla suit is the same as the last movie but somehow even lumpier looking, Mothra is the same too, and isn’t particularly impressive in her couple minutes of screentime, and Ebirah is appropriately lobster-like, I suppose.
The somehow lumpier Ebirah suit.
That isn’t to say, again, it isn’t an entertaining movie. As a matter of fact, I’d say it’s the first So-Bad-It’s-Good Godzilla movie. It’s stupid and cheap and Ebirah and Red Bamboo are impossible to take seriously, and it’s thoroughly hilarious for that. I dreaded watching this movie because I thought its dumb setup would be boring to watch for 83 minutes, but it ends up being relatively fast, and its pure stupidity makes it thoroughly entertaining. If you’re looking for an actual good Godzilla movie though, this one is very easy to skip as nothing really important happens in it.
Unfortunately, Son of Godzilla IS somewhat important in that it introduces the eponymous son of Godzilla, Minilla (or Minya in the English version, sometimes). The human story of this movie is completely irrelevant, just something about testing a weather-controlling system. This story, at its heart, is about Godzilla being a horrible father. On whatever island they’re on this time, Godzilla discovers an egg being attacked by giant praying mantises, called Kamacuras, and after killing them, the egg hatches, revealing the most hideous creature in the entire series, Godzilla’s adopted son, Minilla. The newborn looks a bit like a sack of potatoes mixed with a lumpy brown toad, covered in a gross slime from the egg. Thankfully, he soon grows out of being a complete abomination and is soon up to just being a regularly ugly sin against God.
Minilla and Godzilla’s suits in this movie are the worst in the entire series, bar none. Godzilla isn’t looking a whole lot better than his kid, being slumped over, misshapen, and tired looking, which adds to how much of a depressed single dad Godzilla seems like in this movie, thankfully being the only movie this suit appears in. Minilla just looks like a cheap bargain bin Godzilla suit you’d find in a grocery store labeled “Radioactive Dinosaur Monster” to avoid copyright, with huge, glassy eyes, a pug-like face, and a weird, disturbingly humanoid body.
The Son of Godzilla suit and its abominable offspring.
The movie continues with Godzilla trying to teach Minilla how to roar and make atomic breathe, but after he’s unable to, he stomps on Minilla’s tail out of frustration, finally getting a jet of fire out of him. Minilla then accidentally wakes up a giant spider that almost eats him before Godzilla beats it up, and then the two kill it together as father and son. The humans then accidentally cause the island to be covered in snow, and Godzilla and Minilla huddle up together to try and stay warm, which is admittedly cute.
This movie is awful; it’s not the worst movie yet, we’ll get to that one after the next movie, but it is a truly bad movie, not even so-bad-it’s good. This is a point in the series where Toho tried to incorporate more childish elements to the series, which worked heavily against the good flow of seriousness, but still, campiness, that the series had just established and perfected a mere three years ago, and very clearly there’s a reason it does not work. Godzilla CAN work as a hero, and he doesn’t have to be tied down by his dark, nuclear origins, we’ve established that, but he just does not work in a family-based, father-son comedy.
As a character with such a destructive nature even if his most humorous of films, Godzilla makes a somewhat abusive father. As funny as Godzilla stomping on Minilla’s tail ultimately is, helped by him being completely unlikeable, it’s still not exactly a show of good fathership in, again, what’s supposed to be a heartwarming family comedy. Ultimately he and his son do work together to kill Kumonga (or Spiga in the English dub) the spider and snuggle up, which is, again, admittedly cute, but it still feels a little off after seeing him beat his son a few times, which sends some oddly mixed messages to what’s supposed to be a child audience. The idea of Godzilla having an adopted son, or offspring at all, would be re-explored later in the Heisei (1984-1995) series with much better results, as well as Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla (1998), but I’ll talk about that if I ever get around to those movies.
Son of Godzilla isn’t really an irredeemably horrendous movie, it’s not really offensively bad in any real way, but there’s nothing I can really pick out about the movie that could possibly give you a reason to watch it other than the goofy, charming music that’s oddly enough more jazzy and upbeat than anything, and the introduction of Minilla who, fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), only appears in the next two movies and one other movie much much later in the series, but for now we’ll have to deal with the goblin for a little while longer. Thankfully, he has very little to do with the next film, the ninth film in the series, a fan favorite and what was supposed to be the last Godzilla film ever: Destroy All Monsters.
Destroy All Monsters (1968)
Destroy All Monsters was initially supposed to be the final Godzilla film due to increasingly low ticket sales (although clearly 52 years later, that didn’t exactly come to fruition), and that sure does show, leaving what would certainly have been the series going out with a bang. This movie is the first-ever massive movie crossover event, featuring monsters from not only two movies like the previous shared-universe films, but five films previously separate from the Godzilla series, and featuring almost every monster seen in the series before other than Kong and Ebirah, because why would they ever bring back Ebirah?
A lot is established in the first 10 minutes; Chronologically, this is the final film in the Showa era one way or another, set in the far-away future of 1999. In this future, a moon base has been built with a small crew of astronauts populating it. At the same time back on Earth, all the monsters have been contained by the United Nations Science Committee on an island known as Monsterland (later called Monster Island) that serves as a sort of nature preserve for them, giving them plenty of food and space while keeping barriers and natural deterrents around the island so as not to let them out; under the island is the control center for all the barriers and allows them to be studied in peace.
However, the researchers in the underground base are soon attacked with a gas and are all knocked out, and we see the monsters being taken out as well. Soon after, governments around the world report monsters attacking their cities, freed from the island, and Japan calls the astronauts back from the moon. As they leave, they see a suspicious object flying past them, but they don’t have time to investigate. As they get back to Earth, and more monsters attack, they land in the island base, where they find two of the researchers, one being Captain Yamabe’s sister Kyoko and the other being the lead researcher, Dr. Otani. They act abnormally, and lead them further into the base, introducing them to the masterminds behind the attacks: an all-female alien race called the Kilaaks. They, of course, want to take over the world and have brainwashed all the researchers and monsters. The Queen of the Kilaaks then presents two options: surrender to them, or die to their monsters.
The astronauts try to shoot at her, but she seems to have a protective shield up. Still smiling, she floats back into the darkness and commands the brainwashed researchers to attack the astronauts, but they manage to fight through them and take the lead researcher with them for questioning, barely escaping. Brought back to the headquarters of the UNSC, Yamabe questions Dr. Otani, but he stays completely silent. As Yamabe goes into another room to talk to someone, Otani opens up a window and jumps out, killing himself. Running down to the beach he landed on, Yamabe is cornered by Kyoko and a group of mind-controlled men arrive to take the body, but the UNSC’s special police arrive and a standoff ensues, ending in the Kilaaks getting chased off, but without the body.
During Otani’s autopsy, a small metal ball is discovered behind his ear, and they immediately figure out that it’s the device the Kilaaks are using to control both the monsters and humans. At the same time, the astronauts and a huge search party clamber to find the Kilaak’s base and soon manage to run into it after noticing a small cave opening under Mt. Fuji, in which they find themselves trapped. The Queen appears and shows them their base, confident in victory, and once again repeats her offer to surrender or die. Still refusing, the Queen and her lackeys disappear once more and the astronauts leave the cave.
Tokyo soon finds itself being ravaged by all the monsters and is completely destroyed as one of Earth’s last major cities left standing. As this happens, Kyoko is seen watching the city be destroyed, but it is captured soon after by the UNSC and brought to their base. It’s discovered that her earrings actually contained her transmitters and are ripped off, but she doesn’t remember anything from when she was brainwashed, leaving everyone void of hope. However, in a small town in the Japanese countryside, an old man finds a weird rock, which it turns out is a transmitter for mind control devices. Soon, similar devices are found around the world, hidden in objects. The UNSC then figures out that the waves are being transmitted not from the Mt. Fuji base, but rather from a base on the moon (which explains the suspicious object from earlier that turns out to definitely have been a flying saucer).
The astronaut team infiltrates the Kilaak moon base, which is booby-trapped with flames, but they manage to quickly destroy much of the base and turn off the flames. They then find the main transmitter, and, in a hilariously tense scene, use a laser to cut it off its base as the wire catches fire, barely managing to get it off. As they escape, they see odd worm-like creatures crawling into rocks, and realize they’re the Kilaaks in their true forms, unable to keep their humanoid appearance without high temperatures (thus why their Earth base is under Mt. Fuji, a volcano). They finally leave in their spaceship, the base exploding in massive fireballs.
The monsters are finally freed from the Kilaaks’ control, and the UNSC uses the devices still implanted in them to direct them all towards Mt. Fuji. However, as they arrive, the Kilaaks are forced to call on their last line of defense: the first, original King Ghidorah from 1964. Ghidorah has been preparing for a rematch for 35 years in the depths of space, and as he arrives he nearly immediately takes on 6 monsters at once while a couple of the others stay back, completely outmatched. Anguirus tries to take him head-on, but Ghidorah picks him up as the poor monster grips to one of Ghidorah’s necks, lifts him into the air, and drops him, causing an earthquake that consequently exposes the Kilaak’s base. Ghidorah stomps Angurius brutally into the ground before returning back to the fray to take on Godzilla himself. For a good while, he’s still heavily at an advantage, but Gorosaurus kangaroo kicks him in the back, knocking the space dragon to the ground.
Anguirus and Godzilla, finally having the upper hand, bite and stomp Ghidorah’s throat, and as he begins bleeding and two of the heads die, the last one briefly gets up, but Minilla of all monsters manages to finish him off with a smoke ring, strangling the three-headed demon, finally putting an end to him for good. The Kilaaks, desperate, launch a final monster they call the Fire Dragon, which the astronauts quickly give chase to and shoot down, discovering it to actually be a flying saucer on fire. It does, however, manage to destroy the UNSC’s control device, and the monsters finally have full control of themselves. Godzilla, knowing who the real enemies are, tries to blast the barrier of the base a few times, but, frustrated, just decides to just stomp it, finally taking it out completely. The Kilaaks all revert to their primal forms and are contained, the Earth saved. The monsters return to their island in peace, and Godzilla and Minilla stand on the edge of the island, roaring triumphantly.
Destroy All Monster is a phenomenal movie, far and away the best farewell the monster could have gotten if this had been the end. That being said, it ended up not being, so as it stands it’s among the greatest in the series, and one of, if not the, best film in the Showa era post-Gojira. Because of its climatic nature, much of the film is very much a show of maximum effort. The suits are mostly reused older suits, which makes sense considering the number of monsters on screen, but Godzilla (thankfully) got an updated suit, and it looks great. Closer in style to the 1964 Vs. Mothra/Ghidorah TTHM suit, it’s well-proportioned and somewhat stocky, but still much more mobile-looking. His face got the greatest change, with a larger head, a large, almost frog-like mouth, and angry, piercing eyes. It’s not quite as good as the ‘64 suit, but it’s a great second place, for now, just beating out the Vs. Kong suit in my opinion, although I still love that one’s baggy reptilian charm.
The music is also primarily original, with its own theme. One of the most notable things about the soundtrack, and the opening of the film in general, was its fully animated title card, which makes this film special as the first Godzilla film with a dedicated animation to its title, which would become a staple of monster movie intros after, and it’s accompanied by a gloriously dramatic piece of music, which is a big theme of a lot of this soundtrack, a thoroughly bombastic, dark, dramatic tone. The alien noises also return of course for the space-faring and Ghidorah’s theme comes back as well. The OST, while having a dedicated theme of its own, uses a lot of past character themes incredibly effectively, notably Godzillas, Rodan’s, and the army march.
As for the story, it’s a lot less convoluted than I summarized it as, it just has a lot of moving parts in its incredibly fast-paced and relatively short runtime, being almost exactly an hour and a half. For as fundamentally cheesy as it is, the plot takes itself fairly seriously, and its serious moments are very effective, one of my favorites being a shot that harkens back to the original film, now in color, with a wide shot of a now obliterated Tokyo with sunset light cascading over the landscape; it’s just as hauntingly effective as it was in 1954, just without the same immensely horrifying context of the film emulating Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The action in this film is easily the best so far in the series, being fun and silly enough but with genuine stakes, and the first real, brutal beatdown of the series with Anguirus and Ghidorah respectively getting curbstomped and full, bloody action. The pyrotechnics in this film, as well as the cinematography, is notably an immense improvement over any film before. Shots, sets, action, explosions, all of it has a scale the series had never reached before, and clearly, this was the effects and camera team having perfected their craft and used it beautifully to really give this film the effect of a climax that’s still fairly well-aged even today.
So, for all the glory Destroy All Monsters achieved as a perfect ending to the Showa timeline, what should have followed in terms of the series, logically, should have been great, or at the very least on par with… any of the previous films, really, or just a reboot, a break, something. Instead, we got All Monsters Attack.
All Monsters Attack/Godzilla's Revenge (1969)
I am of the belief that children are not inherently stupid. It’s something I’ll probably discuss in more depth with a kid’s film I actually like, but there’s always been a large issue with making a movie for children in that many people believe kids are easily entertained, and making a kid’s film requires no effort, which has only been worsened by parents continuing to take their kids to movies that were made with no effort, such as The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, The Emoji Movie, Son of the Mask, and most recently, the abysmal Lion King and Mulan live-action remakes. Children’s films are capable of being thoughtful, important, and mature, while still being charming and magical, and appropriate for children, the How to Train Your Dragon, and Kung Fu Panda films coming to mind, along with Pixar’s best works like The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and Wall-E.
All Monsters Attack (localized as Godzilla’s Revenge for absolutely no reason) is not one of those thoughtful, important, mature movies. It’s an insult to the Godzilla series, and calling it a feature film is walking on some damn thin ice. This movie is a stitched-together crapshoot of nonsense that never should have been made. The story, what little there is, is that a kid who’s obsessed with Godzilla is getting bullied, and through a number of dream sequences learns how to outsmart them and beat them up, as Minilla (who speaks and sounds like Barney) is getting bullied too by a monster named Gabara. Meanwhile, some robbers are in the area, and the kid calls the police before they kidnap him for knowing where they’re hiding. In the end, the robbers get arrested, and the kid manages to stand up to the bullies and becomes their new leader by harassing a billboard painter.
Visually, this movie is a disaster. While the normal scenes are shot fine, although practically in only three locations, the dream sequences are almost ENTIRELY comprised of stock footage from older Godzilla movies, mostly the last three films (Ebirah, Horror of the Deep, Son of Godzilla, and Destroy All Monsters), the former two already being extremely cheap looking. What little new footage there is of the monsters is mostly okay, they use the Godzilla suit from Destroy, but Minilla is just as foul-looking as ever and somehow the new monster, Gabara, is even uglier, looking like a warty humanoid cat-dragon atrocity. The music is okay though; it’s very much not Godzilla music, which you can take as you will, but it’s a completely original score comprised mostly of weird upbeat jazz that is appropriately of its time.
I think the thing that really bothers me most about this movie isn’t how low brow it is, I can enjoy a good, low-budget, so-good-it’s-bad movie, but the problem is, this film isn’t. Despite being a mere 70 minutes, just over an hour, it somehow manages to drag. I can’t genuinely watch more than about half an hour of it without getting a headache or having my eyes glaze over, because nothing of significance is going on. It’s not like the movie is particularly devoid of (attempts at) theming or “suspense” either, they’re just terrible. When the messages of your film are “let your latchkey kid run into creepy abandoned buildings and learn to face their bullies through putting themselves in genuine danger” or “trick your bullies into being injured and then have your dad beat them up for you”, you’ve failed at making a positive film for kids, and the otherwise mind-numbing pace of the film makes it devoid of enjoyment for adults too.
Maybe I’m cynical or nitpicky about this movie, but it’s universally considered one of, if not THE, worst Godzilla movie, and I’d consider it my pick for the absolute bottom of the barrel, below the bottom in fact. Every single other Godzilla movie has something to love about it, something good or entertaining or charming, except for this one. You could argue it’s so bad it’s good, and I couldn’t fault you. If you find enjoyment in this film because of how atrociously horrid it is, more power to you, but the number one defense of this film is that it’s “just for kids”, and that isn’t fair to kids, because kids deserve better movies. I am, again, of the belief that kids are not inherently stupid.
So the next movie is the one where Godzilla FIGHTS garbage.
Continued in Showa Godzilla Part 3 (1971-1975), and the End of an Era.
