G: minus 8 days

Gojirathon is me just writing up some thoughts about the movies I see while I conduct my little marathon of Godzilla-movies in anticipation of the new Hollywood retooling. Why Gojirathon and not Godzillathon? Well, because Rolfe already did his Godzillathon as part of his Monster Madness, and I don’t want to steal his work. I’ll be using the terms, G, Big G, Godzilla and Gojira somewhat interchangeably… since I can be a bit lazy at times, when it comes to these things.

Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992)

Ok, backing up to the Godzilla-series again. I’ll keep this one shorter than usual because of general sleep-deprivation.

One of the aspects of the Heisei aka Versus-era of the Godzilla-films is this feeling of being the start of just general remaking of older entires in the series. Think about it. For 20 years, between 1954 to 1975 they came up with new monsters and new setups (even if many of them were simplistic Monster on an island fare). Always having to renew themselves and try new stuff out. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it was something strange like Godzillas Revenge. And sometimes it was just damned annoying (Minya). So, the Heisei entries, how should I put it. feels, sort of, already done. Especially this one with Mothra.

While the last one had the extremely overcomplicated time-travel-plot to deal with, this one is a simplistic monster on an island. Most of it we have seen before, only now it is compressed into one movie and the two larvae has turned into two very different designs. Resulting in bickering between the siblings violent enough to level whole city blocks. Oh, and they can both shoot lighnting from their heads now, because the producers apparently thought that they weren’t frightening enough.

Now, while I do complain about the story, I really must commend this one on its effects. Most of the time I had quite some trouble finding the matte-lines and things almost always blend surprisingly well together. So, yes. on a purely technical basis. This is a very competently made production. It’s just a shame that the story just couldn’t keep up.

Allthough I can add another thing. Everyone always complain about how in Final Wars we barely see anything from the Godzilla in the title. But as I have watched these almost back to back now, I have realized that that is more of the norm than the exception. Practically all of the films have had the same structure when it has come to the issue of showing of the title character. Godzilla shows up for a short tease in the beginning, And then we see nothing of him until the final boss-fight in the last half-hour. And this has been the trend in Gojirathon up until now. Because the human story takes the back-seat for once and just lets the monsters do their thing.

Now, let’s see how things shape up in the next one, where G battles the robot that put him into retirement. Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla 2. I’m not quite sure what they count as the first Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla, But that’s for the next entry.

Be seeing you!

Oh, and PS

The song of Mosura is strangely catchy.  Click it to see and hear the Cosmos Twin Fairies sing about and talk about both Mosura and the evil twin Battra. 🙂

DS