G: minus 25 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 Versus the Sea Monster (1966)

Ok, why this pause in the marathon, you might ask? Is it because I got tired of it? Heck no! Was it because something unforeseen happened? Well, yes, and no.  Let me explain:

I started out on this marathon by obtaining the whole catalog of godzilla-films for viewing. Only I kind of neglected to take into account that there were comments on this Ebirah movie that the sound was cut off halfway through. No biggie, I thought. I just get that one from another source. So when I came to that movie a week ago, I had forgotten to try and track it down. But little did I know that an un-dubbed version would be so hard to find. After getting 3 more versions, all ending up being dubbed I just gave up and saw the film in its americanized form. For what I could gather, there wasn’t so many alterations except the dubbing so I think I got somewhat a fair resemblance of the original.

So the film itself. It’s now 1966. And in the Americas the Batman craze is hitting the airwaves in earnest. Even a movie about the caped crusader was made with suitably goofy results. I mean. Sometimes you just can’t get rid of a bomb!

Wait. No, back to this one. In some ways it could feel a bit lazy. As once again we see both Godzilla and Mothra. And the newcomer Ebirah is little more than just a giant lobster. Sure, the effects-work were exceptional in parts. Especially where the giant claws are rising from the stormy oceans like the Krakken. But it really feels like they were running out of ideas for monsters in this one. And most of the film isn’t really about the monsters at all.

Most of this film details the exploits of a gang of misfits ending up on a strange island (Devils Island) inhabited by a military base run by some army calling themselves “The Red Bamboo” (aherm, are they supposed to represent the Chinese?), using the facilities to produce “heavy water for atomic bombs”. And among the slave-labor they have some captured natives from Infant Island. They are there to produce some “yellow liquid” that is used to repel Ebirah.

There are some hi-jinx during the first hour until they find Godzilla just sleeping in a cave, wake him up and there’s a rather non-provoked fight between him and Ebirah ending with G cracking off the arms of the crustational menace sending him fleeing to the horizon. Godzilla also swats some jets out of the sky and the Red Bamboo tries to repel him by way of electrical wires (because that usually work SO splendidly…).

So Godzilla wins the fight with Ebirah. Has a slight quarrel with Mothra as the giant moth rescues the slaves and the merry band of misfits away from the island that soon explodes.

Again, the miniature-work here was downright outstanding at times. But the smaller scale scope of the adventure kept it from being really awesome. G makes some strange gestures and I find it sort of hard to get myself pumped up for the fights.

Now, let’s see what the next one has in store… Oh, dear god, no… it’s…

SON OF GODZILLA!

Be seeing you.