Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is Rob
Speaker 1: Lamb and ooh. Today we're going to revisit nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: four's mathra Versus Godzilla. This episode originally published five twenty three,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. It is a whole lot of fun.
Speaker 1: Let's have it.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob
Speaker 1: Lamb and this is Joe McCormick.
Speaker 3: And today on Weird House Cinema, we are going to
Speaker 3: be talking about the nineteen sixty four giant monster movie
Speaker 3: mathra Versus Godzilla, directed by Ishiro Honda.
Speaker 1: This is our third Godzilla movie, following nineteen seventy one's
Speaker 1: Godzilla versus Hetera and nineteen sixty nine's All Monsters Attack.
Speaker 1: That's films eleven and ten, respectively. This is also our
Speaker 1: third issue a Honda film. He directed this All Monsters
Speaker 1: Attack and a nineteen sixty nine film titled Atragon we've
Speaker 1: talked about on the show before. That is a flying
Speaker 1: submarine and another Kaiju creature. He is. He is one
Speaker 1: of only a handful of directors that we have featured
Speaker 1: on three or more weird house cinema selections.
Speaker 3: You know, we are really doing the Godzilla films in
Speaker 3: a strange order, and by that I mean we're working
Speaker 3: first of all, backwards through time. But also we started
Speaker 3: with what are widely seen as some of the weirdest,
Speaker 3: most divergent films in the Showa era Godzilla catalog. So
Speaker 3: the first one we did, like you said, was Godzilla
Speaker 3: versus Hetera. That's from nineteen seventy one. That was indeed
Speaker 3: the eleventh film in the Godzilla cannon, and that one
Speaker 3: was a psychedelic ecological doom trip in which Godzilla is
Speaker 3: summoned to defend Japan from a toxic sludge mone monster
Speaker 3: that powers up by huffing pollution out of factory smokestacks.
Speaker 3: A lot of Godzilla fans regard Hetera as one of
Speaker 3: the worst films in the series. I do not share
Speaker 3: that opinion. I like it a lot more than some
Speaker 3: of the more mainstream monster slams in the middle of
Speaker 3: the original run. I think it's weirdness actually kind of
Speaker 3: makes it more unique, really makes it stand out. But
Speaker 3: I will agree, yes, it is one of the most
Speaker 3: unusual Godzilla films.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, if
Speaker 1: you're watching a Godzilla movie or any Kaiji movie, it's
Speaker 1: like you're in a good place. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So we did that one, and then the next
Speaker 3: one we covered was based on a listener suggestion that
Speaker 3: was All Monsters Attack from sixty nine. This was the
Speaker 3: tenth Godzilla film, as you said, and once again this
Speaker 3: one was a departure from the established format at this
Speaker 3: time because while the main series, starting from pretty early,
Speaker 3: had been a specially popular with kids, I think All
Speaker 3: Monsters Attack was the first Godzilla movie that you could
Speaker 3: really say was explicitly just made for children, and it
Speaker 3: was just a kid's movie. The main character is a
Speaker 3: lonely little boy whose parents are always busy working, and
Speaker 3: so he sort of has Godzilla and the previously introduced
Speaker 3: baby Zilla creature known as Manila. Like Mini Godzilla as
Speaker 3: imaginary friends. All Monsters Attack was also a very budget
Speaker 3: conscious film, making extensive use of archival footage from previous
Speaker 3: Godzilla movies, recycling fights and inserting them in creative ways
Speaker 3: into this framing narrative about the little boy who imagines
Speaker 3: the adventures of Godzilla and Manila. This one was also
Speaker 3: unusual for the series because within this frame narrative, it
Speaker 3: was understood that Godzilla and the other monsters are basically
Speaker 3: fictional beings. So they're not being portrayed as acting within
Speaker 3: the real universe of the movie, but they are being
Speaker 3: dreamed about or imagined about by the main character. So
Speaker 3: in Almoster's Attack, they are creatures of the imagination, and
Speaker 3: the main point of the story was about what they
Speaker 3: mean to the children who love them. There's actually a monologue.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you remember this, Rob there's like
Speaker 3: a monologue at the end of the movie that explicitly
Speaker 3: makes the case that the Kaiju are for children what
Speaker 3: the gods are for adults.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that one was very interesting in that in
Speaker 1: many ways, you could see it as a lesser Godzilla
Speaker 1: film because it is clearly, you know, aimed at children,
Speaker 1: and it has a has a mini Godzilla and so forth.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it does like chew a little bit on
Speaker 1: the meaning of a Kaiju film. So I really did
Speaker 1: appreciate that one as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So those were number eleven and then number ten,
Speaker 3: and now we're doing a big hopscotch down the chronology
Speaker 3: ladder to number four. Mathra versus Godzilla was the fourth
Speaker 3: film in the Godzilla franchise, and it represents the third
Speaker 3: time that Godzilla would face off against another giant monster
Speaker 3: in battle, the first time a Godzilla movie would include
Speaker 3: a monster that I think you should regard as explicitly
Speaker 3: good or as a protector of humans against a greater threat.
Speaker 3: This is a role Godzilla would himself usually take in
Speaker 3: later films, but here the protector is not Godzilla but
Speaker 3: rather his antagonist Mathra.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the title is Mathra versus Godzilla, which kind of
Speaker 1: does imply that Mathra has top billing. We'll get into
Speaker 1: that a little bit. But also it is like Mathra
Speaker 1: against Godzilla. Mathra is a force in opposition to Godzilla,
Speaker 1: And yeah, Mathra is absolutely good. Mathra is a protector.
Speaker 1: It's not one of these like though the enemy of
Speaker 1: my enemy monster is my friend monster. No, like Mathra
Speaker 1: is a divine being. The Mathra is the creature of
Speaker 1: the gods.
Speaker 3: But also, Mathra is not cute and friendly and cuddly
Speaker 3: the way that say Manila is right, Mathra is a
Speaker 3: somewhat frightening being, but frightening to protect us, to you know,
Speaker 3: frightening on the side of good.
Speaker 1: But she also looks very soft, like, yeah, she's kind
Speaker 1: of furree. So I mean there is a very nice
Speaker 1: touch the fur vibe with Mathra as well.
Speaker 3: I didn't think about the furriness. You are right there,
Speaker 3: you know, more texturally pleasing than most of the monsters
Speaker 3: in the Godzilla series, which are often quite spiny and
Speaker 3: scaly looking. But also Mathra Versus Godzilla is the last
Speaker 3: film of the original Toho run to make Godzilla a
Speaker 3: bad guy. You could argue that Godzilla is more or
Speaker 3: less the villain, or, if not a morally culpable villain,
Speaker 3: at least a threatening and destructive force to humans in
Speaker 3: the first four movies, So I think maybe we should
Speaker 3: run through those really quick to figure out how we
Speaker 3: get to Mathra Versus Godzilla. So you've got the original
Speaker 3: Godzilla in nineteen fifty four. This, as we've talked about
Speaker 3: in the past, is a dark, haunting, somber tale about
Speaker 3: a monster created by nuclear weapons testing, which rises up
Speaker 3: out of the sea and attacks Japan. The first movie
Speaker 3: here was inspired in part by some events in the
Speaker 3: real world. You can obviously think about the events of
Speaker 3: World War two and the atomic bombing of Japan, but
Speaker 3: then also there were more recent events that I've read
Speaker 3: were a major influence on the original Godzilla. One of
Speaker 3: these was the so called Lucky Dragon five incident, which
Speaker 3: happened earlier the year Godzilla was released. This was when
Speaker 3: the crew of a Japanese tuna fishing boat called the
Speaker 3: Lucky Dragon five were exposed to high levels of radiation
Speaker 3: as a result of the Castle Bravo hydrogen bomb test
Speaker 3: at Bikini Atole. And you can see the influence of
Speaker 3: the anxiety caused by this event in the way the
Speaker 3: movie articulates anti nuclear and anti militarist themes. A lot
Speaker 3: of Godzilla fans trained on the silly, sometimes themeless monster
Speaker 3: suit wrestling matches that you would get in later movies,
Speaker 3: I think will be quite shocked by the dark and
Speaker 3: serious tone of the first movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the original Godzilla black and white. Godzilla is an
Speaker 1: absolute destroyer and a thing that arises out of humanity's
Speaker 1: atomic age sins.
Speaker 3: Really Yeah. Now, this first movie was directed by Ishiro Honda,
Speaker 3: the same as the director of mathra Versus Godzilla, So
Speaker 3: it's not a question of like totally different creative inputs.
Speaker 3: We have the same main creative force behind these two movies.
Speaker 3: But we can talk about reasons they might be different
Speaker 3: across time. But the first movie was by Honda and
Speaker 3: it was a huge hit for Toho. So in this movie,
Speaker 3: Godzilla is not at I don't know if it makes
Speaker 3: sense to call him a villain, but he certainly has
Speaker 3: I think he's pretty close to a villain in the
Speaker 3: first movie. Certainly a destructive force of nature or a
Speaker 3: destructive force of nature having been twisted by human sins
Speaker 3: and technology.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's the way to look at it. Like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not like he has much of a persona beyond that.
Speaker 1: I mean, he is like some sort of dark anti
Speaker 1: god that has been summoned by human technology and human advancement.
Speaker 3: Not here to help yea. Yeah. Then after that, so
Speaker 3: that's fifty four. Then after that you've got Godzilla raids
Speaker 3: again in nineteen fifty five. This was a fast follow
Speaker 3: up movie to capitalize on the success of the original Godzilla.
Speaker 3: This one not directed by Ishi ro Honda but by
Speaker 3: Modeyoshi Oda. Mostly gone in this one are the anti war,
Speaker 3: anti nuclear themes. I haven't actually seen this movie, but
Speaker 3: from what I've read it, it's described as kind of
Speaker 3: a fast paced adventure where Godzilla ends up fighting another
Speaker 3: giant monster. I believe based on an ankylosaur model. It's
Speaker 3: like a quadrupedal dinosaur covered in spines called anguiras. Worth
Speaker 3: noting here that the Godzilla of this movie was not
Speaker 3: supposed to be the same individual as the original Godzilla,
Speaker 3: who died at the end of the first movie. Is
Speaker 3: just another giant radioactive reptile.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. At the end of the first movie, Godzilla
Speaker 1: is destroyed, and there's just kind of there's this warning.
Speaker 1: It's like, if we don't change our ways, there could
Speaker 1: be more Godzillas. Yeah, and yeah, it came to pass.
Speaker 1: Here they come.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then after this there actually would not be
Speaker 3: another Godzilla movie for eight years, but Toho did not
Speaker 3: abandon the Kaiju the giant monster format. Instead, they introduced
Speaker 3: new monsters in their own films, such as Rodin in
Speaker 3: nineteen fifty six. This is a movie about a giant
Speaker 3: flying teran don basically this one is also directed by
Speaker 3: Ishiro Honda, and then Mathra in nineteen sixty one, again
Speaker 3: by Honda, about a giant moth worshiped as a god
Speaker 3: by the people of a remote island. And I think
Speaker 3: you could argue that Mathra was the second most popular
Speaker 3: original Toho Kaiju after Godzilla.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that seems to be the case. I was reading
Speaker 1: a bit about this in Godzilla The show What Era
Speaker 1: Films nineteen fifty four through nineteen seventy five, which is
Speaker 1: the book Slash Blu Ray Collection that the Criterion Collection
Speaker 1: put out, with the textual part written by Steve Rifele,
Speaker 1: who is, as far as I can tell, like the
Speaker 1: main English language authority on Godzilla films. I've heard him
Speaker 1: on Fresh Air with Harry Gross before talking about Godzilla films.
Speaker 3: We were just talking about this off Mike, but we
Speaker 3: both just ordered this Criterion Collection disc set and it's
Speaker 3: a magnificent collection. Yeah, the book that comes with it
Speaker 3: is excellent.
Speaker 1: It is a testimony to just how beautiful physical media
Speaker 1: can be for films. But one of the points I'll
Speaker 1: keep coming back to some of the things that Rifle
Speaker 1: has to say about these about these movies, the Rifle
Speaker 1: points out that during this period this is like a
Speaker 1: golden age of Japanese cinema. Japanese film studios were really cooking.
Speaker 1: A lot of great serious films were coming out. But
Speaker 1: also in these other buckets of content. There was like
Speaker 1: a lot of innovation. People were trying new things, and
Speaker 1: I think that's part of what we're seeing here is
Speaker 1: like Godzilla was a success, but they were trying. They
Speaker 1: were expanding what Kaiju could be as well. So it's
Speaker 1: like they weren't going to rest on their laurels necessarily
Speaker 1: and just put out Godzilla films, though they will eventually
Speaker 1: kind of return to form with this, like let's come
Speaker 1: back to Godzilla and maybe we'll bring in some things
Speaker 1: that we learned and some creatures we created from these
Speaker 1: other pictures.
Speaker 3: That's right, And so here we finally get to that.
Speaker 3: In nineteen sixty three with King Kong versus Godzilla, they
Speaker 3: got the rights yep, Gong or right at least got
Speaker 3: some kind of rights to King Kong. So this was
Speaker 3: a sort of appointment meet Slam between as the poster said,
Speaker 3: the two mightiest monsters of all time. From what I've read,
Speaker 3: by the way, I think King Kong was one of
Speaker 3: the inspirations for the original Godzilla, Like there was a
Speaker 3: producer at Toho who had been thinking about King Kong,
Speaker 3: which had just had been made in the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 3: but I think had just been recently re released internationally.
Speaker 3: And then I think there were also some other creative inspirations,
Speaker 3: maybe the Beast from twenty thousand Fathoms. But anyway, so
Speaker 3: here we've kind we finally get to mash the flavors
Speaker 3: together King Kong versus Godzilla. It continued the giant monster
Speaker 3: conflict theme. I believe it is in this movie that
Speaker 3: we really start to see the first signs of silly
Speaker 3: moves taken from professional wrestling, and the monsters start to
Speaker 3: act a bit less scary and more funny and anthropomorphic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Rifle says that the that Honda was not
Speaker 1: a big fan of this, this sort of treatment of
Speaker 1: Godzilla and certainly some of the stuff we see in
Speaker 1: some subsequent films where Godzilla is essentially dancing and doing pratfalls. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think he makes a strong point that when Honda
Speaker 1: is on board for a picture, there is going to
Speaker 1: You're going to see more of a move towards capturing
Speaker 1: something serious about Godzilla and maybe leaning a little bit
Speaker 1: more into social commentary than some of the other pictures.
Speaker 1: Are those Some of the non Honda pictures, like the
Speaker 1: Hetero Picture, are actually quite serious in their own right
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I don't take it to be
Speaker 3: that Ishiro Honda was against having a silly, fun time
Speaker 3: and I think it's more like that. You know, he
Speaker 3: made the original movie, and he made it with serious
Speaker 3: themes in mind. This was in like anti nuclear weapons,
Speaker 3: anti war film, and now this same creature is just
Speaker 3: out here, you know, doing touchdown dances and stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like he did. He's seem to be opposed to
Speaker 1: ignoring the legacy of Godzilla and what Godzilla originally meant.
Speaker 1: You can certainly drift and evolve the brand, but you
Speaker 1: don't want to abandon some of the key principles of
Speaker 1: the thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah. But anyway, so you have King Kong versus Godzilla,
Speaker 3: and then finally you get to the movie we're talking
Speaker 3: about today, Mathra versus Godzilla in nineteen sixty four, where
Speaker 3: contrary to our expectations trained on the later movies, there
Speaker 3: is a protector monster, but it is Mathra, not Godzilla.
Speaker 3: Godzilla is on the loose again, smashing things up after
Speaker 3: being awoken from the dirt, and in the story, the
Speaker 3: people of Japan must It's interesting what they have to
Speaker 3: do to defend themselves. It is essentially to humble themselves
Speaker 3: before nature and before the gods. To they have to
Speaker 3: humble themselves in like, go to an island and ask
Speaker 3: the people there to allow them to petition their their
Speaker 3: great godlike moth dear to come to their aid. And
Speaker 3: the moth does come to their aid, but not before
Speaker 3: making them feel bad about their greed and arrogance.
Speaker 1: And they should feel bad. Yeah, we'll discussed.
Speaker 3: But remember I started talking about these four movies in
Speaker 3: order because this is the last time in this original
Speaker 3: run at least, that we really see Godzilla as the antagonist,
Speaker 3: the villain as opposed to the protector. After this movie,
Speaker 3: Godzilla starts his long face turn, repeatedly being called upon
Speaker 3: to battle more evil and more destructive monsters, essentially to
Speaker 3: himself do what Mathra does in this movie. I believe
Speaker 3: Godzilla would wouldn't really get to be the villain again
Speaker 3: until some films later in the seventies and eighties.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when they essentially are relaunching Godzilla and going back
Speaker 1: to its roots to some extent.
Speaker 3: But anyway, since we've been going backwards through time through
Speaker 3: the series, I wonder are we eventually going to work
Speaker 3: our way back to the fifty four original.
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think we should. It's interesting to think about
Speaker 1: about all of this in comparison to the way I
Speaker 1: think most of us have consumed Godzilla media, like, most
Speaker 1: of us have probably not seen them. First of all,
Speaker 1: most of us have not seen all of them, and
Speaker 1: most of us have certainly not seen them in order.
Speaker 1: I know, growing up, it's like I would catch Godzilla
Speaker 1: movies on television exclusively. I don't know that I had
Speaker 1: ever rented a Godzilla movie growing up. Maybe one of
Speaker 1: the later and one or two of the later, you know,
Speaker 1: films from the nineties or something, But for the most part,
Speaker 1: it's just Godzilla movies came on. You might not catch
Speaker 1: all of them, you might just catch parts of them
Speaker 1: even you don't didn't know where in the in the
Speaker 1: order they fell. And then you're just continually making new
Speaker 1: discoveries about what a Godzilla movie can be.
Speaker 3: Wait, do you remember what the first when you saw was?
Speaker 1: Ooh, that's a tough one, because you know there were
Speaker 1: some there was a there was a there was one
Speaker 1: Godzilla movie in particular, I remember seeing on Mystery Sens
Speaker 1: they three thousand as a kid. But then there were
Speaker 1: some others that they would just play on various Turner
Speaker 1: broadcast stations. I want to say that it was Godzilla
Speaker 1: versus the Sea Monster. I think that was the one,
Speaker 1: one of the big crab monster. I think that might
Speaker 1: have been the first one I saw a Bira. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was also released as Godzilla Versus the Sea Monster.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure this is the earliest one I saw,
Speaker 3: but my earliest memory of seeing one was a TV
Speaker 3: broadcast of the one that's now usually called Godzilla Versus.
Speaker 3: Actually not Godzilla Versus, just called The Invasion of the
Speaker 3: Astro Monster. It's the one where Godzilla fights an alien
Speaker 3: kaiju called Monster Zero. I remember the scene on the
Speaker 3: other planet where there's like a big I don't know.
Speaker 3: In my memory, it was like a football field on
Speaker 3: the surface of another planet.
Speaker 1: I don't think i've seen that one. Yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 1: obviously I'd love to hear listeners tell us what their
Speaker 1: experience was with the Godzilla franchise. What was the first
Speaker 1: Godzilla film you saw, and then what was your what
Speaker 1: subsequently did you get into, Like where did you go
Speaker 1: from there? Did you move forward in time or backwards
Speaker 1: in time. I'm sure there's some listeners who haven't even
Speaker 1: seen any of the show era Godzilla films, you might
Speaker 1: be more familiar with some of the current big Hollywood
Speaker 1: blockbusters that feature Godzilla.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I don't know if where's the best
Speaker 3: place to talk about this in the episode, so maybe
Speaker 3: I'll just say it here. One thing I was thinking
Speaker 3: about was how it feels like you can really detect
Speaker 3: a zeitgeist shift from the post war fifties to the
Speaker 3: mid sixties in Godzilla nineteen fifty four compared to Mathra
Speaker 3: versus Godzilla in nineteen sixty four. Like I was thinking
Speaker 3: about how in the original Godzilla, the main human hero
Speaker 3: the main human heroes are scientists, and especially one scientist
Speaker 3: who bravely sacrifices his own life to carry out a
Speaker 3: scientific plan to defeat the rampaging monster while also not
Speaker 3: bringing into being a weapon that would you know, potentially
Speaker 3: be abused by all humanity. In Mathra, the main human
Speaker 3: heroes are, by contrast, journalists. There is a scientist too,
Speaker 3: there's like a professor who tags along with them, but
Speaker 3: the main two are journalists, and their real struggle is
Speaker 3: resisting capitalistic excess and greed, not by performing heroic acts themselves, really,
Speaker 3: but by acting as representatives of humanity, or at least
Speaker 3: of the nation of Japan and humbling themselves before nature
Speaker 3: and traditional religion to like ask the embodiment of these
Speaker 3: forces to have mercy on them. And the difference is
Speaker 3: also there so much in the environment, Like the kind
Speaker 3: of haunted, diminished, destroyed kind of environment of the original
Speaker 3: Moved is so different in math Reverses, where the environment
Speaker 3: feels like it's just bustling and full of public works
Speaker 3: and things being built in industry and money making.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, the world of mathra versus Godzilla was a
Speaker 1: world on the move, a world on the grow. Everyone
Speaker 1: is very distracted with the capitalist exercise here, and that's
Speaker 1: kind of the whole point of it is that Godzilla
Speaker 1: is going to happen again. But if we're just too
Speaker 1: greedy and too bound up in our and chasing riches
Speaker 1: and growing everything, we're not going to be in a
Speaker 1: place where we can resist him again when he attacks.
Speaker 1: In fact, as we'll discuss, it's like all this greed
Speaker 1: is getting in the way of various preparations that could
Speaker 1: have been made to prevent this sort of thing from occurring.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but the great human sin lying behind the original
Speaker 3: Godzilla is actually a horrible, deadly destructive, collective project of humanity,
Speaker 3: whereas the sin in the human sin in mathra Versus
Speaker 3: is individual acts of greed and selfishness.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great point. But the solution again is
Speaker 1: getting out of that and getting into more of a
Speaker 1: collective approach towards problems. Yeah, all right, Well, let's go
Speaker 1: ahead and listen to just a little splash of the
Speaker 1: trailer here. This is, I believe, from the original Japanese.
Speaker 4: Trade, not what's say you know, what's.
Speaker 5: What's making Joe Cunt three and your respect.
Speaker 1: All right, if you would like to watch mathra versus Godzilla,
Speaker 1: you should be able to get a hold of it.
Speaker 1: To be clear, though, this is Manthra versus Godzilla, not
Speaker 1: Godzilla versus Mathra, because Godzilla versus Matha is the name
Speaker 1: of a later Godzilla film that features both of these kaiju.
Speaker 1: It's it's a mistake that you would be forgiven for making.
Speaker 1: And if you make this mistake, you're still going to
Speaker 1: get to watch a Godzilla movie, so you know, it's
Speaker 1: no big deal. But this is Mathra versus Godzilla.
Speaker 3: Put the year in there, nineteen sixty four. That'll do
Speaker 3: it for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you can get it a number of places. Again,
Speaker 1: the Criterion Collection Godzilla the Showa era Films fifty four
Speaker 1: through seventy five Blu ray set is amazing, hard back,
Speaker 1: beautifully illustrated book has no fewer than fifteen Godzilla films
Speaker 1: on Blu ray in there. If you're looking to stream,
Speaker 1: Criterion Channel currently offers this among many other Godzilla films,
Speaker 1: and there may be other places you can get it
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 3: I streamed it on the Criterion Channel before my discs
Speaker 3: came in, and it looks great on their transfer as well,
Speaker 3: So the streaming option there is really good. But yeah,
Speaker 3: apart from this Criterion release, I noticed that this movie
Speaker 3: is hard to get on a good Blu Ray. I
Speaker 3: think there's like there's one that's out of print or
Speaker 3: maybe some at least in the US region.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know it's a Japanese Blu ray that was
Speaker 1: being sold as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I watched it on Blu Ray, but I also had
Speaker 1: the pleasure of seeing it on the big screen at
Speaker 1: Atlanta's Historic Plaza Theater a week or so ago as
Speaker 1: part of the Silver Screams spook show series. It was
Speaker 1: pretty great. It was a packed crowd, like the entire
Speaker 1: theater was packed out at very enthusiastic bunch. There were
Speaker 1: people in their Godzilla and Mathra jackets that people were
Speaker 1: we in Mathra merks. There were some big Mathra fans there.
Speaker 1: They had a big Mathra puppet that they paraded around
Speaker 1: before we watched it. A whole lot of fun. I
Speaker 1: got to see it with my kid. And if you're
Speaker 1: interested in the Silver Screams spook Show series, they're going
Speaker 1: to be showing nineteen seventy seven Sinbad and the Eye
Speaker 1: of the Tiger in July.
Speaker 3: Oh man. I grew up with the vhs to that one.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, So we might come back to that one
Speaker 1: on Weird House.
Speaker 3: We'll see. From what I recall, it's a hoot in
Speaker 3: terms of story and acting, and it has some really
Speaker 3: really great stop motion monsters in it, a particularly a
Speaker 3: minotaur robot that's like a bronze or gold minotaur robot
Speaker 3: called the Mino Ton.
Speaker 1: All right, let's roll through the folks involved in this picture.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to hit everybody. There are going to
Speaker 1: be some that we may come back to later to
Speaker 1: credit who the actor was, but I want to hit
Speaker 1: the major points. So starting with the director again. It's
Speaker 1: issue Rohanda, who lived nineteen eleven through nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 1: legendary Toho film director who filmed nineteen fifty four of Godzilla,
Speaker 1: the Movie that started at all. He directed forty four
Speaker 1: pictures in total, eight of those Godzilla films, culminating in
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventy five film Terror of Mecca Godzilla, which,
Speaker 1: according to Steve Rifle, kind of comes back and serves
Speaker 1: as a proper cap to a lot of the silliness,
Speaker 1: you know, coming back and making maybe a little more
Speaker 1: serious and a little darker look at the Godzilla world.
Speaker 1: He also directed Rodin the Mysterians, The Human Vapor Tango,
Speaker 1: Frankenstein Versus Beragon, The War of the Gargantuan Space Amba,
Speaker 1: and more. He was a friend of director Akira Kurosawa
Speaker 1: and served as director counselor or or chief assistant director
Speaker 1: on Kurasawa's nineteen eighty five epic Run, and his name
Speaker 1: continues to appear in the credits on Godzilla movies and
Speaker 1: in other homages to the Godzilla franchise. According to Steve Rifle,
Speaker 1: Honda started out directing more like sort of like lower budget,
Speaker 1: thoughtful films about youthful characters and sort of you know
Speaker 1: the challenges of growing up. But then you know, ends
Speaker 1: up getting thrown into this world of Godzilla, and this,
Speaker 1: you know, comes to defind him as a filmmaker. And
Speaker 1: you know, he kind of stuck to his guns as
Speaker 1: much as possible about the seriousness of the original Godzilla picture,
Speaker 1: and so when his name is attached to it, yeah,
Speaker 1: there does seem to be this this pivot back to
Speaker 1: awards the darker roots of the being. All right, So
Speaker 1: that's the director. A writer once more is Shinichi Sakazawa,
Speaker 1: who of nineteen twenty through nineteen ninety two frequent collaborator
Speaker 1: with Honda and scribe of many Godzilla movies, beginning with
Speaker 1: sixty two's King Kong Versus Godzilla. Their Godzilla credits stretch
Speaker 1: from here all the way up to nineteen eighty nine's
Speaker 1: Godzilla Versus Bio Lanta. That's just a story credit, but
Speaker 1: still that's kind of like the full saga of their
Speaker 1: credits with the Godzilla franchise.
Speaker 3: Speaking of tone and seriousness, I think another one of
Speaker 3: the things Rifle mentions in that book is that there
Speaker 3: were a number of writers who contributed to this early
Speaker 3: run of Godzilla films and Sekizawa, I think is the
Speaker 3: one more often associated with a somewhat lighter tone and
Speaker 3: more openness to comedy, which is there in Mathra. To
Speaker 3: be clear, like this one is. It's not as silly
Speaker 3: as some of the later movies, but it does have
Speaker 3: a lot of comedy. Like the villains are very clownish in.
Speaker 1: It, yes, the human villains. Yeah, yet it has some
Speaker 1: great human comedy. The monsters are mostly treated with abjects seriousness,
Speaker 1: but there's some very silly human antics in there as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And also the guy who just is always eating eggs.
Speaker 1: Yes, we'll get to him in a second, but yeah,
Speaker 1: so we'll start with talking about the humans here and
Speaker 1: the monsters. I want to start with the forces of liberty,
Speaker 1: progression and also eggs. We mentioned that the leads the
Speaker 1: main characters here are journalists, and our main hero journalist
Speaker 1: is the character Ichiro Sakai played by Akira Takarata, who
Speaker 1: lived nineteen thirty four through twenty twenty two. Cocky but
Speaker 1: honorable journalist, a little tough to love at first. He
Speaker 1: comes off a little rough around the edges, but you
Speaker 1: grow to realize that he really cares about the truth
Speaker 1: and about doing what's right in the world world through
Speaker 1: his journalism.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he from the beginning has integrity. He's not as
Speaker 3: likable in the beginning just because he's kind of he's
Speaker 3: sort of bossy and he's like demanding of respect from
Speaker 3: people around him, and I don't know, maybe maybe they're
Speaker 3: not giving him enough respect. I don't know, but yeah,
Speaker 3: you come around to him throughout the movie.
Speaker 1: So Takarata has the top billing here, but he actually
Speaker 1: appeared in different roles in numerous Godzilla films, including fifty
Speaker 1: four's Godzilla Invasion of the Astro Monster, in nineteen sixty five,
Speaker 1: Godzilla versus the Sea Monster from sixty six, as well
Speaker 1: as nineteen ninety two's Godzilla versus Mathra and Godzilla Final
Speaker 1: Wars from two thousand and four. He's also in King
Speaker 1: Kong Escapes from sixty seven. That's one I haven't seen yet,
Speaker 1: but it's always been on my list because it features
Speaker 1: not only King Kong in Kaiju form, but also a
Speaker 1: mecha Kong called Macanny Kong, and so he's in that.
Speaker 1: And then Takarada is also in the nineteen fifty five
Speaker 1: I believe Yeti horror film Half Humano. All right, so
Speaker 1: he's our lead journalist, but then his photographer is the
Speaker 1: character Junko Nakanishi, played by Yuriko Hoshi, who lived nineteen
Speaker 1: forty three through twenty eighteen. She also appears in Gdora
Speaker 1: the Three Headed Monster from sixty four in a different role,
Speaker 1: as well as in Godzilla versus Mega Gurius in two thousand.
Speaker 1: Her other credits include nineteen sixty eight's Kill and nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety six's Night Trains to the Stars. This was a
Speaker 1: supporting role that earned her a Japanese Academy Award.
Speaker 3: In this movie, she plays a character who is sometimes
Speaker 3: kind of impractical or overly concerned with the artistic side
Speaker 3: of life. For certainly for her boss at the paper here,
Speaker 3: who's like, you're not doing art, just snap the pictures
Speaker 3: and move on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't have to focus your camera, just take
Speaker 1: a picture of it.
Speaker 3: But she's also really kind of the conscience of the movie,
Speaker 3: Like she gives a speech on the island of Ewa
Speaker 3: that our ticket that is sort of like what motivates
Speaker 3: the people to say, okay, Mathra can come dear Aid
Speaker 3: and she and multiple points along the film is kind
Speaker 3: of the voice of reason and conscience when other people
Speaker 3: are doing wrong.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah, Yeah, she's no mere sidekick here.
Speaker 3: But she's also amusingly pushy. Like there's one part where Ichi,
Speaker 3: the other reporter, is like trying to get a question
Speaker 3: with this professor, and the professor is like, I don't
Speaker 3: have time for this, and then she butts in and
Speaker 3: she is like, wait, one question, and then he's like, okay,
Speaker 3: what is it? And then she just steps aside and
Speaker 3: it's like okay, yeah, ask.
Speaker 1: Him, all right. So those are our journalists. But we
Speaker 1: do have a scientist in the mixed Professor Mura, played
Speaker 1: by Hiroshi Kozumi, who lived nineteen twenty six through twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: He'd also played a scientist character in Mathra, the previous
Speaker 1: film to feature this monster, and return playing the same
Speaker 1: professor character in Godora the Three Headed Monster. His other
Speaker 1: films include Atragn nineteen sixty three's Matango, Godzilla Versus Mega, Godzilla,
Speaker 1: Godzilla Raids Again, and Ikiu from nineteen.
Speaker 3: Fifty two, Oh, the Corsawa movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of as when you start looking at
Speaker 1: the actors in Godzilla film, it's pretty typical to see that. Okay.
Speaker 1: They've been in various other Godzilla and Kaiju films from Toho,
Speaker 1: and they also have bit or supporting roles in various
Speaker 1: Krosawa films. Okay, so that's a trend that will continue
Speaker 1: to sit here.
Speaker 3: One thing I didn't realize is that this character also
Speaker 3: appeared in the standalone Mathra film which came earlier.
Speaker 1: Well, the actor did not the character, yeah, I see, okay,
Speaker 1: but he does. The confusing part is he does return,
Speaker 1: apparently playing the same character in a later Godzilla movie.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, Well, because there's a point where these like
Speaker 3: the fairy twins in this movie show up and start
Speaker 3: talking about Mathra, and it's kind of like, oh Mathra.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you know they've made probably made headlines, right, Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 1: We mentioned the comic relief character. This is a euro
Speaker 1: Nakamura played by you Fujuki, who have nineteen thirty one
Speaker 1: through two thousand and five. He's pretty great here again,
Speaker 1: he is a comic relief character. My favorite thing about
Speaker 1: him is that, as you mentioned, he's always eating eggs
Speaker 1: and he has an egg cooker on his desk at work,
Speaker 1: which I love.
Speaker 5: Good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love egg cookers. I think it's It and
Speaker 1: the rice cooker are two of the most fabulous unitasker
Speaker 1: devices that have been developed for the kitchen. But the
Speaker 1: idea of having one on your desk at work and
Speaker 1: making that the whole office smell like boiled eggs is
Speaker 1: just in and of itself comedic.
Speaker 3: Huh. So I'm a big fan of the rice cooker.
Speaker 3: I love my rice cooker. I use it all the time.
Speaker 3: I've never used a dedicated egg cooker. I don't even
Speaker 3: know how does it work. Is it hard boil.
Speaker 1: Or well, you can do hard boiled and to some
Speaker 1: degree of softer boils. They're like different levels that you
Speaker 1: fill the water up to, but then there's still kind
Speaker 1: of you still have to catch them at the right
Speaker 1: moment and then ice them down before they finish cooking.
Speaker 1: So we've had one for ages and I'm still refining
Speaker 1: exactly how to use it. The best way to try
Speaker 1: and get those, you know, those precious runny eggs, you know,
Speaker 1: for you know, to go in ramen and so forth.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I do love a soft boiled egg. But
Speaker 3: this guy eats so many of them in the movie.
Speaker 3: He's always just munching on a soft boiled while they're
Speaker 3: talking about a big like alien egg or monster egg.
Speaker 1: Right, and sometimes like the solution is right there. He's
Speaker 1: the first one to realize that the solution to a
Speaker 1: problem might be egg based.
Speaker 3: Yes, by the way, just unpaid product endorsement, the Zoji
Speaker 3: Rushi rice cooker. It's like, that's got to be one
Speaker 3: of my top brand loyalties. I love that thing, makes
Speaker 3: me happy every time I use it.
Speaker 1: Well, maybe one day we'll come back and discuss nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty seven's Branded to Kill. That's another Japanese movie, and
Speaker 1: that one prominently features rice cook Oh nice, all right,
Speaker 1: we'll see. I'm gonna skip over the newspaper editor. We
Speaker 1: may come back to him. I will point out that
Speaker 1: the actor that is generally credited with playing Mathra in
Speaker 1: one former or the other here is Katsumi Tazuka. Born
Speaker 1: in nineteen twelve. His death date is not comparently known.
Speaker 1: Played various monsters in different Toho films alongside Nakajima, our
Speaker 1: main Godzilla actor. He apparently served as an assistant to Nakajima.
Speaker 1: And then we have the twin fairies, the Shobajen, and
Speaker 1: they are played by the Peanuts. The Peanuts were a
Speaker 1: singing duo, a twin singing duo, Emmy and Yumi Ito.
Speaker 1: Here they are reprising their roles from the earlier Mathra
Speaker 1: film if even if you haven't seen one of these movies,
Speaker 1: you've probably seen clips or stills. They are two tiny
Speaker 1: identical Japanese women who sing to Mathra. Sing for Mathra.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like a form of worship. Really, that's
Speaker 1: the way I interpret it. The Mathra is a divine being,
Speaker 1: and Mathra must be awoken and appealed to through some
Speaker 1: sort of worshipful song.
Speaker 3: But also they are kind of divine beings, which is interesting.
Speaker 3: They're like the intercessors on behalf of regular humans. Are
Speaker 3: these two tiny humans, dull sized humans who like pray
Speaker 3: to Mathra for us?
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're kind of intermediaries between us and the gods,
Speaker 1: between us and Mathra, and maybe in a sense too,
Speaker 1: they are Mathra. There's a lot to chew on here.
Speaker 1: So Emmy lived nineteen forty one through twenty twelve and
Speaker 1: you may lived nineteen forty one through twenty sixteen. Both
Speaker 1: were born in Nagoya, which will be important because that's
Speaker 1: the main city where everything happens in this picture. They
Speaker 1: have a string of credits before nineteen sixty one's Mathra
Speaker 1: and apparently we're already a sensation in Japan, in America
Speaker 1: as well as parts of Europe I believe, especially like
Speaker 1: Germany and Austria. And their subsequent credits include not only
Speaker 1: this nineteen sixty four film, but also godor the Three
Speaker 1: headed Monster. Mathra shows up, so the twins need to
Speaker 1: show up. A handful of musical comedies followed, and they
Speaker 1: performed on The Ed Sullivan Show in nineteen sixty six.
Speaker 1: They retired from performing in nineteen seventy five, but their
Speaker 1: music goes seem to be have been again quite a hit.
Speaker 1: It ranged from folk songs like Japanese folk songs, to
Speaker 1: covers of various Western hits. They toured quite a bit,
Speaker 1: and if you look them up on discogs you can
Speaker 1: find all sorts of amusing album covers, both from Japan
Speaker 1: and also various international releases.
Speaker 3: Did we mention that they not only sing songs to Mathra,
Speaker 3: but they also speak all of their lines together in unison. Yes,
Speaker 3: it's a striking effect.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was reading that. That's apparently. That was one
Speaker 1: of the appeals of their act too, is that their
Speaker 1: voices were essentially identical, and so it made for some
Speaker 1: great vocalizations.
Speaker 3: It's by turns funny and creepy in the movie. Yes,
Speaker 3: so it works out well.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get into the forces of corruption and
Speaker 1: destruction here. First of all, we have the character Kumayama.
Speaker 1: He is the greedy guy with the mustache, played by
Speaker 1: Yoshifumi Tajima, who lived nineteen eighteen through two thousand and nine,
Speaker 1: another regular Toho performer with credits that include various monster films,
Speaker 1: with also some bit parts in Kusawa movie sprinkled In
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 3: He is a comical villain in this who shows up
Speaker 3: to just beam with greed. If greed was embodied, it's
Speaker 3: like in the way this guy plays the role that
Speaker 3: he has not a Hitler mustache, but it's in the ballpark.
Speaker 3: It's like a shrunken What I would say is it's
Speaker 3: like if you imagine a handlebar mustache, but then you
Speaker 3: shrink it down so that it only takes up about
Speaker 3: a third of the width of his upper.
Speaker 1: Li Yeah, it feels I'm not sure if this is
Speaker 1: this is something that would have resonated at the time
Speaker 1: within the intended audience, but it feels like a very
Speaker 1: carny mustache, you know.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, So he's just always behaving crudely and greedily.
Speaker 3: It's like, you know, the director told him in every scene,
Speaker 3: just think about I want to get money, and yeah,
Speaker 3: that's what he's doing now.
Speaker 1: His financial backer is the character Euro Torajada, played by
Speaker 1: Kenji Sahara born nineteen thirty two, and as of this recording,
Speaker 1: I believe still out there. He actually played the dad
Speaker 1: in All Monsters Attack and was also in Atragon. So
Speaker 1: he's a Japanese actor who has the distinction of being
Speaker 1: I think in the most Godzilla films thirteen of them,
Speaker 1: in addition to numerous other Toho pictures. He was in
Speaker 1: the first Godzilla movie, Pops Up as a newspaper reporter,
Speaker 1: and then I think a party guy in a boat
Speaker 1: as well, so you know, he's all over the place.
Speaker 1: His last Godzilla film was two thousand and four Final Wars,
Speaker 1: and it looks like he was last active around twenty eleven. Also,
Speaker 1: I believe he was the star of Mighty Jack, the
Speaker 1: Japanese television series that MST three K fans should know about.
Speaker 3: Now, there were some things about this character I didn't
Speaker 3: fully understand he is like the secret partner of Kumiyama.
Speaker 3: Was it implied that he's involved in crime or something.
Speaker 3: He's got like a big cabinet full of money, and
Speaker 3: he's you know, he's being like sort of kept secret,
Speaker 3: Like Kumayama is the public facing owner of the egg
Speaker 3: and this guy is like his his secret backer, but
Speaker 3: is also scamming Kumayama.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I didn't get as much a sense of organized
Speaker 1: crime here. I feel like if that had been the case,
Speaker 1: there would have been more obvious tells to that effect.
Speaker 1: But it did feel like there are sort of two
Speaker 1: sides of the capitalist problem has received at the time
Speaker 1: in Japan. You know, It's like one guy is the
Speaker 1: more obvious, greedy, you know, cash fisted individual and the
Speaker 1: more you know, overt corruptive force, and the other side
Speaker 1: is like standing back and saying like, oh, I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not the idea man here, I'm just the guy
Speaker 1: with the big locker full of cash, you know, like
Speaker 1: they're yeah, you know, he's.
Speaker 3: He needed all their loan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I agree his his role and everything is
Speaker 1: maybe a little more cryptic to figure out it, you know,
Speaker 1: at least you know from our standpoint as viewers. Yeah, yeah, Oh,
Speaker 1: and then we got to come back to Haro Nakajima
Speaker 1: playing Godzilla again. We've mentioned him on the show before.
Speaker 1: He lived nineteen twenty nine through twenty seventeen, played Godzilla
Speaker 1: in twelve consecutive films. He was also in Mathra in
Speaker 1: War of the garganshuas as well as a character I
Speaker 1: saw was seven samurai and a bit roll, not as
Speaker 1: a giant monster, and he's yet generally considered an an
Speaker 1: absolute legend when it comes to monster suit performers, and
Speaker 1: I have to say his physicality in the monster suit
Speaker 1: in this movie is especially good. There's kind of a
Speaker 1: wild abandon to the way Godzilla moves as he stumbles, tumbles,
Speaker 1: sprints and lurches through the landscape.
Speaker 3: Godzilla really feels angry and full of rage in some
Speaker 3: of his scenes. I'm thinking of the scenes later on
Speaker 3: when he's getting silked up by the grubs and he
Speaker 3: just looks furious at what's happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like when he destroys Nagoia Castle, uh, which which
Speaker 1: I've seen in real life. I've been to Nagoya, Uh.
Speaker 1: But when he destroys it, we'll get to it's kind
Speaker 1: of kind of like trips and falls into it and
Speaker 1: then is mad at It's kind of like when you
Speaker 1: stub your toe on a coffee table and you're like,
Speaker 1: what is this coffee table doing here? You dumb coffee table. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a there's a lot to unravel there about Godzilla,
Speaker 1: the menace in this picture and how I believe other
Speaker 1: have commented on this. Maybe it was Steve Rifle that
Speaker 1: was writing about this that while Godzilla is definitely the
Speaker 1: threat in the villain and you know, the monstrous and
Speaker 1: antagonist of this picture, there's also a sense that maybe
Speaker 1: he's like a little less of a vehicle of vengeance
Speaker 1: compared to the original Godzilla, you know, like he's maybe
Speaker 1: more akin to a natural force here.
Speaker 3: Yes, that he's he's not nice, but it does feel
Speaker 3: a little bit more like he's doing these things kind
Speaker 3: of accidentally or at least recklessly. Yeah, though he does
Speaker 3: I think get mad at Mathro, he does. There is
Speaker 3: some heat between these two.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then finally getting to the music, we have
Speaker 1: legendary Japanese composer Akira Ifukube, who lived nineteen fourteen through
Speaker 1: two thousand and six. Not only did he give us
Speaker 1: the incredible Godzilla theme music, which is just at its
Speaker 1: best in this picture. But he also created that signature roar.
Speaker 3: Oh I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was apparently achieved by rubbing a resin covered
Speaker 1: leather glove across the loosened strings of a double bass.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, It's hard for me to picture how that
Speaker 1: all comes together because I'm so used to hearing Godzilla's roar.
Speaker 1: It just it feels organic. It feels like that's just
Speaker 1: the sound Godzilla makes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the sound Mathra makes in this movie is great too.
Speaker 3: That high pitched metallic chirp, that's great. Yeah, it's piercing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that again, his music is just an inseparable
Speaker 1: part of the true Godzilla franchise. His other films include
Speaker 1: Atragon Space Amba from seventy nineteen fifty six is the
Speaker 1: Burmese Harp. That's a non Kaiju film. But his theme
Speaker 1: music here for Godzilla, especially Godzilla's key theme, is just incredible.
Speaker 1: And if we didn't didn't have this theme, we wouldn't
Speaker 1: have that really awesome Pharaoh manch track, Simon says, which
Speaker 1: heavily samples not only the Godzilla music but the specific
Speaker 1: Godzilla music from this movie. So if you're a hip
Speaker 1: hop fan, old school hip hop fan, you know this track.
Speaker 1: It's conspicuously used. Yeah, in an amazing way, I think.
Speaker 1: Dare I say a loving way.
Speaker 3: But yes, in general, if Akube's music for the Godzilla
Speaker 3: films is wonderful, I'd loved I think we've talked about
Speaker 3: this before, but one thing that really got my blood
Speaker 3: going for shin Godzilla when it was coming out is
Speaker 3: the way that it used like the old sounding theme
Speaker 3: from the original film, but with the new movie footage.
Speaker 3: You know that minor key theme b da dun da
Speaker 3: da dun. Oh man, it's so good. But also his
Speaker 3: original music for Mathra itself or for Mauth versus Godzilla
Speaker 3: is a whole new ballgame, and it's wonderful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Godzilla theme music. I kept thinking about this.
Speaker 1: It has a lumbering feel to it, like it feels
Speaker 1: like the great footsteps of a Titanic monster, but then
Speaker 1: there's also this sense of rising and it just works
Speaker 1: so exceptionally well with the visuals of pretty much anything
Speaker 1: Godzilla is doing on the screen.
Speaker 3: All right, you ready to talk about the plot, Let's
Speaker 3: get into it. So we begin with as expected that gorgeous,
Speaker 3: familiar mid century Tohoscope logo, which I love. Every time
Speaker 3: I've said this before, every time I see it makes
Speaker 3: me happy. It makes me think of precious gems.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: When it comes on screen, it's like I've been kind
Speaker 3: of scratching through a bunch of gravel and I come
Speaker 3: upon a cache of emeralds.
Speaker 1: I have to admit I loved it. Watching this live,
Speaker 1: there is thunderous applause for the Toho logo alone, so
Speaker 1: I love the enthusiasm of that.
Speaker 3: So during the credit and title sequence, you've got lead,
Speaker 3: heavy doom horns, that great score. We were just talking
Speaker 3: about playing over a dark shot of the open sea
Speaker 3: in a typhoon and rain is hammering down, the waves
Speaker 3: are huge lightning flashes, and the clouds in the sky,
Speaker 3: and as the credits wrap, we cut from the black
Speaker 3: mid ocean to somewhere along the shore where waves are
Speaker 3: crashing against a sea wall, and then we get a
Speaker 3: close up on a sign that says in Japanese, congratulations
Speaker 3: karatea coast reclamation project complete. I think there's supposed to
Speaker 3: be some humor here, contrasted with the weather and the
Speaker 3: fact that the music is still in like Death of
Speaker 3: the Universe mode, and we pan over to appear beside
Speaker 3: the sea. There's a bunch of stuff set up for
Speaker 3: a party. There's like a tent pavilion and streamers and
Speaker 3: picnic tables, and we watch all this stuff just get
Speaker 3: buffeted by winds and eventually swept away, and the waves
Speaker 3: surge over the sea wall and tear down a bunch
Speaker 3: of power lines. We see a boat washed ashore and
Speaker 3: it crashes into everything. It's a monster storm. The next
Speaker 3: day there are blue skies overhead as hundreds of people
Speaker 3: gather at the coast we just saw, and the beach
Speaker 3: is now piled with rubble washed ashore by the typhoon,
Speaker 3: and we get an interesting effects shot I think done
Speaker 3: in miniature of the sea wall with a long row
Speaker 3: of giant yellow pump stations in operation. I assume draining
Speaker 3: water out from behind the wall and blasting it back
Speaker 3: in the ocean of these pipes that look like cannons.
Speaker 3: So a visual metaphor for civilization and technology re establishing
Speaker 3: dominance over the forces of the natural world, with a
Speaker 3: kind of violence implied because the pumps look like gun barrels.
Speaker 3: As I mentioned, earlier. Greatly in contrast to the haunted,
Speaker 3: diminished Japan of the original Godzilla, this movie takes place
Speaker 3: in the middle of what feels like an economic and
Speaker 3: industrial boom. There's just capitalistic exuberance. Everything's under construction, everybody's
Speaker 3: making money. Businessmen feel like gods, and they just they
Speaker 3: cannot be resisted. And here in the crowd at the coast,
Speaker 3: we meet a couple of our major characters. We meet
Speaker 3: Ichiro Sakai Ichi, a reporter for the Micho Times, and
Speaker 3: when we first meet him, he's very impatient, focused strictly business.
Speaker 3: And also Junko Nakanishi, his photograph photographer assistant, again more
Speaker 3: flighty and kind of contemplative. As she's observing the scene,
Speaker 3: she says she's trying to come up with a theme
Speaker 3: for her photo spread, and Echiro tells her, your theme
Speaker 3: is typhoon. Come on. Now, we see Echi confronted by
Speaker 3: a clownish local politician who is angry at the fact
Speaker 3: that he wrote an article about the destruction caused by
Speaker 3: the typhoon. The assemblyman here does not like that Ichi
Speaker 3: has been reporting on the destruction. He insists that their
Speaker 3: coastal reclamation project will be the best ever. It's you know,
Speaker 3: it's going to happen on time. How dare you write
Speaker 3: about this? And nearby, Junco is setting up for a
Speaker 3: photograph of all the garbage washed up on the shore,
Speaker 3: and she realizes one thing in the frame is a
Speaker 3: weird shimmering blue green object, kind of like a giant scale.
Speaker 3: I wonder what that is. But here's one of the
Speaker 3: scenes where Ichi is telling her like, don't waste time
Speaker 3: with light meters, just start clicking that shutters. Not high art,
Speaker 3: but I think Junko just feels differently. She has more
Speaker 3: of an artistic sensibility.
Speaker 1: She's like, we should do this right, yeah, yeah, And
Speaker 1: I think I think he takes her craft for granted here.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So back at the newsroom, we meet a few
Speaker 3: more characters. We meet Ichi and Junko's boss, the news editor,
Speaker 3: who is Oh, I don't know. I figure like he
Speaker 3: comes off as kind of brusque, but then later maybe
Speaker 3: it reveals a kind of practical wisdom, would you say.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Like he's he's a very busy man and
Speaker 1: he has no time for silliness. He's got to get
Speaker 1: that paper out, you know, very much a cliche in
Speaker 1: many ways, but but ultimately does care about the truth
Speaker 1: and and is really behind journalism's you know, key principles
Speaker 1: in the world.
Speaker 3: Right. And then there's also this comic relief character the
Speaker 3: reporter who's eating soft boiled eggs. Yea such a and
Speaker 3: he's always doing it in a scene where they're talking
Speaker 3: about giant monster eggs. For example, this scene because the
Speaker 3: editor gets a call on the phone and it is
Speaker 3: revealed that the next big news event is a giant
Speaker 3: egg has been spotted off the coast of Japan at
Speaker 3: a place called Niche Beach.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it is a big one.
Speaker 3: It's big. It's like a blimp. There's a big blue, green, blue, green,
Speaker 3: white oblate spheroid floating in the water. And we go
Speaker 3: to the local fishing village, which is portrayed as full
Speaker 3: of somewhat sympathetic but also easily frightened bumpkins who are
Speaker 3: first possessed by terror and then gradually by greed. They
Speaker 3: decide that since fishing has been bad lately, it's been
Speaker 3: a bad catch, they're going to go out and claim
Speaker 3: the egg as the prize of their waters. By right.
Speaker 3: They have a whole discussion about it, They're like, wait,
Speaker 3: whatever comes out of that water, fish or egg belongs
Speaker 3: to us. So this is an egg, it's in the water,
Speaker 3: it's ours.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's actually a lot here that you could unravel.
Speaker 1: You could do a whole shin Mathra movie based on
Speaker 1: this conflict.
Speaker 3: Oh, just the court cases about who the egg.
Speaker 1: Belongs to belong to, you know, the parties here or
Speaker 1: some of the parties that are going to be revealed
Speaker 1: here in a bit.
Speaker 3: Let's have a meeting about it, and maybe a few depositions. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So the villagers take their boats out and they bring
Speaker 3: the egg ashore, where it is transported to the beach,
Speaker 3: and we see shots of astonished crowds forming this cautious
Speaker 3: circle around it. Afterwards, Ichi and Junko arrive on the
Speaker 3: scene and they meet a new character, the scientist Professor Mura,
Speaker 3: who is taking example, taking samples to better understand the
Speaker 3: giant egg. And this is the scene where at first
Speaker 3: the professor doesn't really have time for them, but Junko
Speaker 3: is pushy enough to get a question on the record.
Speaker 3: And the question that Ichi asks is is this egg dangerous?
Speaker 3: The quote is could it explode or release toxins? And
Speaker 3: the professor is like, well, that's what I'm trying to
Speaker 3: find out. But they don't get a chance to find out.
Speaker 3: They are interrupted in the middle of that research by
Speaker 3: the arrival of the new big head guy in charge.
Speaker 3: This is mister Kubayama, a vain, greedy businessman, the proprietor
Speaker 3: of Happy Enterprises. Yep, I love the choice the name
Speaker 3: of the business. There, it feels apt. There's something sinister
Speaker 3: about the banality of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's like, you know, don't you want to
Speaker 1: be happy? Yeah? How can you be opposed to happiness?
Speaker 3: So it turns out Kumayama has bought the egg from
Speaker 3: the local fisherman. It is now rightfully his, and there's
Speaker 3: a funny scene here where he explains how much he
Speaker 3: paid for it, like how he arrived at the price,
Speaker 3: and it was by multiplying the cost of a chicken
Speaker 3: egg by the size difference between a chicken egg and
Speaker 3: the giant egg.
Speaker 1: Well that's just logical. Yeah, yes.
Speaker 3: Now the reporters protest, They're like, wait a minute, should
Speaker 3: this egg maybe not be thought of as private property?
Speaker 3: Isn't this kind of a wonder of nature? Maybe it
Speaker 3: belongs to all of humanity? Or none of us. Uh,
Speaker 3: And Kumayama is like, well, that's why we're gonna let
Speaker 3: everybody come look at it. We're gonna watch it incubate
Speaker 3: and hatch, and everybody can come see for a small fee.
Speaker 3: Of course. So he's he's trying to go for the
Speaker 3: King Kong thing, right, He's going to take this wonder
Speaker 3: of nature and he's going to put walls around it
Speaker 3: and sell tickets.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's like a whole They have a whole map,
Speaker 1: They have everything planned out how it's going to work.
Speaker 1: Everyone's going to come and see the egg and maybe
Speaker 1: it'll be some some additional rides. Who knows this is
Speaker 1: This is going to really remake the whole area. Also
Speaker 1: the plot of Gorgo remember Oh yeah, that's right, and
Speaker 1: I guess kind of the plot of King Kong, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's what I was just saying. Yeah, King
Speaker 3: Kong and then sort of Jurassic Park too, though the
Speaker 3: Jurassic Park has the cloning element that's so different.
Speaker 1: But yeah, this is a spectacle. People will pay to
Speaker 1: see this.
Speaker 3: But Kumayama taunts the reporters and the scientists for their ideals.
Speaker 3: He offers to pose for a picture for junko and
Speaker 3: then he just blows cigar smoke in her face when
Speaker 3: she uses the king. What a jerk. And then later
Speaker 3: at the nearby hotel, Kumayama is revealed to have this
Speaker 3: secret business partner, this creepy guy named tora Hata, who
Speaker 3: lent him the money for the deal. Tora Hata has
Speaker 3: this giant file cabinet full of cash, just cash money,
Speaker 3: and it's I don't know why he has that. But
Speaker 3: the idea is they're going to build this amusement park
Speaker 3: based around the egg, which they are now going to
Speaker 3: be keeping in this steal enclosure, I think presumably, so
Speaker 3: if it hatches whatever hatches, can't get away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or to some degree, they might be incubating it
Speaker 1: a little bit, Yeah, doing that too, the appropriate temperature
Speaker 1: and so forth.
Speaker 3: But the two businessmen are interrupted in their scheming by
Speaker 3: something quite strange. Two tiny women the size of dolls,
Speaker 3: who appear in their hotel room as if by magic,
Speaker 3: and start chanting in unison about how they must return
Speaker 3: the egg and how it doesn't belong to them. These
Speaker 3: are the Fairy Twins. Again, these are the musical act
Speaker 3: the Peanuts. Is that what they were called the peanuts. Peanuts, Yes,
Speaker 3: how are they dressed here? At the beginning, they they
Speaker 3: look kind of like cupcakes. They've got like a like
Speaker 3: a white fur and then a white hat with pink
Speaker 3: things on top, so there's kind of an icing effect.
Speaker 3: And then they're wearing yellow and pink dresses below that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're wearing something to be interpreted as like traditional garb.
Speaker 1: They are, you know, in a way, they are their
Speaker 1: voices and representatives of the old world and not this
Speaker 1: new world of hyper activity and progress. It's like literally
Speaker 1: building things around an egg, which in and of itself
Speaker 1: is an interesting scenario. You're building permanent structures around this
Speaker 1: thing that is by its very nature impermanent and is
Speaker 1: going to lead to like some other different form that
Speaker 1: needs to be free. But they're like, nope, let's build it.
Speaker 1: It's all about right now.
Speaker 3: Yes, an egg is made to be broken out of
Speaker 3: and you build a cage around. Yeah. Yeah. So obviously
Speaker 3: the business guys do not heed the message. Are they
Speaker 3: going to be like, oh, okay, we'll give you the
Speaker 3: egg bag now. Instead, they try to capture the fairy twins.
Speaker 3: They're like running around the hotel room trying to get
Speaker 3: them under a coat.
Speaker 1: There's some fun hijinks here. I think it's always important
Speaker 1: to drive home with a good kaiju movie. That yeah,
Speaker 1: kaiju movies have great scenes where monsters battle each other,
Speaker 1: but the best kaiju movies are also very enjoyable when
Speaker 1: the monsters are not on screen. And it takes a
Speaker 1: long time before we get to the monster battles here.
Speaker 1: But for my own money, I was never like missing
Speaker 1: the monster battles when we hadn't gotten there yet, because
Speaker 1: there was just plenty of fun high jinks with you know,
Speaker 1: these miniature these maximize sets for these miniature characters, and
Speaker 1: the comedy with the eggman, and the social commentary that
Speaker 1: was going on regarding like greed and corruption, plenty to
Speaker 1: shoot on here.
Speaker 3: So after they fail in appealing to the businessmen, the
Speaker 3: fairy twins appeal instead to our heroes, to djunko Ichi
Speaker 3: and the professor. I think this happens in the woods
Speaker 3: outside the hotel. I forget how they get out there,
Speaker 3: but they let the heroes know that the egg actually
Speaker 3: belongs to the giant godlike being of Ewa Island, Mathra,
Speaker 3: and it was brought here by the storm. They say,
Speaker 3: there's great potential for disaster when the egg hatches, so
Speaker 3: they must help the twins return the egg to Ewa
Speaker 3: Island where it belongs.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. One of the interesting things about the twins
Speaker 1: is when they make themselves known. At first, you just
Speaker 1: hear them like a voice of one's own conscious, you know,
Speaker 1: urging you to make the right choices in life instead
Speaker 1: of the greedy path you're following.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of scenes of them talking in unison,
Speaker 3: and the characters are like looking around and yeah, where's
Speaker 3: that coming from? Now? At this point, I think maybe
Speaker 3: I'm going to skip more lightly over some of the
Speaker 3: machinations in the middle of the movie, but I'll summarize
Speaker 3: what happened. So the two evil, greedy businessmen keep scheming.
Speaker 3: We see them counting money and trying to scam everybody,
Speaker 3: including each other, and being possessive over the mathra egg
Speaker 3: Ichi Junko and the Professor try to expose the corruption
Speaker 3: of happy enterprises, but they don't seem to be able
Speaker 3: to stop them. Suddenly, there is a shift in the
Speaker 3: middle of the movie. Remember that blue green scale found
Speaker 3: in the rubble after the typhoon. Well turns out the
Speaker 3: professor has some news about it. It's radioactive, and Junko
Speaker 3: and Ichi touched it. There's a cool scene where we
Speaker 3: see them getting like date, I don't know, they're getting decontaminated.
Speaker 3: They're sending in these purple pink kind of chambers. And
Speaker 3: that's not a good sign because what else is radioactive?
Speaker 3: It's Godzilla baby, So nearby suddenly God's Zilla starts to
Speaker 3: rise up out of the earth from out of this
Speaker 3: desolate field of mud. Do you remember what the field was?
Speaker 3: Was it a construction site or something else.
Speaker 1: You get the sense that it's like reclaimed maybe a
Speaker 1: mix of reclaimed c and also the like damaged area
Speaker 1: from the typhoon, because you see, like you know, there's
Speaker 1: like a boat wreck in there and so forth. And
Speaker 1: also that's the idea that like Godzilla has been returned
Speaker 1: to Japan via the storms. But this scene where he
Speaker 1: rises up is pretty amazing. We get that great theme
Speaker 1: song and people are like, oh, oh goodness, it's happening again,
Speaker 1: happening again, It's.
Speaker 3: Happening again, And here he is. He attacks Japan once again,
Speaker 3: wandering into cities, smashing up buildings and infrastructure. So we
Speaker 3: see him I think knock over like a TV tower
Speaker 3: and attacks attack of castle Castle. Any highlights from this rampage.
Speaker 1: Here, Oh, well, this is there's some great physical movement
Speaker 1: of Godzilla here. I love that he's at times lumbering,
Speaker 1: other times kind of scrambling. Again that sense of rage
Speaker 1: you referenced when he destroys Nagoya Castle, Well, even when
Speaker 1: he destroys the antenna tower, he kind of it's almost
Speaker 1: like he does so accidentally and it falls on him
Speaker 1: and it makes him even more angry. And then he
Speaker 1: kind of like trips and falls into an Agoya Castle,
Speaker 1: like he didn't really mean to destroy it, but then
Speaker 1: he's mad at it because he fell on it, and
Speaker 1: then he just bashes it the rest of the way.
Speaker 1: I was watching rewatching this particular scene with my wife
Speaker 1: and she was like, well, why is Godzilla so dumb
Speaker 1: in this movie? And I'm like, no, he's not dumb.
Speaker 1: That god don't insult Godzilla's intelligence. But there is the
Speaker 1: sense it's almost like he's been thrown out into He
Speaker 1: wasn't prepared for this. He didn't want to go on
Speaker 1: a rampage today. He was slumbering. Now you've woken him up.
Speaker 1: He's cranky and he's going to destroy stuff. It's not
Speaker 1: necessarily what he wanted to do with this day, but it's.
Speaker 3: Happening exactly right. We're here now. Yeah, So the Japanese
Speaker 3: Self Defense Forces they try to fight Godzilla, but since
Speaker 3: when has that done?
Speaker 1: I should note that in the US version of this picture,
Speaker 1: which is I think what titled Godzilla versus the Thing,
Speaker 1: they actually, instead of it being just the Japanese Self
Speaker 1: Defense Forces, they actually call in the US military, and
Speaker 1: so the scene instead of having the scene where it's
Speaker 1: the Japanese Self Defense Forces having a meeting about how
Speaker 1: to attack Godzilla, it's a meeting between the Japanese Self
Speaker 1: Defense Forces and the US military, and the US military
Speaker 1: does like a missile strike on Godzilla, which of course
Speaker 1: doesn't work.
Speaker 3: So finally our heroes come up with an idea. I
Speaker 3: think they're in the newsroom, I believe when they come
Speaker 3: up with this, right, so they're like talking to the
Speaker 3: editor and stuff. The idea is what if they request
Speaker 3: help from Mathra Rob Do you remember how they arrive
Speaker 3: at this idea? Is?
Speaker 1: I believe the eggman is the one who look at
Speaker 1: he's like eating an egg back there, and hey, I've
Speaker 1: got an egg related idea, and I think this is
Speaker 1: our solution, and they're like, well, you know, actually that's it.
Speaker 1: We should roll with that.
Speaker 3: So the reporters and the professor make the journey to
Speaker 3: Ewa Island to speak with the people there for the idea.
Speaker 3: The idea is they're going to beg Mathra to help
Speaker 3: defend them from Godzilla. But when they arrive at Ewa Island,
Speaker 3: they discover devastation. The island has been used for nuclear
Speaker 3: weapons tests.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it is ravaged. It does not look good.
Speaker 1: It is You might be forgiven for expecting it to
Speaker 1: be like a tropical paradise that they're traveling to, and
Speaker 1: it probably was, but now it is just devastation.
Speaker 3: Should we mentioned Skeleturtle.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, this was Skeleturtle's deal because at first I
Speaker 1: thought it was just the skeleton of a turtle. But
Speaker 1: it moves a little.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, this is a thing that Godzilla fans have
Speaker 3: talked about for years. Actually that so we see all
Speaker 3: these bones on this desolate beach where the nuclear tests
Speaker 3: have happened. It's supposed to be scoured of all life,
Speaker 3: and we see like the giant rib cage of some
Speaker 3: huge animal don't know what it is, but also a
Speaker 3: turtle and it's bones it's like a skull and a
Speaker 3: shell and vertebrae. But it's moving around, and there's no
Speaker 3: attempt to address this, no explanation. I don't know why
Speaker 3: it's moving around. I don't know if it's moving around
Speaker 3: by accident, if it is supposed to be a skeleton
Speaker 3: that is somehow still alive. The characters don't comment on it,
Speaker 3: even though it's right there in front of them, So
Speaker 3: I don't know. It's one of the most mysterious things
Speaker 3: about this movie. What is meant by the skeleturtle. It's
Speaker 3: a haunting image, actually, I mean it kind of suggests
Speaker 3: a living death.
Speaker 1: It really does.
Speaker 3: Yeah that like the nuclear testing has been so evil
Speaker 3: in fact, that it has doomed these these animals to
Speaker 3: a kind of to a kind of hell existence where
Speaker 3: they're like dead but they're still there somehow.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't seem to be played for comedic effect,
Speaker 1: and it's not elaborated upon so.
Speaker 3: Anyway, So they go to the people of Ewa Island,
Speaker 3: who worship Mathra as their god. The local chief is
Speaker 3: initially not sympathetic to their pleas for help. They're like, wait,
Speaker 3: you're from the outside world that stole Mathra's egg and
Speaker 3: wouldn't give it back and does nuclear testing on our
Speaker 3: island and made skeleturtles here. Why should we help you now?
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're like, yeah, that's that's true. We would love
Speaker 1: your unconditional support now in our battle against Godzilla, creature
Speaker 1: that we are also responsible for. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But Junko makes a plea. Basically, she's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: there are bad people out there. They're bad people everywhere,
Speaker 3: bad people in Japan who took the egg. But they're
Speaker 3: innocent people there too, they didn't do anything to hurt you.
Speaker 3: They're worth defending. And then she makes the point, you know,
Speaker 3: even bad people don't deserve to be killed by Godzilla,
Speaker 3: so please help us. And this lands somewhat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it lands with the local people who
Speaker 1: are hearing the message, and outside, I think lands of
Speaker 1: the audience. I mean, it's as potent a message today
Speaker 1: as it ever was.
Speaker 3: So the Fairy Twins appear and they get a whole
Speaker 3: musical number here, like they sing for a long time,
Speaker 3: and the singing they're singing a song to Mathra to
Speaker 3: enlist her aid so I think we're getting Mathra on
Speaker 3: the team.
Speaker 1: Mathra is gonna happen, but again, Mathra has to be
Speaker 1: appealed to through song and worship, and then once that
Speaker 1: message is received, action can take place.
Speaker 3: Now back on the mainland, we got to check in
Speaker 3: with our two greedy businessmen. They keep double crossing each
Speaker 3: other until one finally kills the other one and tries
Speaker 3: to take all the money for himself. But then I
Speaker 3: think he dies pretty much immediately because Godzilla crushes the
Speaker 3: building he's in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're scrambling over a pile of money and shooting
Speaker 1: at each other while Godzilla is approaching visibly in the distance,
Speaker 1: looming like a great siege tower, moving in on their headquarters.
Speaker 1: And yeah, so they both face a fitting destruction here
Speaker 1: under the heels of Godzilla.
Speaker 3: But eventually, uh oh, Godzilla's rampage sends him in the
Speaker 3: direction of the egg enclosure.
Speaker 1: That's right, And this is where you get a sense that,
Speaker 1: you know, Godzilla's violence towards the infrastructure of Magoya may
Speaker 1: be more or less accidental, Like he's just he's here,
Speaker 1: he's going to rambage. He didn't ask to be here.
Speaker 1: But when he sees that egg. I don't know, there's
Speaker 1: a sense that like he knows this is Kaiju business,
Speaker 1: maybe he even knows that what Mathra is, or to
Speaker 1: some extent he sees this as an enemy. And there's
Speaker 1: this sequence where where Godzilla stares down the enclosure and
Speaker 1: this is about the same time that Mathra is physically arriving.
Speaker 1: And oh my goodness, the look that Godzilla put pulls
Speaker 1: here just absolute daggers for eyes. Yes, they just gave
Speaker 1: me the chills. As he decides as he starts destroying
Speaker 1: the egg facility, I mean, why would you why would
Speaker 1: you mess with Godzilla here? I mean this look. I
Speaker 1: included a still for you here, Joe, it's just, oh
Speaker 1: my goodness, the most intimidating Godzilla stare I've ever seen.
Speaker 3: Like we're seeing mostly the whites on the underside of
Speaker 3: his eyes or his pupils are kind of rolled up,
Speaker 3: and he's got his head hanging down, just like utter
Speaker 3: contempt and destruction. Yeah. So Godzilla starts smashing the Egg
Speaker 3: incubation building by side whipping it with his tail. We
Speaker 3: see metal crunching, steel beams are falling. But then, oh, intervention,
Speaker 3: here comes Mathra. The mom is the mom is here.
Speaker 3: So at this point, somehow Ichy Junco and the gang
Speaker 3: are back. They're on a they like run to a
Speaker 3: hilltop nearby to watch the battle. I think I may
Speaker 3: have skipped over, however they got back.
Speaker 1: You know. I want to throw in this about the
Speaker 1: battles that take place between especially between Godzilla and adult
Speaker 1: for Mathra here. Yeah. I think one of the reasons
Speaker 1: that I long avoided Godzilla versus Mathra is that I
Speaker 1: didn't in my youth see the potential of the physical battle.
Speaker 1: Like I was more about like the goofy fun of
Speaker 1: one Kaiju battling another of two dudes in rubber suits
Speaker 1: wrestling on a minute on a set with a bunch
Speaker 1: of miniatures.
Speaker 3: Can you suplex them off?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think that was part of it. I was like,
Speaker 1: I just kind of imagined, like the hokiest version of
Speaker 1: this battle where it'd be a puppet on a stick
Speaker 1: versus a guy in a costume. But they do such
Speaker 1: a great job. It never feels like that here. Mathra
Speaker 1: never feels like a like a rough puppet. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously Mathra is created in large part through puppetry, but
Speaker 1: it's it's it's done superbly and I just completely bought
Speaker 1: into the combat between these two entities.
Speaker 3: Absolutely agree this is one of the best monster battles
Speaker 3: in the series.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it doesn't I think I've seen other folks.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was Michael Weldon pointing out that like this
Speaker 1: one doesn't get rastley and therefore doesn't have as much silliness.
Speaker 1: It's it's you know, it's it's out there. It has
Speaker 1: a lot of like crazy Kaiju weaponry, for sure, but
Speaker 1: it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: So I think I said this earlier. But one thing
Speaker 3: I really love here is the sharp metallic ping of
Speaker 3: Mathra's call. It's like a I don't know, it sounds
Speaker 3: like like a dagger piercing the air somehow. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: so we hear that, and Godzilla is still busy, like
Speaker 3: smashing up the buildings trying to get to the egg,
Speaker 3: but Mathra begins furiously flapping her wings and that generates
Speaker 3: this humongous gale which pushes Godzilla to and fro and
Speaker 3: it also though, knocks over the rest of the building.
Speaker 3: And now the egg is exposed and Godzilla attacks and ooh,
Speaker 3: the attack on the egg is actually kind of scary.
Speaker 3: He's like striking and clawing at it, blasting it with
Speaker 3: the radioactive breath, and was just thinking like, oh no,
Speaker 3: poor egg.
Speaker 1: Yeah again, Godzilla is betrayed. Is very very much the
Speaker 1: aggressive beast here, so there's a real frenzy to his
Speaker 1: movements that I really liked.
Speaker 3: But Mathra intervenes. She grabs Godzilla by the tail and
Speaker 3: drags him away from the egg. I know we said
Speaker 3: it's not too rassal any, but.
Speaker 1: This seems kind of like a little Yeah, this is.
Speaker 3: Like when a wrestler like drags another wrestler out of
Speaker 3: the ring by his leg. Observing from Afar by the way,
Speaker 3: the professor asks what's that yellow powder? And the Fairy
Speaker 3: Twins are there and they're like, it is Mathra's final weapon,
Speaker 3: and they explained that it's a kind of poisonous pollen.
Speaker 3: So she's like coating Godzilla in this like yellow pollen powder.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like an aerial bombardment of the stuff.
Speaker 3: So they fight some more, and at one point Godzilla
Speaker 3: gets the upper hand. He blasts a Mathra with his
Speaker 3: breath and Mathra starts to look more and more ragged
Speaker 3: as she's beaten up in this battle. Oh I didn't
Speaker 3: mention this, but we were told earlier by the twins
Speaker 3: on the island that Mathra is she's sort of like
Speaker 3: near the end of her life cycle, that she's dying,
Speaker 3: and so she flies away from battle back to the
Speaker 3: beach toward the egg, and the fairy twins remind us
Speaker 3: that Mathras and the end of her life. So she
Speaker 3: glides down to lot to land beside her egg, and
Speaker 3: then she dies. And Godzilla does here kind of do
Speaker 3: a wicked, gloating victory dance of sorts, but not a
Speaker 3: silly dance.
Speaker 1: Right right now.
Speaker 3: Here, the military resumes fighting Godzilla. Is this gonna do much?
Speaker 3: Of course not. They shoot some rockets and bombs, we
Speaker 3: see planes flying around. There is one part here that
Speaker 3: I will also say that this is better than the
Speaker 3: average military bombardment of Godzilla scene because there are some
Speaker 3: effects that are actually kind of visceral. Like there's one
Speaker 3: part where Godzilla's head catches on fire and oh yeah,
Speaker 3: looks awesome, but Godzilla just kind of shakes it off.
Speaker 3: He also gets into a tussle with some high voltage
Speaker 3: power lines. They also try a big net dropped from
Speaker 3: a formation of helicopter.
Speaker 1: They drop like three nets on him and it looks
Speaker 1: like it might work, but of.
Speaker 3: Course Godzilla he hates this, and he proceeds to breathe
Speaker 3: on and melt a bunch of tanks. Meanwhile, down at
Speaker 3: the beach, the Fairy Twins are doing a musical number.
Speaker 3: They have gone down to Mathra's egg, and they are
Speaker 3: singing a song to it, I believe, imploring it to hatch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and to bring Mathra back into the world again.
Speaker 1: Mathra is apparently a divine entity of continual death and rebirth.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And this is intercut with shots of the people
Speaker 3: on Ewa Island also doing a dance for the egg.
Speaker 3: And then suddenly, at the climax of the song, lightning
Speaker 3: flashes and the egg hatches, and you know what, it's
Speaker 3: not just one baby Mathra, but two, it's twins, just
Speaker 3: like the Fairy Twins.
Speaker 1: Yeah, two larval Mathras emerge, and so now they have
Speaker 1: the numbers advantage over Godzilla. I'm not sure if Godzilla
Speaker 1: realizes this, but like, this is really the point at
Speaker 1: which he's cooked.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But so to emphasize, it's not like two little
Speaker 3: moths with wings, it's grubs. It's like two caterpillars, larval
Speaker 3: mathras and there are hilarious shots of these two like
Speaker 3: gi red brown grubs humping through the ocean towards the
Speaker 3: island after.
Speaker 1: Like it's like, yeah, it's kind of like their sea
Speaker 1: serpents or something, you know, but also kind of like
Speaker 1: water buffaloes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, they're going through the water because we learned
Speaker 3: there's this whole subplot about like there are some school
Speaker 3: children on Ewa Island and they're still there, and then
Speaker 3: Godzilla starts going towards the Ewa Island and they're like,
Speaker 3: oh no, the school children, they're in danger, and almost
Speaker 3: as if to protect them, the grubs like chase after
Speaker 3: Godzilla through the water and they go to the island.
Speaker 3: The three human protagonists go there as well, and they
Speaker 3: sort of get busy rescuing the school children while Godzilla
Speaker 3: fights these two little moth grubs. And this fight is
Speaker 3: funny and I think it is meant to be. Like
Speaker 3: one bites Godzilla on the tail and he starts whipping
Speaker 3: it all around to get it off. But in this
Speaker 3: battle between Zilla and two grubs, who's gonna win? And
Speaker 3: how well I love the final way they defeat him.
Speaker 3: The moth larvae start blasting Godzilla with their silk. They
Speaker 3: shoot like spider silk, but they're, of course, you know,
Speaker 3: these little grubs, and they essentially cocoon him alive. They're
Speaker 3: spinning more and more silk, throwing it over him. He's furious.
Speaker 3: He's breathing radioactive breath. He's whipping all around. But he
Speaker 3: eventually gets wrapped up and incapacitated and just breathing all
Speaker 3: over in random directions, furious, and he finally falls to
Speaker 3: the ground, rolls down over the edge of a cliff
Speaker 3: and into the ocean, sinking out of sight. It's a
Speaker 3: glorious way to defeat Godzilla.
Speaker 1: I think it's clear that Godzilla is not killed, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like he is just defeated for now. He will
Speaker 1: probably be back, and hopefully humanity can get it together,
Speaker 1: maybe avoid some of their greed and self interest in
Speaker 1: order to better prepare for his eventual return.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we see the grubs swimming away. We can
Speaker 3: hear the fairy twins yelling goodbye in unison. I guess
Speaker 3: they're going with them. I don't think we see them.
Speaker 3: And then the humans watch the baby mathras leaving and
Speaker 3: one of them says, shouldn't we thank them? But then
Speaker 3: Ichi says the only way to thank them is to
Speaker 3: build a better world, and the Professor says, that's right,
Speaker 3: a world based on mutual trust. There's a little a
Speaker 3: little direct there. It's not super subtle, but you know,
Speaker 3: I appreciate the sentiment. They're right. That is, you have
Speaker 3: plainly stated the moral of the film.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I like it, Yeah, firmly stated. It
Speaker 1: serves for us to be reminded because we'll inevitably forget
Speaker 1: and build a world that is highly susceptible to Godzilla's attack.
Speaker 3: Yes, it will happen again in Gdora the Three Headed Monster.
Speaker 3: I forget what the precipitating event is in that one,
Speaker 3: but you know they're gonna Something's gonna happen, all right,
Speaker 3: any other business about mathra versus Godzilla before we wrap
Speaker 3: it up?
Speaker 1: Oh, just to say that I think it's absolutely solid.
Speaker 1: It has a great message. Again, the monster battles are amazing,
Speaker 1: but everything else is also richly entertaining and at times
Speaker 1: intentionally hilarious. Looks great, sounds great. I would I would
Speaker 1: be inclined to say, again, I can't pretend to be
Speaker 1: a Godzilla completest. I haven't seen I haven't even seen
Speaker 1: all of the show era films. I certainly haven't seen
Speaker 1: all of the Godzilla films period, and I haven't seen
Speaker 1: the recent ones, which I'm to understand also feature Mathra.
Speaker 1: But I would say, if you've never seen a Godzilla
Speaker 1: film before, and you're open to watching films from previous decades,
Speaker 1: Matha versus Godzilla is a pretty good place to start.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're not going to start with the
Speaker 1: original one. In the original Godzilla film, this is this
Speaker 1: is really good. You get, you get heal Godzilla, you
Speaker 1: get beautiful Mathra, you get you get amusing performances and
Speaker 1: a nice message. What more can you ask for?
Speaker 3: I would say this is the most Godzilla film of
Speaker 3: all the Godzilla films I've seen. It has It has
Speaker 3: all of the core elements in their most perfect form
Speaker 3: right right.
Speaker 1: And you might enter into this film being a Mathra
Speaker 1: skeptic like I think I used to be, but you
Speaker 1: will be won over by Mathra and you'll realize that
Speaker 1: she is indeed the Queen of monsters. All hell, All right,
Speaker 1: We're gonna gohead close out this episode of Weird House Cinema,
Speaker 1: but we'd love to hear from all of you. We
Speaker 1: know you have thoughts on this Godzilla film and many
Speaker 1: other Godzilla films will remind you that Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast with
Speaker 1: core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we
Speaker 1: set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a
Speaker 1: weird film here on Weird House Cinema. If you would
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Speaker 1: covered over the years, go to letterbox dot com. Our
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Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
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Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say Hello.
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