So this week John and Travis was like “Yo Julian you should
give these folks a post about Godzilla like you did last year for Pacific Rim.”
And then I thought about and said yeah I should. So here we are on the day
Godzilla returns to theaters 10 years after his last appearance on the silver
screen. I’m going to give you a few of my favorite Godzilla movies since
Godzilla is my homie. I watched these films as a kid, I saw the 1998 one
and watched all the cartoons. I even have the out of print hard to find Marvel
Essential collection of the Godzilla Marvel comic series (yes Godzilla even met
all your favorite superheroes because he’s a boss). So over the years after
watching and watching all these movies here are my top joints to watch but let
me say everyone should just watch Gojira, not that Raymond Burr re-edit. The
first film is part of film history and dealt with some serious issues of a nation
being traumatized by the effects of being the only people hit with the atomic
bomb. Now with that out of the way:
Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964)
This joint right here is money. This movie is way better
than the previous two to me. I like Angurius but he’s basically Godzilla’s main
sidekick I don’t want to see them fighting. Godzilla vs King Kong is whack
because it doesn’t make sense. King Kong isn’t that big. Now this Mothra joint
is on point since Godzilla is the bad guy attacking but really its just humans
doing dumb stuff and messing up nature again with Mothra having to save their
butts from an angry Big G. This movie feels like a fever dream because of the
pacing and the fact there are these little women and they do this song and then
there is caterpillars that webs up Godzilla. You go in thinking you’re supposed
to root for Godzilla but by the end you’re riding with Mothra and her kids with
these singing little women. I never get sick of this one.
Ghidorah, The Three Headed Monster (1964)
This right here is my jam. First it has that crazy three
headed gold dragon. Like who's messing with that right there and he’s from
SPACE! Like Dany in Game of Throne ain’t nothing until she can control King
Ghidorah. I barely remember the plot what I do remember is that Mothra comes
back and has a conversation with Godzilla and Rodan (a giant pterosaur) who are
fighting for no reason at all about teaming up to beat this dragon and it’s the
best. It’s essentially Godzilla and Rodan on some “humans can kiss my giant
lizard asses. MuhF**kas never loved us.” And go back to fighting. Mothra the
female gets fed up, calls them dumb goes to fight Ghidorah by herself and
proceeds to catch a bad one when they show up on some damn she’s a G let’s merk
this dude. Then when it’s over they all go home. Best. Ending. Ever.
Destroy All Monsters (1968)
I wrote about this last year. This movie is like the
Avengers of Kaiju movies. It has all the best monsters in it. They get mind
controlled by Aliens then Godzilla and his crew ain’t having it. They pull out
that old punk King Ghidorah and he gets dealt with and Godzilla lets the Alien’s know who runs this. Don’t watch this looking for plot just look at it for
seeing all the monsters and the destroying of cardboard cities.
Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973)
This joint should be watched for one thing and one thing
only. JET JAGUAR!!! He’s like a mashup of Mazinger (aka Tranzor Z in the
states) and Ultraman. This movie is basically a like Tokusatsu superhero movie
that has Godzilla in it. I love this movie because Godzilla got more special
powers and IT HAS A ROBOT THAT GROWS HUGE AND DOES SPECIAL MOVES!! Do you understand
how amazing that is? Super. Robot.
Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla (1974)
Other than King Ghidorah MechaGodzilla is Godzilla’s other
big enemy. You know how Superman has Lex Luthor and Brainiac. Well Mecha is his
Brainiac. Think about this, you’re a kid and you like Godzilla and one Saturday
morning after watching your cartoons like Real Ghostbusters and Captain N you
get to Soul train and American Bandstand right. You’ve just had a great morning
and you turn to watch monster movies today instead of kung fu and you just
happen to catch Godzilla beating up his homie Angurius and you’re confused then you
see another Godzilla and the one beating up the homie is revealed to be a
robot. A GIANT ROBOT WALKING ON TWO LEGS THAT LOOKS LIKE A LIZARD WITH LASERS!
Think on that.
Yeah this movie is amazing then on top of all that there is a like a god monster that’s part lion and part monkey or something called King Ceaser and these dudes tag team on MechaGodzilla on some 80s WWE ish. This movie is heaven. Without this movie we would never have had the Dragonzord and that alone it should get it offerings of the people.
Godzilla vs Space Godzilla (1994)
I like this whole movie because Space Godzilla has these
giant crystal things coming off of him. The 80s movies have a whole new
continuity from the 50-70s ones. Yet Godzilla has a kid again and he gets
captured. I never understood how Godzilla has kids because he’s a guy and there
is no female Godzillas to speak of. It’s just out of the blue Godzilla is a
single dad chilling wrecking cities and fighting monsters from space.
Godzilla against MechaGodzilla (2002)
This one is different. Now we are into the 2000s Godzilla
and everything looks a lot better. The suits and the city sets and effects. Now
in these Godzilla is pure force of nature and isn’t really good at all. He’s
just wrecking stuff. Now in this one MechaGodzilla is good and is made out of
the remains of the OG Godzilla from Gojira. See every time they reboot they
reboot after the first movie. So this MechaGodzilla is called Kiryu and has a
female pilot and a bunch of human stuff no one cares about unless it has the
little Mothra ladies in it. This one is just cool for fighting to me. I’m a
sucker for robots and it’s interesting to see Mecha as the good guy.
Godzilla: Final Wars (2004)
Now above when I was talking about Destroy All Monsters remember
all of that? Well basically this movie is just like that but in 2014 with even
more stuff in it. Better suits and better effects and more explosions. If you
bring this movie up to fans their eyes light up because it’s beyond crazy dope.
It has mutant people in it for some
reason and aliens want to eat the people for energy. All the monsters attack
the cities all over the world. They even have US 1998 Godzilla in called Zilla
and Godzilla kills him with the quickness. What makes this movie fun is that it’s
just all battles. Godzilla is straight killing all the monsters he can that
ever raised up on him. It’s the best. He doesn’t kill his friends, he knocks
senses into them and they then team up on the aliens and guess who shows up…KING
GHIDORAH AGAIN! This dragon stays as a pawn for evil aliens (not in all the
movies but most of the time). Also this
movie has Mothra in it being awesome. All movies with Godzilla teamed up with Mothra
are the bees’ knees all day.
That’s it. These are my favs. These are the ones I re-watch
and the ones I tell people about all the time. Basically if it has multiple Kaiju
and/or robots in some way it’s amazing. To be honest the people parts are never
that interesting post Gojira. You just have to get past that. On some real talk
though you could also add all the other movies with Mothra in them later. I
love that dang gone giant Moth and the crazy little women. That’s my biggest
hope that Godzilla 2014 does gangbusters so that in the next one we can US
style budget for crazy effects to make Godzilla team up with Mothra and those
little women to fight King Ghidorah from space. Now everyone go see this new movie
so my dreams can come true!
