Godzilla, Kong, Gamera & Co.: The Kaiju Mega-Thread

[Kai "the spy"]

Well, we've had seperate threads for all kinds of kaiju productions, but I thought it might be high-time for a mega-thread for any news, discussions on the older movies, and sharing of cool little oddities not fitting in any of the threads for specific films and TV shows.

I do this at this time because it's November 3, or Godzilla Day commemorating the anniversary of the release of the original Godzilla movie in Japanese theatres in 1954. And this year, as it's also the 50th anniversary of one of the oddest movies in the Godzilla series, "Godzilla vs. the Smog-Monster", Toho produced a short rematch of Godzilla and his foe of said film, Hedorah. And they made it using glorious suitmation, the first time this technique has been used for an official Godzilla production since 2004:

 

[Redfern]

Produced by Toho itself? Interesting! Looks like they used the suit made for Final Wars, or a near duplicate of it. (While I don't mind the slightly more athletic shape of the suit as a whole, to me, the profile for the head just looks a bit like, well, a duck. Personally, I've wondered how well it might work having a suit like Godzilla 2000 but with the spinal plates similar to the 1954 design, maybe a tad larger and packed tighter.)

Certainly not Toho's desired reaction, but when the sludge splattered upon the flower with that toon styled "splut", I could not help giggling like an immature school kid! I thought, "Crap! Somebody's got the runs!"

 

[captainkirk]

Looks like they used the suit made for Final Wars, or a near duplicate of it.

Both suits in the short are the ones from Final Wars. It's cool to see both in action again. Obviously, the suitmation isn't as good as the best in the genre, but I hope to see more of it from Toho in the future.

 

[Christopher]

By coincidence, I just published my latest blog review of the Godzilla franchise, this one focusing on the MonsterVerse tie-in comics:

https://christopherlbennett.wordpre...on-the-godzilla-monsterverse-comics-spoilers/

 

[Saul]

Well, we've had seperate threads for all kinds of kaiju productions, but I thought it might be high-time for a mega-thread for any news, discussions on the older movies, and sharing of cool little oddities not fitting in any of the threads for specific films and TV shows.

I do this at this time because it's November 3, or Godzilla Day commemorating the anniversary of the release of the original Godzilla movie in Japanese theatres in 1954. And this year, as it's also the 50th anniversary of one of the oddest movies in the Godzilla series, "Godzilla vs. the Smog-Monster", Toho produced a short rematch of Godzilla and his foe of said film, Hedorah. And they made it using glorious suitmation, the first time this technique has been used for an official Godzilla production since 2004:

Looks like they put a kick boxer in the Godzilla suit.
Not that I want to complain too much though. I'd pay double the price of a movie ticket for a stop motion or man in a rubber suit movie.

 

[captainkirk]

By coincidence, I just published my latest blog review of the Godzilla franchise, this one focusing on the MonsterVerse tie-in comics:

https://christopherlbennett.wordpre...on-the-godzilla-monsterverse-comics-spoilers/

I got the digital versions of the first three of those when Humble Bundle had a Legendary Comics set for sale a while back. I've only read Aftershock so far, though. The main thing I remember is thinking that the MUTO Prime design wasn't great. I still need to get around to reading Awakening and Birth of Kong, although from your review it sounds like the latter makes some weird narrative choices.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

As good as the CGI gets in the current crop of Godzilla movies, one thing they can't replicate is the sense of weight/physicality that suitmotion brings to the creatures.

Sometimes the CGI is too 'fluid'.

 

[Christopher]

So I just found that ShoutFactory has a whole bunch of Showa-era Godzilla movies up on its free streaming site now, including both English and Japanese editions of many of them:

https://www.shoutfactorytv.com/film/tokushoutsu

They've also got Rodan and War of the Gargantuas, though unfortunately not Frankenstein Conquers the World, the much better film that Gargantuas is a sequel to (a fact obscured in the English dub).

 

[DarrenTR1970]

So I just found that ShoutFactory has a whole bunch of Showa-era Godzilla movies up on its free streaming site now, including both English and Japanese editions of many of them:

https://www.shoutfactorytv.com/film/tokushoutsu

They've also got Rodan and War of the Gargantuas, though unfortunately not Frankenstein Conquers the World, the much better film that Gargantuas is a sequel to (a fact obscured in the English dub).

Interesting that it's on Shout Factory and not Criterion, seeing as they were the ones to release the complete Showa Era Godzilla films a year or so ago.

 

[Christopher]

ShoutFactory has been building up quite a tokusatsu library of late.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

This was posted in the Power Rangers/Tokusatsu thread already, but for those kaiju fans who don't look in there, I thought it might be a good idea to post this here as well.

BOOM! and IDW, the current holders of the comics licences for Power Rangers and Godzilla, respectively, teamed up for a comic crossover of the two franchises.

It's a five-issue miniseries, starting in March, written by Cullen Bunn - who already wrote the comic "Godzilla: Cataclysm" for IDW - and with art by Freddie Williams II, who has experience with big franchise crossovers having delivered the art for "Batman/TMNT" (which was adapted into an animated movie) and "He-Man/Thundercats".


And speaking of comics, I found a blog featuring scans of the very first American Godzilla comic, which was a promotional comic released through movie theaters to coincide with the US release of "Godzilla vs. Megalon".

 

[publiusr]

I don’t think I have ever seen Gamera

 

[captainkirk]

I don’t think I have ever seen Gamera

You can stream them all for free on Tubi.
https://tubitv.com/search/gamera
It's best to start with Guardian of the Universe and then its two sequels. Gamera the Brave is also good but much lighter in tone. The older movies are best enjoyed with MST3K.

 

[Christopher]

It's best to start with Guardian of the Universe and then its two sequels. Gamera the Brave is also good but much lighter in tone. The older movies are best enjoyed with MST3K.

Indeed. I've rarely seen such a drastic difference in quality between eras of a franchise. The original Gamera movie is mediocre; the second is decent; but the remaining five in the original series are terrible, and the 1980 Gamera: Super Monster revival is just a clip movie with a bizarrely random framing sequence involving superheroines who don't do any superheroing. But the '90s trilogy and Gamera The Brave are among the best kaiju movies ever made, though very different from each other -- the trilogy is very dark, violent, and adult, while GTB is a sensitive children's movie in a brilliant way, like a live-action Miyazaki film.

Here are my blog reviews of the series:
https://christopherlbennett.wordpre...ghts-on-gamera-the-showa-era-part-1-spoilers/
https://christopherlbennett.wordpre...ghts-on-gamera-the-showa-era-part-2-spoilers/
https://christopherlbennett.wordpre...ts-on-gamera-the-heisei-era-trilogy-spoilers/
https://christopherlbennett.wordpre...amera-the-brave-and-series-overview-spoilers/

 

[captainkirk]

while GTB is a sensitive children's movie in a brilliant way, like a live-action Miyazaki film.

Funny you should say that because Studio Ghibli did make a live-action kaiju short film based on Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind manga. It was directed by Shinji Higuchi who served as the effects director on the Heisei Gamera trilogy as well as Shin Godzilla.

 

[JD]

The only Gamera movies I've seen are the first two '90s movies. I found the trilogy set on Blu-Ray in one of the cheap movie bins at Wal-Mart, and I watched the first two, but then got sidetracked, and never watched the third. I really should rewatch the first two and watch the third one of these days.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

I might have seen any number of the first seven Gamera movies (1965-1971). But it's been so long, I couldn't tell you which ones.

I always loved those cheesy movies. Godzilla, King Kong, Gamera, didn't matter.

 

[publiusr]

Be interesting if they tried their hand at something like The Mist…and ANNIHILATION…a walking hellmouth and spirits below.

 

[captainkirk]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/t...monster-tv-series-legendary-apple-1235078313/

A live-action Monsterverse series is coming to Apple+! The announcement doesn't actually say it's going to specifically focus on Godzilla, just that it will feature a family connected to Monarch, presumably the Russells. I'm surprised it's going to Apple and not Netflix since that's who Legendary seems to have the closest relationship with.

 

[JD]

That's a surprise all around. I wonder if there's something behind them using a picture from one of the older Toho movies for the article rather than one Legendary movies?