If You Haven't Seen it Before
- A giant egg is found. Obviously, in the continuity of Godzilla movies, this is concerning.
- Happy Enterprises, a company, has purchased the egg. The rep is a real smug bastard.
- His company wants to build an amusement park around the egg, the largest in the world. They expect to make possibly 1 billion yen from this endeavor.
- We saw what happened last time someone tried to profit off of kaiju. Why do people keep trying?
- The Twin Fairies (Shobijin) appear in the office of Happy Enterprises to ask for the egg's return. Nuclear testing has destroyed their home and sent the egg into the sea. They escape before being captured.
- Because the egg is Mothra's egg, it is the only hope of restoring Infant Island. And just as last time (see: Mothra), when the egg hatches the larva will head to their destination and destroy everything in its path.
- Before the egg hatches, Godzilla wakes up. One can imagine this is going to end poorly for at least one of these kaiju and a lot of humans.
- A group of humans go to Infant Island to ask Mothra to aid them against Godzilla. After the Shobijin implore Mothra on their behalf, they are told that Mothra will use the last of her strength to help them. The current Mothra is dying but will be reborn from her egg.
- Godzilla attacks. The greedy businessmen have turned on each other with one shooting the other. Revenge comes by way of Godzilla, crushing the building the murderer is in and he also dies in the collapse.
- As Godzilla approaches Mothra's egg, adult Mothra appears and it's time for a kaiju duel.
- At one point Mothra drags Godzilla around by his tail and that shit's hilarious.
- Eventually struck by Atomic Breath and badly wounded, Mothra goes to her egg and dies near it.
- The military attacks Big G, to the traditional and expected no avail.
- The egg hatches and TWO Mothra larvae emerge. They use their cocoon powers against Godzilla, encasing him in an impenetrable shell.
- The Mothra larvae head home and the movie's over.
Kaiju Notes
- Mothra spends much of this movie simply sitting on a rock. She looks much more friendly in this framing than in her previous appearance, and I argued she was pretty majestic in that one.
- Godzilla no longer has ice cream hands, but otherwise looks very similar to the last one. My initial impression is that his face has changed a bit (for the positive) but nothing major. Dude has BROWS now. And they're angry.
- Godzilla's tail has relaxed significantly from it's wild flailing in King Kong vs. Godzilla, they seem to have settled into a nice "dangerous but purposeful" movement style for it.
- Mothra looks even better in movement here than she did in her own movie. They do closeup shots to obscure some of the clunkiness, and this girl is way more mobile than she was. The improvements they've made with flying creatures is legit impressive. This is still the 60's, after all.
- Godzilla flailing around trying to Atomic Breath Mothra is one of my new favorite shots. Hilarious image.
- Mothra's secret weapon is "poisonous" pollen she can cover her foes in, so it's not just sonic booms and mobility she has to win fights. She technically loses, but she stomped his ass for a minute.
- Mothra larvae are way less cute this time. Way slimier looking, wrinkly, and with disconcerting little beaks.
First thing to note: in the beginning of the movie Mothra's egg is purchased for ¥1,224,560. I did some math and some googling and discovered that this is *roughly* about $56,000. That's a lot of money, yes, but is... not a lot for such an incredibly rare and potentially dangerous artifact. This is not a movie that takes place in its own continuity, Mothra and Godzilla and Rodan and the rest all exist and are known to the world. If you found a gigantic egg, I would wager most people would realize that going anywhere near it is just going to cause trouble. But business people be business people, greed always comes first. More on this later.
Mothra vs. Godzilla has more in common with King Kong vs. Godzilla than any of the other movies we've seen so far. They spend an hour of the movie building up to a big showdown between two established creatures, and then pay it off in a pretty satisfying way. In comparison this one is significantly better, I'd argue, if for no other reason than the creatures don't have multiple underwhelming encounters before finally having a showdown worth talking about. I especially liked seeing Godzilla get his big ass literally tossed around by a cute moth and then get sniped by baby Mothra's with String Shot. They literally hide behind rocks while he tries to harm them, then stick their little heads out and cocoon him up while he screams helplessly. It's not the most noble or courageous way to take down Godzilla, but the shit works.
While this movie isn't terribly metaphorical, I think I can tease one out, especially given the scenes on Infant Island and the final lines of the movie. "The only way to thank them is to create a better world... A world based on mutual trust." Infant Island, as it appears in the movie, is destroyed by nuclear testing, only habitable because of the special juice that the natives of the island make and consume regularly (as established in the original Mothra). When the humans come seeking Mothra's aid they are initially rejected by both the natives of the island and the Shobijin (the voices of Mothra). Told they cannot trust the humans from the mainland/outside world, especially because they've destroyed Infant Island by refusing to stop nuclear testing, they'd rather just let Godzilla sort them out. Only a plea that "even bad people deserve a chance to live" convinces Mothra to help fend off Godzilla. Apparently Mothra is quite compassionate, cause it was not the most convincing argument I've ever heard for saving the world. Godzilla himself is a sort of symbol of consequences. He only seems to wake because Mothra's egg is brought to the mainland, and heads toward it directly. When he destroys the building that the unethical businessmen are inside, they die as a direct result of their greed (and take many innocent people with them).
Thus, the two kaiju can be seen as a kind of metaphor for the consequences of bad actions like greed and nuclear testing (Godzilla) and the sacrifices needed from those note responsible to save everybody from the former (Mothra). Mothra literally dies to save people who caused all of their own problems, but has to get involved because the fate of her egg has become tied into the situation. Like the real world, those responsible for causing damage and destruction are shielded from the true consequences of their actions by those who would actually pay the price; Mothra has to save them because if she does not then she will not be reborn. Unlike the real world, at least some of the responsible parties of this film face the fates they've set others up for, in the form of Godzilla stepping on their building. Read it as a metaphor for global warming, oil spills, unfettered capitalism, nuclear testing, war, or whatever other ill springs to mind (perhaps them all), but Mothra and her larvae sacrifice themselves and put themselves at risk because even if they try to avoid the situation they become inevitably threatened by it. The larvae in particular are real champs, because once they hatch they could definitely just go to Infant Island and chill, but they really are looking out for humans who've done nothing for them. And ain't that just the way?
Overall, this is one of my favorite Godzilla movies so far. It speeds by in comparison to some of the others despite relatively little kaiju action until pretty late into it, then pays it all off at once. It's a great example of how pacing can improve a movie overall, as even the other versus focused movie (King Kong vs. Godzilla) in the canon so far had some serious pacing issues that made it a bit of a drag. The metaphor is also a bit more subtle in this one, but I think clear enough that it's not the simple giant ape vs giant lizard of the previous outing. I have no problems with movies about nothing (we've got like 50 more to go for this blog, so you'll see), it's also nice to sometimes see a movie that has something on its mind. Side note: Mothra is now the kaiju with the most consistent record for greatness. Of the 2 movies she's appeared in so far they've both been pretty great. If she keeps this up she could be the symbol of "dope shit here" in this series.
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