I love this week.
Ghidrah The Three-Headed Monster set a massive precedent for the series, not only giving us the ultimate villain to Godzilla, not only slowly making Godzilla a hero, but also giving us the monster bash formula. This isn't a verus movie where it's one on one, we have 4 monsters just going at it in awesome and unique ways which I'll get to later. The plot is a more interesting tale than usual, with a Princess of...some nationality, I'm not quite sure what that's about because, Japan is a parliamentary government much like Great Britain and though they do have an Emperor it's more for ceremony, and they keep bringing up that she's japanese, so I have no clue how that works. Then again, I'm trying to bring logic in a movie where men fight in rubber monster suits so maybe I shouldn't think about it too hard. Even more evidence to that fact, the Princess is soon taken over by an alien host I...think, it's kinda hard to tell, who can predict the future and says a world destroying space dragon is soon to arrive in Japan. Some more reporters take notice of this and try to get Mothra to help again to defend the Earth since both Godzilla and Rodan have no real love for humans. Oh it gets weirder! It's a lot of weirdness to digest but I swear to you what I write next is not a joke, with nary a drop of exaggeration or comedic intent, it is the hard truth. Mothra's twin fairies appear on a television talk show and not only do they have the whole audience go on a mental journey unlike Ace Ventura in When Nature Calls but also pals around with our reporters and agrees to call Mothra in to help team Godzilla and Rodan together. This. Is. Amazing. Yet it works, like my biggest hold up was the whole talk show thing like why, how, are they Mothra's managers, what is happening?? But the human story isn't half bad and is original if nothing else! The monster side of things mostly doesn't kick off for awhiles but they spend their time wisely on each monster, Godzilla and Rodan fight for a bit like bickering siblings before Mothra comes in and gets them to play nice. But I like it, it's entertaining and even kinda got me pumped in a few instances! Rodan does a spectacular literal flying body slam and that was the highlight for me. Rodan alone is pretty badass in this movie, floors Ghidrah's ass, takes some atomic breath to the face and doesn't even blink, he's pretty awesome. Mothra is still a larva in this movie so she isn't really a match for Ghidrah on her own, but I surprisingly find her flipping adorable in this movie. I don't know, but just the fact she kinda gets carried up a hill by Godzilla and piggy back rides on Rodan just puts such a huge smile on my face, it's the sappiest most outrageous thing ever but I just love it. Godzilla also plays a mean game of volleyball with Rodan but I'm getting off track here. And Godzilla's design is still very good, riding the edge of hero of Japan and symbol of nuclear destruction, and it works quite well. And then we have our title character Ghidrah who is one of the most impressively designed both in art and execution kaiju ever, and a perfect antagonist to Godzilla for decades to come, golden scaled, massive size, devastating gravity beams, and the noticeable inclusion of three heads make this monster world known. There's also some other things I wanted to point out before we wrap this review up, we actually are given a new song by the fairies and it's an awful nice song and honestly could be covered today in Japan and be played on the radio but that's something I expect from the Ito sisters who were popular singers in Japan during this time and it kinda saddens me how this was their last Godzilla movie. We also have a Toho alumni, inbetween appearances of Kurosawa's movies Takashi Shimura! I was stunned to see him again in a Godzilla movie though he doesn't play the same character in the original and Godzilla Raids Again, I didn't care it was just great to see him again! So yeah Ghidrah is one of the more out there entries but it's hard not to enjoy, it has an interesting story, good characters, and some creative and great monster rumbles. Again I saw this as the original japanese version, I had to get a free weekly trial of Starz to review it and they actually have a very good selection of the Showa era and is only missing 5 out of the first 15 so it's worth it. Next time we jump all the way to 1991 with quite possibly my most watched Godzilla movie of all time.
