WE RANK 'EM: The Films of Godzilla's Heisei Era

I don’t know if you know this, but 2021 is the year of Godzilla. Oh, it’s not an official anniversary year for the franchise and there are no special events since we are still three years away from Godzilla’s 70th Anniversary in 2024, so maybe a better way to say it would be that 2021 is MY year of Godzilla.

At the time of writing this article I have watched 24 Godzilla films this year, which is a somewhat staggering number if I stop to think about it. I started the year with the American films Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Godzilla vs Kong (as well as Kong: Skull Island). They were absolutely delightful and drove my desire to see what the original franchise of Japanese films was all about. I didn’t expect that I would watch nearly this many, but in July I wrote about the first 15 Godzilla movies comprising the “Showa Era” for the franchise. Now I’m writing about the next 7 films, which comprise the Heisei Era.

The different “eras” of the Godzilla franchise are generally named for and cover the films made during the reigns of the Japanese Emperors. The Heisei Era is named for the reign of Emperor Akihito and it reworks the continuity of the Godzilla franchise.

By production year, The Return of Godzilla would technically be part of the Showa Era of Godzilla films, but tonally it fits much more as Heisei - plus it kicked off this new era of films and the chronology works far more as The Return of Godzilla being a new thing rather than the lat Showa film. New director, new producer, new focus.

What separates the Heisei Era from the Showa Era is that Return of Godzilla is a direct sequel to the 1954 Godzilla. Everything that came after, from Godzilla Raids Again to Terror of MechaGodzilla, were discarded and didn’t count when it came to story and chronology. It has now been decades since Godzilla attacked Toyko and had been beaten back.

As with my Showa ranking, this is not definitive. I’m just having fun here, though I’m quite serious with what the best of the franchise is and what the best of the era is. Now, three of the movies were real disappointments given how good the first Heisei movies were and how strong of an ending Godzilla vs Destoroyah was, but with this many movies in the franchise I suppose we can’t expect them all to be winners - but let’s find out which one of them are!

7. Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II (1993)
Oh, it’s fucking baby Godzilla in this movie. Can’t Ghidorah come back from the dead and just kill that little shit?

I am quite happy to see the baby rainbow mothra projection and the twins again even thought they said in the earlier set Godzilla vs Mothra that they'd be back to help when needed and clearly Mothra was needed and they only sent a warning to some humans which I'm not sure really helped all that much.

Space Godzilla kind of looks like one of the Gremlins once they’ve gone bad. Now I want to watch Gremlins again. This doesn’t make Godzilla a Mogwai, though someone with artistic skills should totally try to reverse engineer that. I'd like to see that picture.

There's a low angle shot of Godzilla stomping through the jungle that was just awesome and not something that we’ve seen before.

I can’t quite decide if this is a serious or campy Godzilla movie. It's not helped by the existence of Baby Godzilla, which feels like it is in a completely different movie (and not a good one, but Baby Godzilla is the WORST).

I do appreciate the bullshit theory of how Space Godzilla was formed from Godzilla cells shot into space from Biollante, entered into a black hole, exited through a white hole (which is apparently a real thing), and merged with crystals? It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, even relative to the existence of this franchise, but sure, why the hell not?

As always - the final bottle is an awesome spectacle. That’s one thing this franchise has done well even in movies that are otherwise whack. I well know that Godzilla movies are never wall-to-wall monster fighting, but sometimes the human elements are crappy enough that the rest of the movie doesn’t hold up and can’t be lifted by the hot kaiju action. This is one of them.

6. Godzilla vs SpaceGodzilla (1994)
Oh, it’s fucking baby Godzilla. Can’t Ghidorah come back from the dead and just kill that little shit?

I am quite happy to see baby rainbow mothra projection and the twins again even thought they said that they'd be back to help when needed and clearly Mothra was needed and they only sent a warning to some humans which I'm not sure really helped all that much.

Space Godzilla kind of looks like one of the Gremlins once they’ve gone bad. Now I want to watch Gremlins again. This doesn’t make Godzilla a Mogwai, though someone with artistic skills should totally try to reverse engineer that.

The low angle shot of Godzilla stomping through the jungle was awesome and not something that we’ve seen before.

I can’t quite decide if this is a serious or campy Godzilla movie. Not helped by the existence of Baby Godzilla, which feels like it is in a completely different movie (and not a good one, but Baby Godzilla is the WORST).

I do appreciate the bullshit theory of how Space Godzilla was formed from Godzilla cells shot into space from Biollante (see my thoughts on the much better Biollante movie in just a bit), entered into a black hole, exited through a white hole (which is apparently a real thing), and merged with crystals? It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, even relative to the existence of this franchise, but sure, why the hell not?

As always - the final battle is an awesome spectacle. That’s one thing this franchise has done well even in movies that are otherwise whack. I well know that Godzilla movies are never wall-to-wall monster fighting, but sometimes the human elements are crappy enough that the rest of the movie doesn’t hold up and can’t be lifted by the hot kaiju action or really absurd explanations. This is one of them.

5. Godzilla vs Mothra (1992)
Godzilla vs Mothra opens with an Indiana Jones esque sequence and I think I want to watch *that* movie. Just a couple of folks who keep searching for random kaiju eggs.

Speaking of random kaiju eggs, Mothra is back! That's probably not a big surprise since the movie's title is Godzilla vs MOTHRA and all, but Mothra has taken a back seat from the franchise for a while and this is a lovely reintroduction complete with the singing twins (I love the singing twins). I also love the humans waving goodbye to Mothra at the end of the movie. So cute!

Added bonus - Dark Mothra! There's Battra, which is in a larval stage for far too long before it turns into a bat-thing kaiju. I don't know what the hell, but as an antagonist for Godzilla it's pretty great. Not buzzsaw in the chest great, but as a nastier version of Mothra great.

Like the 1964 Mothra vs Godzilla, this is much more of a Mothra movie where Godzilla shows up occasionally as an antagonist than it is a "Godzilla" movie, though that distinction is fairly fine. Also, granted that Godzilla is an antagonist for pretty much the entire Heisei era. No hero Godzilla here.

The effects in Godzilla vs Mothra are really quite bad and are a major reversion to the earlier Showa era effects budget and techniques. The only exception to that is the underwater fight scene - but that gets to the idea of using darkness for greater impact and covering up the flaws / things they can't do well yet.

It's fine for what it is, but the movie is the first real disappointment of the Heisei era. The film was so close to being more interesting than it turned out to be, but just missed. Mostly due to the effects.

4. Godzilla vs King Ghidorah (1991)
Time Travelers from the future come back to inform Japanese officials that their country will be in ruins if they don’t go back further back in time to eliminate Godzilla before it can become the monster we all know and fear.

This is Godzilla origin story that I didn’t know I wanted - it was just a dinosaur that somehow survived until the 1940’s (the species, I’m sure Godzilla itself isn’t seventy million years old, probably) and then was nuked into awesomeness. But - in the midst of eliminating Godzilla, this altered timeline inadvertently created King Ghidorah and now there’s a timeline where Ghidorah wrecks Tokyo with no Godzilla to stop him. Of course, this being a Godzilla movie Godzilla does return from non-existence to fuck some stuff up.

There is a point here where Godzilla vs King Ghidorah is pivoting from some of the storytelling decisions (and tone) of Godzilla vs Biollante. I read a review elsewhere that suggested that Godzilla vs King Ghidorah is as much of a Showa Era movie in its absurdity than it is a Heisei Era film. I somewhat disagree, because while the time travel aspect is relatively absurd, everything here is taken so much more seriously than the excesses of the Showa Era. It may be nuts to go back in time to destroy Godzilla and create King Ghidorah and then go back to to nuke Godzilla back into existence, but it’s played straight and it works right up until the climactic fight, which - I’ll admit - does feel like a more classic / Showa era battle. Oh, and the Time Travelers have become a comic version of the T-2000 (Terminator 2: Judgment Day) and it’s a bit of a jarring note to the rest of the movie that is, as noted, played fairly straight.

With that said, I did like that sort of slap fight right before Godzilla gets serious and takes King Ghidorah down - so I don’t mean any of that as a negative. Godzilla vs King Ghidorah is a movie partly out of time - somewhat unsure of what it wanted to be. It’s also pretty great. Bonus points for the post-Ghidorah destruction within the city and the lead in to making Ghidorah mecha. At every turn someone needs to upgrade one monster because the other monster is too bad ass - but then that monster needs to be defeated, so let's revive the defeated monster. It's great. Godzilla vs King Ghidorah is just extra.

3. Godzilla vs Biollante (1989)
Godzilla has never looked better, now 17 movies into the franchise and the second entry in the Heisei era, and the costume department has finally fixed my biggest problem - the eyes. Now Godzilla looks like a terrifying monster rather than a what the fuck are wrong with his eyes monster.

Godzilla vs Biollante features genetic engineering, where a sample of Godzilla's flesh after the final battle in The Return of Godzilla has allowed scientists to combine Godzilla's DNA with that of a rose mixed with human cells (don't ask). The results are amazing and naturally go very wrong.

The first fight with the giant rose was good, but then Biollante levels up late in the movie for reasons and THAT FIGHT IS AMAZING. Biollante is freaky as hell, shoots green goo, and reminds me of the Marlboro from the Final Fantasy video games (perhaps the one enemy you least want to fight). The second fight could have been a bit longer, to be honest, but what was there was great.

The whole idea of the giant plant monster reminds me of the smog monster in Hedorah, and that was one of my favorites of the Showa Era.

With that said, I appreciate the change in the Heisei Era of Godzilla to a more serious (giant plant monster notwithstanding) tone. It's working really well so far. Godzilla vs Biollante also has one of the better human stories thus far in the franchise.

2. The Return of Godzilla (1984)
Released 9 years after Terror of MechaGodzilla, The Return of Godzilla serves as a direct sequel to the 1954 original as well as a reboot of the franchise, ignoring the loose continuity of everything that has happened since in the franchise.

The Return of Godzilla is darker in tone and starts out more as a horror movie (and maintains some of that tone throughout)

Thinking about the original Godzilla, I love the use of darkness to reintroduce Godzilla. There's just so much menace when you can't see the monster clearly and it is a looming terror in the night. That was always one of the most effective uses of Godzilla and the other monsters in the Showa Era of the franchise. With that said, they do need to stop with the closeups of the face that do occur because that rubber suit still does not look great and the eyes are lost somewhere in the uncanny valley.

The plan to cause a volcanic eruption in the hopes of burying Godzilla is fantastic in its absurdity, but one of the touches I appreciated most was the conference at the UN with the United States and the USSR advocating heavily for the use of nuclear weapons. The Japanese ministers have serious discussion about what that would mean for the country for the citizens relative to the threat of Godzilla and demure, but the conversation about nuclear weapons is more pointed than it might have been coming from other countries. Of course, the two ambassadors were over the top aggressive clowns - which somehow makes a lot of sense.

The point, though, is that The Return of Godzilla - more than any other movie in the franchise (at least the first twenty two of them - gets to the core of what Godzilla is.

1. Godzilla vs Destoroyah (1995)
This Godzilla is going to fuck somebody up. As the movie opens, Godzilla looks pissed, looks like it is in pain, looks raw, and is laying waste to Hong Kong.

Godzilla vs Destoroyah is a bad ass movie. After the opening Godzilla attack it takes another 30-40 minutes before it shows up again and it doesn't matter. There is a traditional slow build to the action, but the mini destroyers cause enough havoc that Godzilla vs Destoroyah is tense the whole way through.

The movie has Japan grappling with nuclear threats again (see the previous entry) - from Godzilla potentially going supernova to Godzilla attacking a nuclear reactor and the fear of how to respond, it's good stuff.

Besides that - when Destoroyah merges into it's final form, it is an incredible badass kaiju. We love Mothra, and Ghidorah is probably Godzilla's greatest antagonist (smog monsters not withstanding), but for my money Destoroyah ranks right up among the best of them.

Godzilla vs Destoroyah also features a return of Godzilla Jr, which would normally be an occasion for the gnashing of teeth but Godzilla Jr is all grown up and is closer to a regular strength Godzilla - but the OG Godzilla here is a nuclear furnace hell beast of pain and rage.

The music late in the movie really sells that this was intended to be a farewell for Godzilla. It is epic and sweeping, occasionally nostalgic, and absolutely perfect. Spoilers, but it ends with Godzilla melting away as the furnace inside the kaiju finally overcomes the body.

Director Takao Okawara knows what he's about and has crafted the finest Godzilla movie since perhaps the original. Nothing else quite compares.



Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 5x Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Minnesotan. He / Him

WE RANK 'EM: The Films of Godzilla's Showa Era

I’m not so mad as to attempt to rank *every* Godzilla film in one list (at least not today) because there are 37 of them (including the four American movies) and that is far more than I’m prepared to take on for a single article. Watching the most recent American versions got me interested in seeing where all of this started because it turns out that I was familiar with Godzilla as a concept but had never actually seen a Godzilla movie - excluding the 1998 Roland Emmerich directed and Matthew Broderick starring that I kind of want to rewatch again because I’m quite obviously damaged inside somehow.

I want to look at the 15 films made during the Showa era, which runs from Godzilla (1954) through Terror of MechaGodzilla (1975). The Showa Era gets its name from the reign of Japan’s Emperor Hirohito during which these movies were made, which I only note because otherwise you’ll probably be wondering why the Godzilla movies are divided into different eras and frankly it’s because there are gaps in between the eras and the chronology also tends to get reset. For example, with the exception of the fever dream of All Monsters Attack the other fourteen movies of the Showa Era are all set in the same chronology, not that it matters at all for your relative enjoyment of a particular movie.

Also worth noting, these are the movies currently available on HBO Max and the next 7 movies of Heisei are going to take just a little bit more work to watch. I think I have sources for most of the Heisei era flicks, but I’m going to run into the problem of finding the Japanese language versions rather than more easily accessible English dubs. It’s all well and good, but after the dubbed experience of Invasion of the Astro-Monster and Megalon I’d rather not touch a dubbed Godzilla movie ever again.

This isn’t a definitive ranking. I could have done just as well by grouping them into categories of appreciation because I really don’t want to choose between Mothra and Gigan or decide which of the bad movies is really worse than the other (though Son of Godzilla is the worst, that’s not up for as much of a debate as I’d give the other movies). This was just a fun project and a chance to dig into Godzilla’s history. I hope you enjoy the ride!

15. Son of Godzilla (1967)
This was really fucking stupid, let's just get that out of the way. This was their children's movie, or depending on what article you read - the "date movie" because young women like cute monsters or something. So, they gave Godzilla a son. Not sure where baby Godzilla came from because there's been no lady-zilla anywhere in the franchise thus far (or in the Showa era as a whole) so I'm assuming Godzilla asexually reproduced.

You know, there's a really bad move to be made about that story and I'm glad it hasn't been made. I can only assume Godzilla evolved with frog DNA and something something Jurassic Park something *magical hand waving.* It doesn't matter, but because I need to think about it, so did you. 

I'm avoiding talking about Son of Godzilla because it's just so bad. It's slapstick Godzilla with the worst rubber suit monster in the franchise (and possibly in all franchises anywhere) and I'd rather figure out out what to say about Ebirah than to think about the horror that is BabyZilla.

14. Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (1966)
This is the movie where Godzilla kicks rocks at a giant lobster and plays what is the world's worst game of catch. Now, this isn't a complaint about Ebirah being a giant lobster because Mothra is, well, a moth and most moths aren't actually frightening. Lobsters at least have pincers and giant lobsters have giant pincers.

Ebirah doesn't inspire quite the hatred that Son of Godzilla does for me. It's more that Ebirah was a dull, boring, and uninspired movie. Completely forgettable. Though, I hope some people enjoyed the movie because you're going to see some of this footage recycled again. That's right - as a cost savings measure throughout the years Toho would reuse some stock footage and some of it comes from the battles between Godzilla and Ebirah. That's too bad. There are far better movies to reuse footage from. This ain't it.

13. All Monsters Attack (1969)

I’m not going to go so far as to suggest All Monsters Attack was good, just like I’m not going to say that Friday the 13th: Jason Takes Manhattan was at all good (I have thoughts) - but it was weirdly more effective than expected given that has the fucking Son of Godzilla in the movie, and recycles footage from Ebirah, Son of Godzilla, Destroy All Monsters, and apparently King Kong Escapes.

All Monsters Attack isn't the fever dream Godzilla movie, that's Godzilla vs Hedorah. It is, however. a dream movie where nothing really counts as part of the series because All Monsters Attack is the dream of a child who tries to escape bullies and eventually gangsters and each time he does, he dreams of going to Monster Island and watching Son of Godzilla and really terrible monster shenanigans.

12. Invasion of Astro Monster (1968)

This isn't the only time I'll complain about dubbing, but the version I had available through HBO was the Japanese version dubbed in English and it's incredibly off putting. It was as if the actors were mocking the movie with their line readings because it's just a "dumb monster movie" and they didn't care or respect what they were making. Or maybe that was just how dubbing was in 1968, but that doesn't make it better. Invasion of Astro Monster wasn't high art by any means, but the dub really took away from the whole thing.

The final battle was great, though

11. Godzilla Raids Again (1956)
I don't want to be too bitchy at 65 year old special effects regarding the fight between Godzilla and Anguirus, but they did what they could. This is the second ever Godzilla movie and at least Godzilla was somewhat more mobile this time around.

Godzilla Raids Again is the second and last of the black and white Godzilla films, and it was interesting to see how they transitioned to color moving forward with King Kong vs Godzilla and beyond - the biggest difference was how the franchise's use of daylight in the monster fights. At their worst, that exposed the effects (to a modern viewer, anyway). Where Godzilla Raids Again is notable is that it establishes Godzilla as a franchise (even though it will be another seven years until the next movie) and it introduces other monsters for Godzilla to fight  (though Anguirus will later be a friend and Godzilla no longer a villain). It sets part of the template for the future. On its own, though, it pales in comparison to the first Godzilla and doesn't stand up well to the later movies.

I also read somewhere if the first Godzilla was a response to Hiroshima then this is a response to Nagasaki. I'm not sure if a) that's true or b) that idea comes across as clearly as Godzilla being a truly post-Hiroshima film does.

10. King Kong vs Godzilla (1962)
Never crash your submarine into Godzilla's iceberg. That's a life lesson and it's one that everyone should heed.

King Kong vs Godzilla is an action / adventure comedy and it's completely dumb. It's also kind of delightful and fun (though - the depiction of the islanders is pretty fucked up and that should not be overlooked).

This isn't a movie with anything to say, except "have fun with these giant monsters getting into a giant fight" and really, isn't that all we really want from a movie sometimes?

Also - props to that giant octopus. That thing was absolutely gross and I'm glad it was in the movie. It...oozes.

9. Godzilla vs Megalon (1973)
It’s not that I get unreasonably upset at having to watch a dubbed movie, but the dubbing in the English language Godzilla movies are just absolutely terrible. Maybe the actual acting is bad, too, I’m not sure because it’s being done in another language and I could be missing nuance - but it just feels false and it takes something away. The dubbing was better here than in Invasion of the Astro Monster but that’s an incredibly low bar to clear. Introduces Jet Jaguar, a humanoid robot hero thing and I think that was supposed to set up a franchise that never was.

For some of these older movies, though, I have to take what I can find - and in the case of HBO - that was a dubbed version. Please don't dub.

Anyway - Megalon is a giant beetle set to attack Earth because of the Seatopians (an underwater race of people sick of underwater nuclear testing) and it's a big delightful monster fight and Jet Jaguar is completely stupid but kind of great and that's really the thing with this movie and a number of other Godzilla - it's dumb and it's fun.

8. Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla (1974)
The human part of the plot is a extra dumb (though still not as drugged out as Godzilla vs Hedorah), but I have to say that I kind of love the rainbow color blasts that Mechagodzilla shoots out of its eyes at Godzilla. Also, Godzilla turns himself into a super powered magnet and I don’t understand even a little bit but it looks like he’s using magic and yeah, I’m here for that. There’s also a new monster, King Ceasar, that gets summoned by song and ever since the introduction of Mothra (not included here), that’s always been something I like.

Oh! And the costume department at Toho has to have borrowed / stole from the 20th Century Fox team that worked on Planet of the Apes because the alien race disguised as humans turns into creatures that look nothing more than a green version of the apes and I can’t imagine that was a coincidence.

7. Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)
There’s a lot of story here before we ever get to Godzilla.

I really like the climactic fight between Godzilla, Mechagodzilla and Titanosaurus. It was some of the best use of music and atmosphere since, frankly, the very first movie - which is all the more impressive because it’s a daytime fight and nighttime fights are just so much more effective in this franchise. Also, at one point Godzilla basically boxes at Titanosaurus and that’s pretty great. They just have to stop doing closeup shots because the rubber suit of it all does not do close ups very well.

Terror of Mechagodzilla is the final movie of the Showa Era of Godzilla, I don't think it was really intended to be the final movie of anything, it's just that the movie bombed at the box office and Toho needed to take a serious Godzilla break - but I don't because I still have six more movies to talk about!

6. Destroy All Monsters (1968)
First off, Godzilla Jr can go fuck off into the sun, that creature needs to go. It has absolutely no business being in this movie. That said, the rest of it is pretty great. All the monsters are taken over and controlled by human looking aliens and made to attack and destroy the rest of the world - but that leads into other ridiculousness when the Earth humans take back control and the alien humans get mad and bring in King Ghidorah to fight all the monsters and that turns into quite a brawl.

Anyway, I really dig the slap fight with everyone ganging up on Ghidorah at the end. That's a cool fight.

Also - Godzilla's eyes legit freak me out. I can't believe I haven't mentioned how wrong Godzilla's eyes are.

5. Mothra vs Godzilla (1964)
I really appreciate that the kaiju fights in these early Godzilla movies resemble how my six year old plays with toys and specifically the battles he and I have with his LEGO Ninjago sets with diving back and forth and waggling the toys at each other.

I don't *really* mean that as a criticism given the movie is almost sixty years old and we're talking about a giant moth fighting a giant dinosaur.

Early Godzilla has never looked better. Still a bit clumsy and awkward, but setting a standard for what Godzilla should look like in the daylight.

Mothra vs Godzilla takes the clash a quite bit more seriously than with the previous movie, King Kong vs Godzilla - but more than anything else this movie has heart. Kong was a monster the humans threw at Godzilla, but Mothra was asked to help and the people on her island are more like caretakers. Mothra is a beloved kaiju, rather than one to be truly feared.

4. Godzilla vs Gigan (1972)
Holy shit, y’all - Godzilla and Anguirius straight up have conversations with comic book speech bubbles. Frankly, that’s a feature that should have been used more. Shine spotlights on a kaiju, I want to see what the creature is saying when the light is in his eyes “Shit, that’s bright!” or “I’m Godzilla, bitches”. If you’re going to use the speech bubbles, go all the way with them.

One of the best things Godzilla vs Gigan did is make most of the monster action happen at night. The use of shadow and darkness really enhances the action and tension. The use of rubber suits is incredibly exposed in daylight scenes, which is fine when you want to highlight the camp.

Also, Gigan has a friggin circular saw on its chest and can really throw down when it gets up close. The rest of the Gigan design is pretty unimpressive, but that saw can do some damage.

Godzilla vs Gigan has a really great four way fight with Godzilla, Anguirius, Ghidorah, and Gigan - tag team action. That extended invasion and Godzilla’s response is pretty fantastic.

3. Godzilla vs Hedorah (1971)
Godzilla vs Hedorah opens with a catchy pop song about how the Earth was overpolluted and destroyed and honestly, what the fuck? It doesn’t help that there are scenes set in a dance club are a complete acid trip and other Austin Powers-esque musical dance-break interludes. Outside of that, this is the movie Ebirah Horror of the Deep wanted to be (or that I wanted it to be) - better Godzilla action and less hucking of rocks at a Water Monster.

I do appreciate that the ultimate theme here is Godzilla vs Pollution (really, it’s that people should stop fucking up this planet otherwise we’re going to have smog monsters from outer space and I think that’s a message we can all get behind). Despite the idea of a smog monster and the psychedelic dance breaks, this is a more serious Godzilla movie than the franchise has seen in a while. Also, Godzilla fucking flies while the score is playing a march, which is just about as wild as the series can possible can get.

2. Ghidorah, the Three Headed Monster (1964)
I don't watch these movies for the planetary science, but I really like the idea that Venus was once advanced technologically beyond Earth but became what it is because of Ghidorah's attack. I don't even know what we knew of Venus in 1964 - but it's a cool idea.

There's a LOT going on in Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster - missing princesses, assassins, gangsters, monster alliances, Godzilla making a surprise face-turn. Also, a musical interlude singing to baby Mothra.

I also dig the effects that are clearly miniatures being destroyed. It's not that we expect Tokyo to get wrecked every time someone wants to make a Godzilla movie - but it still looks like my kid playing with his toys. It's still a delight in those fight sequences, to be fair. You just have to go with it. Godzilla throws and kicks rocks as part of his new fighting strategy.

This is the first time I've seen Rodan, the giant pterodactyl. And then baby Mothra just hoses them down with moth-silk to get Godzilla and Rodan to cool off. And then baby Mothra asks Godzill and Rodan to apologize to each other! Baby Mothra rides on Rodan's back! These movies are just wild.

But can someone explain where everyone is evacuating to? The Venus Princess Person has been saying Ghidorah is going to leave the planet a wasteland. Not many places to go, if that's the case. On the other hand, I do get the idea of running *somewhere* because it feels like you're doing something.

This movie is a treat.

1. Godzilla (1954)
Yo! This is straight up a good movie, which I'm not sure I completely expected as I began this journey into the Godzilla franchise with no real idea of what I was getting myself into. It's a post World War II movie for Japan and everything that entails after the United States dropped two atomic bombs on the country, especially if you don't watch the version that has Americans added in for "relatability" or whatever bullshit reason they used at the time.

The effects are reasonably good for the time, but the story is just outstanding. On the one hand, it's about a giant dinosaur ravaging Tokyo. On the other, it features Japanese scientists building a super weapon to stop Godzilla but fearing that it's use will mean a world where these super weapons are common. Godzilla the film is about the terror of a horrific attack.

Hat tip to the music during a particular Godzilla attack sequence 2/3 through the movie. The use of darkness during the later attacks makes everything far scarier than if it was a daylight scene. Good stuff. This is the most effective and frightening use of Godzilla during the entire Showa era. I can't speak for the later movies, but something about the simplicity and using darkness to cover for limited effects makes the whole movie so great.



Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 5x Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Minnesotan. He / Him

The Godzilla vs Kong Roundtable: A Monsterously Good Time

G: Okay, to start - if you were writing one of those snappy taglines for this film what would it be?

Dean: What if Pacific Rim was… Bad?

Joe: Monster Big Smash, People Dumb

Vance: Inevitable Monster Team-Up, Engage!

G: Here’s mine. Goodbye Rubber Suits, Hello CGI Overload! I admit it’s not very catchy.

Now tell me how you really felt about the movie.

Joe: This might color absolutely everything I’m about to say (and by might, I mean it will): I love disaster movies. I don’t care if it is a big budget smash (San Andreas, 2012) or a made for TV shlocky train wreck (Category 6: Day of Destruction, 10.5), or even friggin Sharknado, they’re all great even when they are not. Godzilla vs Kong is a disaster movie. It doesn’t have anything to say about anything, but it’s really pretty when the monsters are throwing down. As such, I loved it. It gave me most of what I wanted.

Dean: The disaster here is the actual movie, on SO many levels. Obviously, it's a big, dumb action movie - or, it's supposed to be, but it REALLY wants you to think it's smart. The antagonists motivation is some weird xenophobic ideal of keeping humans the dominant species? And since it has to deliver on the actual title of the movie, it forces Godzilla and Kong together in convoluted, stupid ways. Because they are convoluted and stupid, we have to spend a whole bunch of runtime with boring, vapid humans with cookie-cutter issues that set up the title fight (get it?) we are waiting for. But wait! Some people like Kong, and some like Godzilla, so we can't actually have a victor, so here is Mecha-zilla to be the heel and take the L.

Let history remember that this movie literally starts with The Truman Show: Kong.

Vance: I couldn’t tell if the movie wanted me to think it was smart, or if it was winking at me telling me it knew this was all dumb. It was one of my biggest problems with it.

Joe: Let’s get the most important thing out of the way first: Godzilla won. They had a victor and it was clear. Kong was down, out, and dying. Kong only came back for the final MechaGodzilla fight because it got hit with some magic Hollow Earth core juice. Kong lost.

I won’t argue your boring vapid humans, because the humans in the movie were stupid (and I can’t believe I’m saying that about Kyle Chandler - Clear Eyes, Full Heart - Can’t Lose!). They were stupid and dumb and you’d think that doesn’t matter in a kaiju movie but I’ve started watching the original Godzilla movies and some of the humans are stupid there, but some of the movies are actually saying something and dealing with real tragedy of a monster destroying a city. The first Godzilla was made in the wake of the American atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and it’s clearly a response.

Godzilla vs Kong is a response to monsters throwing down is awesome (which, it is).

Dean: That is probably my biggest issue with it, is that both the originals of Kong and Godzilla had heart, had something to say, and connected to the world at large. To reference my tagline up there, Pacific Rim does not it-but it doesn't pretend to, and it works because of that self-awareness. This TRIES to, or acts like it is, and it falls completely flat for me because of that (see: like half my content on this site). Also, Kong getting back into the fight via plot armor makes me basically fly into a Hulk-style berserker rage.

Joe: Kong: Skull Island had a LOT of heart.

Dean: I had such high hopes after that movie. It was brilliant.

Vance: Some of my kids are finally old enough to keep up with the subtitles, so they recently saw the original Gojira for the first time, and we talked a lot about the resonance and commentary on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. But we have loved some of the English-dubbed sequels for many years, especially the ones with King Ghidorah, Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster and Invasion of Astro-Monster. Those are dumb, but fun. And the humans are wildly outlandish, which I think gives the movies their particular flavor.

The Godzilla vs. Kong characters included a podcaster. It’s not the same.

Joe: I wonder if our responses to the movie are a matter of expectation. Skull Island was far better than I expected, I liked both previous Godzilla movies, but putting Kong and Godzilla together was about what I expected - dumbness and throwing down. But now that I’m watching the originals in order - yeah, that’s about right for the combo movies.

Look, I just watched Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964) and a Mothra caterpillar spat silk in the faces of Godzilla and Rodan, told them to apologize to each other, and pretty much bullied them into teaming up to fight Ghidorah. Dumb is cooked into the franchise.

Vance: One of my favorite moments in that movie, yes.

Joe: Which isn’t to say that Godzilla vs Kong couldn’t and shouldn’t have been more. There’s no reason why the people couldn’t have been smarter. Of course Apex was a shitty company that was causing Godzilla to attack (on purpose?) - but everything around it could have been way smarter than it was.

G: Parts of it were good, I think - mostly in the second half of the film. But it’s not a good film. For me the question is whether it’s bad bad or good bad. The Toho films, outside the original Gojira (which is a true classic), mostly fall into one of those categories. I mean, a lot of them are basically 80 minutes of boring exposition in a control room followed by 10 minutes of obvious dude in rubber suit stomping on obvious cardboard models. So cranking up the action factor isn’t per se a bad thing.

Guess my problem with the film is more on the production side than anything else. When I was a kid, I watched the original Godzilla vs. King Kong like a dozen times. And each time I’d get upset that Kong triumphs in the end (this being the US version). Each time I hoped that, somehow, Godzilla would win. And now here it is - the moment I’d been waiting for all those years! And all I can think of is…

….why the fuck doesn’t that aircraft carrier tip over, and Kong drown?

Also, what happened to me? As a kid, I could deal with obvious dude in rubber suit stomping on obvious cardboard models. Now I just can’t handle CGI overdesign. It’s ridiculous, and unrealistic. And yes, I know ‘realism’ in a kaiju film is an absurd to demand - but what I really want is a Godzilla who moves like an actual kaiju would move if it was real. Think the T-Rex in Jurassic Park, only better thanks to advancements in CGI. Instead we’ve got two ridiculous looking monsters moving and acting in ridiculous ways because CGI advancements also mean “not limited by actual laws of physics, biology and/or common sense.” Rant over.

Joe: I...liked….the CGI and movement and all of that mess?

Dean: My CGI rant is that ANY effects should be in service of the story. So I can deal with rubber suits and the wires in early SciFi if the story is there. The first moment of terrible CGI came as we saw Kongs Truman Show bubble, and a stupid tree spear, and get introduced to Apex - and all of that is SO DUMB. And not "dumb fun monster fight", DUMB dumb. So the CGI, good or bad, doesn't help or serve anything. Babylon 5 had terrible CGI and is one of the best shows ever.

Also, the ship fight was just SO bad. Godzilla could have drowned him in 10 minutes flat, and then resorts to horror movie levels of logic by NOT MAKING SURE KONG IS DEAD GOD I HATE THIS MOVIE.

Vance: It wasn’t specifically the CGI that kept making me angry, it was the over-design in general. You see dumb over-design in sci-fi stuff all the time, but this was intense. The Hollow Earth vehicles with their weird energy spiral jets were one thing, but the literal hallways of Apex being V-shaped, or diamond shaped...nobody builds walls like that. I don’t care how evil you are, you don’t build walls in a way that jettisons 10,000 years of human architecture just cuz.

This is a very nitpicky gripe, but the converse is one of the things that really sells effective sci-fi. The lived-in look of the original Star Wars was part of the reason why I adored it as a kid. It felt like an actual place that existed somewhere. In Forbidden Planet, the doorways are called out specifically as an anthropological clue to the previous inhabitants of the planet. But when you’re already asking me to believe the Earth is hollow and Kong lives in the Truman Show, just...please...just give me plumb walls.

G: THANK YOU. I was just ranting off screen about how the design in O.G. Star Wars has a sort of realism to it - what you more eloquently call “lived in.” But that’s it. The era of the CGI-diven action movie - which George Lucas helped usher in - is more or less defined by the idea that nothing needs to look lived in. Everything is spectacle.

Vance: Along the same lines, the whole Hollow Earth aspect really rubbed me wrong. On the one hand, I appreciated the nod back to the early days of sci-fi writings and the tradition of Hollow Earth stories, but between that and the wall of conspiracies around everything...it just felt too close to our actual right now (I’m looking at you, Flat Earthers), without having anything to actually say about it.

Joe: Oh - point of contention, G - Kong also wins in the Japanese version of King Kong vs Godzilla. That was just a weird rumor when the Japanese version wasn’t available in the states. Random trivia for you.

G: Well shows how much I know. Maybe I just wanted there to be a Japanese version where Godzilla wins? I was really into Godzilla as a kid, but there wasn’t much of an internet back then, and I didn’t have access to it anyway.

Joe: Apparently (and according to the internet) - that was the story for decades about Godzilla winning in the Japanese and Kong in the US. But - Godzilla is the heel and the heel loses in those fights. Or is driven away.

G: Yeah he definitely is the heel. Kong is happy on his island until people disturb him. Humans are also to blame for Godzilla, but he’s more proactive about destroying stuff. Kong is more relatable in the end, except that Godzilla also protects children sometimes. Anyway, one thing I did like about Godzilla vs. Kong is that they made Kong more sympathetic. Despite my Team Gojira leanings, I found myself unhappy to see Kong losing. Just let him go live his life, man!

Joe: The humans definitely did Kong dirty. He was incredibly sympathetic - a thinking creature who protects and can learn language.

G: Have to say, I like that they’ve revived Kong as a character. I tried to rewatch the original a few years back - and it is an important, iconic film - but as a kid I never really picked up on how hideously racist it is. Like, even bad for its time. That’s as good a reason for a remake as any - to take something that just doesn’t translate today and re-examine it through a modern lens. Possibly I’m giving the new films too much credit here. But the new Kong films are generally pretty okay - as discussed above, Skull Island is arguably the best of the new Kaiju-verse films.

Joe: I haven’t seen much of Kong. I think I hated the Peter Jackson flick and I haven’t actually seen any of the earlier ones all the way through (except for King Kong vs Godzilla) I’m on a kaiju kick, so I do plan to start with the original 1933 flick and move on from there. I’m...not terribly surprised that it doesn’t hold up, though. I’m more curious how the Jessica Lange version is, to be honest.

G: Okay, let’s talk about what comes next for Godzilla and the Kaiju-verse. We’ve seen Godzilla and Kong, and we’ve seen a lot of the others too - King Ghidora, Rodan, Mothra and Mechagodzilla. So what’s next? If you ask me, there can only be one answer:

Godzilla Junior.

Vance: They did a good job, I felt, with the MUTOs in the 2014 Godzilla, so they could always cook up some new threat, but with Godzilla Junior just waiting there for a turn in the spotlight? How do you not?

Joe: I’ve got two movies before I get to Son of Godzilla, but you know what? Sure, why the hell not? Otherwise, bring in space based threats. I assume in the new monsterverse everything is terrestrial, even Ghidorah, so something from beyond? Bonus points if they make up a story about how that threat destroyed all life on Mars or Venus.

Also - can I just assume we’re getting Kong: Hollow Earth at some point in the future and be happy about it?

G: Ghidorah is from another planet! At least, sometimes he is. Including King of the Monsters. Ha! Got you back for bursting my “Godzilla won in the Japanese version” bubble.

Joe: Well played. Apparently I forgot the story in King of the Monsters.

Vance: The aliens in the second Ghidorah film from back in the day are very special. And the mysterious princess in the first Ghidorah movie channeling the spirit of a Martian is also...very special. It’s this kind of goofiness that endears those movies to me so much.

Joe: Final question, just to put a final stamp on the whole thing - even granting particular gripes and nit picks, did you like Godzilla vs Kong?

I mean, Dean is notoriously subtle with his feelings….

G: On the first watch, I did not - though I did like King of the Monsters better on watch #2 so I decided to give it another go. And guess what! I enjoyed it a lot more. Guess the difference between “good bad” and “bad bad” is as much about your mindset and expectations as anything else. At first, I couldn’t get over the fact that I wanted a movie they didn’t make. And that fight on the aircraft carrier was just...so, so bad.

On my second watch I was able to appreciate the dumb fun a lot more. The fight in neon Hong Kong is ridiculous in all the right ways - though they missed an opportunity to use Makeup & Vanity Set’s music here (especially since “A Glowing Light, A Promise” is featured elsewhere in the film). That would have been amazing. Mechagodzilla is more or less Ultron, which...meh. But I did like the pacing and mechanics of that fight too.

So my end verdict is...not bad? I’ll probably watch it again sometime, hopefully with my nephew, who’s been Godzilla-obsessed for years.

Vance: In the end, I didn’t. I really wanted to. I liked the 2014 movie very much, and thought King of the Monsters was enjoyable, but I just kept bouncing off of this one.

Joe: Dean - you liked it, right?

Dean: What's not to love? A lot of my rambling on here is dedicated to the fact that I find it far worse to be mediocre than bad, and this fits the bill perfectly. Too full of itself, bloated, with middling execution. I would have loved a great film, that was either 90 minutes of monster smashing, or a high-minded visionary film with a powerful message. Instead, we got a rambling mess that was incoherent without being actually interesting or exciting.

Joe: Well. To leave on a high note - *I* liked it. I’m not going to argue the bloat or the humans being dumber versions of real people, but it was exactly the big budget blockbuster monster smash that I was looking for. And if it eventually sets up Kong: Hollow Earth in five years - I’m all for it.

Holiday Gift Guide (for Girls?) - Tia and Vance

Here at Nerds of a Feather, we're big believers in women in the sciences and the science fictions. And since I have three daughters, the oldest of whom is actively building up her nerd cred more and more, I pitched co-contributor Tia the idea of doing a gift guide for girls that goes in a totally different direction than your mainstream pink-and-princesses type guides we all see everywhere this time of year. The gifts that follow, then, are not really gender-specific, but we hope that if you're shopping for a special kid with an interest in nerdy things, regardless of their chromosomes, these will give you some ideas.

Gift Guide - Vance

I bestow upon you earned knowledge. Each of the gifts below has been kid-tested in my own home, so I've seen these things in action in grubby little kid paws, and pronounce them winners.

Board Games

The two most popular games in my house this year have been Labyrinth and King of Tokyo. Labyrinth is a board game made up of moving tiles that you can shift on your turn in order to create a path to the next piece of treasure you must collect. It's fun, and a wonderful exercise in spatial reasoning. In King of Tokyo, you are a monster battling other monsters for control of Tokyo. What's not to love?
Labyrinth from Amazon King of Tokyo at Amazon

Batman

I loved the 1960s Batman TV series when I was a kid, but in a new world that includes sprawling effects spectacles like The Avengers, I wasn't sure how the campy antics of Adam West and Burt Ward would go over. I needn't have worried. All three girls come from wherever they are in the house to dance when they hear the theme song begin, and all those "Pow"s "Biff"s and "Zowie"s have been tremendous fun for somebody who just learned to read. Now the complete series is available on disc for the first time, and even comes packaged with a snazzy die-cast Batmobile.
Amazon

Monster Feet

My eldest daughter loves monsters and Godzilla. Somebody gave her some pink monster-feet house shoes, which are fine, but she and I both prefer the Godzilla feet slippers she has. Seeing a little kid walk around the house in these things is simply the best. It's the best.
Amazon


Gift Guide - Tia

Dealing with Dragons: Book One of the Enchanted Forrest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede

This was my all time favorite book growing up. It’s about an improper princess named Cimorene, who doesn’t behave as a princess ought to. She tries to learn fencing and cleaning and magic and Latin…all subjects that are denied to princesses. But uncovering her parents’ plan to force her into an arranged marriage is the last straw and Cimorene skips town, eventually finding herself in the company of some dragons. She volunteers to be the dragons’ “captive,” a position she thoroughly enjoys, despite all the annoying rescue attempts by knights in shining armor.

I think I loved this book so much because it was different than all the other princess stories. I was condemned to Catholic school as I kid, so I could fully relate to being expected to act a certain way and not being able to learn anything cool. I can’t speak for the trilogy as a whole, because I never even knew there was more than one book until recently, but Dealing with Dragons is a story that will live in a little girl’s heart forever (well mine at least).
Amazon.



Harry Potter Gryffindor Jersey

This is the all time most awesome Harry Potter shirt EVER! When I finally made it to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter this summer, I was so overwhelmed with nerdiness I couldn’t handle it. Not to mention, the Diagon Alley expansion was finished but not open to the public yet, so I had to deal with that crushing blow at the same time. Talk about mixed feelings. I’m not going to lie, I did contemplate jumping the fence. There was only one guard on duty and I know I could have outrun him. But anyway, I saw so many little folks rocking this top around Orlando and it was fantastic. It’s not your typical flimsy T-Shirt, it has a little more substance to it and even some embroidery. I opted not to buy myself one while I was there and purchased a wand instead, a decision I regret. At a recent Harry Potter festival in Philadelphia I saw a mother-daughter duo sporting these matching HP jerseys and it was to die for. Universal Studios.

National Geographic Archaeology Kit: Pyramid Dig

Lets face it. Archaeology is cool, mythology is cool, and digging in the dirt is really, really cool. I worked as an archeologist for a time and was the only girl on the field crew (i.e., dirt diggers). All the other girls at the company worked in either administration or as researchers. If you ask me, we need more girls in the dirt digging department. This Ancient Egypt archaeology set looks like so much fun, and may be just the type of thing to get more of today’s youth interested in history and digging. It comes with a little chisel, brush, hammer, mummy, and sarcophagus. It even has directions on how to mummify an apple! Be aware though, this kit contains choking hazards, so make sure that the recipient of this gift isn’t one to eat non-food items.  Amazon.  

(Editor's note: Tia and I had overlapping gift recommendations, although mine involved digging up dinosaur bones, not ancient civilizations. Both are super cool. Here's the T-Rex skeleton dig we have here. - V)