The result of this bit
of sneakiness led me to watch the full spread of twenty-eight classic
appearances of the King of Monsters (plus some bonus ones of his friends, and
his cousin Earl) TWICE in six months.
Ah, the hidden wonders
of parenthood.
I probably should (again)
mention the patience of my wife – who, while she enjoys them, is
extraordinarily glad she only had to sit through them once.
With that much Kaiju
permeating my very soul, I couldn’t very well let the actual November 3rd
Fiftieth Anniversary date get too far past without acknowledgement.
However, I think one
thing everyone involved can agree upon is that I’ve talked FAR too much about
Godzilla this year.
Therefore, here are some
extremely short and general impressions my daughter passed along while joining
me in yet another of my long standing fandoms.
She has an incredibly
hard time focusing on black and white images.
This is true whether or not she thinks they are entertaining, and
explains why it’s taking incredibly long for us to watch the Lone Ranger TV series. She enjoys them, but her mind wanders.
While a classic, the
original is an extremely old film, which she pointed out by mock crying out,
“OH NO, A GUY IN A SUIT!” fairly frequently.
Actually, she yelled
that in all of the films, mostly to annoy me.
Her biggest effects
based complaint however, had more to do with the massively horrified
overreaction to the Oxygen Destroyer’s dissolving of fish.
Yeah, we probably could
have skipped this one. The 1954 original
gets referenced far too often, and is a classic, making watching it a given.
However, since this one featured the premier of Anguirus, was the only other
one not in color, and more importantly, was very short, she gave it a shot.
She found Anguirus a
watchable mix of ugly and awesome, and did enjoy the antics of Kobayashi, the
Goofy Guy. She stated rather strongly,
as did my wife, that he shouldn’t have died.
She yelled, “What the
heck?!” out loud almost every time the Paleontologist (Dr. Yamane) gave any
kind of scientific explanation. She
decided he really needed some retraining under Mr. Fordyce, her particularly
awesome, and biology based, science teacher.
Mothra 1961
Watching Mothra was her
idea. I told her it and Rodan were made between the last and
next Godzilla film, but watching them at this point (or at all) wasn’t needed.
(It was needed to watch
the Godzilla films proper. As I have
mentioned, we have interesting definitions of “need” in this home.)
However, due to being
excited about the Shobijin, she asked to watch it and then decide about Rodan.
The Radioactive Pterosaur’s film came out five years earlier, but I
let her watch them out of sequence. See I’m only almost as insanely anal about this stuff as I appear.
Overall she found another
single Kaiju fighting the military action to be, “Kinda boring.” On the positive side, it did provide some
call back moments when we reached the Millennium series. While she cheered the Shobijin appearances,
after this experience she voted to skip Rodan.
Color, wrestling style giant
monster battles, and a major dose of ridiculousness were finally fully introduced
to the mix.
Much like the world at
large, this one caught her attention and spurred her futher into the series.
Having seen the “real”
King Kong before, she found the Toho incarnation rather creepy.
Also, much like the
world at large, she found Kong’s affinity with lightning baffling.
She asked about other
monsters and I kept telling her it was a “Tako,” since Mr. Tako featured
prominently, without further explanation. Her response to the appearance of Daidako
(aka. Oodako) the theoretically enormous slimy octopus was a single word:
“Seriously?”
Apes Index
With a better and more
complex story, improved effects and, of course, Godzilla and the Fairies
together- this one fully captured her into the fandom for the first time in the
series.
Needless to say, there
was more cheering for the Shobijin than their original appearance.
While she found Mothra’s
adult form excessively cute, she thought the caterpillars were, “creepy
looking.”
This, combined with the
King of Monsters growing on her as the films progressed, may have added to her
reaction to the ugly bugs webbing up the Big G in the climax.
She kept repeating,
“Poor Godzilla…so sad.”
The film’s actions created a marvelous demonstration about how suspension of disbelief tends to be a lumpy and inconsistent affair in even the strangest films.
She had no problem with
the sibling rivalry like Kaiju combat, the monster conversations, or the
complete reversal from them being attackers to protectors. However, the fact that the Mothra larva
needed to bite Godzilla’s tail to be dragged to their next location dumbfounded
her.
She also pointed out
that the Shobijin’s translations of “Monster Speak” were likely completely
wrong, and they were just bluffing.
Two important elements
came out of the first Toho Monster Mash:
A) She thought Rodan was
really cute, establishing a precedent that may lead us to watching his solo
film some day.
B) She decided the sound
of Ghidorah’s heads bobbing in flight was, “flubba flubba flubba,” establishing
a precedent for referring to creatures by made up sound effects that would
continue through the series.
By this point, my
daughter had fully embraced the amusement park nature of the movies, frequently
taking part in audience participation by yelling at the screen.
e.g. “Aaah! Look out the window!”
Or, “BOOM- AWESOME!” for
the finishing explosion.
She viewed the films
somewhat more analytically than a typical Godzilla movie viewer, though that
didn’t stop her from making the required, “Flubba flubba flubba,” noise as
needed.
(That’s my girl)
She expressed puzzlement
at bars being soundproof and equal confusion as for the reasoning behind the
Xiliens pointy toed elf shoes. Why all
the women were Miss Namikawa when all the men were different was a pretty good
question too.
After everything he went
through, she decided the inventor’s greatest achievement wasn’t the annoying
sound of the “lady alarm,” but that his glasses “invented a way to stay on.”
Her most penetrating
question raised an excellent point about the film’s antagonists:
“If the aliens number
everything (like Monster Zero-One, Monster Zero-Two, etc) why do they call
their planet ‘X’?”
Once again, Toho was
recommended to get a download from Mr. Fordyce’s 5th Grade
Invertebrate Biology class. This was
primarily because Ebirah’s eyes extended much too far out of their sockets. The
fact that he was well above the size that his exoskeleton could support his
mass passed by without comment.
That’s my girl.
She did get bored for a
little while in the middle during the Bondian set up plot, until the Kaiju
showed up. Since Toho didn’t constantly cut away from the monsters like some
other versions of Godzilla I could mention (*cough*Legendary2014*cough*) my
daughter’s interest held after that.
The Fauxbijin didn’t impress
her all that much either. During the
extended dance mix native village Kaiju wake up song, complete with the chief
in the giant feather hat, she asked:
“Why don’t they just
poke Mothra?”
As this film is most
similar to the previous one, so were her reactions.
The (not really) native
girl was pretty.
Toho needs to talk to
her science teacher because mantises can’t fly, and spiders shouldn’t shoot
webs from their mouth, but from their butt.
And, y’know, usually
weight significantly less than eight thousand tons.
Instead of creating her
own sound effect, she imitated Minilla.
The goofy little dude
has appeal.
Her favorite in the
first half of the Showa series:
Mothra
vs. Godzilla…
Fairies, Duh!
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