Just the Ticket #223: Godzilla vs Mothra

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. The Ticketmaster.

Booyakah and happy Juneteenth, Ticketholders!

Something I forgot to mention about Kazuki Ōmori's writing of the Heisei Era films so far is how much his love of American cinema has shown through in the sequels. The Biollante film has one of the human characters quoting Dirty Harry. Godzilla vs King Ghidorah (as I mentioned last week) is full of references to Back To the Future, the Terminator films, and E.T. among others. And today's Goj-Year-ra entry opens (aside from its credits sequence) with a scene that would feel right at home in the Indiana Jones trilogy, no fridge required.

Originally envisioned as a standalone Mothra movie (until Godzilla vs Biollante underperformed, causing Toho to shelve the concept until the King Ghidorah movie did well enough to reinforce their idea that their viewing audience were stupid, insecure babies—but mostly women—who wanted reboots of old monsters instead of new ones) and then as a King Ghidorah revenge movie (except that the majority female viewing demographic got Toho thinking Mothra would make them more money than the giant dragon made of gold plushies), Godzilla vs Mothra (not to be confused with Mothra vs Godzilla, and released in the US as Godzilla and Mothra: Battle For Earth) was hatched in 1992, a year after the previous film, and picks up sometime after Godzilla and Mecha-King Ghidorah fought to a near draw and wound up at the bottom of the ocean. Takao Okawara (Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II, Godzilla vs Destoroyah, and Godzilla 2000) takes over directing duties with Ōmori providing the script, Ifukube returning as composer, Megumi Odaka returning so Miki can stand in the background and occasionally give the illusion that she's contributing to the plot, and Kenpachiro Satsuma and Hurricane Ryu returning as suit performers for Godzilla and the Battra larva respectively.

As Godzilla is awakened from his cyborg bondage nap by tanking a million-ton, hectameter-wide meteor exploding in his face (roughly a tenth the size of the Chicxulub Impactor that multi-genocided the dinosaurs, which, according to original Gojira lore, he also survived as a normal dinosaur, because the time travel shenanigans in the previous movie have made it so that this present Godzilla is that first Godzillasaur...I think, which is going to render all future human attempts to kill him infinitely more laughable because his durability geometrically outscales the explosive impact force of an extinction-level celestial object), the ensuing, literally meteorological event (a flood-inducing rainstorm) unearths a giant egg, and an adventurous archaeologist named Fujito (Tetsuya Bessho, the VA for Ryo Sakazaki in the shit-cheap Art Of Fighting anime movie) survives an impressive action setpiece before winding up in a Thai prison (but not the horny kind).

In exchange for his freedom, Fujito must agree to investigate the giant egg on behalf of the Marutomo Group (an unsubtly, cartoonishly greedy and evil corporation that serves as a Heisei analogue to Shōwa entities like Pacific Pharmaceutical, Happy Enterprises, and Clark Nelson), which includes having to go on the expedition to Infant Island with his ex-wife, Masako (Satomi Kobayashi, the Japanese dub voice of Tate on Yellowstone). Divorce narratives are received differently in a traditionalist culture like Japan than they are in America, so it's disappointing that this movie tends toward a playfully antagonistic dynamic with Bessho giving his performance affable goofball energy until it's time for the estranged couple and their daughter (Shiori Yonezawa, Ju-On 2 and the first and third School Ghost Stories films) to join the exposition fan club during the kaiju action and reconcile for basically no reason even though Fujito is a deadbeat dad and convicted thief who tried to sell the Cosmos (the reboot Shobijin, now played by Keiko Imamura—Shizuka in Boys Over Flowers—and Sayaka Ozawa—Godzilla vs SpaceGodzilla—who can't sing very well and obviously aren't twins) to an American geneticist for...

Meanwhile, the Marutomo bosses (Makoto Otake and the returning Koichi Ueda) are acting like a Toho self-report ("destroy! Destroy it all! I can rebuild it!") and franchise legend Akira Takarada is ham-acting ham-fisted dialogue about humanity deserving kaiju attacks because we mistreated the Earth's ki (messaging that was more artfully handled in Hedorah and Biollante, and just feels like overt text here, to the detriment of the human plots, thin and rushed as they already are).

Thankfully, I didn't mind the kaiju portion as much this time around. While the rear projection and greenscreen used for perspective and flight sequences looks like it belongs in a movie from twenty to fifty years prior because of the production timetable that Toho and crew gave themselves, and the kaiju plot is basically a mashup of Mothra and Mothra vs Godzilla (but Godzilla almost feels like an afterthought in "his own" movie because he's replacing and sharing characterization with the villain of that original Mothra vs Bagan script), the model work is incredibly convincing, Battra looks metal as hell in both forms, the dogfight between the two flying monsters is pretty fun, and the imagery of Godzilla breaking out of Mount Fuji, Mothra evolving from her cocoon, and Battra transforming out of the water were what the modern generation would call "absolute cinema."

The formula of agonizing progression that was established in Biollante and King Ghidorah is  paced more briskly by the inclusion of the third kaiju, epic imagery, less infuriating displays of human stupidity (because they're only allowed to tell us what we just saw and what it means like they're all Japanese Raymond Burr or something), and decently varied choreography for a laser-heavy Heisei Era fight. Even the ending (which sees Godzilla trapped in the ocean yet again, this time by Mothra using Stun Spore to activate Spellbinding Circle and Swords Of Revealing Light before she heads into space to stop a prophesied Deep Impact from causing Armageddon), minus the mandated checklist of human resolutions, had some heart and signs of narrative planning going on for the future.

The first two Heisei entries are still my favorites so far, but I'd say this is a not-too-distant third.

C+

Starting tomorrow, I'm on stay-cation, but you can still Stay Tuned for a Grimm Universe Omnibusted and my thoughts on the Heisei Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla reboot as I continue to binge Frieren and get myself reaccquainted with HeroMachine. Also, June looks like another Road to 10k walked even though I wasn't really trying for it, so thank you again, and please continue to support me and what I do by Becoming A Ticketholder if you haven't already, leave a comment at the bottom of this post and any others you have opinions about, help out my ad revenue as you read so I can afford to re-build if I have to, and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content.

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Ticketmaster,

Out.