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GODZILLA RAIDS AGAIN (1955) aka GIGANTIS THE FIRE MONSTER

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Gigantis the Fire Monster was a heavily re-edited American version of Godzilla Raids Again (the 2nd Godzilla movie). Godzilla Raids Again was released theatrically in Japan on April 24, 1955. The edited version was released theatrically in the United States on June 2, 1959 by Warner Bros. Pictures.

The North American rights to the film were purchased by Harry Rybnick, Richard Kay, Edward Barison, Paul Schreibman, and Edmund Goldman, the same producers who acquired the rights to Godzilla and released it as Godzilla, King of the Monsters!. Instead of dubbing the film, the producers first planned to produce a new film titled The Volcano Monsters, while utilizing the effects footage from the original Japanese film. (Sort of like how Power Rangers was made.) Rybnick hired Ib Melchior and Edwin Watson to write the screenplay.

Melchior and Watson spent hours watching the Japanese version to build an American story around the footage and to note down footage of the monsters, military mobilization, crowds fleeing, and jets flying and attacking. The duo completed a 129 paged script, dated May 7, 1957, with instructions for the editor of where the Japanese footage was to be used. In their script, Godzilla and Anguirus were changed to dinosaurs, with Godzilla identified as a female Tyrannosaurus. All shots of Godzilla using his atomic breath were eliminated, to be replaced with new footage of Godzilla swiping his claws at jets. Panic, disaster, and military mobilization scenes from news reels were to be included between the Japanese monster footage. The blackout was re-written to signify that the monsters destroyed a power plant. The new effects footage was to be shot at Howard A. Anderson's special effects studio. Toho approved of the idea and shipped suits for Godzilla and Anguirus to Hollywood so the filmmakers could shoot additional scenes. Rybnick and Barison initially struck a deal with AB-PT Pictures Corp. to co-finance the film but the company closed shop in 1957. 

Schreibman, Goldman, and then-new financier Newton P. Jacobs decided to dub the film instead. Hugo Grimaldi was hired to oversee the dubbing and editing of the film. Masaru Sato's original music was replaced (except for a couple of tracks) with stock music from various libraries, including the MUTEL library, as well as music from films such as Kronos (1957), Project Moonbase (1958) and The Deerslayer (1957). Godzilla's roar was largely replaced with Anguirus' roar. This version had the working title of Godzilla Raids Again, but the film was released in May 1959 as Gigantis the Fire Monster on a double-bill with Teenagers From Outer Space. Schreibman took full credit for changing Godzilla's name to Gigantis, which was an attempt to convince audiences that "Gigantis" was a brand new monster, stating, "We called it 'Gigantis' because we didn't want it to be confused with 'Godzilla' [who had clearly been killed irreparably by the oxygenator]." At one point, Schreibman inaccurately told reporters that the original Japanese film was called Angirus. 

The film was dubbed at Ryder Sound Services in New York and featured the voice talents of Keye Luke, Paul Frees, and George Takei. (Yes. That George Takei.) The English dialogue was based on a loose interpretation, rather than an accurate translation, of the original Japanese dialogue. Credit for the English dialogue script had not been revealed since the release of the film. According to Takei, the word "banana oil" was created by the dub's director due to having difficulty finding a word to match the lip movement of the original Japanese word "bakayaro". Takei stated that people laughed during the recording due to the word being an outdated expression. The English version utilizes stock footage from various films, such as Unknown Island and the first Godzilla film, as well as news reels, military footage, the space program, and educational films.

Prior to the film's release, Schreibman approached Bill Foreman (then-President of Pacific Theaters) and convinced him to purchase the theatrical and television rights to both Gigantis and Teenagers from Outer Space and helped Foreman sell the theatrical rights to Warner Bros. According to the deal, Foreman agreed to show both films in all of his theatres while Warner Bros. would distribute the films to other theatres and were given the American and Latin American theatrical rights to both films for four years. The American version of the film was released theatrically on May 21, 1959 where it played as a double feature with Teenagers from Outer Space.

After the film reverted to Foreman and his attorney Harry B. Swerdlow (who became designated owner of both films because Foreman did not want his name to appear on the copyright notices), they did not pursue any interest in continuing to sell the television rights, which resulted in Gigantis the Fire Monster disappearing from American theatres and television for two decades until the rights reverted to Toho in the mid-1980s.

In 1989, Video Treasures released the American version on EP and LP VHS in North America. In 2007, Classic Media and Sony BMG Home Entertainment released both the Japanese and American versions on DVD in North America. Per Toho's request, the original title card for Gigantis, the Fire Monster was replaced with a new title card sporting the film's official English title. The American version has not been re-released since, with all subsequent releases only featuring the Japanese version of the film.

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Spectreman  — スペクトルマン | 1971 - 72

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Kyumaras - Dream Rocket

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The boys meet @ruubesz-draws ‘s BUFF moth! 

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I will not apologize for providing more himbo lizard content 

for the uninitiated

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Tricycle Godzilla - M1Go

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GvK Spoilers by curlytsunamiART

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Leaked Godzilla vs Kong footage.

Real authentic footage, fresh from my uncle’s cousin who works at Legendary.

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Unexpected Movie Review: Destroy All Monsters

I have finally finished the Showa era of Godzilla movies. (Just the Godzilla movies. There are still a few random non-Godzilla titles from the Showa era I need to see, like Varan, the Unbelievable, Frankenstein vs. Baragon, Matango, stuff like that…) But at the very least I’ve finished the Godzilla movies from that era. The only one I hadn’t seen was Destroy All Monsters.

For some reason it was the one movie that never came on cable TV Godzilla marathons when I was a kid and never showed up on the shelf at video rental shops or even in the DVD bargain bin at Walmart. So after finally obtaining a copy I sat down to watch it tonight and… wow… That was it…? For having one of the largest cast of kaiju in a Godzilla movie, that was probably the most embarrassing attempt by an alien race to take over the Earth I’ve ever seen… So embarrassing that I just can’t keep it to myself and I have to do a review on this movie.

This movie was made back in 1968 but it’s set in the far off future of 1999… And it’s kind of hilarious sitting here watching what people in the 60s thought the future was going to look like when that future is now the past… I mean… remember back in the 90s when the UN built a moon base and we had daily flights between the Earth and the moon? And the under water base where we were busy making new breeds of fish? Damn… I miss that… That Y2K bug really set us back decades… But I guess the biggest achievement of the 90s was when we gathered up all the kaiju on the planet and locked them up on an island contained inside a magnetic shell. Because kaiju are magnetic, right…? That’s why they can’t get out…? Maybe they’re like sharks and magnets screw with their senses… Either way we were keeping them contained on this island we conveniently named “Monster Land” and were feeding them a steady diet of dolphins. Because fuck dolphins, am I right?

But then suddenly all the monsters are out and stomping all over the place. And I do mean suddenly. Like, one moment they are sitting there watching the monsters on the monitors and then they take their eyes off of them for five minutes and suddenly Rodan is leveling Moscow, Mothra is fucking up Beijing, Gorosaurus is in Paris knocking down  the Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile while a mildly annoyed Frenchman yells about it as if it was no worse than his cat throwing up on the living room floor and the news reporters can’t even be bothered to get the monster’s name right, calling him Baragon… And Godzilla shows up and starts attacking New York City.

And my first thought is, wait a minute… This is taking place in 1999… So from where I’m sitting here in the future, I’m aware of things the film makers weren’t back in 1968 when this movie was made. Namely the existence of Godzilla 98. Which according to Godzilla Final Wars is canon in the Godzilla universe… Which means that after New York was attacked by Zilla in 1998 it then got attacked again by the actual Godzilla only a year later? That sucks… And if you count Godzilla: The Animated Series as canon (I don’t know if you would want to, but if you did…) then Zilla Jr. would have still been hanging around. Why haven’t we had a movie about the deleted scene where Godzilla fights Zilla Jr. yet? I want to see that.

But regardless of any of that, after the monsters start wrecking shit for no apparent reason, the aliens (because of course it’s aliens) show up, but this time they aren’t even subtle about it. No offering us a cure for cancer if we send Godzilla to the moon or back in time or anything like that… They just show up and are instantly like,

Only they already have control of all of our monsters and have already started mind controlling people so it’s not so much a trade offer as it is more of a we already made the trade without asking you kind of deal… But here’s where it gets kind of embarrassing because Japan and England (who are apparently the only members of the UN not on vacation this week) are both just kind of like, “Uhh… it only took us like twenty minutes to figure out how to spot the people you’ve mind controlled and remove the mind control implants… so how about you fuck yourself instead? Oh also, we see you as so little of a threat that we aren’t even breaking out the military for this. We just grabbed a handfull of astronauts and sent them to go steal the thing you are using to control the monsters. So yeah…”

Of course the aliens are like, “Wait, no… That’s not how this is supposed to work! Haven’t you ever been invaded before?!”

“Yeah, like, every other year for the last twenty years… This is just a regular August for us.”

“Shit… uhh… King Ghidorah!”

So the aliens call King Ghidorah, who is apparently working for them this year… I imagine King Ghidorah’s resume has got to look like total shit at this point. “Yeah I worked for the Venusians back in 1964. They got defeated… Then I worked for Planet X in 1965. They got defeated… Worked for Space Hunter Nebula M in 1972… They got defeated… Basically I’ve botched a lot of invasion attempts causing all my former emploiers to go extinct so honestly I’ll work for anyone who’s offering a paycheck at this point.”

And when King Ghidorah finally shows up for this kaiju royal rumble he shows up looking like Scott Hall making his way to the ring for the main event of Monday Night Nitro. In other words… he looks like he just got finished having an all night bender with Gigan and Megalon and is still hungover as fuck. And it really shows when the fight lasts all of about five minutes and Ghidorah gets the most embarrassing ass beating he’s ever had. I mean the guy shows up and is instantly gang banged by Godzilla, Anguirus, Gorosaurus, Mothra, Kumonga, and Minilla. Rodan just spends his time working air control to keep flying saucers out of the fight and Varan, Manda, and Baragon just sit back and eat popcorn while they watch the whole thing go down because at that point it’s already embarrassing enough without them getting involved. They even hold Ghidorah down and let fucking Minilla have the final kill shot then Minilla dances on Ghidorah‘s battered, unconscious body to add insult to injury.

And during this whole debacle Anguirus finds the alien’s hidden base on accident and Godzilla just walks over and puts his foot through the thing like it’s hardly even worth his time.

Never in my life have I ever seen an alien invasion go this bad. And in a way, setting the movie in the future kind of works from a comical standpoint. I don’t think the movie was intended to be a comedy, (That was reserved for Godzilla’s Revenge) but it works as one. Everyone in the movie from the human actors to the monsters were just kind of like, Yeah yeah, we’ve already done this a hundred times already. You really picked the wrong planet to pull this shit on. The idea of a movie showing the Godzilla universe dealing with Alien Invasion Attempt #50 and just giving no shits about it at this point is kind of brilliant. I’m sure it was all unintentional, but unintentionally brilliant is still brilliant.

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Watching Godzilla Singular Point like, “Why hasn’t Godzilla shown up yet?!”

And then he finally shows up and it’s like...

“Oh... That’s why...”

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Why do the new official Godzilla toys look more like bootlegs than most actual bootlegs?

Godzilla

Manda

Anguirus

Aquatilis (Titanosaurus)

Amphibia (Varan)

Jet Jaguar

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A rare photo of kaiju mating habits.

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