#and how the circles can be priests and all that yadda yadda

[kismetmoon]

icon of unity

[ID: a digital painting of an original, stylised Flatland character named Stella.

Stella is a humanoid character with dark grey skin, a round head with one point sticking out from the top and each side of her head that fades to black, and a black tail with a geometric heart-shaped tip. She is wearing a long cream robe and a shorter navy shoulder cape on top. She also has a simplistic solid black crown floating diagonally on the top left of her head.

She is positioned standing with her back to the viewer, facing away. Her arms are bent by her sides, with her forearms out of view - hidden by her torso. Her navy shoulder cape flows as if the wind were blowing it towards the right. Her cream robe touches the ground and the fabric sits folded loosely on top of itself. Her tail is peeking out from under the end of her robe, laying out flat and straight on the ground.

The background fades from a periwinkle colour to an earthy yellow, going from the bottom to the top of the image. There are faint blue and yellow outlines of circles around Stella, with a large pale yellow outline of an isosceles triangle cutting through them all to frame Stella’s entire body. There is also a yellow crescent moon shape laying on its back around Stella’s head, akin to a large halo.

End ID.]

[wittypenguin]

“Mosura tai Gojira” (1964) or Mothra vs Godzilla

AKA: Godzilla vs Mothra or Godzilla Fights the Giant Moth or Godzilla vs. the Giant Moth or Godzilla vs. The Thing

We’re into the period of films where the distributors in the USA slapped any old name on a film with little attention to the plot. We’re lucky none of them were titled something like Bob and His Golden Retriever Go Shopping for Fibreglass Insulation.

We see 1½ minutes of massive typhoon off the top, doing a fair bit of damage to a land reclamation project. There’s some great miniature work here! They must have used Toho’s ‘Big Pool’ for this, which was built for the last film: King Kong Against Godzilla.

Come daytime, there are big pumps pouring water back into the sea, there’s destruction everywhere, furniture strewn about, and general detritus.

More cars that I want arrive, one of which has a reporter and photographer, then a politician who complains that reporting on this disaster will affect the public mood of being positive about future prospects from the industry belt this project will be home to.

Hey, the photographer is using a 4x5!! Probably a Speed Graphic or knock-off! Cool!

The sea has washed-up more than just junk: it’s also bringing to shore A MONSTER EGG!!

A Shinto priest (played by Ikio Sawamura, the town sheriff in 1961’s Yôjinbô) waves things at it as a prayer of protection, chiding the local fishers at being afraid of it.

Thus, we have now critiqued both politicians and organized religion for wanting reality to be overlooked.

Kumayama-san of Happy Enterprises® suddenly buys the egg (which is 50 meters or more in length, has blue stripes, and glows) from the locals. The guy behind him is a rich mover and shaker, but both are determined to make truckloads of sweet sweet cash from this oddity.

The peanuts have come from Infant Island to get back the egg, which is actually Mothra’s. Their desolate wasteland of an island had mudslides caused by the typhoon, thus waves washed the egg into the sea.

By this point, the egg is being kept warm in a greenhouse, which is acting as an incubator. No doubt it is not an accident that the grates on the fuel burners look like radioactivity symbols.

The area where land is being reclaimed is now mostly pumped dry… AND GODZILLA EMERGES!! The reclaimed land is where he was dumped in the water by Kong at the end of the last film. Godzilla looks grumpy. He’s got a kind of otter’s head shape this time (he has jowls somehow, plus a look of concern or something), plus his fins are SUPER spikey.

Anyway, he takes out a factory and refinery. Then a broadcast tower, which he almost hits himself with. This is excellent work from the grey-skinned beast. People run from yet another historical site as Godzilla slips on a built up stone wall and stumbles into the palace at Nagoya, so he punches the shit out of it as a way of demonstrating his protest of it getting in the way of him Godzilling.

[:: What? It’s a word! “verb: To act in the manner of Godzilla.” Seriously, are you going to say he was ‘Godzilla-ing?’ No, that’s just silly! ::]

So the reporter, photographer, and a scientist take a flying boat — which I would also like, please — to Infant Island to ask the people there to help get rid of Godzilla.

The locals distrust people from away: they have brought destruction and the Devil’s Fire (the effects of which you counter by drinking the red juice, btw).

The princesses sing a sad song. Alas, the lyrics aren’t translated. The clothes the twins wear make them look like mushroom clouds. Furry jackets, hats with red bits on top of fluffy white stuff, panels dropped from their waists with red outlines, but with yellow skirts. Hmmm… symbolism, possibly…?

There’s an impassioned speech about equality before the gods, constant effort to create a better world, trust and mutual support, and so on. All the great hits, really.

Mothra has come! The girls sing another song and Mothra says she will help. But this comes at a price: Mothra will die if she leaves Infant Island, but she never really dies: the egg will bring forth new life… it’s all part of natures way / the circle of life, yadda yadda yadda.

Again, the army is going to corral Godzilla in areas and zap him with electricity. So, tanks herd him toward a pit.

Meanwhile, the business deal goes bad. Greed doesn’t pay, and both business guys die. End of anti-business plot line.

Mothra defends her egg from Godzilla, but she dies. So, the princesses sing another song that we don’t get a translation of, but we do see dancers on the island sort of wearing blankets with semi-Hawai’ian designs.

Godzilla is still stomping around so we try dropping bigger bombs from planes, and once they get him in a good spot, they pour on the juice. Why don’t they just have the electricity already turned on??? Anyway, it zaps the big conductive nets they drop on him from four helicopters, and he flails around like nobody’s business. Then another net. And another. Plus the electricity throughout. HE’S DOWN!! More voltage!!! Wait, that’s too much voltage for the system to handle… and the pylons are melting now! With the electrical system no longer engaged, Godzilla gets up, then burns the tanks.

The nearby town is evacuated, but there are 10 children with their teacher on nearby Iwo Island!

Meanwhile the princesses keep singing and the egg glows... and the idol on Mothra’s remote home of Infant Island begins glowing and lightning flashes… and the egg back near the beach glows… and the twins keep singing… AND THE EGG CRACKS!! A new Mothra larvae emerges! No, wait! It’s twins!!

Godzilla heads to Iwo Island with the twin larvae in pursuit. How can larvae look ‘cute?’

The twin princesses sing some more.

The larvae attack Godzilla by biting his tail and spraying cocoon-producing silk all over him.

The larvae are able to dodge Godzilla’s atomic breath and the huge boulders he throws, which is… unexpected. That sort of sentience and duel-fighting skill isn’t normal for a larvae, but they are a good 80–100 metres long, so…

The webbing becomes like cheesecloth then Godzilla falls over and rolls into the sea. The princesses sing. The larvae chirrup triumphantly then swim off into the sunset with the princesses.

Aren’t we going to thank them??

Only by making a better world: A world based on mutual trust.

Somehow, as hokey as it seems, I actually buy that!

This is by far my favourite at this point. It has all the things I want in a Godzilla film: he smashes the crap out of a World Heritage Site, he fights another kaiju beast, we get the peanuts singing, there are multiple locations with planes and tanks and explosions, there’s a hopeful message of building a better future at the end, all of it gets set-up with anti-business / media exploitation social satire. It’s a winner on so many fronts!

Especially of note, Godzilla’s physicality is great in this! In addition to the fractious child we see push over the Osaka Palace, he seems to have tantrums when attacked; waving his arms and legs in the air, he rolls about when covered in the cocoon of silk dispensed by the twin larvae during the climax. It’s easily the most flexible suit thus far, and overall the best performance I’ve seen at this point. It’s easily understood why many feel this is the best Godzilla movie of the Showa period. I would be willing to pay for it a second time, if I had to! Certainly, it more than makes up for the American version of King Kong Against Godzilla.

★★★★★