Ranking the Godzilla Films (#30-21)
Hey everyone, it's me again.
I thought I'd pay some homage to kaiju franchises since I'm such a big nerd for those films. So here I am ranking them, starting out with the Godzilla series!
30: Godzilla (1998) AMERICAN IMDb: 5.3/10 Rotten Tomatoes: 16% (Monsters: Zilla, Baby Zilla)
Director: Roland Emmerich
Soundtrack: David Arnold
Yeah, this one. This one. In other words, the T-Rex from Jurassic Park on steroids that also has some babies and sounds like an elephant. Sprinkle in some cheesy dialogue, forgettable characters, and bad humor and bingo! You have yourself a bad Godzilla film.
Hey, I get it. America wanted to change up Godzilla's design a bit. But come on! They had all already tried to make a design for an American Godzilla for a film that got cancelled, Godzilla vs. The Gryphon, and it looked so much better. Take a look:
See? It looks like the original Godzilla, but with a couple of changes. So yeah, it's bad. However, I've seen much worse films *cough* Fantastic Four *cough* Troll 2 *cough* Jack and Jill *cough* and I'd watch it again.
29: Godzilla's Revenge (All Monsters Attack, Godzilla on Monster Island) (1969) SHOWA IMDb: 3.9/10 Rotten Tomatoes: 29% (Monsters: Godzilla, Minilla, Gabara, Kamacuras, Maneater, Anguirus, Gorosaurus, Manda, Kumonga, Giant Eagle, Ebirah)
Director: Ishirō Honda
Soundtrack: Kunio Miyauchi
American Alternate Theme: Ervin Jereb
Oh my. This film is a stock footage nightmare. Where do I even begin? Well, following up on the greatness that was Destroy all Monsters, Toho wanted to try something else with lots of monsters- and they took the lazy route. Let me fill you in on the plot.
So there's this little kid named Ichiro who lives in urban Tokyo. He gets bullied. His pants need to be longer. He gets kidnapped by a couple of guys. He dreams that he's on Monster Island with Godzilla, Minilla and a bunch of other kaiju. Minilla can talk. Godzilla mysteriously looks like a bunch of older Godzillas because almost every fight scene is just stock footage from older films. There is one new monster, however: Gabara.
Gabara is supposed to be a mutated bullfrog. He can be summed up wholly as a blonde-haired, green, horned, bipedal cat with car engine problems. Seriously, his roar is ear-piercing. He's actually a heavily deformed version of an older Godzilla suit. Basically Minilla represents Ichicho overcoming his bullies, one of which happens to really be named Gabara. So yeah. Godzilla's a jerk to his own son and there's a bad fight scene involving Gabara using Emperor Palpatines' electric shock and a seesaw. Ichicho overcomes his bullies. Also, he does have two real life friends: A girl and toymaker. Was that a plot? I don't even know, but that's all that happens really. It should be noted that this film is literally only an hour and ten minutes. So yeah. Pretty bad. And not even good bad like some other entries on this list. It's painful to watch. The American theme is actually pretty catchy, though. The Japanese one is just as bad as the film.
28. Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster (Godzilla vs. Ebirah, Ebirah, Horror of the Deep) (1966) SHOWA IMDb: 5.1/10 Rotten Tomatoes: 39% (Monsters: Godzilla, Ebirah, Giant Condor, Mothra)
Director: Jun Fukuda
Soundtrack: Masaru Sato
Okay, this one's actually kind of fun to watch. But it's still bad. To briefly sum up the plot, some dudes try to win a dance-off for money and end up getting stuck on an island with terrorists who have a giant lobster named Ebirah. They are enslaved by them. Godzilla gets woken up and he looks like the Cookie Monster. He also goes King Kong-mode and has a romantic interest in some woman on the island. This is because King Kong was originally supposed to be the protagonist. Anyway, some Giant Condor attacks him...
... and gets wrecked. Mothra also shows up at the end for like ten minutes. Godzilla the Cookie Monster clobbers a lobster. You may be wondering what Ebirah's powers are? Claws. And it can regenerate them if they get cut off. Yep. That's it.
27. Godzilla Raids Again (Gigantis the Fire Monster) (1955) SHOWA IMDb: 6/10 Rotten Tomatoes: 37% (Monsters: Godzilla, Anguirus)
Director: Motoyoshi Oda
Soundtrack: Masaru Sato
So this was actually the second Godzilla film ever made, and it's certainly not in rude health. It comes nowhere near the first one in terms of quality. While it has decent characters and pretty good fight scenes, it's utterly silly and forgettable. And for God's sake, look at Godzilla's suit!
Ugh. He looks like a deformed muppet. This movie does, however, introduce the first new monster to the series: Anguirus, or, as he's called in this film, "Angilas". Anguirus is, well, pretty much a really big Ankylosaurus.
He's actually pretty cool, and would be returning to films in the future. The theme to this movie is great though, and the fight scenes are, as I said, pretty good. So it's not too bad, but it's not great either.
Also, Godzilla literally gets killed by getting trapped in some ice. Yeah.
26. Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (2000) MILLENNIUM IMDb: 6.3/10 Rotten Tomatoes: 49% (Monsters: Godzilla, Megaguirus, Meganulon, Meganula, Giant Meganulon)
Director: Masaaki Tezuka
Soundtrack: Michiru Oshima
Meh. This one's pretty forgettable. Basically some new wave weapon called the Dimension Tide is designed by the Japanese government to try and stop Godzilla and it opens up a wormhole. A giant creature quickly flies through and lays an egg and then flees again. The egg ends up in the sewers and spreads these things called Meganulons,
which are actually a recreation of a sub-kaiju of the same name from the 1956 film, Rodan (which is a great kaiju film by the way). The only reason this film is ranked higher than Godzilla Raids Again is because it has some pretty gruesome scenes of people getting killed by the Meganulons. These eventually become the airborne Meganula,
which attack Godzilla in swarms. Megaguirus turns out to be queen of this species, and the largest of them. Admittedly she does look pretty cool,
but all she really does is fly around and be a nuiscance. The fight scenes are pretty forgettable, but the way Godzilla kills her is pretty cool. How does he do it? I guess I'll just force you to watch it. This is the kind of movie to catch on TV one night and watch while cleaning the house.
25. Godzilla: FInal Wars (2004) MILLENNIUM IMDb: 6.5/10 Rotten Tomatoes: 40% (Monsters: Godzilla, Rodan, Anguirus, King Caesar, Gigan, Monster X, Kaiser King Ghidorah, Zilla, Kamacuras, Kumonga, Ebirah, Minilla, Hedorah, Mothra)
Director: Ryuhei Kitamura
Soundtrack: Keith Emerson
Oh, I'm going to get a lot of hate for this one. It seems like everyone loves this one. But seriously. This movie starts out with a great intro song- no really, it's great- but then... ugh. This movie has lots of great suits... and you get to see about 30 seconds of each one. Maybe a minute. Basically there's this alien race known as the Xiliens and they are spawning monsters all around Japan and they're led by some really over-dramatic guy with a bunch of eye makeup on. The fight scenes in this are way too short... that is, until the end where there's one that goes on for way too long. Seriously, it's like that boat chase scene from Live and Let Die.
I will give this movie one thing: It brought back a bunch of Showa Era monsters and came up with one new one. But I don't know. This movie seems too fast-paced and jolty for me. And it's almost two hours long. I can't really show pics for all of the suits because that would take too long, but trust me: I do respect them for the reboot and recreation of old monsters.
Also, Godzilla gets to kill the '98 Godzilla. At least that's a plus.
So yeah. It's not very good in my eyes.
24. Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991) HEISEI IMDb: 6.6/10 Rotten Tomatoes: 20% (Monsters/Machines: Godzilla, King Ghidorah, Godzillasaurus, Mecha-King Ghidorah, Dorat)
Director: Kazuki Ōmori
Soundtrack: Akira Ifukube
Oh boy. Even more hate incoming. Everyone seems to love this one too. Look, I'll admit it: This movie is extremely fun to watch. But it's so bad. So awesomely bad, so cheesy. Let me make a serious attempt to explain this one's plot:
So Japan sights some "aliens", except they aren't aliens, they're time travellers from the future who have come to warn the past about the effects of Godzilla. They say that they can go back to World War II and get "Godzillasaurus",
the dinosaur that got nuked and became Godzilla, off of the island before the bombing. This will erase Godzilla from existence. There is also a man who believes the dinosaur saved his life. They succeed in getting rid of the dinosaur, but the time travellers secretly slip three creatures known as "Dorats" onto the island.
These end up getting nuked instead, and merge into King Ghidorah, who had been in several Showa series movies already.
He begins to wreak havoc on Japan in the present day, and the only way to stop him is... you guessed it, Godzilla. So basically they screwed themselves over.
But somehow, miraculously, Godzilla gets created... anyway... yeah...
Anyway, Godzilla somehow totally wrecks King Ghidorah and blows off his middle head.
So now Godzilla is destroying Japan and they need... King Ghidorah... to stop... Godzilla...
DAMNIT.
So they recreate his missing head and turn it into a robot, making Mecha-King Ghidorah.
He looks pretty cool at least, and him and Godzilla battle. Aaaaand he gets wrecked. Again. But not after damaging Godzilla pretty badly.
There's also this hilarious little side thing where the time travellers have a synthetic, who is pretty much the T-1000 from Terminator 2. There's this great scene where he chases the main characters in a car. It's so bad but it's great.
There's also a great scene where the man whose life was saved by Godzillasaurus has a "heart-to-heart" with Godzilla- and then Godzilla just completely obliterates him. Easily the best part.
23. Son of Godzilla (1967) SHOWA IMDb: 5.2/10 Rotten Tomatoes: 63% (Monsters: Godzilla, Minilla, Kamacuras, Kumonga)
Director: Jun Fukuda
Soundtrack: Masaru Sato
Ugh. Godzilla's suit is absolutely horrible in this one. Seriously LOOK AT IT. So yeah. There's some weather research crew on an island that has Godzilla on it. Godzilla has a son, Minilla. Godzilla tries to get him to breathe fire. He can only breathe smoke rings. Godzilla steps on his tail. Minilla can breathe fire now.
So there're also these things called Kamacurases on the island, and they're giant praying mantises.
So they bully Minilla around and hit him in the face with a rock. Godzilla beats them up.
There's also some spider kaiju who lives on the island named Kumonga.
She also tries to attack Minilla, but Godzilla stops her. There's a woman who's nice to Minilla.
There's also this really heartwarming scene at the end where Godzilla protects Minilla from the cold by hugging him.
22. Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972) SHOWA IMDb: 5.7/10 Rotten Tomatoes: 42% (Monsters: Godzilla, Anguirus, Gigan, King Ghidorah)
Director: Jun Fukuda
Soundtrack: Akira Ifukube
So this one's pretty ridiculous. Most of these are pretty long so let me make this one shorter:
Some aliens try to open up a Godzilla-themed kids' theme park. There's a machine that messes with the monsters on Monster Island and Godzilla an Anguirus can now talk to each other. Also the aliens have a space monster called Gigan, which is some sort of weird chicken thing with a buzzsaw on its chest. They also have King Ghidorah. The four fight. There is a lot of blood. Yeah. There you go.
Also, the main character is an artist.
21. Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973) SHOWA IMDb: 4.4/10 Rotten Tomatoes: 43% (Monsters/Robots: Godzilla, Jet Jaguar, Megalon, Gigan)
Director: Jun Fukuda
Soundtrack: Riichiro Manabe
Another ridiculous one. Some scientist makes a cyborg for children named Jet Jaguar. There's an underground society of "Seatopians" who have a giant cockroach-beetle named Megalon. Jet Jaguar leads Megalon around under mind control. Jet Jaguar regains control. He finds Godzilla. The two end up teaming up. Gigan also reappears (this film came out pretty much after right Godzilla vs. Gigan). It's very silly and campy and it has the famous scene in which Godzilla defies all laws of physics to kick Megalon:
Yeah. It's still kind of fun to watch though, but not a good movie by any means.
So that concludes part one of three! I'll have the next two up soon. :)
Sorry for any typos!
Keep an eye out for #20-11...
-sonicfan0001
