Godzilla Raids Again is another one of these I had never seen before. I'm glad this one sticks with the seriousness of the first movie as I was worried them releasing the sequel so quickly and having seen the third movie "King Kong vs Godzilla", that the shift to something with seemingly more humor in it was gonna be just right away.
The Godzilla design in this one seems abit off compared to the first one, like with some more gnarly teeth and a slightly lumpier head, but I'm sure that could technically be explained away as this being a second Godzilla and not the original, even though they sorta treat it as just the same one. It being a second Godzilla is mostly just a flimsy exclusive to have Godzilla back lol Also again, especially with what comes up next in King Kong vs Godzilla, this movie being dark and black & white really helps with the effects and to cover them up better, though I love the obvious adorable hand puppets they use for the close up shots. I totally need to get a Godzilla hand puppet lol
The fight between Godzilla and Anguirus, while good for what it is, is weirdly fast. Like they totally just have the footage at like 1.5x speed. It's so odd as at one point, when it's just Godzilla and Anguirus facing off, the film is at a slower or more normal speed, so when it moves to the faster speed as they brawl, it's really out of place. I do love their miniatures though. Even if the tanks are toys and you see little toy soldiers around, it's wonderful.
This movie isn't quite as good I feel as the first, there's a stronger connection to the people and devastation in that, but this is a pretty straightforward sequel I think in terms of what it offers and it looks very close to the first one. I took a glance at the English version that was offered and wow, it's...different and awkward. SHOW, DON'T TELL, MOVIE lol In some ways, it kinda works in that the start is faster, the movie has a few parts that does drag on, but they are just explaining every single damn action. If the whole movie is like this, I think it would make for a poor movie to always have the narration explaining what we are watching.
Gonna make tonight a double feature with the first Godzilla vs Mothra.
Mothra vs Godzilla follows a similar idea to the previous King Kong vs Godzilla with the idea of greedy businessmen trying to make a profit off of monsters, though it seems abit less silly than that one. Godzilla makes a really random entrance in this, coming out of the mud of a just drained beach area. Why was Godzilla buried? Did he like get washed in by the typhoon and buried? It makes no sense lol His suit is a tad goofy in this also. I also just said this is less goofy, but then i watch him literally tripping around and crashing into buildings lol They also didn't reinforce his face or something, so he has these big floppy jowls that take away from him being menacing of any sort.
Can't say I'm super keen on this Godzilla in particular. He has these very obvious like...big smooth eyebrows that standout from his head and look odd to me. Again, the little toy figures smacking around each other come out and they are the absolute most charming things possible, though used way less compared to Godzilla Raids Again. Right now I just want to see a Godzilla short movie done purely with puppets and toys lol Also, while I normally hate bugs, Mothra larvae are pretty cute. I kinda actually like them more than full grown Mothra.
This movie was way better than King Kong vs Godzilla though. I really didn't like King Kong in that and Mothra is such an iconic creature for Godzilla to fight. It might've helped that this isn't some weird re-cut English version like King Kong was, which I think really hampered that film, so it might be not be fair until I see the Japanese original, but I still did not like King Kong in that. This might at least have a better "English version" than the past two movies. From the start there's no added scenes or awkward narration. Just a proper English dub. I will always stick with the original cut if I can though as I think that subtitled version works out better than what they tweak for the English dub.
Ghidorah, The Three Headed Monster. Here begins the silly era of Godzilla, where Godzilla and Rodan have personalities and they bounce a rock back and forth between each other and they all have a dialogue with Mothra and it's just super silly. These are definitely going to be my least favorite movies I think, but again as I've said before, they still have their charm, even if they are really goofy. I've always loved Ghidorah though. He's up there as a favorite alongside Mecha Godzilla and Space Godzilla.
Probably will also have less to say about these movies as they go as I think they are pretty consistent in terms of what they offer . Gonna be a silly fun ride lol I am looking forward to the appearance of Gigan and Mecha Godzilla though.