Weirdhouse Cinema: Mothra vs. Godzilla

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb
and this is Joe McCormick.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
And today on Weird House Cinema, we are going to
be talking about the nineteen sixty four giant monster movie
Mathra Versus Godzilla, directed by Ishiro Honda.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
This is our third Godzilla movie, following nineteen seventy one's
Godzilla Versus Hetera and nineteen sixty nine's All Monsters Attack.
That's films eleven and ten, respectively. This is also our
third Ishuro Honda film. He directed this All Monsters Attack
and a nineteen sixty nine film titled Atragon we've talked
about on the show before that has a flying submarine

(00:48):
and another Kaiju creature.

Speaker 4 (00:52):
He is.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
He is one of only a handful of directors that
we have featured on three or more Weird House Cinema selections.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
You know, we are really doing the Godzilla films in
a strange order, and by that I mean we're working
first of all, backwards through time, but also we started
with what are widely seen as some of the weirdest,
most divergent films in the Showa era Godzilla catalog. So

(01:20):
the first one we did, like you said, was Godzilla
versus Hetera. That's from nineteen seventy one. That was indeed
the eleventh film in the Godzilla canon, and that one
was a psychedelic ecological doom trip in which Godzilla is
summoned to defend Japan from a toxic sludge monster that

(01:40):
powers up by huffing pollution out of factory smokestacks. A
lot of Godzilla fans regard Hetera as one of the
worst films in the series. I do not share that opinion.
I like it a lot more than some of the
more mainstream monster slams in the middle of the original run.
I think it's weirdness actually kind of makes it more unique,

(02:01):
really makes it stand out. But I will agree, yes,
it is one of the most unusual Godzilla films.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, if
you're watching a Godzilla movie or any Kaiji movie, it's
like you're in a good place. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
Yeah. So we did that one, and then the next
one we covered was based on a listener suggestion, that
was All Monsters Attack from sixty nine. This was the
tenth Godzilla film, as you said, And once again, this
one was a departure from the established format at this
time because while the main series, starting from pretty early,

(02:38):
had been especially popular with kids, I think All Monsters
Attack was the first Godzilla movie that you could really
say was explicitly just made for children. It was just
a kid's movie. The main character is a lonely little
boy whose parents are always busy working, and so he
sort of has Godzilla in the previously introduced ab Zilla

(03:00):
creature known as Manila, like Mini Godzilla as imaginary friends.
All Monsters Attack was also a very budget conscious film,
making extensive use of archival footage from previous Godzilla movies,
recycling fights and inserting them in creative ways into this
framing narrative about the little boy who imagines the adventures

(03:22):
of Godzilla and Manila. This one was also unusual for
the series because within this frame narrative, it was understood
that Godzilla and the other monsters are basically fictional beings,
so they're not being portrayed as acting within the real
universe of the movie, but they are being dreamed about
or imagined about by the main character. So in All

(03:46):
Monsters Attack, they are creatures of the imagination, and the
main point of the story was about what they mean
to the children who love them. There's actually a monologue.
I don't know if you remember this, Rob there's like
a monologue at the end of the movie that exploit
makes the case that the Kaiju are for children what
the gods are for adults.

Speaker 4 (04:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
Yeah, that one was very interesting in that in many
ways you could see it as a lesser Godzilla film
because it is clearly, you know, aimed at children, and
it has a has a mini Godzilla and so forth.
But yeah, it does like chew a little bit on
the meaning of a of a Kaiju film. So I
really did appreciate that one as well.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
Yeah, so those were number eleven and then number ten,
and now we're doing a big hopscotch down the chronology
ladder to number four. Mathra Versus Godzilla was the fourth
film in the Godzilla franchise, and it represents the third
time that Godzilla would face off against another giant monster
in battle, the first time a Godzilla movie would include

(04:50):
a monster that I think you should regard as explicitly
good or as a protector of humans against a greater threat.
This is a role god' Zilla would himself usually take
in later films, but here the protector is not Godzilla
but rather his antagonist Mathra.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah, the title is Mathra versus Godzilla, which kind of
does imply that Mathra has top billing. We'll get into
that a little bit. But also it is like Mathra
against Godzilla. Mathra is a force in opposition to Godzilla.
And yeah, Mathra is absolutely good. Mathra is a protector.
It's not one of these like though the enemy of
my enemy monster is my friend monster. No, like Mathra

(05:31):
is a divine being. The Mathra is the creature of
the gods.

Speaker 3 (05:37):
But also Mathra is not cute and friendly and cuddly
the way that say Manila is right, Mathra is a
somewhat frightening being, but frightening to protect us, to you know,
frightening on the side of good.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
But she also looks very soft, like you know, she's
kind of free. So I mean there is a a
very nice touch the fur vibe with Mathra as well.

Speaker 3 (06:03):
I didn't think about the furriness. You are right there,
more texturally pleasing than most of the monsters in the
Godzilla series, which are often quite spiny and scaly. Looking,
but also mathra Versus Godzilla is the last film of
the original Toho run to make Godzilla a bad guy.

(06:23):
You could argue that Godzilla is more or less the villain, or,
if not a morally culpable villain, at least a threatening
and destructive force to humans in the first four movies,
So I think maybe we should run through those really
quick to figure out how we get to mathra Versus Godzilla.

(06:43):
So you've got the original Godzilla in nineteen fifty four. This,
as we've talked about in the past, is a dark, haunting,
somber tale about a monster created by nuclear weapons testing,
which rises up out of the sea and attacks Japan.
The first movie here was inspired in part by some
events in the real world. You can obviously think about

(07:05):
the events of World War two and the atomic bombing
of Japan, but then also there were more recent events
that I've read were a major influence on the original Godzilla.
One of these was the so called Lucky Dragon five incident,
which happened earlier the year Godzilla was released. This was
when the crew of a Japanese tuna fishing boat called

(07:26):
the Lucky Dragon five were exposed to high levels of
radiation as a result of the Castle Bravo hydrogen bomb
test at Bikini Atole, And you can see the influence
of the anxiety caused by this event in the way
the movie articulates anti nuclear and anti militarist themes. A

(07:47):
lot of Godzilla fans trained on the silly, sometimes themeless
monster suit wrastle in matches that you would get in
later movies, I think will be quite shocked by the
dark and serious time of the first movie.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
Yeah, the original Godzilla black and white, Godzilla is an
absolute destroyer and a thing that arises out of humanity's
atomic age sins. Really.

Speaker 3 (08:13):
Yeah, And now this first movie was directed by Ishiro Honda,
the same as the director of mathra Versus Godzilla. So
it's not a question of like totally different creative inputs.
We have the same main creative force behind these two movies,
but we can talk about reasons they might be different
across time. But the first movie was by Honda and

(08:34):
it was a huge hit for Toho. So in this movie,
Godzilla is not a protector. I don't know if it
makes sense to call him a villain, but he certainly
has I think he's pretty close to a villain in
the first movie certainly a destructive force of nature or
a destructive force of nature having been twisted by human
sins and technology.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yeah, I think that's the way to look at it. Like, Yeah,
it's not like he has of a persona beyond that.
I mean, he is like some sort of dark anti
god that has been summoned by human technology and human advancement.

Speaker 3 (09:10):
Not here to help.

Speaker 4 (09:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (09:12):
Yeah, then after that, so that's fifty four. Then after
that you've got Godzilla raids again in nineteen fifty five.
This was a fast follow up movie to capitalize on
the success of the original Godzilla. This one not directed
by Ishi ro Honda but by Modeyoshi Oda. Mostly gone
in this one are the anti war, anti nuclear themes.

(09:33):
I haven't actually seen this movie, but from what I've
read it, it's described as kind of a fast paced
adventure where Godzilla ends up fighting another giant monster. I
believe based on an ankylosaur model. It's like a quadrupedal
dinosaur covered in spines called anguirras. Worth noting here that

(09:53):
the Godzilla of this movie was not supposed to be
the same individual as the original Godzilla, who died at
the end of the first movie is just another giant
radioactive reptile.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yeah. Yeah. At the end of the first movie, Godzilla
is destroyed, and there's just kind of there's this warning.
It's like, if we don't change our ways, there could
be more Godzillas. Yeah, and yeah it came to pass.

Speaker 3 (10:16):
Here they come. Yeah, and then after this there actually
would not be another Godzilla movie for eight years. But
Toho did not abandon the Kaiju the giant monster format. Instead,
they introduced new monsters in their own films, such as
Rodin in nineteen fifty six. This is a movie about

(10:37):
a giant flying taranadon basically. This one is also directed
by Ishiro Honda, and then Mathra in nineteen sixty one,
again by Honda, about a giant moth worshiped as a
god by the people of a remote island. And I
think you could argue that Mathra was the second most
popular original Toho Kaiju after Godzilla.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
Yeah, that seems to be the case. I was reading
a bit about this in Godzilla. The show What Era
Films nineteen fifty four through nineteen seventy five, which is
the book Slash Blu Ray collection that the Criterion collection
put out with the textual part written by Steve Rifle,
who is, as far as I can tell, like the

(11:22):
main English language authority on Godzilla films. I've heard him
on Fresh Air with Harry Gross before talking about Godzilla films.

Speaker 3 (11:29):
We were just talking about this off Mike, but we
both just ordered this Criterion collection disc set and it's
a magnificent collection. Yeah, the book that comes with it
is excellent.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
Yeah, it is a testimony to just how beautiful physical
media can be for films. But one of the points
I'll keep coming back to some of the things that
Rifle has to say about these about these movies, the
Rifle points out that during this period, this is like
a golden age of Japanese cinema. Japanese film studios were
really cooking. A lot of great serious films were coming out,

(12:00):
but also in these other buckets of content, there was
like a lot of innovation. People were trying new things,
and I think that's part of what we're seeing here
is like Godzilla was a success, but they were trying.
They were expanding what Kaiju could be as well. So
it's like they weren't going to rest on their laurels
necessarily and just put out Godzilla films, though they will
eventually kind of return to form with this, Like let's

(12:21):
come back to Godzilla, and maybe we'll bring in some
things that we learned and some creatures we created from
these other pictures.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
That's right, And so here we finally get to that.
In nineteen sixty three with King Kong versus Godzilla. They
got the rights yep, Gong, or at least got some
kind of rights to King Kong. So this was a
sort of appointment meet slam between as the poster said,
the two mightiest monsters of all time. From what I've read,

(12:49):
By the way, I think King Kong was one of
the inspirations for the original Godzilla, Like there was a
producer at Toho who had been thinking about King Kong,
which had just had been made in the nineteen thirties,
but I think it had just been recently re released internationally.
And then I think there were also some other creative inspirations,
maybe the Beast from twenty thousand Fathoms. But anyway, so

(13:11):
here we've kind we finally get to mash the flavors
together King Kong Versus Godzilla. It continued the giant monster
conflict theme I believe it is in this movie that
we really start to see the first signs of silly
moves taken from professional wrestling, and the monsters start to

(13:32):
act a bit less scary and more funny and anthropomorphic.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
Yeah, and Rifle says that Honda was not a big
fan of this sort of treatment of Godzilla, and certainly
some of the stuff we see in some subsequent films
where Godzilla is essentially dancing and doing pratfalls. Yeah. I
think he makes a strong point that when Honda is
on board for a picture, there is to you're going
to see more of a move towards capturing something serious

(14:01):
about Godzilla and maybe leaning a little bit more into
social commentary than some of the other pictures. Are those
Some of the non Honda pictures, like the Hetero picture,
are actually quite serious in their own right as well.

Speaker 3 (14:14):
Yeah, Yeah, I mean, I don't take it to be
that Ishiro Honda was against having a silly fun time.
I think it's more like that, you know, he made
the original movie, and he made it with serious themes
in mind. This was inn like anti nuclear weapons, anti
war film, and now this same creature is just out here,

(14:35):
you know, doing touchdown dances and stuff.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
Yeah, like he did. He seemed to be opposed to
ignoring the legacy of Godzilla and what Godzilla originally meant.
You can certainly drift and evolve the brand, but you
don't want to abandon some of the key principles of
the thing.

Speaker 3 (14:52):
Yeah. But anyway, so you have King Kong versus Godzilla,
and then finally you get to the movie we're talking
about today, Mathra versus Godzilla in nineteen sixty four, where
contrary to our expectations trained on the later movies, there
is a protector monster, but it is Mathra, not Godzilla.
Godzilla is on the loose again, smashing things up after

(15:13):
being awoken from the dirt, and in the story, the
people of Japan must It's interesting what they have to
do to defend themselves. It is essentially to humble themselves
before nature and before the gods. To they have to
humble themselves in like go to an island and ask
the people there to allow them to petition their great

(15:38):
godlike moth deity to come to their aid, and the
moth does come to their aid, but not before making
them feel bad about their greed and arrogance.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
And they should feel bad. Yeah, I will discuss.

Speaker 3 (15:51):
But remember I started talking about these four movies in order,
because this is the last time in this original run,
at least, that we really see Godzilla as the antagonist,
the villain as opposed to the protector. After this movie,
Godzilla starts his Long Face turn, repeatedly being called upon
to battle more evil and more destructive monsters, essentially to

(16:16):
himself do what Mathra does in this movie. I believe
Godzilla would wouldn't really get to be the villain again
until some films later in the seventies and eighties.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
Yeah, when they essentially a relaunching Godzilla and going back
to its roots to some extent.

Speaker 3 (16:33):
But anyway, since we've been going backwards through time through
the series, I wonder, are we eventually going to work
our way back to the fifty four original.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
Yeah? I think we should. It's interesting to think about
all this in comparison to the way I think most
of us have consumed Godzilla media, like, most of us
have probably not seen them. First of all, most of
us have not seen all of them, and most of
us have certainly not seen them in order. I know
growing up it's like I would catch Godzilla movies on

(17:01):
television exclusively. I don't know that I had ever rented
a Godzilla movie growing up. Maybe one of the later
and one or two of the later you know, films
from the nineties or something, But for the most part,
it's just Godzilla movies came on. You might not catch
all of them, you might just catch parts of them
even you don't didn't know where in the in the

(17:22):
order they fell. And then you're just continually making new
discoveries about what a Godzilla movie can be.

Speaker 3 (17:28):
Wait, do you remember what the first one you saw was?

Speaker 2 (17:31):
Ooh, that's a tough one, because you know, there were
some There was a there was a there was one
Godzilla movie in particular I remember seeing on Mystery Sens
Theater three thousand as a kid. But then there were
some others that they would just play on various Turner
broadcast stations. I want to say that it was Godzilla
versus the Sea Monster. I think that was the one,
one of the big crab Monster. I think that might

(17:52):
have been the first one I saw a bia. Yeah, yeah,
it was also released as Godzilla Versus the Sea Monster.

Speaker 3 (17:59):
I'm not sure this is the earliest one I saw,
but my earliest memory of seeing one was a TV
broadcast of the one that's now usually called Godzilla Versus.
Actually not Godzilla Verses, just called the Invasion of the
Astro Monster. It's the one where Godzilla fights an alien
kaiju called Monster Zero. I remember the scene on the

(18:22):
other planet where like there's like a big I don't know,
in my memory, it was like a football field on
the surface of another planet.

Speaker 2 (18:29):
I don't think i've seen that one. Yeah, but yeah,
obviously I'd love to hear listeners tell us what their
experience was with the Godzilla franchise. What was the first
Godzilla film you saw, and then what was your what
subsequently did you get into, Like where did you go
from there? Did you move forward in time or backwards
in time. I'm sure there's some listeners who haven't even

(18:49):
seen any of the show era Godzilla films. You might
be more familiar with some of the current big Hollywood
blockbusters that feature Godzilla.

Speaker 3 (18:57):
Yeah, you know, I don't know if where's the best
place to talk about this in the episode, so maybe
I'll just say it here. One thing I was thinking
about was how it feels like you can really detect
a zeitgeist shift from the post war fifties to the
mid sixties in Godzilla nineteen fifty four compared to Mathra

(19:21):
versus Godzilla in nineteen sixty four, Like I was thinking
about how in the original Godzilla, the main human hero
the main human heroes are scientists, and especially one scientist
who bravely sacrifices his own life to carry out a
scientific plan to defeat the rampaging monster while also not

(19:47):
bringing into being a weapon that would you know, potentially
be abused by all humanity. In Mathra, the main human
heroes are, by contrast, journalists. There is a scientist to
there's like a professor who tags along with them, but
the main tour journalists and their real struggle is resisting
capitalistic excess and greed, not by performing heroic acts themselves, really,

(20:14):
but by acting as representatives of humanity or at least
of the nation of Japan, and humbling themselves before nature
and traditional religion to ask the embodiment of these forces
to have mercy on them. And the difference is also
there so much in the environment, like the kind of haunted, diminished,

(20:36):
destroyed kind of environment of the original movie is so
different in math reverses where the environment feels like it's
just bustling and full of public works and things being
built in industry and moneymaking.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
Yeah. Yeah, the world of mathra Versus Godzilla was a
world on the move, a world on the grow. Everyone
is very distracted with the the capitalist exercise here, and
that's kind of the whole point of it is that
Godzilla is going to happen again. But if we're just
too greedy and too bound up in our and chasing

(21:12):
riches and growing everything, we're not going to be in
a place where we can resist him again when he attacks.
In fact, as we'll discuss, it's like all this greed
is getting in the way of various preparations that could
have been made to prevent this sort of thing from occurring.

Speaker 3 (21:28):
Yeah, but the great human sin lying behind the original
Godzilla is actually a horrible, deadly destructive collective project of humanity,
whereas the sin in the human sin in mathra Versus
is individual acts of greed and selfishness.

Speaker 4 (21:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yeah, that's a great point. But the solution again is
getting out of that and getting into more of a
collective approach towards problems.

Speaker 3 (21:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
All right, Well, let's go ahead and listen to just
a little splash of the trailer here. This is, I
believe from the original Japanese.

Speaker 4 (22:03):
Trailer, mh.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
Nots in my ivan Tony card in what's it.

Speaker 4 (22:42):
Say? You know that? What's what's a short.

Speaker 2 (22:59):
Crack Joel's pool making out of Joelku?

Speaker 3 (23:03):
Then tonight.

Speaker 4 (23:08):
You all right?

Speaker 2 (23:20):
If you would like to watch Matha versus Godzilla, you
should be able to get a hold of it. To
be clear, though, this is Mathra versus Godzilla, not Godzilla
versus Mathra, because Godzilla versus Matha is the name of
a later Godzilla film that features both of these kaiju.
It's it's a mistake that you would be forgiven for making.

(23:40):
And if you make this mistake, you're still going to
get to watch a Godzilla movie. So uh, you know,
it's no big deal. But this is Mathra versus Godzilla.

Speaker 3 (23:48):
Put the year in there, nineteen sixty four. That'll do
it for you.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
Yeah, yeah, you can get it in a number of
places again. The Criterion Collection Godzilla the Showa era Films
fifty four through seventy five blue ray set is a
amazing hard back, beautifully illustrated book has no fewer than
fifteen Godzilla films on Blu Ray in there if you're
looking to stream. Criterion Channel currently offers this among many
other Godzilla films, and there may be other places you

(24:12):
can get it as well.

Speaker 3 (24:13):
I streamed it on the Criterion Channel before my discs
came in, and it looks great on their transfer as well,
so the streaming option there is really good. But yeah,
apart from this Criterion release, I noticed that this movie
is hard to get on a good Blu Ray. I
think there's like there's one that's out of print or
maybe some at least in the US region.

Speaker 2 (24:34):
Yeah, I know it's a Japanese Blu Ray that was
being sold as well. Yeah, I watched it on Blue Ray,
but I also had the pleasure of seeing it on
the big screen at Atlanta's Historic Plaza Theater a week
or so ago as part of the Silver Scream spook
Show series. It was pretty great. It was a packed crowd,
like the entire theater was packed out at very enthusiastic bunch.

(24:55):
There were people in their Godzilla and Mathra jackets that
people were we were in Mathra merks. There were some
big Mathra fans there. They had a big Mathra puppet
that they paraded around before. We watched it. A whole
lot of fun. I got to see it with my kid.
And if you're interested in the Silver Screams Spook Show series,
they're going to be showing nineteen seventy seven Sinbad and

(25:17):
the Eye of the Tiger in July.

Speaker 3 (25:19):
Oh man, I grew up with the vhs to that one.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
Oh wow, So we might come back to that one
on Weird House. We'll see.

Speaker 3 (25:25):
From what I recall it, it's a hoot in terms
of story and acting, and it has some really really
great stop motion monsters in it, a particularly a minotaur
robot that's like a bronze or gold minotaur robot called
the Mino Ton.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
All right, let's roll through the folks involved in this picture.
I'm not going to hit everybody. There are going to
be some that we may come back to later to
credit with the actor was, but I want to hit
the major points. So starting with the director again, it's
Ishie Ohanda, who lived nineteen eleven through nineteen ninety three,
legendary Toho film director who helmed nineteen fifty four of Godzilla,

(26:12):
the movie that started at All. He directed forty four
pictures in total eight of those Godzilla films, culminating in
the nineteen seventy five film Terror of Mecca Godzilla, which,
according to Steve Rifle, kind of comes back and serves
as a proper cap to a lot of the silliness,
you know, coming back and making maybe a little more
serious and a little darker look at the Godzilla world.

(26:35):
He also directed Rodin the Mysterians, The Human Vapor Metango,
Frankenstein Versus Beragon, The War of the Gargantuan Space Amiba,
and more. He was a friend of director Akira Kurosawa
and served as director counselor or chief assistant director on
Kurrosawa's nineteen eighty five epic Ron, and his name continues

(26:57):
to appear in the credits on Godzilla movies and other
homages to the Godzilla franchise. According to Steve Rifle, Honda
started out directing more like sort of like lower budget,
thoughtful films about youthful characters and sort of you know
the challenges of growing up. But then you know, ends

(27:18):
up getting thrown into this world of Godzilla, and this,
you know, comes to define him as a filmmaker, and
you know, he kind of stuck to his guns as
much as possible about the seriousness of the original Godzilla picture,
and so when his name is attached to it, yeah,
there does seem to be this this pivot back towards

(27:40):
the darker roots of the being. All right, so that's
the director. A writer once more is Shinichi Sakazawa, who
of nineteen twenty through nineteen ninety two frequent collaborator with
Honda and describe of many Godzilla movies, beginning with sixty
two's King cong Versus Godzilla. There Godzilla credits stretch from
here all the way up to nineteen eighty nine's Godzilla

(28:03):
versus Bio Lanta. It's just a story credit, but still
that's kind of like the full saga of their credits
with the Godzilla franchise.

Speaker 3 (28:12):
Speaking of tone and seriousness, I think another one of
the things Rifle mentions in that book is that there
were a number of writers who contributed to this early
run of Godzilla films, and Sekizawa, i think, is the
one more often associated with a somewhat lighter tone and
more openness to comedy, which is there in Mathra to

(28:33):
be clear, like this one is it's not as silly
as some of the later movies, but it does have
a lot of comedy, Like the villains are very clownish
in it.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
Yes, the human villains, Yeah, yeah, it has some great
human comedy. The monsters are mostly treated with abjects seriousness,
but there's some very silly human antics in there as well.

Speaker 3 (28:57):
Yeah. And also the guy who just is always eating.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
A Yes, we'll get to him in a second. But yeah,
So we'll start with talking about the humans here and
the monsters. I want to start with the forces of
liberty progression and also eggs. We mentioned that the leads
the main characters here are journalists, and our main hero
journalist is the character Ichiro Sakai played by Akira Takarata,

(29:23):
who lived nineteen thirty four through twenty twenty two. Cocky
but honorable journalist, a little tough to love at first.
He comes off a little rough around the edges, but
you grow to realize that he really cares about the
truth and about doing what's right in the world through
his journalism.

Speaker 3 (29:41):
Yeah, he from the beginning has integrity. He's not as
likable in the beginning, just because he's kind of he's
sort of bossy, and he's like demanding of respect from
people around him, and I don't know, maybe maybe they're
not giving him enough respect. I don't know, but yeah,
you come around to him throughout the movie.

Speaker 2 (30:02):
So Takarata has the top billing here, but he actually
appeared in different roles in numerous Godzilla films, including fifty
four's Godzilla Invasion of the Astro Monster in nineteen sixty five,
Godzilla versus the Sea Monster from sixty six, as well
as nineteen ninety two's Godzilla versus Mathra and Godzilla Final
a Wars from two thousand and four. He's also in

(30:24):
King Kong Escapes from sixty seven. That's one I haven't
seen yet, but it's always been on my list because
it features not only King Kong in Kaiju form, but
also a mecha Kong called Macanni Kong. So he's in that.
And then Tagarata is also in the nineteen fifty five
I Believe Yeti horror film Half Humano all right, so

(30:47):
he's our lead journalist, but then his photographer is the
character Djunko Nakanishi played by Yuriko Hoshi, who lived nineteen
forty three through twenty eighteen. She also appears in Gidora,
the three headed monster from sixty four in a different role,
as well as in Godzilla versus Mega Gurius in two thousand.

(31:09):
Her other credits include nineteen sixty eight's Kill and nineteen
ninety six's Night Trains to the Stars. This was a
supporting role that earned her a Japanese Academy Award.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
In this movie, she plays a character who is sometimes
kind of impractical or overly concerned with the artistic side
of life. For certainly for her boss at the paper here,
who's like, you're not doing art, just snap the pictures
and move on.

Speaker 2 (31:35):
Yeah, you don't have to focus your camera, just take
a picture of it.

Speaker 3 (31:39):
But she's also really kind of the conscience of the movie,
Like she gives a speech on the island of Ewa
that our ticket that is sort of like what motivates
the people to say, okay, Mathra can come to your aid,
and she and multiple points along the film, is kind
of the voice of reason and conscience when other people
are doing wrong.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
Absolutely yeah, yeah, she's no mere sidekick here.

Speaker 3 (32:04):
But she's also amusingly pushy. Like there's one part where Ichi,
the other reporter, is like trying to get a question
with this professor, and the professor is like, I don't
have time for this, and then she butts in and
she is like, wait, one question, and then he's like okay,
what is it? And then she just steps aside and
it's like okay, yeah, ask.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
Him, all right. So those are our journalists. But we
do have a scientist in the Mixed Professor Mura, played
by Hiroshi Kozumi, who lived nineteen twenty six through twenty fifteen.
He'd also played a scientist character in Mathra, the previous
film to feature this monster, and return playing the same
professor character in Godora the Three Headed Monster. His other

(32:44):
films include Atragon, nineteen sixty three's Matango, Godzilla Versus Mega, Godzilla,
Godzilla Raids Again, and Akiu from nineteen fifty two.

Speaker 3 (32:53):
Oh the course Alba movie.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
Yeah, it's kind of a when you start looking at
the actors in Godzilla film, it's pretty typical to see that. Okay,
they've been in various other Godzilla and Kaiju films from Toho,
and they also have bit or supporting roles in various
Kusawa films. Okay, so that's a trend that will continue
to sit here.

Speaker 3 (33:13):
One thing I didn't realize is that this character also
appeared in the standalone Mathra film which came earlier.

Speaker 2 (33:19):
Well, the actor did not the character, Yeah, I see, okay,
but he does. The confusing part is he does return,
apparently playing the same character in a later Godzilla movie.

Speaker 3 (33:29):
Okay, okay, Well, because there's a point where these like
the fairy twins in this movie show up and start
talking about Mathra and it's kind of like, oh, Mathra.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
Yeah, well, you know they've made probably made headlines, right, Yeah, Okay,
we mentioned the comic relief character. This is Yiro Nakamura,
played by you Fujuki, who of nineteen thirty one through
two thousand and five. He's pretty great here again, he
is a comic relief character. My favorite thing about him
is that, as you mentioned, he's always eating eggs and

(34:02):
he has an egg cooker on his desk at work,
which I love.

Speaker 4 (34:07):
Good.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
Yeah, I love egg cookers. I think it's it and
the rice cooker are two of the most fabulous un
tasker devices that have been developed for the kitchen. But
the idea of having one on your desk at work
and making the whole office smell like boiled eggs is
just in and of itself comedic.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
Huh. So, I'm a big fan of the rice cooker.
I love my rice cooker. I use it all the time.
I've never used a dedicated egg cooker. I don't even
know how does it work? Is it hard boil.

Speaker 2 (34:36):
Or well, you can do hard boiled and to some
degree of softer boils. They're like different levels that you
fill the water up to, but then there's still kind
of you still have to catch them at the right
moment and then ice them down before they finish cooking.
So we've had one for ages and I'm still refining

(34:57):
exactly how to use it. The best way to try
and get those of those precious runny eggs for you know,
for you know, to go in ramen and so forth.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
Oh yeah, I do love a soft boiled egg. But
this guy eats so many of them in the movie.
He's always just munching on a soft boiled while they're
talking about a big like alien egg or monster.

Speaker 2 (35:16):
Egg, right, and sometimes like the solution is right there.
He's the first one to realize that the solution to
a problem might be egg based.

Speaker 3 (35:22):
Yes, by the way, just unpaid product endorsement. The Zoji
Rushi rice cooker. It's like, that's gotta be one of
my top brand loyalties. I love that thing, makes me
happy every time I use it.

Speaker 2 (35:33):
Well, maybe one day we'll come back and discuss nineteen
sixty seven's Branded to Kill. That's another Japanese movie, and
that one prominently features rice cookers. Oh nice, all right, see,
I'm gonna skip over the newspaper editor. We may come
back to him. I will say point out that the
actor that is generally credited with playing Mathra in one
form or the other here is Katsumi Tazuka born in

(35:54):
nineteen twelve. His death date is not comparently known. Played
various monsters and different Toho films alongside Nakajima, our main
Godzilla actor. He apparently served as an assistant to Nakajima.
And then we have the twin fairies, the Shobajen, and
they are played by the Peanuts. The Peanuts were a

(36:15):
singing duo, a twin singing duo, Emmy and Yumi Eto.
Here they are reprising their roles from the earlier Mathra film.
If even if you haven't seen one of these movies,
you've probably seen clips or stills. They are two tiny
identical Japanese women who sing to Mathra. Sing for Mathra.

(36:38):
It's kind of like a form of worship. Really, that's
the way I interpret it. The Mathra is a divine being,
and Mathra must be awoken and appealed to through some
sort of worshipful song.

Speaker 3 (36:51):
But also they are kind of divine beings, which is interesting.
They're like the intercessors on behalf of regular humans. Are
these two tiny humans, all sized humans who like pray
to Mathra for us?

Speaker 2 (37:04):
Yeah, they're kind of intermediaries between us and the gods,
between us and Mathra, and maybe in a sense too,
they are Mathra. There's lots to chew on here. So
Emmy lived nineteen forty one through twenty twelve and Umi
lived nineteen forty one through twenty sixteen. Both were born
in Nagoya, which will be important because that's the main

(37:25):
city where everything happens in this picture. They have a
string of credits before nineteen sixty one's Mathra, and apparently
we're already a sensation in Japan, in America as well
as parts of Europe I believe, especially like Germany and Austria.
And their subsequent credits include not only this nineteen sixty
four film, but also Gudor, the three headed monster Mathra

(37:48):
shows up, so the twins need to show up. A
handful of musical comedies followed, and they performed on The
Ed Sullivan Show in nineteen sixty six. They retired from
performing in nineteen seventy five, but their music goes seem
to be have been again quite a hit. It ranged
from folk songs like Japanese folk songs, to covers of
various Western hits. They toured quite a bit, and if

(38:11):
you look them up on discogs, you can find all
sorts of amusing album covers, both from Japan and also
various international releases.

Speaker 3 (38:19):
Did we mention that they not only sing songs to Mathra,
but they also speak all of their lines together in unison. Yes,
it's a striking effect.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
Yeah, I was reading that. That's apparently. That was one
of the appeals of their act too, is that their
voices were essentially identical, and so it made for some
great vocalizations.

Speaker 3 (38:42):
It's by turns funny and creepy in the movie. Yes,
so it works out well.

Speaker 2 (38:47):
All right, let's get into the forces of corruption and
destruction here. First of all, we have the character Kuma Yama.
He's the greedy guy with the mustache played by Yoshifumi Tajima,
who lived nineteen eighteen through two thousand and nine. Another
regular Toh performer with credits that include various monster films,

(39:07):
with also some bit parts in Krosawa movie sprinkled in
as well.

Speaker 3 (39:11):
He is a comical villain in this who shows up
to just beam with greed, like if greed was embodied.
It's like in the way this guy plays the role
that he has not a Hitler mustache, but it's in
the ballpark. It's like a shrunken What I would say
is it's like if you imagine a handlebar mustache, but

(39:34):
then you shrink it down so that it only takes
up about a third of the width of his upper lip.

Speaker 2 (39:40):
Yeah, it feels I'm not sure if this is this
is something that would have resonated at the time within
the intended audience, but it feels like a very carny mustache,
you know.

Speaker 3 (39:50):
Yes, Yeah, So he's just always behaving crudely and greedily.
It's like, you know, the director told him in every scene,
just think about I want to get money. Yeah, that's
what he's doing now.

Speaker 2 (40:02):
His financial backer is the character Euro Torajada, played by
Kenji Sahara born nineteen thirty two, and as of this recording,
I believe still out there. He actually played the dad
in All Monsters Attack and was also in Atragon. So
he's a Japanese actor who has the distinction of being

(40:22):
I think in the most Godzilla films thirteen of them,
in addition to numerous other Toho pictures. He was in
the first Godzilla movie Pops Up as a newspaper reporter,
and then I think a party guy in a boat
as well, so you know, he's all over the place.
His last Godzilla film was two thousand and four's Final Wars,
and it looks like he was last active around twenty eleven. Also,

(40:44):
I believe he was the star of Mighty Jack, the
Japanese television series that MST three K fans should know about.

Speaker 3 (40:51):
Now, there were some things about this character I didn't
fully understand. He is like the secret partner of Kumuyama.
Was it applied that he's involved in crime or something.
He's got like a big cabinet full of.

Speaker 5 (41:04):
Money and uh, and he's you know, he's being like
sort of kept secret, like Kumayama is the public facing
owner of the egg, and this guy is like his
his secret backer, but is also scamming Kumayama.

Speaker 4 (41:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
I I didn't get as much a sense of organized
crime here. I feel like if that had been the case,
there would have been more obvious tells to that effect.
But it did feel like they're sort of two sides
of the core the the capitalist problem has received at
the time in Japan. You know, it's like one guy
is the more obvious, greedy, uh you know, cash fisted

(41:42):
individual and the more you know, overt corruptive force, and
the other side is like standing back and saying like, oh,
I'm you know, I'm not the idea man here. I'm
just the guy with the big locker full of cash,
you know, like they're.

Speaker 3 (41:55):
Yeah, you know, he's he need a loan.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
Yeah, but I agree his his role in everything is
maybe a little more cryptic to figure out it, you know,
at least you know from our standpoint as viewers.

Speaker 4 (42:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
Yeah, Oh, and then we got to come back to
Haro Nakajima playing Godzilla again. We've mentioned him on the
show before. He lived nineteen twenty nine through twenty seventeen,
played Godzilla in twelve consecutive films. He was also in

(42:30):
Mathra in War of the gargantuas as well as a
character I saw with seven Samurai and a bit roll
not as a giant monster, and he's yet generally considered
an absolute legend when it comes to monster suit performers,
and I have to say his physicality in the monster
suit in this movie is especially good. There's kind of
a wild abandon to the way Godzilla moves as he stumbles, tumbles,

(42:55):
sprints and lurches through the landscape.

Speaker 3 (42:58):
Godzilla really feels angry and full of rage in some
of his scenes. Yeah, I'm thinking of the scenes later
on when he's getting silked up by the grubs and
he's he just looks furious at what's happening.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
Yeah, or like when he destroys Nagoia Castle uh, which
which which I've seen in real life. I've been to
Nagoya Uh. But when he destroys it, we'll get to
it's kind of kind of like trips and falls into
it and then is mad at It's kind of like
when you stub your toe on a coffee table and
you're like, what is this coffee table doing here? You
dumb coffee table. Yeah, there's a there's a lot to

(43:33):
unravel there about Godzilla the menace in this picture and
how I believe others have commented on this. Maybe it
was Steve Rifle that was writing about this that while
Godzilla is definitely the threat and the villain and the
the you know, the monstrous antagonist of this picture, there's
also a sense that maybe he's like a little less

(43:54):
of a vehicle of vengeance compared to the original Godzilla,
you know, like he's maybe more akin to a natural
force here.

Speaker 3 (44:01):
Yes, that he's He's not nice, but it does feel
a little bit more like he's doing these things kind
of accidentally or at least recklessly. Yeah, though he does
I think get mad at Mathra.

Speaker 2 (44:13):
He does. There is some heat between these two.

Speaker 3 (44:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:17):
And then finally getting to the music, we have legendary
Japanese composer Akira Ifukube, who lived nineteen fourteen through two
thousand and six. Not only did he give us the
incredible Godzilla theme music, which is just at its best
in this picture, but he also created that signature roar.

Speaker 3 (44:34):
Oh I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
Yeah, it was apparently achieved by rubbing a resin covered
leather glove across the loosened strings of a double bass.
Oh okay, it's hard for me to picture how that
all comes together because I'm so used to hearing Godzilla's roar.
It just it feels organic. It feels like that's just
the sound Godzilla makes.

Speaker 3 (44:52):
Yeah. The sound Mathra makes in this movie is great too.
That high pitched metallic chirp, that's great.

Speaker 2 (44:59):
Yeah, it's sing yeah, and that again, his music is
just an inseparable part of the true Godzilla franchise. His
other films include Atragon Space Amba from seventy nineteen fifty
six is the Burmese Harp that's a non Kaiju film.
But his theme music here for Godzilla, especially Godzilla's key theme,

(45:19):
is just incredible. And if we didn't didn't have this theme,
we wouldn't have that really awesome Pharaoh manch track, Simon says,
which heavily samples not only the Godzilla music, but the
specific Godzilla music from this movie. So if you're a
hip hop fan, old school hip hop fan, you know
this track.

Speaker 3 (45:37):
It's conspicuously used.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
YEA, yes, in an amazing way. I think, dare I
say a loving way?

Speaker 3 (45:44):
But yes, in general, if Akube's music for the Godzilla
films is wonderful, I'd loved I think we've talked about
this before, but one thing that really got my blood
going for shin Godzilla when it was coming out is
the way that it used the like the old sounding
theme from the original film, but with the new movie footage.

(46:06):
You know, that minor key theme bu da dun duh
duh dun. Oh. Man, it's so good. But also his
original music for Mathra itself or for Mauth re Versus
Godzilla is a whole new ballgame, and it's wonderful.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
Yeah, the Godzilla theme music, I kept thinking about this.
It has a lumbering feel to it, like it feels
like the great footsteps of a Titanic monster, but then
there's also this sense of rising and it just works
so exceptionally well with the visuals of pretty much anything
Godzilla is doing on the screen.

Speaker 3 (46:37):
All right, you ready to talk about the plot, Let's
get into it. So we begin with, as expected, that gorgeous,
familiar mid century tohoscope logo, which I love. Every time
I've said this before, every time I see it makes
me happy. It makes me think of precious gems. You know,
when it comes on screen, it's like I've been kind
of scratching through a bunch of gravel and I come

(46:58):
upon a cache of emerald.

Speaker 2 (47:01):
I have to admit I loved it watching this live.
There was thunderous applause for the Toho logo alone, so
I love the enthusiasm of that.

Speaker 3 (47:09):
So during the credit and title sequence, you've got lead,
heavy doom horns, that great score. We were just talking
about playing over a dark shot of the open sea
in a typhoon and rain is hammering down, the waves
are huge lightning flashes, and the clouds in the sky,
and as the credits wrap, we cut from the black

(47:30):
mid ocean to somewhere along the shore where waves are
crashing against a sea wall, and then we get a
close up on a sign that says in Japanese, congratulations
karatea coast reclamation project complete. I think there's supposed to
be some humor here, contrasted with the weather and the
fact that the music is still in Death of the
Universe mode. And we pan over to appear beside the sea.

(47:55):
There's a bunch of stuff set up for a party.
There's like a tent pavilion, and streamers and pick tables,
and we watch all this stuff just get buffeted by
winds and eventually swept away, and the waves surge over
the sea wall and tear down a bunch of power lines.
We see a boat washed ashore and it crashes into everything.
It's a monster storm. The next day there are blue

(48:16):
skies overhead as hundreds of people gather at the coast
we just saw, and the beach is now piled with
rubble washed ashore by the typhoon, and we get an
interesting effects shot I think done in miniature of the
sea wall with a long row of giant yellow pump
stations in operation. I assume draining water out from behind

(48:37):
the wall and blasting it back into the ocean of
these pipes that look like cannons. So a visual metaphor
for civilization and technology, re establishing dominance over the forces
of the natural world, with a kind of violence implied
because the pumps look like gun barrels, as I mentioned earlier.

(48:59):
Great in contrast to the haunted, diminished Japan of the
original Godzilla, this movie takes place in the middle of
what feels like an economic and industrial boom. There's just
capitalistic exuberance. Everything's under construction, everybody's making money. Businessmen feel
like gods, and they just they cannot be resisted. And

(49:22):
here in the crowd at the coast, we meet a
couple of our major characters. We meet Ichiro Sakai Ichi,
a reporter for the Micho Times, and when we first
meet him, he's very impatient, focused strictly business. And also
Junko Nakanishi, his photographer assistant, again more flighty and kind

(49:42):
of contemplative. As she's observing the scene, she says she's
trying to come up with a theme for her photo spread,
and Ichiro tells her, your theme is typhoon. Come on. Now,
we see Ichi confronted by a clownish local politician who
is angry at the fact that he wrote an article
about the destruction caused by the typhoon. The assemblyman here

(50:04):
does not like that Ichi has been reporting on the destruction.
He insists that their coastal reclamation project will be the
best ever. It's you know, it's gonna happen on time?
How dare you write about this? And nearby, Junko is
setting up for a photograph of all the garbage washed
up on the shore, and she realizes one thing in
the frame is a weird shimmering blue green object, kind

(50:28):
of like a giant scale. I wonder what that is.
But here's one of the scenes where Ichi is telling her, like,
don't waste time with light meters, just start clicking that shutter.
This is not high art, But I think Junko just
feels differently. She has more of an artistic sensibility. She's like,
we should do.

Speaker 2 (50:46):
This, right, yeah, yeah, And I think I think he
takes her craft for granted here.

Speaker 3 (50:51):
Yeah. So back at the newsroom, we meet a few
more characters. We meet Ichi and Junko's boss, the news editor,
who is, oh, I don't know. I figure like he
comes off as kind of brusque, but then later maybe
it reveals a kind of practical wisdom, would you say.

Speaker 2 (51:09):
Yeah, yeah, Like he's he's a very busy man, and
he has no time for silliness. He's got to get
that paper out, you know, very much a cliche in
many ways, but ultimately does care about the truth and
and is really behind journalism's you know, key principles in
the world.

Speaker 3 (51:27):
Right. And then there's also this comic relief character the
reporter who's eating soft boiled eggs. Yeah, such a and
he's always doing it in a scene where they're talking
about giant monster eggs. For example, this scene because the
editor gets a call on the phone and it is
revealed that the next big news event is a giant
egg has been spotted off the coast of Japan at

(51:49):
a place called Niche Beach.

Speaker 2 (51:51):
Yeah, and it is a big one.

Speaker 3 (51:52):
It's big. It's like a blimp. There's a big blue, green, blue, green,
white oblate spheroid floating in the water. And we go
to the local fishing village, which is portrayed as full
of somewhat sympathetic but also easily frightened bumpkins who are
first possessed by terror and then gradually by greed. They

(52:16):
decide that since fishing has been bad lately, it's been
a bad catch, they're going to go out and claim
the egg as the prize of their waters. By right.
They have a whole discussion about it. They're like, wait,
whatever comes out of that water, fish or egg, belongs
to us. So this is an egg, it's in the water,
it's ours.

Speaker 2 (52:35):
Yeah. There's actually a lot here that you could unravel.
You could do a whole shin Mathra movie based on
this conflict.

Speaker 3 (52:42):
Oh, just the court cases about who the egg.

Speaker 2 (52:44):
Belongs to belong to, you know, the parties here or
some of the parties that are going to be revealed
here in a bit.

Speaker 3 (52:50):
Let's have a meeting about it and maybe a few depositions. Yeah,
So the villagers take their boats out and they bring
the egg ashore, where it is transported to the beach,
and we see shots of astonished crowds forming this cautious
circle around it. Afterwards, Ichi and Junko arrive on the
scene and they meet a new character, the scientist Professor Mura,

(53:13):
who is taking example, taking samples to better understand the
giant egg. And this is the scene where at first
the professor doesn't really have time for them, but Junko
is pushy enough to get a question on the record.
And the question that Ichi asks is is this egg dangerous?
The quote is could it explode or release toxins? And

(53:36):
the professor is like, well, that's what I'm trying to
find out. But they don't get a chance to find out.
They are interrupted in the middle of that research by
the arrival of the new big head guy in charge
This is mister Kubayama, a vain, greedy businessman, the proprietor
of Happy Enterprises. I love the choice the name of

(53:56):
the business. There, it feels apt. There's something sinister about
banality of it.

Speaker 4 (54:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
Yeah, it's like, you know, don't you want to be happy?

Speaker 4 (54:04):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (54:04):
How can you be opposed to happiness?

Speaker 3 (54:06):
So it turns out Kumayama has bought the egg from
the local fisherman. It is now rightfully his, and there's
a funny scene here where he explains how much he
paid for it, like how he arrived at the price,
and it was by multiplying the cost of a chicken
egg by the size difference between a chicken egg and
the giant egg.

Speaker 2 (54:26):
Well that's just logical. Yeah, yes.

Speaker 3 (54:28):
Now the reporters protest, They're like, wait a minute, should
this egg maybe not be thought of as private property?
Isn't this kind of a wonder of nature? Maybe it
belongs to all of humanity or none of us? And
Kumayama is like, well, that's why we're gonna let everybody
come look at it. We're going to watch it incubate
and hatch, and everybody can come see for a small

(54:48):
fee of course, so's he's trying to go for the
King Kong thing, right, He's going to take this wonder
of nature and he's going to put walls around it
in sell tickets.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
Yeah, there's like a hole. They have a whole map,
have everything planned out how it's gonna work. Everyone's gonna
come and see the egg and maybe it'll be some
some some additional rides. Who knows this is This is
going to really remake the whole area.

Speaker 3 (55:11):
Also the plot of Gorgo remember.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
Oh, yeah, that's right, and I guess kind of the
plot of King Kong, right.

Speaker 3 (55:17):
Yeah, yeah, that's what I was just saying. Yeah, King
Kong and then sort of Jurassic Park too, though Jurassic
Park has the cloning element that's so different.

Speaker 2 (55:25):
But yeah, this is a spectacle. People will pay to
see this.

Speaker 3 (55:28):
But Kubayama taunts the reporters and the scientists for their ideals.
He offers to pose for a picture for Junko and
then he just blows cigar smoke in her face when
she uses the camera. What a jerk?

Speaker 2 (55:42):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (55:42):
And then later at the nearby hotel, Kumayama is revealed
to have this secret business partner. This creepy guy named
tora Hata who lent him the money for the deal.
Uh tora Hata has this giant file cabinet full of cash,
just cash money, and it's I don't know why he
has that. But the idea is they're going to build

(56:04):
this amusement park based around the egg, which they are
now going to be keeping in this steel enclosure, I
think presumably, so if it hatches whatever hatches, can't get away.

Speaker 2 (56:15):
Yeah, or to some degree, they might be incubating it
a little bit. Yeah, they're doing that too, the appropriate
temperature and so forth.

Speaker 3 (56:22):
But the two businessmen are interrupted in their scheming by
something quite strange. Two tiny women the size of dolls,
who appear in their hotel room as if by magic,
and start chanting in unison about how they must return
the egg and how it doesn't belong to them. These
are the Fairy Twins again, these are the musical act

(56:43):
the Peanuts. Is that what they were calling peanuts? Yes?
How are they dressed here? At the beginning they look
kind of like cupcakes. They've got like a white fur
and then a white hat with pink things on top,
so there's kind of an icing effect. And then they're
wearing a yello in pink dresses below that.

Speaker 2 (57:02):
Yeah, they're wearing something to be interpreted as like, yeah,
traditional garb. They are, you know, in a way, they
are their voices and representatives of the old world and
not this new world of hyper activity and progress. It's
like literally building things around an egg, which in and
of itself is an interesting scenario. You're building permanent structures

(57:24):
around this thing that is, by its very nature impermanent
and is going to lead to like some other different
form that needs to be free. But they're like, nope,
let's build it. It's all about right now.

Speaker 3 (57:36):
Yes, an egg is made to be broken out of
and you build a cage around it.

Speaker 4 (57:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (57:40):
Yeah, So obviously the business guys do not heed the message.
Are they going to be like, oh, okay, we'll give
you the egg bag now. Instead, they try to capture
the fairy twins. They're like running around the hotel room
trying to get them under a coat.

Speaker 2 (57:53):
There's some fun hijinks here. I think it's always important
to drive home with a good kaiju movie. That. Yeah,
kaiju movie have great scenes where monsters battle each other,
but the best Kaiju movies are also very enjoyable when
the monsters are not on screen, and it takes a
long time before we get to the monster battles here.
But for my own money, I was never like missing

(58:15):
the monster battles when we hadn't gotten there yet, because
there was just plenty of fun high jinks with you know,
these miniature these maximize sets for these miniature characters, and
the comedy with the egg Man, and the social commentary
that was going on regarding like greed and corruption plenty
to show on here.

Speaker 3 (58:41):
So after they fail in appealing to the businessmen, the
fairy Twins appeal instead to our heroes, to junko Ichi
and the Professor. I think this happens in the woods
outside the hotel. I forget how they get out there.
But they let the heroes know that the egg actually
belongs to the giant godlike being of Ewa Island, a Mathra,

(59:03):
and it was brought here by the storm. They say
there's great potential for disaster when the egg hatches, so
they must help the Twins return the egg to Ewa
Island where it belongs.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (59:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:15):
One of the interesting things about the Twins is when
they make themselves known. At first, you just hear them
like a voice of one's own conscious, you know, urging
you to make the right choices in life instead of
the greedy path you're following.

Speaker 3 (59:30):
That's right. Yeah, there are a lot of scenes of
them talking in unison, and the characters are like looking
around and yeah, where's that coming from? Now? At this point,
I think maybe I'm going to skip more lightly over
some of the machinations in the middle of the movie,
but I'll summarize what happened. So the two evil, greedy
businessmen keep scheming. We see them counting money and trying

(59:53):
to scam everybody, including each other, and being possessive over
the mathra egg Ichi, Junko and the try to expose
the corruption of happy enterprises, but they don't seem to
be able to stop them. Suddenly, there is a shift
in the middle of the movie. Remember that blue green
scale found in the rubble after the typhoon. Well turns

(01:00:16):
out the professor has some news about it. It's radioactive
and Junko and Ichi touched it. There's a cool scene
where we see them getting like date, I don't know,
they're getting decontaminated. They're standing in these purple pink kind
of chambers, and that's not a good sign because what
else is radioactive? It's Godzilla baby. So nearby suddenly Godzilla

(01:00:39):
starts to rise up out of the earth from out
of this desolate field of mud. Do you remember what
the field was? Was it a construction site or something else.

Speaker 2 (01:00:51):
You get the sense that it's like reclaimed maybe a
mix of reclaimed c and also the like damaged area
from the tie because you see, like you know, there's
like a boat wreck in there and so forth. And
also that's the idea that like Godzilla has been returned
to Japan via the storms. But this scene where he

(01:01:11):
rises up is pretty amazing. We get that great theme
song and people are like, oh, oh.

Speaker 3 (01:01:16):
Goodness, it's happening again, happening again, It's happening again. And
here he is. He attacks Japan once again, wandering into cities,
smashing up buildings and infrastructure. So we see him, I think,
knock over like a TV tower and attacks attack of castle,
roa castle. Any highlights from this rampage here?

Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
Oh well, this is there's some great physical movement of
Godzilla here. I love that he's at times lumbering, other
times kind of scrambling again that sense of rage you
referenced when he destroys Nagoya Castle. Well, even when he
destroys that antenna tower, he kind of it's almost like

(01:01:56):
he does so accidentally and it falls on him and
it makes him even more angry. And then he kind
of like trips and falls in Indigoya Castle, like he
didn't really mean to destroy it, but then he's mad
at it because he fell on it, and then he
just bashes it the rest of the way. I was
watching rewatching this particular scene with my wife and she
was like, well, why is Godzilla so dumb in this movie?

(01:02:18):
And I'm like, no, he's not dumb. That god don't
insult Godzilla's intelligence. But there is the sense it's almost
like he's been thrown out into He wasn't prepared for this.
He didn't want to go on a rampage today. He
was slumbering. Now you've woken him up. He's cranky and
he's going to destroy stuff. It's not necessarily what he
wanted to do with this day, but it's.

Speaker 3 (01:02:39):
Happening exactly right. We're here now. Yeah, So the Japanese
Self Defense Forces they try to fight Godzilla. But since
when has that done.

Speaker 2 (01:02:48):
I should note that in the US version of this picture,
which is I think what titled Godzilla Versus the Thing,
they actually, instead of it being just the Japanese Self
Defense Forces, they actually call in the US military, and
so the scene instead of having the scene where it's
the Japanese Self Defense Forces having a meeting about how
to attack Godzilla, it's a meeting between the Japanese Self

(01:03:11):
Defense Forces and the US military, and the US military
does like a missile strike on Godzilla, which of course
doesn't work.

Speaker 3 (01:03:18):
So finally, our heroes come up with an idea. I
think they're in the newsroom, I believe when they come
up with this, right, so they're like talking to the
editor and stuff. The idea is what if they request
help from Mathra Rob Do you remember how they arrive
at this idea is.

Speaker 2 (01:03:35):
I believe the Eggman is the one who look at
he's like eating an egg back there, and he's like, hey,
I've got an egg related idea, and I think this
is our solution, And they're like, well, you know, actually
that's it. We should roll with that.

Speaker 3 (01:03:46):
So the reporters and the professor make the journey to
Ewa Island to speak with the people there for the
ideas they're going to beg Mathra to help defend them
from Godzilla. But when they arrive at Ewa Island and
they discover devastation. The island has been used for nuclear
weapons tests.

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
Yeah, and it is ravaged. It does not look good.
It is You might be forgiven for expecting it to
be like a tropical paradise that they're traveling to, and
it probably was, but now it is just devastation.

Speaker 3 (01:04:22):
Should we mention skeleturtle?

Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
Oh yeah, this was Skeleturtle's deal because at first I
thought it was just the skeleton of a turtle. But
it moves a little.

Speaker 3 (01:04:30):
Yes, yeah, this is a thing that Godzilla fans have
talked about for years. Actually that so we see all
these bones on this desolate beach where the nuclear tests
have happened. It's supposed to be scoured of all life.
And we see like the giant rib cage of some
huge animal don't know what it is, but also a
turtle and it's bones. It's like a skull and a

(01:04:53):
shell and vertebrae. But it's moving around and there's no
attempt to a this, no explanation. I don't know why
it's moving around. I don't know if it's moving around
by accident, if it is supposed to be a skeleton
that is somehow still alive. The characters don't comment on it,
even though it's right there in front of them, so

(01:05:14):
I don't know. It's one of the most mysterious things
about this movie. What is meant by the skeleturtle. It's
a haunting image, actually, I mean it kind of suggests
a living death.

Speaker 2 (01:05:23):
Yeah, it really does.

Speaker 3 (01:05:24):
Yeah that like the nuclear testing has been so evil
in fact, that it has doomed these these animals to
a kind of to a kind of hell existence where
they're like dead but they're still there somehow.

Speaker 2 (01:05:37):
Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't seem to be played for comedic effect,
and it's not elaborated a buon.

Speaker 3 (01:05:42):
So anyway, so they go to the people of Ewa Island,
who worship Mathra as their god. The local chief is
initially not sympathetic to their pleas for help. They're like, wait,
you're from the outside world that stole Mathra's egg and
wouldn't give it back and does nuclear testing on our
island and made skelet turtles here. Why should we help

(01:06:04):
you now?

Speaker 2 (01:06:04):
Yeah, they're like, yeah, that's that's true. We would love
your unconditional support now in our battle against Godzilla, creature
that we are also responsible for. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:06:13):
Yeah, But Junko makes a plea. Basically, she's like, yeah,
there are bad people out there. They're bad people everywhere,
bad people in Japan who took the egg. But they're
innocent people there too, they didn't do anything to hurt you.
They're worth defending. And then she makes the point, you know,
even bad people don't deserve to be killed by Godzilla,

(01:06:33):
so please help us. And this lands somewhat.

Speaker 2 (01:06:37):
Yeah, I mean it lands with the local people who
are hearing the message, and also I think lands of
the audience. I mean it's as potent a message today
as it ever was.

Speaker 3 (01:06:47):
So the Fairy Twins appear and they get a whole
musical number here, like they sing for a long time,
and the singing they're singing a song to Mathra to
enlist her. Aid, So I think we're getting Mathra on
on the team.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
Mathra is gonna happen, But again, Mathra has to be
appealed to through song and worship, and then once that
message is received, action can take place.

Speaker 3 (01:07:10):
Now back on the mainland. We got to check in
with our two greedy businessmen. They keep double crossing each
other until one finally kills the other one and tries
to take all the money for himself. But then I
think he dies pretty much immediately because Godzilla crushes the
building he's in.

Speaker 2 (01:07:25):
Yeah, they're scrambling over a pile of money and shooting
at each other while Godzilla is approaching visibly in the distance,
looming like a great siege tower, moving in on their headquarters.
And yeah, so they both face a fitting destruction here
under the heels of Godzilla.

Speaker 3 (01:07:42):
But eventually, uh oh, Godzilla's rampage sends him in the
direction of the egg enclosure.

Speaker 2 (01:07:51):
That's right, And this is where you get a sense that,
you know, Godzilla's violence towards the infrastructure of Nagoya maybe
more or less accidental, like he's just he's here, he's
gonna rambage. He didn't ask to be here. But when
he sees that egg, I don't know, there's a sense
that like he knows this is Kaiju business, maybe he

(01:08:11):
even knows that what Mathra is or to some extent,
but he sees this as an enemy. And there's this
sequence where where Godzilla stares down the enclosure, and this
is about the same time that Mathra is physically arriving.
And oh my goodness, the look that Godzilla put pulls
here just absolute daggers for eyes. Yes, they just gave

(01:08:31):
me the chills. As he decides as he starts destroying
the egg facility, I mean, why would why would you
mess with Godzilla here? I mean this look. I included
a still for you here, Joe, it's just, oh my goodness,
the most intimidating Godzilla stare I've ever seen.

Speaker 3 (01:08:45):
Like we're seeing mostly the whites on the underside of
his eyes or his pupils are kind of rolled up,
and he's got his head hanging down, just like utter
contempt and destruction. Yeah. So Godzilla starts smashing the Egging
incubation building by side, whipping it with his tail. We
see metal crunching, steel beams are falling. But then, oh, intervention,

(01:09:09):
here comes Mathra. Though the mom is the mom is here.
So at this point, somehow Ichy Junko in the gang
are back. They're on a they like run to a
hilltop nearby to watch the battle. I think I may
have skipped over. However, they got back.

Speaker 2 (01:09:22):
You know, I want to throw in this about the
battles that take place between especially between Godzilla and adult
for Mathra here. Yeah, I think one of the reasons
that I long avoided Godzilla versus Mathra is that I
didn't in my youth see the potential of the physical battle.
Like I was more about like the goofy fun of

(01:09:44):
one Kaiju battling another of two dudes in rubber suits
wrastling on a minute on a set with a bunch
of miniatures.

Speaker 3 (01:09:51):
Can you suplex them off?

Speaker 4 (01:09:53):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:09:54):
I think that was part of it. I was like,
I just kind of imagined like the hokiest version of
this battle where it'd be a puppet a stick versus
a guy in a costume. But they do such a
great job. It never feels like that here. Mathra never
feels like a like a rough puppet. I mean, obviously
Matha is created in large part through puppetry, but it's

(01:10:15):
it's it's done superbly, and I just completely bought into
the combat between these two entities.

Speaker 3 (01:10:21):
Absolutely agree this is one of the best monster battles
in the series.

Speaker 2 (01:10:25):
Yeah, and it doesn't. I think I've seen other folks
maybe it was Michael Weldon pointing out that like this
one doesn't get rastly and therefore doesn't have as much silliness.
It's it's you know, it's it's out there. It has
a lot of like crazy Kaiju weaponry, for sure, but
it's a lot of fun.

Speaker 3 (01:10:41):
So I think I said this earlier, but one thing
I really love here is the sharp metallic ping of
Mathra's call. It's like a I don't know, it sounds
like a like a dagger piercing the air somehow. Yeah,
And so we hear that, and Godzilla is still busy
like smashing up the buildings trying to get to the egg,
but begins furiously flapping her wings and that generates this

(01:11:04):
humongous gale which pushes Godzilla to and fro and it
also though knocks over the rest of the building. And
now the egg is exposed and Godzilla attacks and ooh,
the attack on the egg is actually kind of scary.
He's like striking and clawing at it, blasting it with
the radioactive breath, and was just thinking like, oh, no,
poor egg.

Speaker 2 (01:11:25):
Yeah again, Godzilla is betrayed. Is very very much the
aggressive beast here, so there's a real frenzy to his
movements that I really liked.

Speaker 3 (01:11:35):
But Mathra intervenes. She grabs Godzilla by the tail and
drags him away from the egg. I know, we said
it's not too rasseliny, but.

Speaker 2 (01:11:45):
This seems kind of like a little rastling.

Speaker 3 (01:11:47):
Yeah, this is like when a wrestler like drags another
wrestler out of the ring by his leg. Observing from
afar by the way, the professor asks what's that yellow powder?
And the Fairy Twins are there and they're like, it
is Mathra's final weapon, and they explain that it's a
kind of poisonous pollen. So she's like coating Godzilla in
this like yellow pollen powder.

Speaker 2 (01:12:08):
Yeah, like an aerial bombardment of the stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:12:10):
So they fight some more, and at one point Godzilla
gets the upper hand. He blasts a Mathra with his breath,
and Mathra starts to look more and more ragged as
she's beaten up in this battle. Oh, I didn't mention this,
but we were told earlier by the twins on the
island that Mathra is she's sort of like near the
end of her life cycle, that she's dying, And so

(01:12:32):
she flies away from battle back to the beach toward
the egg, and the Fairy Twins remind us that Mathra
is near the end of her life, so she glides
down to lot to land beside her egg, and then
she dies and Godzilla does here kind of do a wicked,
gloating victory dance of swords, but not a silly dance.
Right right now here, the military resumes fighting Godzilla. Is

(01:12:55):
this going to do much? Of course not. They shoot
some rockets and bombs, we see planes flying around, and
there is one part here that I will also say
that this is better than the average military bombardment of
Godzilla scene because there are some effects that are actually
kind of visceral. Like there's one part where Godzilla's head
catches on fire and oh yeah, looks awesome, but Godzilla

(01:13:18):
just kind of shakes it off. He also gets into
a tussle with some high voltage power lines. They also
try a big net dropped from a formation of helicopter.

Speaker 2 (01:13:27):
They drop like three nets on him, and it looks
like it might work, but of.

Speaker 3 (01:13:31):
Course Godzilla he hates this, and he proceeds to breathe
on and melt a bunch of tanks. Meanwhile, down at
the beach, the Fairy Twins are doing a musical number.
They have gone down to Mathra's egg and they are
singing a song to it, I believe, imploring it to hatch.

Speaker 2 (01:13:48):
Yeah, yeah, and to bring Mathra back into the world again.
Mathra is apparently a divine entity of continual death and rebirth.

Speaker 3 (01:13:57):
Yeah, And this is intercut with shots of the people
on Ewa Island also doing a dance for the egg.
And then suddenly at the climax of the song, lightning
flashes and the egg hatches, and you know what, it's
not just one baby Mathra, but two. It's twins, just
like the fairy twins.

Speaker 2 (01:14:15):
Yeah, two larval Mathras emerge, and so now they have
the numbers advantage over a Godzilla. I'm not sure if
Godzilla realizes this, but like this is really the point
at which he's cooked.

Speaker 3 (01:14:26):
Yeah, But so to emphasize, it's not like two little
moths with wings. It's grubs. It's like two caterpillars larval mathras.
And there are hilarious shots of these two like giant
red brown grubs humping through the ocean towards the after.

Speaker 2 (01:14:43):
Like it's like, yeah, it's kind of like the their
sea serpents or something. You know, or but also kind
of like water buffaloes.

Speaker 4 (01:14:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:14:51):
Yeah, they're going through the water because we learned there's
this whole subplot about like there are some school children
on Ewa Island and they're still there, and then Godzilla
starts going towards Ewa Island and they're like, oh no,
the school children and they're in danger, and almost as
if to protect them, the grubs like chase after Godzilla
through the water and they go to the island. The

(01:15:13):
three human protagonists go there as well, and they sort
of get busy rescuing the school children while Godzilla fights
these two little moth grubs. And this fight is funny
and I think it is meant to be, Like one
bites Godzilla on the tail and he starts whipping it
all around to get it off. But in this battle
between Zilla and two grubs, who's gonna win? And how

(01:15:35):
well I love the final way they defeat him. The
moth larvae start blasting Godzilla with their silk. They shoot
like spider silk, but they're, of course, you know, these
little grubs, and they essentially cocoon him alive. They're spinning
more and more silk, throwing it over him. He's furious.
He's breathing radioactive breath. He's whipping all around. But he

(01:15:57):
eventually gets wrapped up and incapacitated and just breathing all
over in random directions, furious, and he finally falls to
the ground, rolls down over the edge of a cliff
and into the ocean, sinking out of sight. It's a
glorious way to defeat Godzilla.

Speaker 2 (01:16:13):
I think it's clear that Godzilla is not killed, you know,
It's like he is just defeated for now. He will
probably be back, and hopefully humanity can get it together,
maybe avoid some of their greed and self interest in
order to better prepare for his eventual return.

Speaker 3 (01:16:30):
Yeah, and we see the grubs swimming away. We can
hear the fairy twins yelling goodbye in unison. I guess
they're going with them. I don't think we see them.
And then the humans watch the baby Mathras leaving and
one of them says, shouldn't we thank them? But then
Iachi says the only way to thank them is to
build a better world, and the Professor says, that's right,

(01:16:51):
a world based on mutual trust. There's a little direct there.
It's not super subtle, But you know, I appreciate the sentiment. Right,
that is, you have plainly stated the moral of the film.

Speaker 2 (01:17:03):
Well, you know I like it, Yeah, firmly stated. It
serves for us to be reminded because we'll inevitably forget
and build a world that is highly susceptible to Godzilla's attack.

Speaker 3 (01:17:15):
Yes, it will happen again in Godora the Three Headed Monster.
I forget what the precipitating event is in that one,
but you know they're gonna do. Something's gonna happen, all right,
Any other business about Mathra versus Godzilla before we wrap
it up?

Speaker 2 (01:17:28):
Oh, just to say that I think it's absolutely solid.
It has a great message. Again, the monster battles are amazing,
but everything else is also richly entertaining and at times
intentionally hilarious. Looks great, sounds great. Would I would be
inclined to say, again, I can't pretend to be a
Godzilla completest. I haven't seen I haven't even seen all

(01:17:50):
of the show era films. I certainly haven't seen all
of the Godzilla films period, and I haven't seen the
recent ones, which I'm to understand also feature Mathra. But
I would say if you've never seen a Godzilla film before,
and you're open to watching films from previous decades, Mathera
versus Godzilla is a pretty good place to start. I mean,
if you're not gonna start with the original one. In

(01:18:12):
the original Godzilla film, this is this is really good.
You get, you get heal Godzilla, you get beautiful Mathra get,
you get amusing performances and a nice message. What more
can you ask for?

Speaker 3 (01:18:24):
I would say this is the most Godzilla film of
all the Godzilla films I've seen it. It has all
of the core elements in their most perfect form.

Speaker 2 (01:18:34):
Right right. And you might enter into this film being
a Mathra skeptic like I think I used to be,
but you will be won over by Mathra and you
will realize that she is indeed the Queen of monsters.
All hail, All right, We're gonna gohe and close out
this episode of Weird House Cinema, but we'd love to
hear from all of you. We know you have thoughts
on this Godzilla film and many other Godzilla films will

(01:18:55):
remind you that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily
a science and culture podcast with core episode on Tuesdays
and Thursdays, but on Fridays we set aside most serious
concerns to just talk about a weird film here on
Weirdhouse Cinema. If you would like to see a list
of all the movies we've covered over the years, go
to letterbox dot com. Our username there is weird House
and we're experimenting with something new. If you want to
follow Weird House Cinema exclusively wherever you get your podcast,

(01:19:18):
it now has its own playlist. So Weird House Cinema
is still very much publishing to the Stuff to Blow
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the core place to subscribe for all of our content,
but we're experimenting with having this additional way to seek
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Speaker 3 (01:19:35):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:19:56):
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