Castle Bravo: A Godzillaverse Retrospective

It's... a sequel to Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla! Toho's reimagining of Mechagodzilla was a hit, and for the sequel they decided to amp up the star factor with a fan favorite who Mechagodzilla had never had a chance to meet: Mothra! This movie takes full advantage of this setting's unusual take of "the Showa era but Godzilla was only around for the first movie" to give us a world where Mothra has not been se...

It's been a long gap and a tumultuous summer. As we warm the machine back up for full production, we look back on the movies we've covered so far and casually chat about how many of them have stuck with us over time. It's a light episode, but it got electrons to start moving through brainmeats. We'll be back soon with the next full episode.

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It's not a sequel to GMK! The Millennium era of Godzilla sees yet another "fresh start" that only acknowledges the original film, but weirdly also a bunch of other connected non-Godzilla movies of the Showa era. Boot up your DNA computers, because the latest model of Mechagodzilla is here to grace the silver screen once again with a drastically different take that was immediately beloved by fans.

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It's not a sequel to Godzilla vs Megaguirus! Okay, that part's more obvious than last time. Today's movie is one of the most highly regarded in the franchise, and certainly the one with the longest title (just call it GMK). It's the darkest, most mean-spirited movie in the franchise so far, rocking a totally different creative crew from anything we've seen on a Godzilla movie before, and love it or hate it you certainly won't forge...

It's not a sequel to Godzilla 2000! The often underlooked Godzilla vs Megaguirus brings over most of the creative team behind Godzilla 2000, and sure SEEMS like it should be a sequel, but it very specifically isn't! Setting the stage for a VERY strange new millennium of Godzilla, Godzilla vs Megaguirus gives us prehistoric black hole dragonflies and inexplicable flooding of Tokyo 1. Polish paleontologists will never stop ha...

WELCOME BACK TO LIZARD CHURCH! Derek and Charlotte return after a healthy absence to kick off a new season of Castle Bravo. We had almost as much of a break as Godzilla himself, who was put back to work ASAP after the backlash to TriStar's first American Godzilla film. Godzilla 2000, released in 1999 (because what do numbers mean), received a huge western marketing push and a rare theatrical release. How does this edgy reboot of an...

The season three finale is here as we tackle one of the most infamous blockbusters of the 90s. It has loomed over our heads for several episodes, languishing in development hell, but the 1998 Tristar Godzilla is finally here. Hollywood Disaster Film magnates Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich bring their crew from Stargate and Independence Day to bring audiences a movie almost as big as its marketing deals were. It's the movie tha...

We're back with Matt and Jayson one last time as we bring Mothra's 90s movie trilogy to a close. It's a movie that was unfairly kept from western audiences for an unreasonably long time, especially when you consider just how good this final entry retroactively makes the entire Rebirth of Mothra trilogy. Moths are good, actually.

Yes, we have technically broken our continuity slightly, as a certain movie did finally rele...

Mothra's standalone film series continues as our baby boy Leo fights an aquatic jet plane dragon that is also a starfish parasite factory that is also an ancient garbage disposal created by Not-Atlantis. A furby pees on people. Leo turns into an underwater X-wing. It's a weird movie, but more than that, it's a movie that feels like it was shotgunned through an edit bay so it could be over with already.

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Godzilla is dead and signed over to Hollywood, but Toho still needs to make money, so they dusted off some old script ideas and set to make Mothra a solo star again. The first of a trilogy aimed much more squarely at kids and families, Rebirth of Mothra is often overlooked but not lacking in charm. Come for Mothra and a goth Ghidorah doing fighting game special moves, stay for an evil camp fairy icon.

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It's the end of an era, the end of several careers, and the end of more than a couple lives (not all of them fictional) as the Heisei period of Godzilla movies draws to a close. One of the most beloved entries in the franchise, Godzilla vs Destoroyah ties the end to the beginning by centering the legacy of the Oxygen Destroyer, Dr Serizawa, and the Yamane family. Also, Crab Satan. Crab Satan is pretty cool.

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And so we're back! From outer space! It's a moment we have been dreading as the Heisei era finally loses the plot. Godzilla vs Spacegodzilla is a fun spectacle, and basically an early Dragonball Z arc in Godzilla form, but it's a case study in how good filmmaking can't overcome basic structural script problems. Derek does a script rewrite live even, a Castle Bravo first (and hopefully a Castle Bravo last).

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No, it's not a sequel to Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla. This entry in the Heisei era is the most interested in continuity so far, the most jam-packed with returning monsters, and the least thematically interesting (in that there is no real theme to speak of). But it's big, flashy, and fun, and they managed to make some version of Minilla that doesn't make me physically ill, so that's gotta be worth some points.

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With the previous two movies barely managing to break even, the decision was made to Break Glass In Case Of Emergency; it was time to bring back Mothra. The resulting film was not only incredibly faithful to Mothra's original film appearances, but also more smartly reimagined elements of her story to fit into the modern day (especially in comparison to Ghidorah's radical reinvention just one movie ago). It also marks as a s...

In the wake of Godzilla vs Biollante's middling box office performance, Toho decided to break out a secret weapon that would ensure a box office draw: King Kong. Except that got messy and complicated quick, so they went back to the workshop and brought out Godzilla's most recurring villain instead: King Ghidorah. What follows is the dumbest, smartest, dumbest again, maybe smartest again movie about time travel we've see...

Return of Godzilla was a critical and commercial success, so Toho wanted to strike while the iron was hot. The best way to do this? Find a talented director and force him to work with a script you got in a contest. A tumultuous behind-the-scenes story led us to a movie wildly beloved by fans: Godzilla vs Biollante. Starring a guest appearance by infamous Dragon Quest series composer Koichi Sugiyama.

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We're back with a brand new season! After an almost 10 year break, Toho would attempt to go back to the franchise's roots with a new direct sequel to the original 1954 film, ignoring everything since and attempting to hew closer to its darker and more political tone. The end result is arguably the best movie in the franchise since its first outing.

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The Showa era of Godzilla comes to a powerful close with the immediate return of Mechagodzilla and the unexpected return of director Ishiro Honda and composer Akira Ifukube. It's Honda's last time in the director's seat ever, and he makes the most of it with several writing choices and production elements we've never seen in a Godzilla film before.

We're joined this week by the final sibling, Bradley Van Dy...

The last of the big five, and arguably Godzilla's most famous enemy, arrives on the scene! We say farewell to director Jun Fukuda with the strange, endearing, ass-kicking movie that introduced the first incarnation of the infamous Mechagodzilla.

We're joined this week by writer and friend of the show Andréa Mason, who came uniquely prepared to talk about the inspiration this movie took from Italian cinema.

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