Episode 36 - Rebirth of Mothra 2 (1997)

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.

We're joined once again by JaysonDoesMusic and Matt Storm, returning from our Rebirth of Mothra episode, and bless them for pulling through this entire sub trilogy with us.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
That little Furby did not be on this boy.
When I was partially live tweeting as I was watching and I
saw you captured an out of context piece of that thread
because all I could think and say was just magic piss.
Yeah, I. Don't.
That child sure got R Kelly. Hello, everyone, and welcome to

(00:30):
Castle Bravo, A Godzilla Verse retrospective.
I'm Derek. And I'm Charlotte.
And we're two siblings here to examine the history of the
Godzilla franchise, one movie ata time.
We're joined by both of our guests from the previous
episode. First, Jason of Jason does
music. Hello, I do music.
And secondly, podcaster Matt Storm from certain point of

(00:51):
view. Hi, I do podcasts.
How's everybody doing today? I can hold his face.
Not everybody at lunch. I was like, I'm going to let you
go first, but I guess I'm going for it now.
I'm great. I enjoyed watching the movie
last night after watching the three Doctor Who specials that
are out. Really enjoyed those two and

(01:13):
that was a quite a turn of mood.Yeah, I was going to say
combining this with with like the Doctor Who specials has got
to put you in a certain frame ofmind.
Oh, it was a weird night. I cannot imagine many
combinations of things getting you to that precise, like
psychic point. From the toy maker to Mothra.

(01:38):
Stormy. How about you bud?
I'm OK. Yeah, this movie was something.
This movie. It took me like 3 hours to get
through this movie just because I was doing it.
I was watching it while I was working from home, and every
time I would go back, I'd have to like, rewind 30 seconds to be
like, wait, what was going on? Where was I at?
And I don't know if it's becauseI'm so tired or because of the

(01:59):
movie, or possibly both. I Hey, we can't.
We really can't discount how much of an effect this movie can
have on the human psyche. Charlotte, what about you?
How you been doing today? I've been good.
Remember recently I told you I played Final Fantasy 16?

(02:20):
Yeah. That rattled something in my
brain. And so I'm just playing every
numbered Final Fantasy. Hell yes.
I love how. That happens.
You're like, I got to go back. Fucking winner, move over.
Here most of them I was I eitherplayed them so long ago I don't
remember them or I never played them past like the 1st 10
minutes. So I actually really enjoy the

(02:42):
growth, the way the growth worksin two.
That's a wild choice. But yeah, you know, that's, I
respect it. I mean, bare minimum it's, you
know. Yeah, I'm I'm a little lacking
when it comes to my Final Fantasy knowledge and like play
time, but I am an avid 13 defender, all three of them.
You know what? I really came around on 13 like,

(03:04):
I I obviously have like plenty of of criticism for it.
But at the same time, I think itgot a really, really like
bullshit reception originally, and a lot of stuff people
criticized it for at the time. It was just horseshit.
It's people who were afraid of change.
But the Final Fantasy community is.
So. The Final Fantasy community is

(03:26):
afraid of change, I. Know the Final Fantasy cycle is
real. All a game has to do is not be
the newest one, and the revisionism comes around, for
better or worse. People whining about Fort like
before 14 came out there, whining about his Final Fantasy
can't be an MMO was like, were you not there for 11?
Yeah, well, no, because it was aonline PS2 game, nobody was

(03:50):
there for it. That's true.
I love when playing a current game, knocks loose, wanting to
play an old game. I'm playing through Max Payne
for the first time for the same I finished.
I finished Alan Wake two and immediately was like, well, now
I'm going to play Max Payne and then play the rest of those
games and. Super excited for those, the,
the, the remakes that they're going to do.
Yeah, I'm so stoked. I don't know how it's going to

(04:12):
work because the the voice actorfor for Max just passed away.
Yeah, he also is Trench in Control as well.
Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I don't know.
I mean, unfortunate. I guess we'll just have to see
kind of what happens. It's weird when you have
somebody who is such a recurringiconic face or voice of a

(04:33):
character that's been around forso long, it's always hard to
have that change. But like we dealt with it in,
wasn't it a different actor in Max Payne 3?
So. It was the same voice actor, I
believe, in the third game too. You just didn't look a God damn
thing like Sam Lake, so. No, correct.
They did not use the Sam Lake face.

(04:54):
And we were all the poorer for it.
I've had, I've had a day. I spent about six hours at work
today. Just writing captions, which is,
is mind numbing work. But you know, after selling a
tiny piece of my soul to the broadcast television industry,

(05:16):
which surely I'll be able to getaway with doing for another 30-3
years before I retire, I am. I am here to talk about.
I know, right? Hey, I finally made a LinkedIn.
That's a very grown up exciting thing to do because I'm going to
need a LinkedIn My. LinkedIn.
But I can't believe I've ever said that.

(05:38):
But I'm excited I'm here. We're going to talk about a
really, really weird fucking movie.
Y'all. Yeah, true.
So I can't imagine anybody is jumping into the episode for
Rebirth of Mothra 2 having not listened to the episode on
Rebirth of Mothra, but just in fucking case, there's some

(05:59):
degenerate out there that made this decision.
So then I love you. Yeah.
Look, respect, it's a it's a it's a choice.
I'm not here to tell you if it'sa good one or not, but it is a
choice, legally speaking. So in the 90s we had this weird
situation where the the incredible 80s and 90s run of

(06:21):
Godzilla movies, the the hey sayera of Godzilla kind of got
extended a little past its originally intended expiration
date. Because while Toho, the company
that produces the Godzilla movies, was in the process of
selling the like Hollywood film rights to Sony and Tristar, that

(06:43):
movie went through serious development hell.
It took years and years to get off the ground.
So we hit a point where Toho finally ended their Godzilla
series, but they're still tryingto make some money and this Sony
Tristar Godzilla move. Like they're not going to be
making any licensing like residuals off that for a while

(07:03):
because that's not coming out anytime soon.
So what they decide to do is start up a series for Mothra,
their second most popular giant monster in the franchise.
And Rebirth of Mothra was weird.I explained it on Twitter as
being like what happens if you add like a goth shive, a lesbian

(07:24):
and an exploded gory cyber dragon to the land before time.
I think. I think I stand by that.
Yeah, it's still apartment, yeah.
This, this is, this is Rebirth of Mothra 2 we're talking about
here. And it's close to did any of
you, do any of you remember a a film series called Prehysteria?

(07:48):
They were all like direct to VHS.
I don't think so. Little tiny little tiny
dinosaurs help and save the family golf course or or being
locked in the attic. This is a really specific like
90s thing to reference. Why?
Would they save a golf? It's look, I you don't explain
the the energy of rebirth of Mothra 2 definitely goes away

(08:10):
from Land Before Time and a little closer to fucking direct
to VHS prehysteria. OK, I definitely rented that
first. I I fucking knew you wouldn't
know it by name, but if you lookit up, you remember they're all
named after rock stars. Oh my God.
Yeah, did did I just unlock somememories for?
Oh my God, I definitely saw thisfirst movie.

(08:32):
Yeah, I told you you knew this, you just didn't remember the
title. Mostly because I recognize Colin
Morris like he was in a lot of stuff back then.
But like, I I remember that first movie.
Absolutely, Yeah. And I I mean that in truly all
of the best and worst ways. There's just like with the last
movie, there's so little actual behind the scenes information on

(08:55):
this movie, or like production info that was translated into
English and made readily available.
There's just there's nothing to fucking read about these movies.
And any part of that is because the rebirth of Mothra series is
more clearly aimed at like, younger crowds.
And I think it's also just sandwiched in between a couple

(09:18):
of much more interesting Godzilla movies that the fandom
focuses more on and is more interested in learning about.
Everyone loves Godzilla versus Destroyer.
We've got the 98 Tristar Godzilla coming up and then
Godzilla 2000, right? So like these little Mothra
kids, movies in between just aren't going to get the same
level of attention. Basic, I mean, I will say.
Sorry to interrupt. I will say that when I did share

(09:42):
the last episode when it came out.
So a friend of mine in one of mydiscord, the Discords, I'm in.
My friend Andre went, oh damn, Ilove the Mothra Rebirth trilogy
I'm going to listen to the hell out of.
This holy hell, we found one. Yeah, we actually had one in one
of my fiance's discords, too. So I was going to check like
Andre from fine time because he just lost it.

(10:02):
He was like. Oh man.
Awesome. Like I had the DVD with one and
two on it, You know, the the dual pack.
And I I I genuinely like. I think I came away from us
rewatching Rebirth of Moth or feeling like this was a really
wild, really looney Tunes ass movie that I I kind of respect
it being what it was, 'cause it was like it was it was still a

(10:25):
mostly pretty well produced movie, weirdly bad compositing.
But other than that, like I was mostly about it and pretty much
the same creative team is together here.
It's still Koichi Kawakita doingspecial effects who has been
with us through most of the hey say era movies.
Put a fucking note on that because we're going to be

(10:46):
talking about some special effects shit as we talk about
this movie. Same composer as before
Toshiyuki Watanabe. Wild to me because like the
music is not the not as impactful.
As I yeah, I know, I don't know what's going on.
The director is Kunio Miyoshi who.
So this is a new director. This is new to us.

(11:08):
But Kunio AD Ed on several Hesseera films and also AD Ed on
Rebirth of Mothra. So this is like a long running
thing where previous ADS keep getting promoted to the
director's chair. Sometimes it works out,
sometimes it doesn't. We'll figure that one out.
I do want to make a note of something that I think I left

(11:30):
out and didn't mean to in in thelast movie.
So I mentioned that Masumi Suitani was the screenwriter for
the movie. Long, long time series producer.
Original series producer Tomayuki Tanaka was listed with

(11:50):
a writing credit for that movie,and I didn't note it because I
didn't realize at the time how unusual it is for Tanaka to be
credited with a writing credit. I'm so used to seeing him in the
producer's chair. And like, we've got people who
know and love movies on this podcast, right?
Like, we know that when you're the executive producer, you're

(12:14):
not doing that much. You know, throwing money at a
thing. Yeah, you're the money person.
You throw money at a thing and you make some demands about a
movie that it has to have these couple things like, OK, we're
going to make a movie about a A.It's kind of a giant dinosaur
that comes from the sea and destroys, you know, Tokyo.
And it's like an allegory for nukes or whatever.
And and then somebody, a screenwriter and director and

(12:37):
and creative team have to turn that into a movie.
That fucking matters. I've frequently seen Tomayuki
Tanaka described as the real creator of Godzilla, and I just
think that's horseshit. I think everything like it's
it's so backwards to me to give the executive producer credit

(12:58):
over the screenwriter, the director, the art director and
special effects directors who helped design Godzilla's look,
the actor who made Godzilla's like motion you know iconic, the
way he walks and holds his hands.
So I've tended to kind of downplay Tanaka's importance to
the franchise. Because look as much as as

(13:21):
fandom may want to uplift him asa like constant name on all
these movies, he's an EP. He's not actually making this
shit up. But it is actually very rare for
him to have a writing credit. So he he does appear to have
genuinely had a play at at you know, at least in writing the

(13:42):
first two Rebirth of Mothra movies.
I don't know that that's a good thing.
I don't know. That's the thing I'd want.
I. Was going to say that.
But we're going to give now on this movie of all times.
We're going to give Tomoyuki Tanaka credit for having written
this movie Rebirth of Mothra 2 along with Masumi Suitani.

(14:03):
And by the way, since we're all coming back for Rebirth of
Mothra 3 like, spoiler alert, Suetani returns to write the
third movie, but Tanaka does not, given that he's dead.
So. Wouldn't make it a challenge.
Yeah, this this is he wrote he his whatever writing that he put
into Rebirth of Mothra 2 happened just before his death,

(14:25):
so he doesn't make it to work onRebirth of Mothra 3.
So I'm going to be very curious,like not to just shit on a guy
who I just mentioned died, but like I am going to be kind of
curious to see how different thethird might be when you take
Tanaka out of the writer's chairand give it just to Suetani.
This is all like way more than Iget into with this stuff.

(14:50):
But there's no behind the scenesshit to talk about.
So I figure this is a good time to to mention like yes, I know
I've intentionally for the people who've a couple people
have DM Ed me even being like hey man, why don't you talk more
about I don't know why I'd do that voice.
Because typically when someone'sin your DM.
Right. It's just people have mostly
been very nice to me in DMS. I'm being unnecessarily bitchy.

(15:14):
But but like, you know, why didn't you know?
Why aren't you talking more about like Tamiyuki Tanaka?
And like you know this is the the man behind Godzilla and it's
like because if you, I don't know Tanaka but I know what EPS
are and most of the time their job is to give people a bunch of
money and take a bunch of creditand that's a lesson you can take
with you about Hollywood. So but look we got everybody

(15:39):
came back together and A and a year later pooped out Rebirth of
Mothra 2. So Charlotte, why don't you tell
us what happens in Rebirth of Mothra 2?
All right. I got to remember because
blacked out proportions of this movie.
All right, so the movie starts and we have like, these

(16:01):
spiraling Mothras in the void, right?
Oh yeah, we have. We have Mothra.
Mothra. Leo is like a fucking planetary
defense network now, I guess. Yeah, I guess the twins are
watching him, like, fly over theocean, and they're just happy

(16:24):
that Mothra's back. But suddenly the wind picks up
and the ocean starts churning. And there's this giant creature,
like, very upset underneath the waves.
And then we cut to some fishermen.
And these fishermen are put in the movie specifically so that
the movie has a message. Yeah.
They literally like, save the message at us.

(16:47):
Yeah, like just a few minutes into the movie, they're like, I
can't believe people are throwing trash into the ocean.
What an ecological disaster thisis.
Hey, what's the strange creaturecoming out of this polluted
ocean? What a weird looking starfish.
And then it shoots acid into hisface.
What a horrifying sequence, by the way, honestly.

(17:07):
Yeah, it was awful. This is like, so here's the
thing, we started this movie. It's being very ham fisted about
its messaging. That's fine.
It's a movie for children. But it hits you with this really
good sequence of the the fisherman getting his face,
like, partially melted by the weird gross starfish thing.
And I'm like, oh fuck, are we back?

(17:28):
Is this is this going to be good?
Oh, Derek. Derek less than a minute later.
Yeah, my fiance was like, is isn't this a children's movie?
Which is funny because she wouldbe saying the same thing a
minute later. That's right, because the kids
are at school now and they're all learning about how Japan

(17:50):
used to be a land bridge, which is actually important to the
plot of the movie. But anyway, the boys that
there's this boy in the class, and I don't think it at any
point during my notes, do I mention these, these kids?
Oh, they they do not have names.They were not given names.
This is fucking Balkan skull, right?
Like, like like like elementary school age.

(18:10):
And also man, fucking skinny kid.
Like none of these kids can act.None of the people in these
movies can act other than maybe the fairies in Belvera.
And even then, Belvera, her actress, may just be that way.
We don't know. I really think.
She I really so too. And honestly, I'm OK.
With it. But like the the dorky kid with
the glasses, he's real skinny, really can't act.

(18:34):
Yeah. Half the time we're just sitting
here like, what the hell are Bebop and Rockstar you doing?
Well, the so the the skinny kidsplaying with caterpillars,
right. And he's like trying to tease
the the girl there's there's a girl in there, in there we got.
The sassy tan skinned Okinawa girl who doesn't take no shit

(18:56):
from no other kids. That's right.
And he like is trying to tease her with it and she flicks it
and it goes slow motion back into the kids mouth.
It's like a horrible. It's like a rotating JPEG, just
like badly like motion traces into his mouth and shrinks to

(19:17):
fit in and. I think we would have, we would
do that today ironically. Yes, that's what's incredible.
Is that what they're trying so hard?
This stuff's not ironic, but it's the way we ironically do
shit bad on purpose today. It looks like something you'd
see in, like, Velocipastor. Yes.

(19:37):
I I love that movie. God.
So he ends up spinning it acrossthe room and it just happens to
slide right down the teacher's shirt.
At first you think it's going for her face, which I was like,
oh, this could be like a funny. And then it goes right into the
cleavage. Yeah.
And it's like, again, I'm like, this is a kids movie, right?

(19:59):
Yeah. What are we doing?
So they get in trouble, and the there's another teacher there,
and apparently Balkan Skull callhim Harry Wart, according to
this girl. And because of that, now they're
in even bigger trouble. But then an earthquake
interrupts all this. Drops a jaw on his head.

(20:21):
And Josh, Yeah, it does. It's funny when the jar drops on
his head and he goes. Boom.
And all the focus they put on it.
I thought the Caterpillar in there was going to be more
important. Nope, it's gone after that.
Yeah, yeah. Then we go back to the ocean and
there's two men in the ocean grabbing some mollusks.
And I wrote a weird hairy chicken thing because that's

(20:43):
what it was at first. Like jumps into the boat and
like spins around and attacks him, kinda, but not, like on
purpose. It seems like he's just
startled. But then then it goes away and
there's a gold ring left behind.And so one of these fishermen is
like his, his one personality trait is that he's very greedy.

(21:05):
So he's very happy to receive this, this ring.
And so the the fishermen are discussing what they saw on
their boat and they're like, allright, we got to go hunt that
thing because it's clearly it's a, it's a new species.
And I like money and I bet that'll lead us to money.
And he's like playing with his harpoon gun.
Oh, he's he's saying this. To be fair, if you had a harpoon

(21:28):
gun, would you not be playing with it?
Sure. Feel like that's natural.
Fair enough. And I feel like all my notes
early on in this movie are so sporadic.
But this just there's a lot going.
On That's just kind of how this movie is, though.
Yeah, the girl from earlier, they got the boys in trouble, is

(21:52):
talking to her mom and then a cigarette like burns a cat.
I don't know what's going on at the moment.
Why does a cigarette burn a cat?Like not plot relevant, but when
that happens in this JPEG of a cat flips through the air.
Because it's not. Actually, the cat, it's not a
puppet. Nothing.
I'm just like, what is this movie?

(22:12):
That was the moment where I was like, OK, why like this scene
specifically? Why did that have to happen?
It was irrelevant. The cat does come up one more
time. Later, but like, also for now,
this isn't like a brick joke. It's.
It was at that moment that I realized we weren't getting
another Star Wars dog fight in the living room.
No, we got one inside a belly. Oh my God.

(22:35):
But so here's what's wild to me right?
Again, this is the dude who did the special effects work for
almost the entire hey say era ofmovies which look incredible.
These are some of the best looking movies like production
design wise I've seen on such a trim budget.

(22:56):
And even the last movie looked. Great.
Yeah, other than like weirdly rough compositing, which is not
a problem these movies have had before.
So I don't know why the compositing was so rough.
But here, like, the compositing is rough.
A lot of the effects work is. There's so many just moving
jpegs, you know what I mean? Like they had to have no time on

(23:16):
this is my thought, because it'salso not a budget problem.
This movie has the same budget as the previous movie and has
the same budget as like several of the Godzilla movies of the
90s. Like this movie cost as much to
make as Godzilla versus King Ghidorah.
Did Charlotte think of that? Crazy Where did the money go?

(23:39):
That's a good question. What non big name actors so?
What did the executive producer do?
Well, they had to make 17 different versions of Mothra
puppets, OK? That is.
You know. It doesn't help in a temple set
they didn't couldn't even put a game show there.
So, so anyway, like a cigarette burns a cat in it and the JPEG

(24:02):
flips around. Yeah, we cut back to to the boys
here, Bulk and Skull, and they go out and Ren and.
Stimpy. Ren and Stimpy, they inflate
their wraths because they're going to go into the ocean.
The girl is picking some flowersand like, she picks a flower
that's for some reason currentlyattached to the little Scrungus

(24:25):
creature is what I call it. It's Scrungus because it's just
a. He is a little scrungus.
He's a little scrambled in blow.Yeah, it's just a little fuzzy
thing with chicken legs and weird human eyes and.
Demon Furby is what I think of. Like it's a mouthless Demon
Furby with human eyes, yeah. Yeah, So she runs screaming, and

(24:48):
it's running screaming. And so this, the strongest
thing, has little gold rings on its tail.
She wants to keep it because I guess it's to her.
It's like a little thing to keep.
The boy's raft is punctured by alien starfish from like, from
before, and they return to the shore and they see the girl and
they they're like, ah, that's the girl that got us in trouble.

(25:10):
We should bully her. And then she fucks them up.
Yeah, yeah. She just fucking shoves them to
the ground, Solos Ornstein and smile over here.
Yeah, she just like force shovesthem both somehow, and then they
run after her and she like hidesbehind this really tiny Bush and

(25:32):
they just run past her like looney.
Tunes. Yeah, she paints a tunnel onto a
wall and they run into it. Yeah, practically.
So they they find, they find thelittle creature and then Belvera
shows up and I'm like, God final.
Finally, new outfit, completely fabulous right off that fucking

(25:53):
runway. And she's like, oh, that's a
Gorgo, by the way, that is a legendary creature called a
Gorgo. All right, sure.
Also Gary Gary has has robot wings now and some little little
extra parts because he got blownup last movie.
Yeah, it's less biological. Now, yeah, he's got, he's got a
little little jet pack and wings.

(26:16):
Yeah, So she tells the girl thatshe needs to give Gorgo back,
and the girl like, acts like she's doing that and she she
passes that off really naturally, Actually, she's like,
OK and Belferro's like, I got the girl, but no, she makes off
with it. And then the twins are here too,
and they're like, both flying after the girl trying to get

(26:37):
Gorgo, and the twins are like, Bilvera, why are you using your
weapons right now? These are children.
And she's like, I don't care. I want the treasure of Nil, Ike
and I to take over the world. Truly a fuck them kids.
Moment. Yeah.
Do I look like a bitch? You care about kids?
Right, the the kids managed to keep Gore go away and they

(27:00):
managed to reach the beach. And the the the bigger kid is
very bloody, like sitting on theground, but he's kind of he's
kind of chuffed that he was ableto to keep Gorgo away from them
and then Gorgo just starts peeing on the boy's leg.
When I tell you I had to pause the movie here because I was

(27:22):
like and rewind, this was like, that didn't just happen you.
Sure did, but that. Little Furby did not be on this
boy. But I was partially live
tweeting as I was watching. And you I saw you captured the
at least an out of context pieceof that thread because all I
could think and say was just magic piss.

(27:43):
Yeah, I. Don't.
Yeah, that child sure got R Kelly D.
Oh God. Oh my God.
Well, anyway, so, so just keep that in mind because we're going
to come back to the fact that the Gorgo can can pee people's

(28:03):
wounds better later. The fishermen that that saw
Gorgo originally are hunting forit in the forest and Belvera's
like, all right, you're my boys now.
It went that way. Mind you, there's no mind
control in this movie like she did not, like, cast a spell.
Like you wouldn't just listen toher.
I mean, that's true. Yeah, I can't really.

(28:24):
I can't fault them on that one. That's true.
The the Twins start Lore dumpingat the kids about Gorgo and the
treasure of Neil. I can I and they like, go to the
library and figure out that Nilai Kanai is on is from the
continent of MU, which is, you know, a proposed continent that
sank. I was expecting Lemurians.

(28:47):
To show up for something Atlantis, you know, Yeah.
Just another one of. Those one of the Atlantis's.
Yeah, and Nilai Kanai created some some monster called Dagora
and it's defective and it's effective in a way that it
produces acidic starfish called berum and then that's where the

(29:09):
starfish are coming from. I guess it doesn't really show
that process, but the twins wantto use the treasure of Nilak and
I to stop the Berum from destroying the planet.
And Gorgo uses like it's weird never ending story powers to to

(29:30):
ask them to go to Ishigaki Island which is where the the
the treasure is supposed to be. They think.
And Dagora, who is below the waves right now, is very mad.
Just generally mad as a as a creature, and destroys a
submarine and swims off he's. He's mad because he's a he's a
pretty cool monster design, but he got no articulation.

(29:53):
Literally, no. Like, no bones.
Yeah. He's very baggy.
He's just a a a a an immobile figure that can move its head
some and has kind of general floppiness in some other parts,
but no points of articulation. It's a bad action.
Wait till we get to the point where he launches things from
like his shoulder blades. Yeah, his his, his organic

(30:16):
opening shoulder cannons. What a weird like Dakara does
have like an interesting design and I think like especially the
face areas like super well designed, super well crafted.
But he also does look like if a dragon was a jet plane that only
worked in the water. Yeah.
Yeah, a little. Bit and that's basically what he

(30:40):
is. Mothra starts to reform from
from the tiny Mothras, and meanwhile Belvera's boys have
been tracking the kids all day and they make their way to where
they're staying. And then the other cat joke
happens because they think they've got Gorgo, but they
actually pull a cat's tail and Iwrote hopefully the cat killed

(31:01):
them. No.
I mean. Unfortunately.
No. So the kids just start rowing to
Ishigaki that that's the way that they're going to go there
is that they're just going to row all the way there, these
children. Yeah, that's also.
Like. This is at the point where I'm
like, so no adults, no parents. Like they show the young girl's

(31:24):
mother in the beginning before she goes to pick flowers and
finds Gorgo. And like, I thought maybe she
would be relevant later, but Nope, kids are just off doing
kids stuff in the middle of the ocean in an inflatable raft.
Cause like the last time the parents were involved with at
least you know that landscaping company or whatever.
And this time I was just like, so how does this bomb figure?

(31:46):
No she doesn't, OK? And we do not see her again.
Never. They're really, You know, they
could have just put in a line about how it's like, oh, I got
to work tonight, sweetie, there's dinner in the fridge.
This movie takes place in one evening.
Like does it though? No.
But I felt like it did I? Know.

(32:08):
Well so the kids are are rollingthe Ishigaki, but the the guys
working for Belvira are on a jetski and I mean they're they are
quickly approaching but the the jet.
Skis are fast over snow boats. That's right, The kids stop over
some ancient ruins and Gorgo, like, swims down there and then

(32:29):
they end up going down a water slide in the boat.
And mostly I just thought about my experiences with water
slides. They're not good.
They're not. Good.
And like they they get to the bottom and the kids are OK.
But then there's Barum that starts showing up and they're
like slowly crawling towards thechildren and like an actual kind

(32:53):
of a horror scene, because thosethings are kind of.
Gross. Yeah, it's a good thing they all
forgot they can shoot acid because.
Yeah. Well, they have to be within
rain, yeah. Right, obviously.
That's the problem, yeah. The the the temple that they're
in starts rising up out of the ocean and just in time because

(33:14):
the Barum is opening up to to shoot one of the kids in the
face with Acid Fairy. And the twins swoop in to to
shoot it, and they reunite with Gorgo and they're like, Oh yeah,
well, we're right outside Ishigaki Island, so I guess this
is the place. Sure, why not?
Might as well be shoot. Shoot.
Yeah, like, yeah. So Belvira's boys are are

(33:35):
working their way into the temple, and then Dhagura arrives
and starts trying to shoot its way in.
And the twins are like, all right, we got to call Mothra.
There's a there's a giant monster here.
And they're like OK, kids once again we're going to leave the
the I I can't think words we're going to we're going to leave
the fate of the world up to somekids.

(33:56):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so they yeah, they asked thekids to find that the treasure
for them and they're like all right we'll manage And they sing
Mothra's song. Mothra finishes reforming and
like launches off the island, sodog grass starts attacking the
island as as Belvera exit on. I I thought it said had eggs on

(34:20):
it for a second so that's. Anyway, Belvera's boys finally
catch up to Gorgo and I guess they decide they're going to
kidnap the girl also because they just take her, which is
kind of an escalation, I think, in a way, wasn't.
Really necessary. But they're going to do it.
No, because they're they're now.Look, Belvera has turned into

(34:41):
Duranjo and and a good Duranjo needs to have a couple of
Dipshit lackeys. So.
That's true. That's.
I mean, honestly, I get the reader repulsive vibe even more
in this one because she's just ordering around a couple of
lunkheads. Well, so are you, are you
familiar with Hang on, that's a good question.
Is did did the original Super Sentai predate Yatterman?

(35:03):
I think it did probably. I think so, maybe.
I'm pretty sure it did. But I got to look up to be sure,
because Super Sentai it's it's the Z Ranger, right?
The that was No, that's 92 and Yatterman 77.
So yeah, Duranjo from Yatterman is is probably the the more

(35:28):
direct point of reference. But who the fuck watched
Yatterman in the US? Everyone knows Power Rangers.
It's true. So Dogger is still going at it
and like, scaring the animals. And the movie does not take any
of this seriously. Like, there's people running
from this giant monster. There's a guy hugging a goat I.

(35:51):
Think it's hairy? Warren in fear.
Was it hairy or it's a teacher that got bonked on the head?
Well, there's only two teachers.There's the one with titties and
then there's the one with the bald spot.
And you know, this is what a manlooks like, and this is what a
woman looks like. Teachers.
I don't. Know I love.

(36:11):
I love how in this scene where Dagra is going through the city,
he is conveniently behind buildings all the time with
smoke rising up like none of thebuildings fall over.
Yeah, until this like scene. They don't.
They couldn't afford to do miniature city work.
They couldn't. They just went out, they shot
some cityscapes and they composited him behind it and.

(36:35):
He destroys one building the entire movie, and it's the
school. Sending a message.
Yeah. No, I I think it's just 'cause
it was a kids movie, you know? Yeah, you got to destroy the.
Movie. Oh wow.
The school's destroyed. How exciting.
You know, it's very relatable tohave your, you know, to hate
school and to have a goat at school.

(36:57):
And no, actually I don't think so.
No, I got. No.
No, no. Mothra finally gets there and
whilst while flying over the water like Mothra was, like
parting these bariums in the ocean, I thought that was kind
of cool, that was. Cool.
Yeah. Yeah, it was neat.
Doggerey uses like it's fleshy shoulder cannons to try to kill

(37:18):
Mothra. Like it's it's like Zerg spore
shooters or whatever. It's.
Awful like these, just these slits.
In the. Shoulder that, open up.
It's why? Biological shoulder cannons are
a horrible thing. And and why do they keep
happening? This isn't even like the first
monster to have them. No, this.

(37:40):
You know what it is. Dagara feels more like a fucking
Gamera monster than a Godzilla series monster.
It's true. So the dogfight ends and Dagra's
like crashing into the lake. Mothra electrifies that lake,
which, I mean, you know, that's what I would have done.
Dagra leaps up, clamps down on Mothra's wing, and then starts

(38:01):
kind of like trying to stomp it,I think into the into the
mountainside, but it's got little legs, so it can't.
It's not very effective. And then there's there's this
invisible bridge in the temple for some reason.
Oh God. I don't know why, to be honest,
but there's not like AI don't know.

(38:22):
It was a kids movie, so I was really expecting them to be
like, you got to believe in yourself, take that first step,
you know? But no, there's just A and
there's a bunch of them actually, because later on it
shows that there's like walls ofof entrances.
So I assume they're all connected by invisible ramps.
But. Maybe incredibly steep invisible
ramps that you can't help but fall down and slide, Yeah.

(38:45):
So, so Dagra and Moth are fighting somewhere.
And I'm sorry if my tone seems very dismissive.
It's just there's a lot of things happening in this very
quickly back-to-back and it the movie takes none of it
seriously. To the point where it's just
like I don't know things are happening.
The kids in in Gorego all reunite now Belvira's boys are
are taking to to looting the pyramid mostly the greedy one

(39:08):
and Dagura can make cyclones andMothra gets stuck inside one and
inside this cyclone is a bunch of barums that latch onto its
body and sort of like draining its energy and the twins try to
help but but Mothra like it's slammed into one of the the
pyramids dragon laser turrets, which is a thing the pyramid had

(39:31):
by the way. It's like, oh, now we're doing a
tower defense. Yeah, they they paid for the
upgrades to their to their home base.
Exactly. They spent the resources, yeah.
Yeah, the the kids managed to find a huge door and they're
like, ah, all right, so this must be where we're after Nil.
I can. I must be in here because it's a
big door. Of course, yeah.

(39:53):
Mothra is is like getting destroyed underwater because
Dogger is an underwater monster and Mothra is a moth.
Who famously don't do so well inthe water.
Yeah, we watched. We watched once.
I was going to say we watched Mothra drawn for like 20
minutes. Last movie where the fuck did?

(40:14):
So why not some more? Yeah, the pyramid starts sealing
up and the statues like, beam a rainbow into Mothra and that
gives it enough energy to, like,crash land onto the pyramid,
like, jump out of the water and crash landed on this pyramid.
And the kids get cornered by Belvira's boys while the twins

(40:35):
are trying to get the barems offof bothrap.
There's too many of them, like it's just hovered in these
things. So the twins head inside to save
the kids. And Belvira's boys are like, all
right, sorry, we'll help you. Just kidding.
Takes one of the kids hostage and like.

(40:57):
And and starts like choking the boy while he smiles, because
every time he's threatened he smiles.
So I don't again, is the child abad actor, or is he portraying a
child who's going to learn some things about himself in about 10
years? Right, exactly.
That was like the with the with the girl and I was just like,
she looks a little bit like a sociopath.

(41:18):
My fiance was like, does she or does she just have bangs?
I was like it could be that. That's a boy.
He's going to grow up and find out he likes getting hit with
riding crops. I don't kink shame.
I got nothing to say to that, but verify fires at the fairy,

(41:41):
right? And like, the huge door opens
and Dogger goes through this scene where it's transforming
underwater. Sort of.
Sort of, yeah. Like, like, I don't know what's
going on there. It doesn't even look that
different. And like, it's some spikes on
its wings. They find what they think is the
treasure, like these two gemstones and and the greedy guy

(42:03):
starts grabbing at them. Of course Belvera tosses the
other gem to the other guy and is like, all right, I guess we
got it, the gems must be it. But removing the gems locks
everyone inside, and a hologram of the Princess of Neela Kanai
shows up and just starts electrocuting one of the guys.
Because he he took, he took one of the gems and so the the

(42:26):
other. The other grown man tosses the
gem that he's holding to the skinny kid.
He was like, wait a minute, I didn't steal this.
Wait a minute. Like like he's got about to get
electrocuted. And this scene could have been
really good. And I thought about that while
it was happening and I think that.
I just thought I kept tapping repeatedly.

(42:48):
Because the twins in Bilvera arelike going back and forth about
whether or not humans deserve tolive like as a species.
Because the twins are like all these kids have so much
potential. They could do so much and the
Bilvera is like, but look at theadults and then she like turns
out his pockets and he's stolen a bunch of stuff.
It's like look at this, you think humans deserve to live?
They're all greedy. But the twins do convince the

(43:10):
queen to not kill everyone there.
Thank God. Yeah, and she explains that Nila
Kanai was an ancient advanced civilization and they are
basically destroyed by their ownhubris because they create a
dagra and the treasure is actually Gorgo's heart.

(43:33):
Gorgo was the treasure all alongand the.
Gorgo was the friends we. Made more than the way, right?
Right. The treasure was our annoying
Hanna Barbera sidekick that we got at the beginning of the
movie. Who I forgot to mention earlier,
as they're going through the temple, the way they make this
tiny puppet walk down the stairsby throwing.
Him down the stick his ass. How many times that fucking

(43:57):
thing bounced It just any scene.It was just constantly bouncing
off of walls or trees or stairs.They just eat this motherfucker,
yeah. Yeah, but she explains that
Gorgo's heart has to decide to do the miracle.
Basically does have a good reason, of course.

(44:17):
The kids. Yeah, the kids put the gyms back
while the pyramids crumbling andthey managed to save one of the
adults and the other adults like, ah, but I really want that
gym And so like, kind of stays behind and he reappears as as
they're running away, they jump over this little, this little
hole in the ground and one of the kids is like, I I can't make

(44:41):
it, man. I'm not, I'm not an athletic
kid. I can't do this.
And the guy shows back up. For the briefest 5 seconds, this
movie went so fucking hard as this dude just emerges from the
inky black like incredible fucking shot.

(45:02):
I don't know where this energy was the rest of the movie.
Right. He's like, why did you leave me
behind? And he's like, really serious.
Like, it's just little pieces ofhim poking out from like a veil
of blackness. And as he comes and it's it's
not. There's no transition.
It's hard. Black like this had to be so
tricky to light and shoot. Where did this craft come from

(45:27):
and where does it go? 'Cause it's gone real quick,
'cause then minutes later he lifts the kid who can't jump
across you. Think he's gonna toss?
He fucking throws this kid overhand shot put like it's just
and then gets launched because of like a piece of debris falls

(45:49):
and like launches him into the air.
He's he realizes he's going to die.
He sits down, contemplates and makes peace with his death, sits
there sadly, and then yeah, the ceiling chunk like hits the
floor tile he's on and it seesaws and it's just boying.
And then we get and then we get the moment that Charlotte
alluded to earlier. Yeah.

(46:13):
So yeah, yeah, no, he's looking up and he's very wounded and he
looks up and Gorgo just pees. On pisses directly on the camera
for like 15 whole seconds. Just.
Like. And it was at that moment I
realized I'd blacked out for a while.
Yeah. Yeah, I'm.
Just sitting there watching that.

(46:33):
We had to pause. I had to go give it a cigarette.
Like who won this movie? Had a piss kick.
What? Exactly.
That's right. It was my question.
Yeah, and like in the first scene, when it happens, you can
kind of excuse it as just it's afluid that falls out of this
creature, but that second scene,it's.
Like he pissed and giving up thesound effect, everything.
Like it's like yellow on the camera, yeah.

(46:57):
I. He.
So can I I just This movie couldhave been good.
Yes, there are things in hell. That's here.
That could have worked, yeah. Like Neil, like and I, which is
how it's how it's been brought over.
Like is based on, is based on Nirai Kanai, which is a which is

(47:18):
a real thing. It is a place in a Rikuin Shinto
where they basically think is like paradise.
Which I get makes sense if you're setting it in Okinawa
because Okinawa has a historically had a higher
percentage of rikuin like population.

(47:39):
Right. So like they they had that here
and the conversation where they talk about whether or not
humanity is redeemable. And like they could have keep,
they could have kept the Gorgo in, but can can its tears have
been healing or something I. Don't see can it have just done
magic can it have. Just like it could have just
like shot like a little whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa.
Little like healing wave out of his anything.

(48:03):
He has an antenna like he could come out of the antenna.
There's there's so much about this movie that like on paper
nothing about it couldn't have worked.
It's just I think this movie wasmade like so rushed with like no

(48:24):
passion, right? This is the most we have got to
bang this motherfucker out. And I think the thing that gives
it away the most to me, right, is the the props and and the
sets and like the the monsters are pretty well made, right?
This is like up to snuff. That's all the stuff that you

(48:46):
make before you start filming, right?
But all of the editing work is what's really sloppy, right?
It's these all of these random slowed down bits where a fucking
JPEG moves across the screen like and and they did that
because they they they made everything.

(49:08):
They made their sets, they made their, you know, they got their
costuming together, they startedshooting and they realized,
fuck, we don't have time to do alot of the stuff we want to do.
So we're going to do half assed versions of it in the edit.
That's why there's that one scene where the dudes get
launched out of the the trees into the road and you can see
the badly blurred out lines where the the, the like wires

(49:32):
from the rig that lifted them were.
And it's a thing that never would have been airbrushed out
that badly like that would have been digitally erased like way
cleaner in our other movies. I'm pretty sure that out of all
the episodes we've ever done, you've mentioned a wire once.
Yes, yes, until now it's it's sorare for the wires not like to

(49:53):
get caught. And this is again a guy who's
been doing the special effects work on all of these movies till
now, you know, through the 80s and 90s.
So. It's not like they brought in a
new person who's never done it before.
They just didn't give the same person.
They just didn't give this director and the special effects
guy time to edit this shit so itlooks like shit and they had to

(50:16):
throw in a bunch of these dumb slow.
We did it in post with some jpegs ass gags.
That and like the special effects were bad, but the
practical effects were just as good, if not better than the
last one, like the practical ones were.
Great, because it's all the stuff that they spent money
building before they started filming and presumably ran out
of time because somebody said no, this thing has to fit in a

(50:39):
release window. You don't get another month.
How soon did this come out? After the last, if we want exact
dates, let me look up real quick.
Let's see. It's like, yeah, so Rebirth of
Mothra 2 was December of 97, Rebirth of Mothra was it's
almost exactly a year. OK, so it was literally one.

(51:01):
I mean, to be fair, some of these movies have been made in
that amount of time. But I don't know something
something screams that this did not have the time.
The compositing. We talked about the last movie
and this one have way worse, like green screening and
compositing. That's I got a thing.
Like sometimes you got to cut corners because you just don't

(51:21):
have time. I don't know what's up.
But yeah, yeah, so a dude gets pissed on he.
Gets pissed on and Mothra's outside just getting blown up.
Sitting. There and it's bad.
I mean the Barums are are on, are on him, so there's no way

(51:41):
for him to move is I think what the what they were trying to
convey. With this, he's like weighed
down and like covered in these little little starfish that are
chewing on him. It's it's not great.
It's a bad. There's that point.
My fiance was like, man, I'm so tired of seeing Mothra get
fucked up. Can we?
Can we? Move this.
Along that's kind of how, Mothra.
Yes. It's kind of motha.

(52:03):
'S job to get their ass kicked before the comeback.
So they're they're all trying toescape from the inside of the
temple and they almost die in a fire trap, but Belvera saves
them, so you know. Queen Shit.
Queen. Shit.
The the Queen, actually. Sorry.

(52:24):
The Princess inside. I thought she was the queen
until she was mentioned as beinga Princess inside.
Gives Mothra some energy to shoot Dagura back into the
ocean, just like creates like a pillar of light that goes into
Mothra and he starts drawing energy from the pyramid to keep
fending Dagura off. And then Gorgo's like, all

(52:44):
right, I've had enough. It's time to perform the
miracle, and it's. Fucking time.
And like, the girl somehow knowsthis is going to kill Gorgo.
So like, gives it one last hug goodbye and Gorgo floats up into
the air, just this JPEG going upinto a into the air, slowly

(53:07):
dissipating, giving its life to empower Mothra.
And they're like, oh, and also the ocean is refilled with
energy, so the barums will startdying off.
So that's cool. The shot of just like see
through, like translucent, like Gorgo's, like face cut out in
the clouds, smiling. Down like Jesus.

(53:29):
Use the Force, Luke. And I immediately thought, Obi
Wan. Yeah, Mothra turns into Rainbow
Mothra and Lame O, Rainbow Mothra's really cool.
Like I like the way it's. Just a better design on the
wings, like I love the the, the look.
Not that we know what Rainbow Mothra does, because almost

(53:51):
immediately. Yeah, so like he shoots Dogra
and then he like splits the the ocean open like parts of the sea
so the humans can run home wow aland bridge.
But then Mothra just transforms into Aqua Mothra, which is like
if Mothra was a beetle board or something.
Plastic like none of the fluffiness.

(54:15):
I I don't like Sleek Mothra. It's, it's.
It's it's upsetting. Sleek Mothra can't.
Really can't. Sleek Mothra isn't real.
It is 4 Wings. Like my little tweet, right?
It is. It was just like Mothra now,
even gayer. Mothra is now Moses.
Mothra is now a Power Ranger. Mothra is now a Gungan
submarine. Fucking fucking 4 wings like

(54:36):
shaped out like an X wing. It's beams or XS now.
Yeah, it does need like full body blast, like X beams onto
onto Docker. It's like it, like you said
offline. It's like a super sentai
transformation and like for literally no reason and
literally no like lore. Like it just happened.

(54:57):
Like there's no like. I guess Gorgom instilled this
energy in him. Sure.
And now? And now he has like havoc.
XP This has all the energy of like, kids playing on a
playground and making up their powers.
Like as they go. Yeah, because then.

(55:17):
Like Tagara? Spins around and shoots red
laser like swirly like Kirby cutter abilities.
Yeah. Oh man.
So then, and I thought I had missed.
Something right? But Mothra splits into a bunch
of tiny Mothras and flies insideof Dog.

(55:40):
They're. Just down his throat.
Bunch of tiny Aqua. I mean they they did allude to
this in both the last movie and this movie.
Leo can turn into a bunch of little moth moth versions of
himself. So, like, but but this like.
I mean just from the way it's shot, the effects, because
they're these all these little tiny little CG Mothras and like.

(56:02):
I was doing with the fucking Earth space like the Death Star
run. It's like, holy shit, are we
about to fucking Ant, man? Thanos here.
Yeah. It's just like.
What is happening? Like I I thought I had seen
everything and I but this is just baffling.
Yeah, I I just, I was like, where did this come from?

(56:24):
But they're they're killing Bareham's inside of Dogra and I
think that's the point. Yeah, but then they'll just
like, shoot up Dogra's. Inside.
I remember this boss in the Ocean Hunter.
Yeah. And it, like, zooms out and
Dagra is like, there's smoke coming out of it now, and he's
limp on the ground. And so Mothra lifts it up using
a tractor beam that it has now turns back into Rainbow Mothra.

(56:50):
The Princess tells Dagra that it's time to go back to Neelak
and I, and it lands on the pyramid.
The pyramid explodes, then turnsinto a tower.
The tower turns into water, Mothra flies through it, and
then it goes through back into the ocean.
What? What the hell was in that temple

(57:11):
that made it explode like a fireball?
It was a. Temple made of stone.
What with water and prayer? Where am I fucking looking at?
Right. Yeah, so.
Mothra flies by and the twins tell the girl, Hey, look at
Mothra's wing. Now you can just imagine that

(57:32):
Gore goes up there, still dead though.
So the Princess tells the kids that the future's in their hands
and the adults can't hear her because they're grown up.
And one of the kids says, you know, maybe our society is
overdeveloped. That's not what you should take
from this. I don't know what he says in the

(57:54):
dark. He's going to become a fucking
one of those western, like, fucking trad art posters, right?
Posting like AI generated imagesof Greek like ruins and statues,
but it's Neil icon. We used to be a real

(58:16):
civilization. So Gorgo left this Pearl behind
and the girl was holding on to it, and they like, zoom into the
Pearl and it turns into the world for a shot and then the
movie ends in some extremely 90s.
Music. Oh my God, yes it does.
Really bad. Original power ballad, Pop

(58:37):
ballad. I I was, I just my mouth was a
gape when this movie ended. Like like we made fun of the
ending of the last movie becauseit was so on the nose.
But at least it like it had an ending.
This just kind of stops like. Well, to be fair, that's a
that's very common for Godzilla serious movies to just.

(58:59):
Kind of. Decide that they're going to
throw an ending screen. Just roll the credits now.
Whatever. I guess we're.
Done. I also forgot to mention those
children are standing on the ocean floor for like a good 2013
while the kids watching all thisshit go down.
Do you know how much that amountof water weighs?
You're not going to drown, you're just going to get crushed
instantly by the tonnage of water.

(59:21):
Like we just we lived through Ocean Gate.
You know how this works? Wild there.
There was no through line of logic in this entire film at
all. There was just like there were
no rules. This is and like it's it's it is
purely. This movie has the energy of

(59:44):
and. Again, this makes so much sense
if you consider that they probably just like ran out of
time and had to find it in the edit.
But this movie has the energy ofjust desperately trying to make
it from one sequence to the nextwithout losing a child.
Hence, like why occasionally youjust have to put a cigarette out
on a cat and make it go rare. You know, for why a child has to

(01:00:07):
spit, Why a Caterpillar has to go around the fucking classroom.
Yeah, this, like, this movie's bad.
Like, I love it. Bad.
This is not, like, sad bad. This is hilarious bad.
I honestly love it more than the1st.
In a lot of ways. By a long shot, this is a.

(01:00:28):
Worse movie by a long shot. Oh, it's a much worse.
Movie. I'm kind of fascinated by how
insane this movie is because thefirst movie is just some kids
and Mothra and the craziest thing about it is Belvera and
the twins and their long standing family fight that they
don't confine to Thanksgiving like the rest of us, you know,

(01:00:51):
and and and rebirth of Mothra 2 is just like what if we did all
the drugs? It is, but it's also like, I do
genuinely think they're going for something that's just like
from a child's. Point of Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, I thought this movie ripped when I was little and it
was out on DVD, right? Yeah, but like when all the
people are running away, there'slike a ton of kids there and

(01:01:13):
that's normally not the case. And the camera mostly focused on
the kids and he blows up a school and like everything's
kind of comedic. Like it's clearly they wanted it
to be something like you said that just kept the a child's
attention. It's it's Prehysteria, Not Land
Before Time. But every one of us remembers
renting prehysteria. And once, once we saw it,

(01:01:34):
everybody went, holy shit, that movie.
And then there was like, no interpersonal resolution between
the kids. It was just one minute they're,
you know, chasing her down and fucking each other up, and the
next it's just like, hey, let's play this quick game at Cashball
we're being. Chased by this dragon like no
character arc. No, don't.
Don't let Seth Rogen and James Frank off the hook here.
No, no. Nobody had a character arc where

(01:01:55):
they had to learn and grow. No.
No like apologies. Sorry for being a bully.
That's there's not even an anti bullying message, is is what's
wild because the bullies are so bad at being bullies.
They're so bad at everything. The only competent person in the
lot of them is the young girl who actually is fair, fairly

(01:02:17):
effective in every she's bullying the rest of leg.
Really. The rest of these knuckleheads
couldn't peel an egg? Oh God.
So man, you know, there's nothing but fun behind the
scenes. There's no excellent titles like

(01:02:37):
it's it's always sad when we have one of these movies and
there's just no context behind it other than where it came out
in a release order. I there is a part of me that
remembers the third movie being leagues better than the 1st 2:00
and I could be making that up. That's why, like, I kind of knew

(01:02:58):
this was going to be the weird, surreal, like hazy point in the
middle of the trilogy. But like, this movie's, this
movie's bad. Everyone hates this movie.
Nobody remembers Dagara, which is kind of a shame because I
think Dagara is like, not a bad monster.

(01:03:19):
Like, like you kept bringing up Jason.
Like the the practical effects work and like, the suit
creations, really fucking good. But then they make him spin in a
circle like a dog with the zoomies and shoot out laser
frisbees little beyblades. Yeah, yeah.
So you know, it's like, what? What do you say?

(01:03:40):
Other than like wow, something clearly was not working, but I
loved it anyway. Yeah, it's.
Yeah, it's funny. Like we talked about how the
last movie could have cut out like 20 minutes and been better.
I don't know that cutting anything out of this would have
made it better because it felt it wasn't that long.
It was only an hour and 40 minutes, but it felt like it was

(01:04:02):
never ending. Like it just the pacing.
There was no pacing. I can't even say the pacing was
bad. There was no pacing.
It it, it, and it needed more Belvera.
Like, that's not going to be a controversial take from this
group. But we needed more Belvera.
She wasn't in this movie enough.Always the high point whenever

(01:04:24):
she's on screen. I do have good news, folks.
She's only going to continue to fucking serve.
If you check the chat, that's her in the third movie.
Oh, yes. Oh, I'm.
Excited. So yeah, like basically what

(01:04:44):
this does, it gets me really excited for the third one.
Because if my memory is right that the third one is like
actually pretty decent. Like.
And we know that the staff changes around a lot because we
know that Tanaka is no longer writing any of the screenplay
elements. We know that Kawakita does not
return for special effects work.So it's going to be Jesus,

(01:05:04):
Charlotte the first time in ageswe've had somebody new in charge
of special effects. You know, I don't remember who.
Let me take a look real quick. Oh yeah, that's a director whose
name doesn't have a is not in blue on Wikipedia.
That's a sign. Yeah, that's that's Derek's.

(01:05:27):
Got to do a little digging to find out more about this person.
He did the one incredible job I'm like.
That's what it was. Sure, we hope.
It's like, Yep. That's it.
I'm done. Oh my God.
The cast is 123456 names long and that's it.
I love these these movies where nobody is has has any

(01:05:50):
information about it. Now, what's kind of weird, and
we're going to kind of cheat here, is Rebirth of Mothra 3
actually comes out several months after Godzilla 98, but we
do have to finish Rebirth of Mothra before we go on to the

(01:06:11):
tri-star guy. We're going to break timeline
just this once, because it wouldbe so cruel not to finish this
off. Yeah, what a just what a bizarre
fucking movie. What do you all hope we see out
of a third, the third movie? What is?
What are your 'cause? That's two different questions,

(01:06:32):
right? What are you expecting?
What do you hope in your heart of hearts we'll get?
I mean, I mean the just the photo you showed means Belvera
went from quirky and attractive to goth hot mommy.
And like, I'm here for it. Honestly, like I I I'll take
that that. Was exactly all those fangs on
the bra. I need more Goth Hot Reader

(01:06:53):
polls, yeah. Yeah, But I mean, I don't know,
like, I would like for there to be consequences.
Yeah. You know that would that would
be nice. I don't know.
I think like I thought that likethe young, the young girl, the
lead was pretty good in this. I actually liked her better than
the two idiot kids in the first movie.
But like but like the circus that she was surrounded with

(01:07:17):
made made it so much harder to enjoy.
And so I'm hoping for just like young kids that we can rally
behind, that we can cheer on andlike a story that's just kind of
feel good because the first movie kind of had a feel good
ending. This movie was just a giant
question mark and confused faces.
So like like that. I think from the third movie, I
would just like a really good wholesome film.

(01:07:39):
That'd be fun. I don't think we're going to get
it. But still there it is.
And maybe we'll get an actual like message, because we got one
with the first one about the, you know, the development and
all that. And then this one, they had a
sentence about ocean pollution. Yeah, so I will say this is
again for what little this is worth, I just looked up some

(01:08:03):
some some RT scores, right? Rebirth of Mothra sitting at
48%. Rebirth of Mothra 2 sitting in
the upper 30s. Rebirth of Mothra 3 is in the
60s. So OK, we might be heading for
now. Granted, in the 60s on Rotten
Tomatoes, it's still usually a sign that you did something real

(01:08:24):
fucking wrong, but. Look, look, the greatest movie
of all time. I believe Venom 2, that there'd
be carnage, is somewhere in the 60s.
So if that movie could do it, anybody can.
I could be wrong. I haven't.
Checked the one. Could we have picked a better
group of people to do the fucking Rebirth of Moth trilogy?
We are just here for the camp, folks.

(01:08:48):
And I was so thrown off by therenot being like an actual message
in the movie because like I spotted the because the server I
have it pulls from various you. Know right, Right.
Kind of stuff to get your, you know, bio or your quick thing.
And the one for this was just a quick a transforming miracle.
The fairies from Infant Island discover a lost city as well as
a giant monster that is attracted to environmental

(01:09:09):
calamities. And that's it.
I was like, OK, so this one's going to be a little bit more
heavy. Handed They're not from Infant
Island. That's the 60s version.
What the? Fuck, I don't know.
I don't know. Oh wait, maybe they were from
Infant Island and. I don't know.
They never mentioned. It.
Yeah. Fucking that's not what we're
here for. I don't know why I'm getting
hung up on this car, right. Oh.

(01:09:31):
Wait, what'd you say the budget was for this?
Who is? I'd have to look it up again.
I so I I will admit I just saw the budget on Wikipedia.
I don't fucking interrogate thatparticular aspect too closely
because it's not a big part of like what I talk about. 1
billion yen. ¥1 billion, which is like nothing, right?

(01:09:54):
¥1 billion to USD fucking 1997. OK, well it would really fucking
help if I picked a better website.
Hang on. Did you pick a website from
1997? Yeah, maybe It's a lot of money.
I don't know, thought. But.
Then again, if it was a 97 website, it'd actually have

(01:10:16):
useful information. Also so today that would be
almost $7,000,000 but I think the yen is at like an all time
low so I don't fucking know. Well, it it made 7 million, so I
was mostly just curious. If it definitely made its money
back. Because if if if it's in an all
time low now, then like yeah, probably 5 or 6,000,000 I'm

(01:10:41):
guessing. And like talking about budgets
on these movies, it's like, you know, Godzilla -1 came out right
and it was fucking incredible. But there's been a big hubbub
about how low the budget was on Godzilla -1 and like, you know,
Hollywood can't even compete. This movie looks so good on a
like a $15 million budget. And it's like, right?

(01:11:03):
But Labor Standards in Japan arelike the worst in the developed
world. It's pretty fucking bad.
So. Yeah, budget's really hard to
talk about without talking aboutlike working conditions or so on
and so forth. This is this is a country that
needs a lot of like anti suicidefences on like all of their

(01:11:24):
buildings. So maybe, maybe not the best
place to look at in terms of work life balance, but yeah, I
don't know. This is, this is a wild one.
It's funny. It's so wild to go back to.
I'm very excited for the third one because the the only time
I've seen the third one is once on television while I was sick.

(01:11:47):
It was on like sci-fi and they were they did a marathon of 1-2
and three and I was homesick andI was like, I've never seen the
third one and I remember so little so and obviously it's
going to be brand new to the three of you.
So we're we're in for a time butI do see Bulvera looking like
looking like a fucking goth witch.
So yeah, Moody, Moody, blue lighting here in front of the

(01:12:11):
fog like we're in for some shit.No ways around that, yeah.
Does anybody have any final thoughts about this movie about
Rebirth of Mothra 2, the undersea battle?
I I think I forgot most of it until the recap and then
remembered it again and have a lot of faith.
Then, in the next 10 minutes after we finished recording, I

(01:12:32):
will forget. You watched it this morning is
the crazy thing, and you can remember so little.
You and Charlotte talked about blacking out watching this
movie. It's.
True. I think the only reason I didn't
was because I was drinking, so Iwas able to follow it slow.
The movie down for you. I will be honest most of like

(01:12:54):
even the the Godzilla movies I Itruly love and consider high
cinema can probably be improved with a drink or two.
So not the worst idea. Who am I to judge?
These these movies make me a little upset that I'm not better
at like physical craft because II don't think I'll ever be able
to find like all of these Mothras plus my little, you

(01:13:15):
know, scrambler, bull or bull thing as plushies.
And I want them. All just got to get Gary.
They all look just got to get Gary.
Gary, Gary and Gary. Gary and Gary Gary, right?
Oh, you know, we're going to geta new fucked up version of Gary.
Gary. Next movie he.
Didn't get blown. Up.
No, but we're still going to geta new fucked up version of Gary
Gary next movie. It's just a it's just a

(01:13:35):
tradition that they've set by now.
So Gary. Gary, Yeah, he got blown up off
screen. Don't worry about it.
Fair enough. All right, folks.
And with that, that is a wrap onthis episode.
Thank you all so much for joining us on our journey so
far. Stormy.
Got anything you feel like plugging for our listeners?

(01:13:57):
I I guess the thing I'll plug really heavily is that fun and
Games. My video game podcast is
wrapping up its year In early January.
We'll have our year in Review and game Game of the Year
discussions, and I will also be writing an article for my top
ten games of the year. We publish all of the articles
for free on our Patreon. If you like reading things, you

(01:14:20):
can do it for free on our Patreon.
And then if you want to join at one of the paid levels, you'll
get shout outs on the show and all sorts of other stuff.
It's patreon.com/funny Games pod.
Funny Games also happens to justbe a really fun podcast.
We covered the We did a Godzillain Video Games retrospective
with Charlotte and Derek. I almost forgot your name.
I don't know why. Sorry it's all this day.
It's fine. But if you see if you want a

(01:14:43):
place to start, we did that I think a year ago now.
But it was a great episode wherewe talked about the bizarre
history of Godzilla video games and that really one weird
Nintendo game where you're like moving on a on a board like.
The one that gets the creepy fighting.
Things Yeah, So go check all that stuff out.
That would be awesome. And then you can find me at DJ
under Score Armageddon on Twitter.

(01:15:04):
Until that explodes eventually. Sooner rather than later, I can
only hope, Jason. What about you, bud?
Got anything to plug? Last time I plugged the album
that I had coming, it's out. It's out.
Now it's It is indeed out. It's called This is a This Isn't
a Game and in print, but it could be because, you know, I

(01:15:24):
don't have any credits to my name for video game
compositions. But I want one.
Hire me please. So yeah, let's check that out.
And my socials, Jason does musicpretty much everywhere.
Jason, Does music.net links to all of my you know, Spotify,
Apple, all those artists pages and at jasondoesmusic.net on
Blue Sky. Yeah, if you've enjoyed this

(01:15:46):
episode of Castle Bravo, please consider rating and reviewing us
on your podcast app of choice and recommend the show to your
friends and cohorts to help us beat the whims of the almighty
algorithms. That's all we've got this week.
We'll see you next whenever and take care, everyone.
Castle Bravo is a production of Derek Van Dyke and Charlotte
Landale. All editing is performed by

(01:16:08):
Derek Van Dyke. Special thanks to Kyrie Lamont
for our art assets and to David Van Dyke for our theme song
Pools of Memory.