Episode 41 - Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack / GMK (2001) - Castle Bravo: A Godzillaverse Retrospective

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello everyone and welcome to questions.
Son of a fucking bitch. I am going to fight you in real
life. He's like, bring your car so I
can run you fucking over. Hello, everyone, and welcome to

(00:32):
Castle Bravo, a Godzilla versus retrospective.
I'm Derek. And I'm Charlotte.
And we're two siblings here to examine the history of the
Godzilla franchise one movie at a time.
We're joined today by two returning guests.
First founder and Co host of Super Deluxe Games cast John
Phipps. I'm ready to talk about
Godzilla. Oops, all monsters.

(00:53):
And next fellow Co host of SuperDeluxe games cast Britney AKA
Pechia. I wanna know where he got oops
all monsters from. What's what's the deal behind
that? He said that to me last night
after he watched the movie and saw.
Monsters, I guarantee like that was very intentional.
What happened with the? There was no.
Oops there Britt, do you not understand the reference?

(01:18):
No, I don't. It's Britt.
You've never heard. You've never.
You've never had berries. Oops.
All berries. No.
Because oh, Britt, You know what, Brit?
You're never too old for cereal.You're never too old for oops,
all berries. I picked up some Fruity Pebbles
the other day. No.
So now you just need to change your blue Sky night name to Oops

(01:40):
All muscles John. I was literally just about to
say a Brit. I was just about to say I was
looking in the mirror the other day and I was like oops, all
muscles. So we are settling in for a
Froggy 1 today. I'm so excited that this got to
work out this way because I have3 of my four favorite people all
on this show together. I'm very excited and my wife

(02:02):
wants nothing to do with this so.
I'll make you fucking regret what?
Martha. Can I?
Ask why she wants nothing to do with it.
Is she just not a Godzilla fan? Martha is averse to the idea of
being part of like Internet content for the most part, which
is why she did. She works very hard to stay like
off camera when I'm streaming. She just is is not really want

(02:24):
to be online in that regard. She's smart.
Yeah, we're the. Fucking idiots.
Yeah, we are the fucking idiots.Every day I scroll through
TikTok and I'm like God I hope Idon't become this.
Like I don't. I don't want to be famous for
talking. And then you make a TikTok I.
Literally just did it's it's private though.

(02:47):
It's only only my followers can.See I'm going to I'm going to UN
private and start making tik toks and and ruin my life.
Am I snowing your mental alreadyfailing mental?
Health. Oh folks, let's go, let's go 1
by 1 and and see how we're doing.
Charlotte, Lottie, why don't yougo first?
How we doing today? I'm doing all right.

(03:09):
I mean all. Right, just all right.
Given the state of yeah. You know, I can't really kill
our state when just all right isfucking killing it.
Yeah, we're getting ready to move still.
That's the process. This episode took a lot longer

(03:30):
than normal, even though I thinkwe got things together
relatively quickly. Like we waited a while because
you and John both had pretty crazy schedules, so.
Yeah, I've been travelling. I've been in a plane more in the
last month than I have for the rest of my whole life.
That's brave, considering. Well, you know.
Yeah, I mean, we're all going tobe flying to pass.

(03:53):
I had made my peace a little bitthere.
So if I die, I. Die if I die, So what?
What I'm hearing is just we need, we need Godzilla right
now, actually in. The United States.
Make the people happy. Destroy the financial district.
Destroy Doge, Yeah. Oh God, if only.

(04:15):
You know, if that happened, you know if that happened, a fucking
like a like a battery powered Mechagodzilla would just like
rise out of the fucking rise from beneath the GSA building.
Indeed, yeah, but it would fall apart immediately because it'd
be programmed by. Fucking doge.
It would just. It would immediately self
detonate Godzilla, which is shrugged.
John, how you doing today, bud? I'm fucking great, Derek.

(04:39):
Thanks for asking. Yeah, you, you, you definitely
brought some froggy energy to this recording tonight, Derek.
You know how I'm doing. Move on.
Fuck, that's how this is going. OK, well let's see if this goes
any better. Brit, how you doing today?
I'm actually doing well today. Well, not like well, well, but

(04:59):
it was like nice and 70° out here.
So I got the sun my Gooch a little bit and it felt.
Good. Hell yeah.
Hell yeah. Good to get out there.
As a fellow Gooch Center, It's it recharges your batteries.
Cool. You should try it sometime,
John. No, you know what, I I got an
easy 8 master grade to build, sothat's I'm doing a little bit
better than. That hell yeah.

(05:21):
I I like my Gooch to dwell in darkness.
He says from his basement that he went up.
Red. I'm actually, I'm actually, I
have, I'm in the basement right now.
I have no lights on. I'm literally just sitting in
the dark. Yeah, that's a mood.
You, you seem to have been like kind of slowly on a bit of an

(05:42):
upswing in general, Brit. I haven't.
I actually had a really bad night last night, but I
appreciate you saying. Yeah.
I mean in the grand scheme of like compared, you know, over
the last couple of months. Right.
Like that's very darkly funny. Britt, you seem to be doing
better. I'm actually fucking terrible.
I was just trying to be positive.

(06:02):
Because everybody. Is so like fuck.
Derek, how are you doing? You know what grand scheme of
things, I'm shaping up a lot better, right?
Like I mentioned on the last, it's funny because if you listen
to the how we've been doing on the last two episodes, you can
like track where one of them is me, like right before my mental

(06:23):
breakdown being like, yeah, things are bad, but like it's
going to be OK, right? And then the next episode is me
being like I've just recovered from a suicidal mental breakdown
like. Thank God we have Godzilla
though. But like, I mean like everybody,
right? It's been a rough several

(06:44):
months. I generally genuinely am doing
better. I am not like I would not call
myself a healthy person yet, butlike I'm doing better.
The spirals are coming significantly less frequently,
and I'm able to engage with the world at large without flipping

(07:04):
the fuck out, and I no longer amnearly as worried as I have been
that everyone I love is secretlytrying to abandon me.
Gotta love the old BPD. Yeah, I'm doing doing, doing
pretty good. I broke a sink over the weekend
and then I replaced the sink today.
Without breaking anything. Without breaking anything.
Well, see, it's funny that you say that because I broke the

(07:26):
first sink trying to replace a faucet.
How does that even happen? You know I am not a handy
person. I I had the same question but
having read the post I was like I'm not going to I'm not going
to make this. Worse.
I, I really was just like, I wouldn't like ask about it, but

(07:46):
I was like, you know what? It's it's fun.
I managed to break a whole sink basin in the process of
replacing a faucet. Was it porcelain?
It was. It was granite.
Oh, OK. Well, that makes it'd.
Be funnier if it was metal. Right.
It was like when you said it wasactually.
I was like, yo, now I got to know if it was.

(08:08):
Metal. Oh God.
But yeah, doing, doing all right.
We are all basically partying our way through the sads right
now, which is a great way to be doing things.
And I'm glad to have you both back, because I've inflicted
both of you with some really horrible movies previously.

(08:30):
Yeah, man, I don't want to talk about baby Godzilla.
Whatever. That was Wait, what?
You had a baby Godzilla movie. John had to watch an anti
bullying movie that was half stock footage and half like a
little boy dreaming about being friends with Godzilla's son who
was fighting off a bully. It's, it's, it's it broke John

(08:52):
Brit. It's it.
It's if you watch that movie andyou wake up the next morning and
your eyes are bleeding and you can't see anything, that's just
nature deciding there's nothing left worth viewing.
Meanwhile you got give up. You got got versus the smog
monster. You got old pussy eyes himself.
Yeah, I got, I got a monster that was a giant vagina.

(09:13):
John, Let's let's maybe take a seat.
How did wait, hold on a minute, hold on a minute.
How did you, how did you guys know that that was my nickname
in the Marine Corps? Oh, the giant vagina.
Monster. No, no old pussy eyes I hate.
It I hate. It Oh John, hey look here comes
old pussy eyes. And he he would, he would

(09:34):
fucking take big fat rips off of.
Me, it's not a factory. Smokestacks.
Smokestacks. Oh, so like, I got to give y'all
a good one this time for once. I think I mean kind of spoiler
alert, your your husband Britt did not feel the same way.
So funny. You were like, it's you finished

(09:57):
the movie and you and Zach independently, separately, were
both texting me what you thoughtof that movie.
Yeah, well, I was thinking the whole like, like for like I was
texting you to the beginning andthen I kind of like trickled off
because I was like, I don't wantto be fucking live tweeting
this. Right, right.
And then? And then, like, I was like

(10:17):
telling Zach that I was talking to you, and then he was like.
Zach Zach was like, I hate this movie and I hate you for making
me see it, which. Is funny because you're dead to
know Zach, which most of you don't because he's a very like
quiet, docile person, like very non fucking confrontational
whatsoever. And as soon as we finish, she

(10:38):
was like, I hate that movie and.I was like.
Oh, OK. That's why it was funny.
I like, had to know 'cause it's so unlike him.
Yeah man. So let's talk about today's
movie, which has a bitch of a title that nobody uses.
It's Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah.
Giant monsters all out attack. Everyone just calls it GMK for

(11:02):
obvious reasons. So let's let's talk a little bit
about where we are. Everyone remembers the infamous
1998 Tristar American Godzilla. I don't think you could be alive
in 98 and not know about that movie.
It was like, oh. Was I, I I watched that.
I didn't watch GMK. I'm sorry I watched the wrong
movie. I watched the one with Matthew

(11:22):
Broderick. I was like why is he in this?
With jail puff daddies. Come with me.
Yeah. Which in hindsight, bad bad.
Fucking song. Choice.
Bad song. Name R Kelly singing about
peeing on girls. Yeah, so the the Tristar

(11:43):
Godzilla comes out and everyone like everyone hates it.
It's one of the most like highest profile, most revolved
movies like of of the 90s. The famously like a bunch of
people who worked on like one ofthe Godzilla suit actors walked
out of the screening. And when Godzilla walks out of
your Godzilla movie, that's likeI would, I would just kill.

(12:04):
Myself, that's not. Good.
Yeah, that's it's over right there.
So Toho, the production company in Japan that has, you know,
made and run the Godzilla franchise this entire time goes
you know what we got to? We got to bring this shit back
and we get Godzilla 2000, which is pretty good for a little
messy. We get Godzilla versus
Megagiris, which is just messy, but they're like, we this, this

(12:28):
did not launch the way we wantedit to.
So we've got to pivot and start making Japanese movies again.
But the problem is like Godzilla2000 only did OK, and Godzilla
versus Mega Garrus was like a flop and it should be.
It was a mess. So I think the plan became we've
got to get an entirely new creative team.
We cannot keep bringing back thesame people who gave us who

(12:49):
failed the last two times. So they reached out to director
Shusuke Konico. Konico at this point is famous
for doing the 90s Gamera trilogy, which is widely beloved
as some of the best actual like Kaiju sci-fi like action movies
in history. He, you know, he really took

(13:12):
this very, very stupid franchisenobody actually cared about and
made something really worthwhileout of it.
Konico, by the way, has a reallyinteresting back story.
He actually, in a very James Gunn esque way, starts out
making largely exploitation movies.
He made a lot of like nudie erotic comedies and dramas for

(13:36):
much of the early part of his career before he hit this like
turn to making giant monster movies.
What do I not know about James Gunn?
Oh my God, do you not know aboutJames Gunn working for Troma?
James Gunn used to make the mostoffensive movies ever made
before he like, yes, before he broke out to doing like it.

(13:59):
Troma is a label that's like intentionally makes very cheap,
extremely edgy. We want to offend the fuck out
of everyone. Yeah, kind of movies.
He directed Slither too, didn't he?
Yes, well, Slither I think was his first like semi mainstream
thing when he broke away from trauma and then yeah, he was
like a cult favorite for a whilebefore he got big in in Marvel

(14:20):
stuff. But yeah, like look up James
Gunn's early film history. Don't watch any of them, but
like look it up. It's kind of fascinating.
Except. Slither.
Slither so good, Conoco would also write for.
So actually basically Conoco brought his a lot of his crew

(14:42):
from the Gamera movies with him.So he wrote on the Gamera
trilogy and then would write again for this movie.
They brought along 2 writers primarily known for TV.
Keichi Hasegawa who was pretty well known for working on the
Ultraman franchise a lot, and then Masahiro Yokotani who is a
fledgling screenwriter who didn't have anything important
to his name yet. But if you look up Yokotani on

(15:05):
like Wikipedia, there are so many big noteworthy anime that
he was lead writer on. He would go on to be pretty big
in the anime space. Special effects work by Makoto
Kamiya, who is new to us. He was a special effects
assistant director on a lot of, hey say, Godzilla movies and on

(15:25):
those 90s gamer movies. And then for our composer, we
have Kao Otani. Otani appears to basically have
worked on this point mainly on things that I love the shit out
of in the 90s like Tenchi, Gundam Wing, the Dark Stalkers,
OVA, Britt, and John. You all might recognize Otani
for doing the soundtrack to a little known game called Shadow

(15:48):
of the Colossus. Oh really?
Yes, Otani's a very prolific composer at this point.
Like he's, he was already fairlywell known by 2001 and he gets
much bigger after this. This is kind of an interesting
situation because, you know, this is a fresh crew.

(16:08):
These are people who have time to be working on this movie
without being stuck, like shuffling another movie out the
door, you know, immediately before it.
So this movie, like a lot of Godzilla movies, goes through a
couple of different revisions. The earliest version is Kanika
wants to do a Godzilla versus Kamakaris movie.
Kamakaris is a giant praying mantis monster from the 60s

(16:30):
movies. It's apparently his son's
favorite Godzilla monster. So he wanted to do that.
But considering the last Godzilla movie had like a giant
bug enemy, he was like, we got to do something different.
So second draft comes along and it's a lot closer to the like
much more spiritually oriented movie that we got in this one,

(16:51):
but featuring Baragon, Varun andAngiras, three classic like
sixties, 70s monsters as the Guardians.
And Toho comes back and goes, look, you got a fit Mothra and
King Gador in here. They're too big, they're too
famous. We need some star power in this.
We're worried that without some recognizable popular names that
we're not going to get butts andseats.

(17:12):
So Ferrin and Gears get the boot.
Baragon stays because he's a weird, already a very weirdly
popular monster in Japan, to thepoint of John and Britt.
You all know things that are inspired by Barragon if you've
played any Pokémon. Like a shocking number of
Pokémon are just references to Barragon.

(17:36):
So are are the Pokémon the children of Barragon?
Well, legally that can't be the case, but.
Well, I'm just. I'm just.
Saying like, you know what people write in their A 03.
Maybe Barragon fucks, you don't know.
I did get big Nito King vibes from.
Yes, the Nita ran line is was the original like Barragon

(17:57):
references in Pokémon. Really interesting.
OK, Barragon's. When I looked at him, Barragon's
like, oh. He's so popular in Japan, has
been since the 60s, so there's aton of monsters you've seen in
like anime or in in like video games that are explicitly
references to him. He's like weirdly as influential
as Godzilla himself from a design standpoint.

(18:19):
That's really interesting. OK, I didn't know that.
Yeah, so we have, you know, kindof the the direction we've been
shuffled into which if we got these three very, very popular
monsters. We have this very, very unusual
script from a kind of a an auteur at this point, director
and most of his crew that workedon the the three 90s gamer

(18:41):
movies that kicked the shit out of most Godzilla movies, to be
honest. So we've kind of set the stage.
Charlotte, why don't you tell uswhat happens in GMK?
OK, I hope you're sitting down. This is going to take a while.
A lot happens in GMK. This is not that long of a
movie. It's like an hour 40.

(19:01):
Yeah, but like the first hour, hour and 15 minutes is just,
there's so much stuff. I have notes on notes.
So we start out, there's a briefing taking place with the
with the JSDF, right, Japanese Self-defense Force.
And they're discussing how in 1954 the original Godzilla
attack occurred. And so this is another movie

(19:23):
where they're just putting directly off from 1954 and
they're saying that the militarykilled Godzilla, which I was
like, wait, I don't. Like that's not what happened in
the in the original movie. That's not what no.
Famously, they couldn't do shit.Right.
Put a pin in that, obviously. And then they mentioned that a

(19:43):
monster attacked New York City because they're making a direct
reference to the Tristar movie. Oh, they they make that line
about like, yeah, the Americans think it's it was Godzilla, but
we have our doubts, like kind ofa a little little little
ribbing. Right.
And then a report comes in and anuclear sub has gone missing off
of Guam, and the Japanese Navy'sgoing to launch a rescue effort

(20:06):
since they're closed. And they pretty quickly find the
submarine and it has huge claw marks on it and half of it's
blown apart. And while they're looking at
this submarine, suddenly there'san underwater quake and Godzilla
slowly approaches their location.
And then title card with the really long title I'm not going

(20:27):
to use. So then we go to a video video
crew at Mount Miyako and they'repretending that this monster is
about to appear. And they like throw, throw a
rock at the river nearby to act like it's going to attack them.
Like, Oh my God, is that the monster?
Which not uncommon, actually. I've seen other videos that were

(20:50):
made around them. They're like that, to be honest.
And a guy in a suit comes up. He's pretty upset.
He's like, it's clear you all are not shooting a real
documentary. I thought this was going to be
real. And I don't want you to to to
sully the name of our farmers. And they're like, OK, but if we
if we see a monster's coming, you know, Godzilla, then maybe
you could get some tourism and some attention.

(21:11):
And the guy's like, do you really think Godzilla could come
here? And then a tremor happens
immediately after because this, this movie is also funny.
Yeah. At.
Really inappropriate times, often.
Yeah, there's like some, it's not slapstick, but it's like
something horrible's happening, but it's also kind of funny, you

(21:32):
know? The tone, there's a little bit
of tone whiplash sometimes. I'm definitely going to say
like, your mileage may vary whether you like that or not.
Right. So sitting in his car, you know
the guy in the suit, he he's with his wife and she's like,
oh, you could be a movie star. And then like the coolest biker
gang I've ever seen. Shows up.

(21:55):
Bro like what? That was so fucking random like.
So. It's like they could have just
made it so like where somebody tripped and like tipped over the
idol and that's how it broke. And unfortunately for them,
like, no, they had they introduced this badass biker

(22:15):
game that immediately get taken out.
And I'm not, I'm not trying to step on your toes, Charlotte and
like, like explain like what's happening.
But and then they immediately get taken out by an earthquake
and like in a tunnel and some rocks and they get caved in and
it's just like, what the fuck was that about?
Like what? It's so funny.
Why did? They do.

(22:36):
That if you also like, I got to imagine if you're say somebody
like John and you don't really have any context for like
Japanese biker gangs, this sequence has to be insane to see
these dudes in like rhinestone jackets on mopeds.
Fuck you, Derek. I've studied Japanese biker
gangs for years. But yes, no, I thought I, no, I

(23:01):
thought this was, I was like, I was like, damn, man did like did
they cross Godzilla with the Warriors?
Like this is amazing. It's it's sadly like it's, I'm
not here to say that's 100% accurate, but like it's closer
to real than not. Yeah, yeah.

(23:21):
But yeah, this biker game shows up and they're obnoxious and
they they break an old Geezo statue, which is like a little
statue for travelers to kind of pray to so that they can
maintain their safety. That's what those are.
I feel like if you don't know what those are, it's kind of
lost some of its. I think you still get the
concept of like it's, it's an old like Shinto idol, right?

(23:43):
Or Buddhist idol, something spiritual vaguely.
Yeah, yeah. But they do indeed mostly get
killed in this tunnel when a trimmer heads and while the the
debris is falling because like, there's this trucker behind the
the biker gang. Like you kids are going to get
killed and they get killed because this movie is funny.
Godzilla appears out of the falling debris.

(24:06):
It looks really cool. It's definitely actually
Godzilla. Yeah, it's definitely actually
Godzilla. But then we cut to to this lady
from the documentary. She doesn't.
It doesn't give her name for a while, but her name is Yuri.
She tried to Stan Yuri. What a wonderful fail girl.
Yeah, she's trying to convince her Co worker that the tremors

(24:27):
are moving, right. The epicenter is moving so
something is causing them and walking basically.
And she also thinks they need tokind of focus on their quality a
bit more. And everybody's like, no, we
make garbage. Quit thinking you're going to
make something like good. So they they go back to this
tunnel and it's impassable now. And the military is like, OK,

(24:50):
we're going to strap a drill to A to a warhead, and we're going
to launch it out of an artillerytruck into the mountainside,
which is fine and normal to do. Hey, you know what?
Sick. I mean, they did it 'cause it
was cool. Yeah.
Like, so Yuri laments that she can't make shows like the shows

(25:12):
that she wants to. Sexism, essentially.
She's. Not wrong.
Yeah, she starts outgoing. Like I wish I was a man and I
was like. Oh, we're doing gender, are we?
But she was like, 'cause then I get to make what I want.
I was like, ah, OK. But she gets handed a book
called The Guardian Monsters. And this is basically going to

(25:34):
be the plot of the the rest of the movie.
In this book, we we cut back to this biker gang.
They stop being cool. Now they they start stealing
stuff from a convenience store. Was.
It a biker gang or was it just another group of I?
I took it to be just a differentgroup of delinquent young.
People, I didn't think they all had died, so I I just kind of
assumed there's like this innumerably large biker gang

(25:56):
caused. Japanese.
Just random, like teenagers. Japanese biker gangs are
notoriously durable. OK, like those motherfuckers
will just take a licking and keep on ticking.
I so does I I do want to like mention something real quick
when she gets drunk and goes back home and that dude carries
her to the door. Is this before or after the
second attack? That is going to happen really

(26:21):
soon in my notes, so. OK, OK, OK.
Yeah, yeah. He he and Britt both waiting to
bring up a specific thing. OK, well it's about to happen.
But so they decided like torturea puppy, which is when they're
not cool to me anymore. Like I don't care.
Yeah, vandalizing a convenience store is like, whatever, dude,

(26:41):
but. I like a barking dog like.
At first I thought they were like crashing the dog with the
statue. I did too.
I was like, I was literally about to turn off the movie.
I was like, Nah, this ain't the same for.
I was like, this is too mean spirited and it's like, no,
they're just, it's just mad 'cause they're stuffing the
statue in in the box with it. Right.
And but they go to throw the doginto the water, 'cause they're

(27:03):
in this boat and they're like, I'm going to be an asshole and
throw the dog in the water for no reason.
They're both capsizes and and Mothra, currently a larvae,
emerges from the water. So now while this is going on,
Yuri gets walked home by Takata.She's very drunk.
And her father, his name's Taizo.

(27:25):
I don't think it's ever mentioned in the whole movie,
but his name's Taizo, greets them at the door.
And you all wanted to mention something.
I guess dude's the hot as shit. Well, that's, I mean, yes, but
that's not what I want to mention.
I really love that this dude wasthe most like, polite dude.
Yeah. And then the next conversation
is just like, I was too harsh and I was like, what?

(27:46):
Oh yeah, What? Wait, are you talking?
Wait. Hold on, hold on, hold on.
Are you talking with the old guy?
You. Have the dad.
Yeah, the dad, the commander. OK, right, right.
Yeah, right, wore those sick assglasses, the whole.
No, no. OK, no, no, no.
All right. I was confused, like he was
talking. I thought you were talking about
the guy who talks about the legend of the Guardian monsters.
No, not that old. That's that's old, old.

(28:09):
That's what yeah, I was going tosay.
I think I feel like the dad was like actually really reasonable.
Like I've obviously like there'sa little suspicion of like
you're bringing my drunk daughter home and like I can't.
But it like he wasn't overly. But then, yeah, he was like, oh,
I was kind of an asshole. And later, what's his name?
The the acquaintance is like, man, he really gave it to me.

(28:29):
It's like, no, he. Didn't, yeah.
And I was like, I thought he wasvery.
Wow. What?
Nothing. What?
Nothing. Go ahead.
Please continue. OK, so the dog does survive.
Importantly. That was very important to me,
yes. Yeah.
Yeah, that's important to everybody listening.
You don't like if you plan to watch this movie, The dog.

(28:50):
Lives the dog, receives a mercy.No human being in this movie
does. Yeah, so apparently that area
where Mothra came out of that, that is Lake Ikeda, and that's
where they exiled Saigo Takamori, who was one of the
three great nobles of the Meiji Restoration.
They don't explain that, but if you know about the Meiji

(29:13):
Restoration, you know who that is.
I don't. Well, he was important to that
period in history. He was not well liked.
So Takeda, Yuri and Yuri Zoomfi,who I don't know the name of,
are all talking about drinking together, right?
That that's when he's like, oh, he really gave me the business.

(29:33):
Even though not really. Godzilla seems to have fed off
the submarine. That's the decision they made
about what happened there. And this is the first time that
Godzilla has attacked in 50 years, which puts us in 2004.
And the military discusses, you know, like what?
We'll whatever, we'll we'll be ready for anything.
We don't even know it's really Godzilla.

(29:55):
Yeah, they're. Like we have weapons, we'll be
fine. So this is where we're so
advanced now. This is where I was a little
confused. Now, I am not AI, am not a
Godzilla expert as as Derek willattest, I thought Godzilla
eventually transitioned from just like a a monster that was,
you know, created, you know, by nuclear testing to like a

(30:15):
guardian of Japan. So, so the original, the
original Godzilla dies like getsdisintegrated by the Oxygen
Destroyer, right? Very, very importantly, the
original Godzilla has always been dead.
And in any of these other movies, it's always been a

(30:37):
second Godzilla that we are following.
And the second Godzilla is the one that gets to hang around
long enough to have a usually slightly less antagonistic
relationship with people. OK, so this guy so.
So this particular Godzilla is just a Dick.
Yeah, OK. He's mad.

(30:58):
Got it. I can see that.
I can relate to an enormous an enormous creature that's an
asshole. Got it.
Yeah, I empathize with this. OK.
So Yuri goes to talk to that. There's OK, so there's been like
a weird, ominous old man who's been in the in the background of
several shots. She's going to go talk to him

(31:18):
now. Usually he's in the background
when there's a Jesus statue being destroyed, he says, and
his hat. He says Godzilla will return and
soon. And he says you need to go where
Ghidorah lies sleeping, and you must wake the 1000 year old
dragon before it's too late. And maybe they together can stop

(31:38):
him. And you know, the people he's
talking to don't know who they together means.
Yeah, but yeah. Is this the?
Part where he the conversation where he explicitly says what's
going on with Godzilla. That is later.
OK, I'll wait then. Yeah, yeah.
So the the ancient people in thearea, right, People that were

(32:00):
that just that were there a longtime ago.
They had killed the three guardians, Mothra, Ghidorah and
Baragon, but still prayed for them, right?
They were just monsters that hadto be killed so they didn't die,
etcetera. So they they're investigating
the shrine and the myth and theypick up a stone.
The stone is more important thanI thought it would because I

(32:21):
wasn't really sure where they were going with it.
But they investigate this shrineand then right afterward a big
storm hits and there's some kidshanging out in this house during
the storm and there's a guy and he's just peeing.
He is just peeing. Oh my.
God, as we as one does as one does.

(32:43):
Godzilla steps directly on this guy while he's peeing.
As one does. As one does.
Such a terrible way to go, he. Didn't even get the finish
peeing. Just just mid mid piss like man
that sucks. Yeah, Yuri and her team start
reviewing their their footage ofthe old man.

(33:03):
And the old man was like, oh, well, Godzilla's invincible, by
the way. Like you can't kill Godzilla,
and this Godzilla in particular is fueled by the souls of the
dead in the wars of the Pacific.Yeah, so he explicitly says like
this is Godzilla has been revived by the souls of of all

(33:27):
of those who died in the Pacificconflicts, right?
Right. Not like, you know, Japanese
soldiers, like everyone who diedin the Pacific conflicts, and
they are driven by anger and vengeance because of Japan's
denial of their war crimes in the Pacific during World War 2.

(33:48):
Like that. It's weird because this stuff is
really relegated to this single short moment, right?
It's not really a relevant thingother than like, yeah, This is
why this Godzilla exists at all and is back and has dead white
undead eyes, right? Right.

(34:10):
But I think it's really worth pointing out because like, this
is 2000. Well, fuck 2001.
Any point in modern history of somebody making a high profile
piece of media that says like, hey, Japan, want y'all to
remember some of the shit y'all did?
That's unforgivable. This franchise has a tendency to

(34:31):
be very anti nationalistic at times, right?
And I just think it's very it isalways a bold political stance
in Japan to stand up and stand for acknowledging their war
crimes against like their their East Asian neighbors because

(34:52):
much of Japanese society and much of the government and much
of their education system still denies events like the Raven and
Nanking today. That's why this that's why this
Godzilla movie was Sugiyama's most hated.
Famous war crime denier and deadfucking gender neutral bathroom

(35:13):
Sugiyama Keiji Sugiyama. Dead piece of shit, yeah.
But yeah, that's just, I think that's a thing worth worth
really calling attention to. Yeah, yeah.
So this plane radio's in that they've encountered a new hill,
and then they get killed. So obviously that was not a
hill. Yuri and Takita start talking

(35:33):
about how CDs contain data and it's, you know, stones are like
CDs and stones also contain datalike CDs.
Spirits are electricity. What a weird fucking analogy.
Like what a weird comparison. Like just fucking pull that out
the air. That the perfect analogy.
Just this sequence would have been so much better if one of

(35:54):
them took a huge fucking rip offa blunt like they.
Just fucking adored it, yeah. Then this would make a lot more
sense. I mean, that's just the plot of
Monster Rancher. Also, but you know, fuck.
Also, if somehow you are listening to this and you were
born after CDs happened, ACD is a thing you save a thing on and

(36:20):
it spends all right. Why are you?
Why are you making me feel like this?
Why are you making me feel like I'm?
I'm already acutely aware of my age.
I'm not having a good day anymore.
Welcome to the fucking club, bitch.

(36:41):
So they discussed how they couldwake the Guardian monsters with
the stones they found at the shrine.
And when they said that, I thought they were going to do
something really different with the stone than happened with the
stone. But so this businessman, like we
cut to this businessman, he's a salary man.
He he's stepping on a Jizo statue in an attempt to hang
himself. Clear.

(37:02):
Like a reference. To the suicide forest, but like.
I didn't know it was a referenceto the suicide forest until
after like I had looked because like I read, I was reading the
wiki afterwards and like trying to like follow the storyline
because like Charlotte said earlier, it is a lot at once.
And you you definitely get lost.Like you're, you're just like,

(37:23):
what the fuck is happening rightnow?
Because it just goes so fast andthey they give you so much at
once that like I wouldn't look at the the wiki.
And then I saw like, like what forced it was.
I was like, oh, isn't that the suicide force?
But if you don't know that, all you get is a scene of a dude
randomly deciding to hang himself.
And then he falls into a giant cave.

(37:44):
And you're just like, they couldn't have picked any other
reason why this dude fell into acave.
Like it has to be because he's hanging so.
I I It's interesting because like, I do wonder why that was
chosen. I do too.
Like, even even knowing context,like I Japan has always been so

(38:05):
hush hush about those kinds of things.
Yeah, even now, like with the forest, like it's interesting
that they chose that as the reason to, like progress their
story. Like this movie?
Leans because that's that's dark.
That's super fucking dark. This is definitely a dark movie
and it does learn more into likethe occult and spiritual in in
that way. I have a like 1/2 baked idea

(38:29):
that I'll get to when we're done.
Yeah, that that actually that that actually like I that
actually raises a point for me like are the are the God 'cause
this one like, you know, you know, when you talk about you
know, like, oh, all the all the souls of the civilians and and
you know, like, you know, the Japanese soldiers who were
killed are inside got like are those themes that that these

(38:50):
movies this is this is pretty. Unique in that regard this is.
It's very unusual. Usually Mothra is always some
element of spirituality in anything she shows up in, right?
But Mothra is kind of a separate, different thing.
It is very unusual for a movie to have such, to be so steeped

(39:13):
in like spirituality in the occult.
It is very unusual to have that aspect be a major part of
Godzilla himself. This is a.
This is a weird one. I so I have a question.
So it was my understanding that so did he the old guy with the
hat that I mean, that's just whohe is the old guy with the hat,

(39:33):
did he put the souls into those stones?
Like that's the part I didn't understand.
It's that like I didn't realize that Godzilla was also souls.
Like it was it was that part wasconfusing to me.
Can somebody like explain that to me?
Well, Brett, you see I was. Going to say, I think, and I'm
speaking as an American, right, a lot of Japanese like mythology

(39:59):
and historical views on spirituality do see like spirits
and souls being absorbed into like the essence of like deities
or monsters, right? Either like monsters that feed
on souls or like, you know, becoming a part of like a
greater spirit, right? So like, this is not a

(40:20):
contemporary view by any means, but it is.
Adjacent to like a lot of ways that that this stuff has been
viewed within like mythology andfolklore.
Yeah, so I, I think the thing that confused me is I didn't
realize that Godzilla was also made-up of like spirits.

(40:42):
Like, because I got I got the part where the old man was
basically like, yeah, like all these spirits are going into the
monsters, but. And like, it sounded like he put
them there. Yeah, that part was just very
confusing to me. So I I was just trying to.
Figure out everything about the old man is going to be confusing
after that fucking M Night Shyamalan twist at the end.

(41:05):
Yeah, yeah, it was, it was, it was very just, but I mean like
just the his basic storytelling of like what happened like.
He knows so much. It's like, were you an agent of
this as well? Like what?
Yeah. And maybe, maybe I just followed
it wrong, like yeah. And I mean, there's also,

(41:26):
especially in older mythologies,there's a lot of like there's
like God of waterfalls, God of the rocks, you know, stuff like
that. So it's very like spirits and
gods would always be tied to nature explicitly.
So like just the fact that it isa stone, it's just, that's just
a thing that would happen. Well, and like they even have
the conversation of like, oh, has that not happened yet about

(41:49):
about the the guardians being like the guardians of the land,
not the guardians of the nation.No, they haven't done that.
OK, I'll put a pit. In that OK.
Oops, very fine. The other the other thing I was
going to point out is that when the the triangle of locations of
three guardians come from and that they could have done like
anything that they wanted to near Mount Fuji, because, you

(42:13):
know, Ghidorah is located near Fuji.
Al Qigahada is like northwest. The suicide forest is like right
north of Mount Fuji. They could have done anything
they wanted, but I guess they just chose that also because
it's just kind of a a spot people know.
I don't know. But anyway, he tries to commit
suicide in the earth gives way and there's a monster down there

(42:35):
encased an ice and I thought that was a cool effect.
So the government gives a press conference and is like, all
right, we'll admit it, that was Godzilla.
And out on the ocean there's, there's a ship tracking Godzilla
now. So that's going on.
Meanwhile, Yuri and Takeda are presenting the the book about

(42:58):
the Guardians to her father. And he's a little incredulous,
'cause he's just like, come on, I believe in giant lizards, but
I don't know about this. Right, like I draw the line at
fucking other mythical creatures.
You'd have one Godzilla, but four Godzilla's?
Uh huh. And so she says it's their

(43:19):
chance to stop Godzilla. And he's like, well, the
minister, despite the fact that we're like saying it's Godzilla,
doesn't really believe it's Godzilla because they're going
to deny their war crimes up until the very last second.
That's the whole point. But Yuri's father was there when
things happened and he said he he would never forget the things

(43:39):
that happened, like especially when Godzilla attacked.
And so Yuri and Taka, I go and discuss what to do over ramen
and on the TV they see where, you know, the news is like, OK,
no, the epicenter of the the quakes is moving and people
finally believe that it's happening.
Ikeda, Fuji and Nagata are all having activity and they that

(44:02):
does form like a big triangle basically of an area.
And those are also the exact areas mentioned in the guardian
legend. The salary man who tried to
commit suicide earlier is tryingto convince someone, you know
that he saw a monster underground.
And they're just like, all right, man.
But while he's trying to do that, Baragon appears and very

(44:23):
explicitly breaks the old man from earlier out of prison.
Like that's what he was doing. I love him.
Right. Like that was clearly what?
Was happening like the other twodudes.
Fuck him, but old man, you're cool.
He pause at the. Jail like a Kitty.
That's true. Yeah, I.
Love him. There's very famously.

(44:45):
Videos of the that I I posted inthe group chat right of the the
actress who plays Barragon in the suit doing the little.
Yeah, I saw that she's actually the.
Lady who played, who's in the supermarket, who drops the eggs?
That's the one who, Oh, that's her.
Who's in the suit? That's in the Super Barragon.

(45:06):
Hey, I'm teaching you guys something.
I didn't. I didn't I.
Didn't I? I.
Didn't realize there was a womanin the suit.
That's cool. It's actually the first time
Toho has. Used a woman in one of the suit,
one of the monster suits. So that's pretty cool.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Shame it took till 2001. But well, you know, but also.

(45:27):
Being in those. Suits is fucking miserable so
maybe women were winning out by not having to be a poor fucking
Harlow Nakajima getting dropped out of cranes and electrocuted
and shit in the Godzilla suit. Like think he almost gets blown
up once. Yeah, probably.
Almost as if he stroke multiple times.
Maybe he gets lit on fire. The one dude versus destroyer

(45:48):
gets gassed unconscious. Like maybe it's feminism to not
subject women to being in the suits.
Happy women's history. So the military.
Discusses what to do about Barragon and they're like
Barragon is, is red Godzilla. Now by the way, the green not

(46:09):
red Godzilla arrives at a port and Barragon is like gliding
through these forests. Not like gliding, gliding, but
like just the way that Barragon kind of walks.
It's like sliding through the forest.
The old man arrives with a statue to the to the
underground, where it's clearly Ghidorah is Ghidorah's little
ice cavern, and the Ghidorah statue has the.

(46:31):
The chip out of it in the exact shape of the rock that Yuri and
Co have, right? And Godzilla starts rampaging
through the city. There's this scene where there's
a girl and she's in the hospital.
It's one of the girls who was. Hurt when the it's one of the
girls who was hurt in the storm when Godzilla stepped on the

(46:51):
pissing dude. So she ends up in the hospital
with like multiple broken bones in like a full body.
What an what an elegant. Tapestry of words, but.
She survives a Godzilla attack and ends up in the hospital and
then with a broken leg. Yeah.
And Godzilla walks. By and she's like, Oh my God,
yeah, she's watching him. From her hospital window get

(47:13):
closer and flipping the fuck out, like trying to escape the
bed, actually like a really affecting portrayal of like
existential panic. And then Godzilla walks past and
she's like, oh thank God, oh thank God.
She's like, I fucking live to see.
Another day like and then there's like a second.

(47:34):
Where you think she's going to live and then Godzilla swings
its tail into the building exactly where she fucks that
girl in. Particular.
So that girl's dad, this is. Which which is?
Funny, because she was. Based she like she was defending
Godzilla. I thought that she was gonna
live because she was defending him in in the little little

(47:56):
beach house scene, because the in that scene, like it's her and
her friends talking and she's like, oh, like, I can't believe
they treated Godzilla that way. Like, I would have like, and
some dude was like, I would havekept it as a pet.
And they laughed. But like, yeah, she was like,
yeah, like what they did to Godzilla was cruel.
And then he fucking is. Like you want to see cruel?
Yeah, definitely. I think this.
Is a super like one of the most memorable moments in the movie

(48:18):
and also like I just think it's it's so good.
It's very funny. It's also very scary like it
managed me both these things at once.
It's visually striking and I think it helps really, really
sell and nail down like the first moment in the movie where
you recognize like this is a purely evil Godzilla to an

(48:39):
almost intelligent degree. Well, and and so like I'm.
Glad you said that, because one thing that really really jumped
out at me watching this. Like again, not the world's
biggest Godzilla expert, but I know enough to know two things.
One, Godzilla is usually, not always, but usually portrayed in
a vaguely heroic light. But all I also know enough to

(49:03):
know that Ghidorah is usually a sadistic fucking villain.
And Ghidorah here is the. Hero, Yeah.
Like, not to get ahead of ourselves, but yeah, let's ask
like that. Definitely tries to be.
Definitely tries. Like.
What? What like like like?
Not not to get. Too ahead but like but but but

(49:24):
like this is the reason I bring that up is because this it's
what made this such a confusing movie for me.
Godzilla has not been so. Blatantly malevolent since the
original 1954 movie. Every movie since, even the ones
where he is the bad guy try to frame him as something at least

(49:47):
somewhat animalistic. Right.
Even the original movie they saylike Godzilla stuff or more just
a force of nature. Than something that is that is
evil and looking to cause 'causeeven the original movie.
Like as much interpersonal like suffering as Godzilla causes is
portrayed to be somewhat sympathetic, right?

(50:09):
This is purely an evil mother fucker.
It's because he's imbued with the.
Angry spirits, yeah. He looks fucking.
Mean as shit. It's probably one of my favorite
Godzilla looks. Honestly, it's good.
I like. I like.
The way that it's so grayscale, right?

(50:29):
I mean, even down to like the dead, the dead white eyes.
But like, it looks like it's stepped out of a black and white
movie, right? Yeah, it with with almost none
of the green or bluish tinge that you tend to see to
Godzilla. Yeah, like even the breath
weapon. Is like whitish, yeah, yeah,
but. Also.
Getting out of myself, well, everyone's still intent on

(50:50):
denying Godzilla's existence right up up until they get
killed by Godzilla. That's when the, I guess the
Baragon actress, like, drops theeggs because she's just like,
Godzilla's just a folk tale. And then, you know, Godzilla
shows up and everybody's trying to run away and Godzilla just
kills all of them. Oh, you see it Charge.
Up. But you don't actually see it do

(51:10):
the breath attack. You cut to the school and the
teacher being like, all right, kids now everybody's going to
we're going to do like a drill and everybody's going to hide
under their desks. And then there's the boom.
And then there's the slow like pan shot of her looking out the
window and going to the mushroomcloud.
What a what? A fucking sequence.

(51:31):
Yeah, this movie. Fucks.
When it wants to, yeah. So the.
The government, the, the cabinetand the government is of course,
being very slow to respond. They're just now about to meet
about this. You know, despite everything
that's been happening, Yuri and Taketa are like, all right,
we're going to follow a news chopper so we can see what's

(51:51):
going on. And this chopper is heading
towards everything going on. Berrigan is is heading towards
Godzilla and there is some sightseers who are trying to
take some pictures and one of them tries to get a picture of
of Baragon coming in. This is so fucking funny.
This was the funniest part. Of the fucking.
Movie Yeah, like the the. Ladies like trying to.

(52:13):
Pose with Baragon on the right side of the frame just getting
all cutesy with it, and then Godzilla shows up behind them
and just causes a rockfall. Well, it was the thing that
makes it. Explicitly funny is like, they
see Baragon and like, oh fuck. And then they start to run and
he's like, let's take a picture 1st and then we'll run.
And she's like OK, And then she poses and then all of a sudden

(52:34):
you just see Godzilla just peeking up over the mountain
above them. I was like, oh, they fucked.
They did first. Let me take a selfie.
Right also. I do.
Love the. If I remember correctly, this is
the shot Charlotte that is like a one to one recreation of the
shot from the original Godzilla,where originally it's the puppet
head coming up over the hill. Again, excellent call back,

(52:58):
Excellent shot. Works a lot better with a high
quality suit design instead of ahand puppet.
But yeah, just fucking great. Yeah.
The news finally continue. I'm sorry.
Oh, OK, you're fine. So the news finally gets a look
at both Godzilla and Berrigan, and you know that that proves

(53:19):
that they exist so everybody canstop acting like they don't.
And Berrigan digs beneath Godzilla, causing the ground to
cave in beneath it, like, just falls over into it.
Yuri and Takata arrive. Well, while Berrigan is clamped
down on Godzilla's arm because he's trying his best.
Yeah. Like he's doing.

(53:40):
Everything he can, he's. Trying he just little.
He little. But I mean Godzilla slams Bergen
down, starts kicking him while he's down Bergen like dives from
a clip, like does a move from the top rope king shit.
Like like my mother fucker was down and out and he climbed up

(54:01):
and said no I'm jumping back in love.
My boy. Cute baby boy.
Bergen. Jumps from the top rope, but
Godzilla just kind of smacks himinto a news helicopter, the same
one they were following earlier.And like, Yuri ends up hurt, but
she's looking at she's like those people are dead.

(54:24):
Like she takes a moment there because she's just like those
people died. And as Bergen tries to crawl
away, Godzilla fires another. Oh, this sequence hurts to.
Watch a bit. This is sad.
Yeah, no, no, this Godzilla has like, no.
Mercy for anything he fucks withhim, honestly.
'Cause he like, does the beam like beneath him just to make

(54:47):
like him lose his footing and fall some more, Yeah.
No, he's mean. It is a cruel motherfucker.
Yeah, he hits him with. One, then he hits him with
another, Berrigan explodes, and that's it for Berrigan.
But as that happens, the ice surrounding Ghidorah starts
cracking, so there's hope at a. Hospital, though.

(55:09):
Like, farther away, there's people getting help for their
wounds. They were inflicted by Godzilla.
And like, they're all hanging out trying to get help.
And. And the boy asks Yuri, like, are
we going to be OK? Are monsters real?
And, you know, she's like, yeah,sort of, but look out a window.
What? The fuck do you think?
Yeah. Well, didn't she start the?

(55:32):
Conversation like hey, did you lose your mom and dad in the
attack? And like he says nothing and
she's like don't worry the the guardian monsters are going to
help us. And then he says are monsters
real? Like bro, where you been?
Have you just been disassociating the whole
conversation? Have you not been have?
You not been hearing what's happening outside?

(55:53):
Yeah, So they go to leave. Takata won't let her drive
because, you know, sexism. So she goes to get a bicycle
instead because she's not going to stop just because people tell
her to stop. Because she's the best
character. Oh, I fucking love her.
Yeah. And at the same time this is
happening, Mothra is in a cocoonin the lake, and everybody's

(56:14):
gathered around like, what's going on?
There's a giant cocoon in the lake.
The military is like, all right,we're going to start counter
attacking Godzilla this evening.And Yuri decides she's going to
give chase to Godzilla on her bike and like, send pictures
back to the Digital Q crew, which she works for Digital Qi,
haven't said that yet. So while she's out there on her

(56:37):
bike, the military starts firingat Godzilla and Digital Q, like,
spins up, starts doing coverage on the attack on Godzilla.
She's on her bike. She's got like a camera and like
a battery backpack. And she's just streaming it
basically in 2001. And the the host starts out by
saying, hey, what's up? We're digital Hue.
We're the bargain bin of the airwaves, which I thought was

(56:59):
funny. Oh my God, hang on.
So the. Boss takes issue with this and
we haven't had a chance to talk about the boss yet.
The dude in the. Wig with the.
Glasses. Yeah.
What I. Literally, that was.
My first. Question I asked her when I
finished and I didn't. Have an answer for you?
I like was like. Why was that dude wearing a wig

(57:21):
and why did they make it so obvious that he had an issue
with it? And what the fuck was he eating
that just hung from his mouth a whole?
That was dried squid, right? Charlotte I That's what I
figured. But I.
Was just like this character. Is the most.
Chaotic fucking character and they don't explain anything
about. I genuinely wonder if this.
Is based on like a real dude that Kaneko knows and fucking

(57:44):
hates. Like this is too specific of a
guy to make up. Do you know what I mean?
This is this is like a cousin that he doesn't talk to anymore.
Yeah, I couldn't. Tell if it was dried squid.
I, I kind of walked away thing and that's what it was at first.
I was like, is it like ginger? Is it like a ginger root?
No ginger root is is. Real fat it would it?

(58:06):
It wasn't ginger for sure. Well, I mean he could have
broken a small. Part, I guess because there's
like. Also, if you're nibbling on raw.
Ginger root. I mean it would add.
To the game like it would it would it would check out with
that there's no helping you if that's.
A thing you have to do to feel something like mid.
Conversation. With Yuri at the beginning of

(58:27):
the movie, he just all of a sudden starts looking at his
hair and starts freaking out andthen gets up and walks away and
I'm like, OK, well, they're going to talk about this later.
They never fucking do they. They never address it.
Dude is just awkwardly wearing his wig.
Like it was so weird. It was so weird.
Yeah, so 1. Thing about this.
Godzilla that that was very interesting is how effective
this Godzilla is because normally Godzilla like meanders

(58:51):
and loses fights and jobs a little, you know, but like
they've got planes coming for Godzilla and Godzilla just does.
Not care, just. Like shoots down every plane
with perfect precision like and that's what happens.
Like they start coming at Godzilla with planes and
Godzilla kills them and anyone the debris lands on 'cause it

(59:11):
like lands on a house nearby andkills everyone inside.
A lot of people die in this movie.
A shocking. Number of people very
specifically die on screen in this movie, yeah.
So Ghidorah awakens like at the same time Mothra does.
And after this happens, there, there's a conversation between

(59:31):
Taizo and some other guy in the military.
And they're just like, you know,the military didn't kill
Godzilla. It was it was it was essentially
it was the oxygen destroyer. I think he says like it was like
a chemical thing, but like, it was the oxygen destroyer and the
person who made it disappeared. No one knows how to recreate it.
Good, first of all. But so they they don't know what

(59:51):
they're going to do against Godzilla.
They have no idea. And so Yuri continues covering
Godzilla, but her dad finds out this is happening.
Is like I have to arrest my daughter.
But she she reflects on the old guy's motives and is like, all
right, you know, clearly, clearly this guy knows what he's

(01:00:13):
talking about. But she in her coverage is like,
no one should attack the Guardian Monsters like military,
if you're hearing this, don't shoot the other ones that aren't
Godzilla. And so the military is like, all
right, we're going to respect these monsters and call them by
their names now, which like, Canyou imagine the.
American military like doing that, like you know what, we're

(01:00:34):
not going to fire this giant 3 headed dragon.
We will respect. That's not what America does.
I just I say this. I say this because I admire the
restraint of the Japanese military in this scenario.
I mean. You know, you don't wonder if.
There's going to be a movie likethis later for For America, I

(01:00:56):
hate to break. It to you but when America gets
their hands on Godzilla again, there's literally a scene of
Godzilla waiting into Boston to kick Ghidorah's ass framed by
the US Air Force backing him up so yeah, I know and it's.
It's kind of like the. End of Spider Man, you know,
like the end of the movie, there's just a huge American
flag waving behind him for no reason.

(01:01:17):
Like he just, he just stops in front of the in front of the One
World Trade Center, America, NewYork, America gives.
Us a Godzilla that fights alongside the US Air Force and
eats a lot of cheeseburgers likewe all right, Well, I meant.
I more meant. A movie where we have a monster
that's the culmination of all ofour, like, collective sins as a

(01:01:38):
nation. But you know, OK, well, yeah,
you have that. Well.
If it's. Called a documentary.
Yeah. Yeah.
So. Their their plan.
Comes together right they're like, all right, we're going to
mount these drills, these D3 drills onto these warheads.
So now there's like there's a point to what they were doing
earlier. It was to give foreshadowing to

(01:01:59):
this so cool. So they're they're planning on
doing that and Taizo gives the hardest line in the movie where
he says we can go into battle without relishing conflict
because you know, they have to fight Godzilla and they have to
fight whatever battles they haveto fight.
But that doesn't mean you have to like it.
Kind of rare to see that. Kind of attitude out of like the

(01:02:22):
military in any piece of media, but maybe we're just used to.
Again, like. The military showing up in
American blockbusters and just being like, you know, the
biggest heroes in every situation.
Yeah. I mean even an earlier Godzilla
film. Look at the the military shows
up and they fire Godzilla for 10minutes.

(01:02:43):
They usually don't end up winning, but you know that's
there's usually some heroic music playing when that's
happening. But Godzilla is firmly in the
city and the artillery is loadedand they're ready.
Godzilla flies in or Mothra flies in.
It'd be awesome. Godzilla flew in?
That'd be weird. You've seen that?
No Mothra flies in my queen. This girl carried the movie.

(01:03:05):
Fucking love Mothra. And Mothra's great in this
movie. Like, yeah.
She she dives in, flies over Godzilla's head, swoops by
again, fires these like needles.She's just got a billion butt
stingers. Yeah.
It's a great, it's a great little kind of.
Low, low fantasy weapon for her to have.

(01:03:28):
I kind of dig it, yeah. Instead of like rainbow lasers.
From her antenna, yeah. And and these needles like knock
Godzilla into a building like they have punch, but Godzilla
starts firing back at Mothra andMothra is trying to get away and

(01:03:49):
she does lead a shot directly into a tower full of soldiers.
Mothra really said fuck the military.
But yeah, that happens. And then Godzilla gets gets like
it's head gripped, like like Mothra shows up just behind

(01:04:12):
Godzilla and just grips his headwith her little arms.
And meanwhile, Ghidorah finally arrives and Ghidorah shows up
and bites Godzilla's arms and throat with all of all of his
heads heads and starts channeling electricity into
Godzilla's body. The military's like, all right,
we're going to sit this one out and we're going to wait until

(01:04:33):
Godzilla's wounded and then we're going to fire Godzilla.
Yuri tries to get inside, but like inside the, the area, but
some, some soldiers told her back, 'cause she's, she is a
civilian. Godzilla starts fighting back
against Ghidorah and like flingshim away and Mothra moves in for

(01:04:53):
another swoop and she ends up defending Ghidorah from a breath
attack. Because like all of Mothra's
special abilities activate when Mothra dies, as we know, but.
While. Godzilla's back has turned.
The military starts launching the the D threes in the Godzilla

(01:05:15):
and they drill into Godzilla's skin and explode, but there's no
effect. And Godzilla like turns around
and then left to right on the screen just fires the breath
weapon, it's breath weapon and like kills everyone nearby.
And so now Godzilla knows that the military's there and starts
walking in their direction. Mothra takes another shot from

(01:05:40):
Godzilla and this time does explode into dust and her death
wakes Ghidorah back up, which isI guess the thing Mothra can
just do. And Ghidorah is infused with
Mothra's energy. Now, Godzilla tries firing at
Ghidorah, but the attack gets reflected by Mothra's, like,
energy shield. And then he, like, launches.

(01:06:05):
Yeah, like, he he launches all that energy back at Godzilla,
wounding it and launching it into the Bay.
And he pursues Godzilla and lands on him and, like, shoves
it into the water. Godzilla is underwater now, and
Ghidorah, like, starts shocking it as they both descend.

(01:06:29):
The commander's like, all right,so we need to shoot one of our
missiles into Godzilla's wound. Then there was like an open
wound on Godzilla. We need to go down there.
We need to fire it. Yuri's like, why do you have to
be the one to do that? You're literally my dad.
And he's like, well, that's why I have to go, 'cause I have
like, the most experience, and Ineed to do this.

(01:06:49):
And so he permits her to stay with the military, promises to
come back alive. And Yuri.
Starts reporting. Again from nearby.
She's on the bridge nearby and Godzilla fires at the bridge,
destroying it and she's left dangling above the Bay like
Taket is holding her by an arm. The submersible that the Taizo's

(01:07:15):
in fires the 1st D3. But like, this scene was weird
to me because Godzilla moves Ghidorah in the way of the
missile and then they start celebrating.
Yeah, that was weird to me too. I was.
Like what? I feel like it's got to be an
editing idea, did they not? Like, yeah, I was like.
You didn't hit him like but at least.

(01:07:43):
The the stone that Yuri. Picked up earlier, falls down
into the water, flies in the Ghidorah, and that's like,
what's the left of Ghidorah's spirit that didn't get subsumed
earlier? And Yuri and and Takata both
fall it towards the water and a reinvigorated Ghidorah like
launches water up at them and I guess kind of softens their

(01:08:04):
blow. They still end up having to swim
to shore, but Ghidorah grabs Godzilla and drags it back down.
The Ghidorah the. Ghidorah.
Fucking. It's over.
We're back. It's over.
We're back. Graph is crazy in this movie.
You gotta. Yeah, I don't.
It was. It was too.
I. Don't know how many times you're

(01:08:25):
allowed. To die and be revived.
But this is too many times in one movie I audibly I.
By the time Mothra imbued her spirit into Ghidorah, I audibly
was like, this isn't even my final thought.
And it wasn't. He came back again again

(01:08:46):
Ghidorah rises into the. Air Godzilla surfaces from the
water and now like Ghidorah's glowing with power and starts
firing electric blast like everywhere and then at Godzilla.
Takata ends up swimming Yuri back to shore during this entire
thing but all the attacks that Ghidorah has done so far

(01:09:07):
Godzilla has been absorbing and Godzilla fires back at Ghidorah
and the the explosion just turnsGhidorah into meat chunks like
the Kentucky meat rain happens and these chunks like flood the
river, but then Berrigan appearsas like this red energy and then

(01:09:32):
it shifts into Mothra and then it shifts into Ghidorah and they
all fly into Godzilla. I guess to have like a spirit
battle with Godzilla. Godzilla sinks into the water
and Taizo, who's piloting the sub, flies directly into
Godzilla's mouth and it's. That's a way.
Sure. Yeah, it's, it's it's.
It's. Ridiculous.

(01:09:53):
Call it what it was. It's ridiculous.
It was ridiculous, yeah. The whole end of the movie was
my least. Favorite because it just didn't
make any fucking sense. Like it just it.
Like it didn't. They could have stood to chop
like 1. Or two beats.
You know what I mean? Well, it.
That just was like. Ghidorah was fucking useless.
Ghidorah did nothing and fuckingdude got rezzed twice and he

(01:10:17):
still fucking fumble the bag. Fucking me an Overwatch.
So now the commander. Is inside Godzilla's body like
like the magic school boss basically, and starts having
visions of Yuri and Yuri's like you, you got to live, you got to
do it. And she wakes up on shore just

(01:10:37):
as as he does and he's like, thank you, Yuri.
And then he fires a missile frominside Godzilla's body and it
drills its way out, which, you know, that's got to feel bad for
the Godzilla, but drills its wayout, explodes Godzilla tries to
to atomic breath, but because ofthe wound, it's just blasting

(01:10:58):
out of its wound instead and youknow, splitting it open further.
And then it just kind of starts having a meltdown and tries.
To shoot the submarine. Just explodes.
Taizo survives. The military and digital cue are
all so happy everyone's alive. The old man wasn't real.

(01:11:20):
He. Was already in his 70s.
Back in 1954 when the original attack happened and I guess died
either during the attack or shortly after.
So he's just been a. Ghost this.
Whole time. And also, he's missing from the
tapes now, yeah. So they, the the Commander and
Yuri salute the Guardian monsters and the military.

(01:11:45):
But Godzilla's heart is in the Bay.
Like slowly regenerating. It's not dead.
And that's the end of the movie.OK but ending the movie on the
fucking? Beating heart does RIP, right?
Can I just can I just say that like?
Charlotte, when you said, when you said, you know, Taizo's
having these visions of his daughter, like, you got to do
it. I just had a vision of Taizo

(01:12:05):
inside Godzilla being like, I'm going to do it, Yeah.
I'm really going to do it this. Time I'm going to do it.
The biggest thing that irritated?
Me was that like he was shot in the shoulder and that's like
where the beam was coming out and fucking Taizo got swallowed?
Like how did he manage to fly himself out of whatever fucking

(01:12:30):
Godzilla's stomach is through his shoulder and escape acid
reflux? So I was.
Watching this swivel. On my with one of my partners
and the the submarine is in there and she goes he's he's
spacious in there. I'm always saying so yeah,

(01:12:53):
sorry, I guess like. It made no.
Sense like how are you going to be in the stomach and then come
out through the shoulder? Like, yeah, I don't know,
there's just like a big empty. Room in there like he's got
nothing going. On Yeah.
So like me talking about my lastboy.
Never mind. I'm.
Sorry I'm. Just making smart ass comments
that aren't even true. I I have like a.

(01:13:16):
A Galaxy brain thing about this movie let's.
Is this something you want to say now or later?
I can say it later. OK, Yeah, 'cause I, I have, I
have, I have things to say rightwhen we get to like the, the
stuff that matters, right? So.

(01:13:37):
Talk a little bit about the monsters themselves, right?
We have Godzilla, Aragon, Marth,Mothra, King Ghidorah.
We kind of already said a lot about Godzilla through the Plot
Summary. Like, I love this design.
It Harkins back to the 54 design.
He's designed to look mean and malevolent and grayscale.

(01:14:00):
And this suit actor, by the way,who is also the motion capture
actor for Solid Snake, Yeah. Godzilla.
'S trying to sneak around. But he's dummy, But he's dummy
thick. I mean, have you seen Godzilla
them? Thighs, but like, I don't think

(01:14:21):
none. Of us like you.
Have just described. The 90s Godzilla famously
especially has like ridiculouslychunky thighs on the suit.
Derek, I'm glad you brought thatup because like.
There are some, there's, there'sa couple dual roles in this
movie. I I looked at the credits of the
movie and I love that the personwho was playing King Ghidorah,

(01:14:42):
it's as as King Ghidorah slash Yaizu fishery clerk and I'm just
like the the, the, the, the likethe fucking like dichotomy of
those of those two characters islike I played King Ghidorah and
also Yaizu fishery clerk. Does it make you think of like
King Ghidorah? And apron selling fish after

(01:15:04):
hours. Little bit.
Yeah, a little bit. But I love this Godzilla.
It's it's just it's a it's a fucking means, but I love the
way he like flexes his fingers alot while he's standing still.
I don't know if you all noticed that in a lot of I do that a lot
myself is he does this. Very like.
It it's almost like he's just fucking like ready to RIP

(01:15:26):
something apart. He just kind of sits there and
flexes his arms and his fingers a lot.
Very, very Akuma esque. Honestly, he's like a fighting
game character. He's like.
Like like at the at the choose your character menu.
He's just constantly idle animation moving.
He's just like. Constantly like breathing up
and, and like with moves his body up and down, you know, and

(01:15:48):
he's like, yeah, like, you know,I thought, I thought this was
OK. It, it wasn't what I was
expecting. Yeah, like, like, like, like
because, because, like you said,dude, like I'm, I'm used to,
like I'm used to Godzilla, you know, you know, at least the,
you know, the instances where I've seen Godzilla, I'm used to

(01:16:09):
him being like, you know, oh, I'm the like, you know,
protector of, you know, you know, the land of Japan, right?
Or like, you know, I'm a, you know, that's the reputation he
has in Pop. Culture, even if it's not really
accurate, like right, right, but.
He's just a fucking villain in this movie.
Like, like he's just, he's just an evil lizard that is possessed

(01:16:30):
by, for whatever reason, by, by a bunch of people who died in
World War 2. And, you know, like that, like
the, the paranormal aspect of itisn't something that I, I knew
was going to be there. So like, so, so when they kind
of dropped that, I was like, oh,that's, you know, that's not
what I didn't think Godzilla wasknown for.
It's, it's, you know, referencesto the occult and, and stuff.

(01:16:54):
And also to see like a characterthat I know is traditionally
like a, a, a, a villain straightup portrayed as a villain, like
Ghidorah was the hero of the movie.
And, and it, it's just, I was not expecting that like, like
the first time that you ever sawthis did that like throw you for

(01:17:16):
a loop as well? Threw everyone for a loop.
It's super. Well, and it's it's obviously a
a result of it being Baragon andGarrus and Varon up until like
right before they started filming and they were basically
told to hey, control F the script and swap Mothra and King
Ghidorah in with with some minorchain.
Obviously, like the 1000 year old dragon thing is something

(01:17:38):
that they added in the references to Orochi are there
for Ghidorah. But like it's very clear that
this is not a role Ghidorah was written for.
Mothra kind of slots in, right? Because Mothra does the things
Mothra always does, which is show up as a larva and then turn

(01:17:58):
into a grown up and then wreck alittle bit of shit and then
fucking die. Is that how she goes in
everywhere? Because this is my first
interaction with Mothra. Mothra, weirdly.
Has a lot of historical context in common with like the cycle of
rebirth. So Mothra in an awful lot of

(01:18:20):
movies will either die and her spirit will move on to empower
something else, or she will die but then the egg she leaves
behind will hatch and one or twoof her children will come and
finish the job, right? And then go on to grow up to be
one of them. Will go on to be the new Mothra.
Mothra dies a lot but like. Always.

(01:18:45):
Because it's like the thing thathad to happen.
So she's like a phoenix. There's a lot of.
That, yeah, Phoenix is like. An interesting way to put it,
Yeah, she. Her.
Energy and spirit will live on and be the reason why.
Like things go out OK in the end, but she's going to eat shit
in the process, but she's. Going to wreck some shit in the.

(01:19:06):
Process too, so Mothra's beloved.
I. Mean there's, there's kind of,
it's funny, 'cause like you, youwatched that.
You were like saying like you really liked Mothra in this
movie and like you knew that Mothra was a thing before this,
but like, how did right 'cause she's always, she's always
being. Like, like hailed.

(01:19:26):
As like. Godzilla's wife or like
girlfriend which I always thought was weird and I never
understood the context but like a lot of people really started.
I didn't know that there was like a female like Godzilla
Kaiju monster in the Godzilla universe until God.
Is it the movie with Millie Bobby Brown where Mothra is in

(01:19:48):
it? And then like, I just started
seeing all this fucking art on Twitter of Mothra.
And like, that's why I found outshe was a girl.
So I was like, oh, that's cool. And that that was like my extent
of it. Like I just knew that Mothra was
a pretty like fucking moth that sometimes got shipped with
Godzilla for some reason. And that was like my basest

(01:20:10):
knowledge like that. That's like all I knew.
And then I watched this movie and I was like, oh, OK, well.
She definitely just fucking wrecked shit on her boyfriend I
guess. Mothra, Mothra and.
Godzilla fight more than they'reon the same side.
It's just the nature of like Mothra is always the good guy.
Mothra has never been evil. Mothra is always a almost always

(01:20:34):
treated like a Polynesian, like Islander God kind of deal, like
protecting her people, you know,as they like purely benevolent,
you know, sort of God like creature compared to Godzilla's
always all over the place. So I definitely feel like she.
Was a lot more impactful than fucking maybe Ghidorah should

(01:20:56):
have died to power up Mothra. Ghidorah.
The all three fucking variationsof him.
Just fucking God what a flub. Ancient guardian dragon my ass.
What a fucking jobber it's. It's a shame, Jobber.
It's a shame because like. Ghidorah's design and suit and

(01:21:17):
special effects work are so good.
I love this design. I like.
Yeah, he looks great. He just.
Hate shit all the fucking. Time he'll come.
Back and they're like. He's he's really going to do it.
He's so powerful and then dies within a minute every time like.
I think that was the thing that was really.

(01:21:39):
Disappointing to me is that eventhe title of this movie made it
sound like this is going to be ahuge like monster fighting
monster movie. Which I mean, it was, but it
also kind of wasn't. Yeah, it at the end of the.
Movie The monsters didn't even get round.
They wanted him. Like very quickly, yeah, Yeah.
And it was. Just kind of like, I would have

(01:22:00):
loved a movie where it was just like Japan.
It's like helpless and they theywould just have to watch like,
you know, the whole big theme ofthe movie is we committed
atrocious war crimes. Like that's why this is
happening. And it was just like, imagine
you just have to watch your consequences and you can't do
shit about it. I feel that would have been such

(01:22:20):
a more interesting concept to me.
And then of course, he would have got to see the monsters
actually do something. And I feel like I feel like the
only. Real true drag out like bare
knuckle monster fight in the movie was Godzilla versus
Barragon Yeah like imagine like the.
The the underdog, he like did the most, I think like as much
as I love Mothra, this movie like the Baragon, like fucking

(01:22:43):
tracked that motherfucker down and just went, went for his ass,
you know, like just it was it was the longest fight scene, I
think. And Oh yeah, he did the most.
And then like the other two justdidn't really do anything.
Well, Mothra kind of appeared and then.
Died and was like take my power and Ghidorah was like OK, I'm

(01:23:04):
going to do it and then Ghidorahdie and then he said.
OK, I'm going to do. It And then he said, OK, I'm
going to do it, Yeah. And then guys, you got to go.
Back to the Dragon Balls bringing that motherfucker back.
It's not worth it, right? For.
Fucking. Real and then.
Godzilla and then after Ghidorah.
Dies Godzilla's like yeah, A1, except I got a hole in my

(01:23:24):
shoulder and then it's just interesting to be like.
Yeah, this Godzilla exists because of war crimes, and how
are we going to kill him more for war crimes?
Yeah, like with. The military and.
Super weapons. Right, right.
So really so real. So really the message of this
movie is we can't defeat our warcrimes, so we will.

(01:23:44):
Continue to well. We will continue the war.
With more war crimes. Yeah, I think that was like my
biggest issue with it, that the second, my second issue was, I
really would have loved to see more, more like, like.

(01:24:05):
More of like the. The interesting like the monster
storytelling and like their background and you know, 'cause
they kind of gave background to Godzilla and his his past.
Variations it. Would have been nice if, like,
the other ones could have been acknowledged too and, you know,
have people talk about them and stuff.

(01:24:25):
And that was, yeah, 'cause Barragon.
'S just like. I'm an armadillo that looks like
poop and then he fights Godzilla.
Mean about my? Baby boy.
I mean am I wrong? He's great like.
And that that's the. Thing is that you have you have
these characters that are so great and I think more
interesting than Godzilla and that's nothing to go with like

(01:24:48):
the theme of the movie. It was just Godzilla, which just
a classic evil villain. Like there was really no depth
there. He was just a representation of
like the war crimes and I, I really think.
If you're going to. Use a a topic that's that
serious, you need to kind of like pick a lane, right?

(01:25:08):
Like we kept talking about how funny this movie was and it
really just kind of took me out of like the seriousness of the
movie. And, and some of the scenes
where I was just like, well, what the fuck.
Like I I there were so many times where I just had whiplash
of like the tone of the movie. And some of it was just like,
what the fuck? Like some of it was just so
confusing. Like it was funny.

(01:25:28):
Yeah. But at the same time, like I
felt like they're they're either.
Pull it back a little. More or just don't do it at all.
Like well, put a pin in this. That that.
Was my put a pin in that? Because.
I do. I do have a thing to bring up in
in a few minutes here along those lines.
But as we talk about like the lasting impact of this movie and

(01:25:51):
maybe some of the things that got influenced by this movie and
and might be more along the lines of of what a lot of people
are looking for nowadays, I willsay one thing.
This. Movie made some motherfucking
money. Like after the last couple of
Godzilla movies were financial flops and not like especially

(01:26:14):
well loved like this one. People liked it, it made money.
Toho was immediately like we cangreen light several more of
these off the back of this. None of them would be sequels or
anything. They're just going to keep
making new like random Godzilla movies.
But like, this one came along and was like semi prestigious

(01:26:34):
and did them pretty good. And it did good for Toho's
reputation too, because Conoco is a director who's, you know,
people are paying some attentionto and is semi well respected
and has made some good connections.
And he walks away from this movie talking about, like, how
great it was to be able to have,like, have the kind of budget to
have sets built for him rather than, like, his experience on

(01:26:57):
the 90s Gamera movies was he hadto go find, like, a mountain
that looked right, you know? But Toho would build him that
scale mountain to shoot against.And then this ended up pulling
special effects artist and eventual director Shinji
Higuchi, who worked with Conoco very closely into Godzilla's

(01:27:22):
orbit. That's really important because
Higuchi will famously go on to film Shin Godzilla, which is a
movie that everyone has very strong opinions on most.
People. Very positive.
I'm not most people, not Derek. I'm going to have to go into

(01:27:42):
witness. Protection after we make that
episode, You've been talking about that.
Since like yes, correct and it'sgoing to be true.
This is broadly considered to beone of the best Kaiju movies
ever made. Like, not flawless, not without
like its issues or inconsistencies, but the the

(01:28:03):
tone and the artistry of the effects work and the like
emotionality that it tries to sell are just like peak for what
a lot of these movies are tryingto do.
A lot of directors end up reallyheavily influenced by this.
In particular, beloved director Takashi Yamazaki is hugely

(01:28:27):
influenced by this movie. He is famous for doing a lot of
post war dramas and he would go on to film the recently, well
recent is in like last couple years Godzilla -1 which some of
you may remember like blowing upso much in theaters that they

(01:28:47):
just kept extending its theatrical run.
That is one that like I'm. Notoriously not a Godfil
Godzilla fan. I'm I'm not a big like Kaiji
person. I'm I'm not a big mech person.
But I've heard such good things about that movie and it I've
heard it's not as like cheesy looking as the other Godzilla

(01:29:09):
movies. I think -1 is.
Maybe the best movie I saw period that year.
It's yeah, it's I. Think like.
I'm I, I will famously come in here and save it.
Like ex Godzilla movie stands above many of them and it's just
a good movie in its own right. Godzilla -1 To me the only other

(01:29:30):
movie that deserves to be mentioned alongside it is like
the 1954 original. Right?
In terms of like these are cinema classics that will go
down as some of the greatest movies ever made.
I like GMK in a lot of ways. GMK for a long time was taken as
the like dark and serious Godzilla, but it's hard not to
acknowledge that since -1 has come out and is largely like

(01:29:53):
inspired by it, but also significantly more focused as a
story about like the failure of the Japanese Empire and like how
people banded together. You know, in a collapsed post
war Japan like -1 is just going to sell you a lot of the like
intense action sequences and heavy emotions and dark themes a

(01:30:17):
lot better then GMK will. So like I John you.
Yeah, they're off to a great start.
If they don't have somebody justrandomly committing suicide in a
forest, I mean, you know. There's there's.
Talk about suicide. In -1 right like the main
character famously is a kamikazepilot in World War 2 who

(01:30:42):
chickens out of his kamikaze runand claims his plane has
problems and and well and has tolive with the post war Japan.
Guilt of like people thinking that people like him are the
reason they lost the war. Right Like very politically
dense and and complex movie. That's a different like right?
That that's a. Theme and an ongoing story as
opposed to just like randomly like on your screen.

(01:31:05):
Here's a little shocker. And a random, you know, right?
Compared to like. -1 wants to more directly, not to jump well
ahead of where we're at in Godzilla history.
But like, you know, I just, you know, for both of you and for a
lot of listeners, like I, I, youknow -1 is something that should
be on your radar as a movie, notas a Kaiju movie, not as a

(01:31:27):
sci-fi movie, just as a film is really good.
And unlike Shin Godzilla, I'm really looking forward to
covering that one. I'm so you know, we talked
about. I actually really love Brett
that you keep bringing up that like the suicide scene is so
weird and out of place because Ithink that the politics of this

(01:31:50):
movie are very confused. On the one hand, I.
Think we would call? It very progressive right for it
to call attention to Japanese war crimes from the inside right
but at the same. Time.
There's a weirdly conservative streak to a lot of like it

(01:32:13):
feels. Like it's trying to portray.
Societal ills every time one of these statues gets broken right
the biker gangs the fucking kidslike robbing the convenience
store and and trying to drown the dog and then the guy
committing suicide right. Like it feels like it it must be
thematically in line with those other two sequences because it's

(01:32:36):
the third time that people stumble onto one of these
shrines. But all I can think of is that
the movies maybe trying to make kind of a statement about
suicide as a societal ill in thesame way as these darn kids.
I don't know. Yeah, the the problem is it

(01:32:56):
just. Doesn't feel that way, right?
It's just like I said, if you don't know the back story of the
force, it's just all of a suddenthere's a random guy committing
suicide. And like, it's not funny, but it
was funny just because it felt so out of fucking place, you
know? It just, it just felt so yeah,
this movie could be so mean spirited.
That it wraps around to being funny like the the girl in the
hospital right is is a horror scene.

(01:33:17):
That's what I'm saying because it's so out of pocket like and
that's. That kind of.
Goes back to what I was. Saying earlier, like if it wants
to be silly and some like because like serious movies can
be funny, that's fine. But it's like you either need to
like dial it back or just like not do it at all because it was
just it was too extreme for me. And like all the cases, which
again, hilarious loved. I'm not saying it wasn't funny,

(01:33:41):
but it like it just it definitely one killed the
seriousness of the movie for me and two like again, gave me
whiplash about the like the tonethat they were trying to set and
everything. I think that.
There's a through line for this entire thing.
You're always really good at this part.
So. So I think there's a through

(01:34:05):
line here. I think that you're kind of
right when it's about you damn kids.
It this is this is a story aboutlike.
This movie has a strong opinion.About modern Japan, it it is
trying to say, I think essentially that modern Japan is
built off of the denial of the the older versions of Japan.

(01:34:30):
There's no respect for the old gods.
They deny their war crimes. They live in a society but the
society has like biker gangs andhorrible overworking where a
salary man like the suicide ratein Japan is I will say in Japan.
The cultural context of that sequence is something that's
much more apparent because it's just better known and

(01:34:53):
understood, even if not talked about that, like, a lot of
people fucking kill themselves because they just can't handle,
like, the overworking that has frequently been just a part of
the Japanese economy. Yeah, like.
Capitalism in Japan like grinds people to death like more.

(01:35:14):
I don't want to say more explicitly because it explicitly
does that here, but like the suicide rate there is immense
compared to anywhere, honestly, right.
So like well. The work work ethic in Japan has
always been so fucking stressfulthat it like it's been notorious
for suicide rates whereas America is just increasing

(01:35:35):
because our minimum wage and shit isn't going up.
Whereas Japan has just like their work ethic has always been
like top notch, like ever, like ever.
Since they were in like. I mean, well, I mean there's.
Like a literal suicide forest inJapan.
So like, that's how, that's how rough it is, yeah.
Well, that's The thing is peopleliterally like they work
themselves until they just fucking break, which is just not

(01:35:57):
a thing you see in the same way here in the United States.
You see people breaking as a result of like pressure from
work, you know, alongside other things and it taking time away
from their family. But like, people get absorbed,
like stereotypically get absorbed in their work in Japan.
I mean, the whole concept of thesalary man, right?

(01:36:18):
Is such a a a a a universal, universally recognized thing in
Japanese media that we don't have the same equivalent of in
the US, right? So I think there's something
like that going on. I don't, I'm not saying that
it's doing it particularly well.I think there's some type of is

(01:36:39):
it tempting a statement against?There's sort of a reverence for
the. Past versus yeah.
And I think, I think there's a there's a reverence for
collectivism because a lot of the the issues that it's trying
to highlight are issues that aremore apparent in an
individualistic society. This is a really good.
I think you kind of. Nailed it.
Because yeah, it is like it is aan an admiration for the old

(01:37:03):
ways, right, for what is ancient.
And it views modernity as, you know, something broadly to be
mocked or viewed with disdain. And like, it kind of puts the
war crimes as part of that modernity, right?
Like but there is an inherent conservative slant to any time

(01:37:26):
you say like the old ways were correct, we must return to, you
know, the things were better back in X day and actually today
is full of degeneracy. There's a little bit of.
That you're right. You're.
Right. Yeah.
And I mean. It it portrays the old ways as

(01:37:47):
hopeful because you know that the three guardians show up and
they're supposed to be protecting us and everything
like that. Like, I this Godzilla is clearly
just the first Godzilla that they couldn't kill.
And they're like, yeah, that it was destroyed.
But then it shows that, you know, the heart is at the bottom
of the Bay still beating. You can't kill this one.
This is clearly just the first Godzilla that didn't die.

(01:38:07):
I think the old man was Doctor Sarozawa because they never
really mentioned how old he was or anything about it.
Said he was 75. At the time, well, well, I'm
saying like they. Don't mention anything about the
doctor versus the old man. They could.
Separate them. So I, you know, this could be
like a repeating thing that's very prominent.

(01:38:28):
Could be, you know, it leaves a lot open to.
Interpretation, too, which, you know, yeah.
Ups and downs. To that right.
Right, so. But yeah, I think it's.
A. Modernity thing.
Conservative statement against modernity.
Fuck, why are you so good at this part?

(01:38:48):
I don't. Know.
Well, before we wrap up. Here I guess.
Really. What?
What what about this movie is going to stick with everybody?
I'll be honest, probably nothing.
That's the most John answer we could have gotten.

(01:39:10):
I'm here for the ride and shit so.
Like. I know, Britt.
I'm sorry. Go ahead.
No, no, no go you. You were first.
I'll go after. I was just going to say like.
Like look like, I am obviously not the target audience for,
for, you know, Godzilla stuff. I my my.
Presence on. Castle Bravo is to be that guy

(01:39:32):
who's who's like here's you know, here's the obligatory guy
who doesn't really watch these movies.
What does he think about this shit?
You know, and I have a great time doing it.
I. It was interesting to me
watching a movie this. Came out what in 2001 in. 2001.

(01:39:53):
But it looked like it was. Filmed in the in the early 80s,
it has that kind of weird color.Grading to it, doesn't it?
It's very 80s. It does and it it.
It really, really does and for me.
I just. Think that the movie was too
like I experienced tonal whiplash multiple times

(01:40:13):
throughout this movie and, and, and I think it kind of it's not
that I it's not that I hated it,but it it fell apart from me at
the end where I, I feel like themovie was leading up to this
massive confrontation, this massive like through three-way
battle between Godzilla and Mothra and Ghidorah and it just

(01:40:34):
didn't happen. I feel like we got the real meat
and potato because like, if I'm watching a Godzilla movie, I
want to see monsters duking it out, right?
And I feel like we got that withGodzilla versus Baragon.
And then that was really it. It's not even in the title.
Like, like, you know, I feel like the fight between Godzilla

(01:40:57):
and Ghidorah was was over the moment it began.
And. I don't know, like it sounds
like I'm I'm not I'm I'm trying not to shit all over this movie,
right, like, but it's also it's not something I'll ever revisit.
Does that make sense? Well, I think it's an important.
Perspective right? I'm not bringing people on so
that they can like fucking look all these movies like.

(01:41:23):
Jesus Christ, Derek. I didn't, John.
I didn't put you on so you couldsuck Berrigan off, OK?
I I didn't. And if you did, I wouldn't
anyway. Brit go ahead.
What it? Like, I loved that pause.
Between like between those two things, it was so again, I'm

(01:41:44):
like John, I'm not the target audience for Godzilla movies.
I do it because I love my friends and I'd I'd like.
To be immersed in. In culture that even if I'm not
like a fan of. I guess.
And it definitely was my favorite of all three that I've
watched so far, I think. Because a lot of it.

(01:42:06):
Reminds me of pretty. Guardian Sailor Moon The Live.
Action version, like I fucking loved that shit and I'm normally
not that type of person that like I'm very much a people in
suits is very cheesy and I don'tget how people enjoy this.
But I say that as somebody who thoroughly enjoyed pretty

(01:42:26):
Guardian, Sailor Moon and and the the sentineless of that
show. So I think it kind of brought
back a lot of that nostalgia forme when I watched it, you know,
so many years ago when it came out.
I think the biggest thing I'm going to take away from this is
how much fun I had watching it with Zach and just his reaction
was so unhappy. Well, like, at one point he was

(01:42:51):
like, he, like we started voicing the fucking Barragon
Godzilla fight. And I did Godzilla and, and he
did Barragon and we were like just voice acting the, the scene
and we were just cracking up to the point where we were in
tears. And, and, and maybe that's why I
enjoy the movie so much is 'cause I had fun with Zach

(01:43:11):
watching it. But yeah, he, he did not enjoy
it. But it's been, it's been my, my
favorite Godzilla movie I've watched so far.
Like as much as I fucking hate fucking the pussy taking a honk
off the Bobo movie, I I I had very fond feelings about it and
I hate that I hate that I'm like, this movie was so bad and

(01:43:34):
so wild that like nothing can compare to it.
So therefore it's good like. I have such like mixed.
Feelings about that fucking movie.
But yeah, I had fun watching it.I again, I'm not the target
audience. I'll, I'll probably not watch it
again, but I will. I will have fun fond memories of

(01:43:56):
it and and the friends I made along the way like Baragon and
Mothra. Definitely knock.
Gadora shit fucker, Yeah. Literally everybody.
Tried their best except for him.He just fucking Ghidorah.
Ghidorah. Just sitting in the.
Cock chair. And that's right.
He should have been the one who got the.
Miss out. On the title, yeah, he should

(01:44:18):
have. That's who the old man should
have been standing on and tryingto raise.
Maybe. Maybe.
I can't put it together. I was going to say, maybe the
the one guy trying to kill himself over Ghidorah's shrine
is like emblematic of how Ghidorah should just fucking
kill himself. You know what that.
That checks out. Like, like Ghidorah's willing to

(01:44:41):
give up that fucking easy just as much as that guy was.
We are giving that guy such a hard time and we don't know even
know what he's been through. No, it's like again.
I I. Joke, not right, not obviously
suicide is a serious topic. I just joke on just the the
placement of it and as as an American consumer, not knowing

(01:45:05):
the back story behind, you know,Japanese work ethic and that
forest in particular. So yeah, it was, it was my most
enjoyable so far. Mothra saved a dog, so I know
she's queen, queen. Shit, Charlotte.
Yeah, I'm going to. Yap for a second.
Because I just thought about something because they they

(01:45:27):
brought up Saigo Takamori and like I said, he wasn't like at
the time by the government. I want to be very specific in
case anybody tries to call me out about that, but he's kind of
a legendary figure. And so like he you know, that
that location being selected as one of the the the guardians
right, of the old ways makes sense.

(01:45:48):
Anyway, Evil Godzilla will stickwith me because I, I think evil
Godzilla is kind of wrong. Yeah, he definitely like he he
slapped. Man like he fucking stood on
business and did not take shit from anybody and the only the to
be fair the only way Godzilla died is that mother fucker had

(01:46:10):
to kill himself. Everybody else was too fucking
weak to do it and that mother fucker killed himself and he
didn't even die. No.
No, again he stood on business. Oh, I guess.
It's a lot of you. Done.
I think so. Yeah, I.
Think for me. Like coming back?
To this in. My 30s as a like an older, a

(01:46:35):
wiser, a more media literate person looking at these three
different lens, There's elementsof this that I appreciate a lot
more than when I was younger watching it for the first time.
Like, wow, this movie kicks ass,right?
But they're like, I also see theseams more right, the the ways
in which it doesn't totally fit together, the ways in which
there is some tonal whiplash where I wish it had just kind

(01:46:56):
of, I almost wish it had leaned more into just being the mean
one, right, because I think the movie's at.
Its. Best when it and not to be an
edgy person, but like this movie's at its best when it's
showing people suffering in Godzilla's wake.
Right in the way that the original movie sticks with me

(01:47:17):
because of like the scene of thethe family getting scanned with
the Geiger counter and you realizing that the entire family
is dead walking from how much radiation they've absorbed.
Or like the little girl screaming and crying over her
dead mother and having to be pulled away by the MPs like in
that same. Way like.

(01:47:37):
GMK is powerful because it showspeople suffering, like on an
individual scale in a way this that these movies tend not to.
But like, it doesn't know as much what it wants to say.
And like, yeah, OK, the line about Godzilla being the souls
of the the World War 2 dead mad about war crimes, that goes

(01:47:59):
really hard. But you don't thematically do
anything with it, right. It's it's an explanation as to
why you have an evil wide eyed Godzilla.
But like, nobody has to come to terms with and go like, this is
our sin returned to like, you know, to, to like wreak havoc

(01:48:22):
upon us, you know? Yeah, it's, it's it, it should
have gone farther. And in a lot of ways, having
seen -1 now, like a lot of what I like about this movie has just
been done so much better now. So and with that with none of
the flaws so and you know it, itsucks that like 1.
Of the people that was there forthe first Godzilla attack ends

(01:48:45):
up being the person that has to take care of it.
There could almost be something to.
That if the movie cared to say something about it, yeah.
Like close it all, but they don't it's.
Not gonna, but you know, really good time.
Definitely a much better movie than the last two.
You know, I'll be curious to seehow I still feel about this one.

(01:49:07):
However many movies from now, right?
I'm going to be looking back on it.
Fondly when I hit. Shin Godzilla, I'll tell you
fucking that. So.
That is a wrap. On this episode, thank you all
so much for joining us on our journey so far.
Britt, my best friend, where canpeople find you and do you have

(01:49:27):
anything to plug? So I'm on a little.
Podcast called SGGC don't go listen to it that's.
My not. And you can follow me on.
Blue sky at Pichia. No, it's we're we're gone.
We're done with Twitter. So I, I, I, I snagged Pichia, so
you can find me there if you want some more bad opinions.

(01:49:49):
Yeah, John. My best friend Likewise.
Where can people find you? Don't.
I'm done, I'm leaving. Fuck this.
No I I started SGGC go listen toit every Thursday and you can
find me if you want to on blue sky.

(01:50:12):
I'm magic tech dad. But also I don't recommend you
find me. All I post about is video games
Doom shit, not the video game, but just like the doom of man
and my own rippling muscles. So that's I was going to say,
weren't you reach your posting? Earlier, Yeah, basically.
So you know. And then you can follow me on

(01:50:36):
Blue Sky at at Derek Van Dyke. And you can.
Follow me. On blue sky at blood dot doll
dot church if you've enjoyed this 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.

(01:50:58):
See you Next Whenever and next whenever is increasingly
becoming a little bit more infrequent with the season.
So I'm sorry and take care everyone.
Castle Bravo is a production of.Derek Van Dyke and Charlotte
Landale All editing is. Performed by Derek.
Van Dyke, special thanks. To Kyrie Lamont.

(01:51:19):
For our art assets and to David Van.
Dyke for our theme. Song pools of memory.

All Episodes

Episode 41 - Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack / GMK (2001)

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Cold Case Files: Miami

Dateline NBC

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 41 - Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack / GMK (2001)