Favorite Godzilla Films & Other Kaiju Media

[Powder]

Who here's a Godzilla fan? The Big G is one of my greatest loves, especially these days. Always liked the property as a kid, had seen a number of the films over time, but I watched every single movie to date with my shorty throughout 2019/20 & it really lit a flame in me. Went from a casual fan to a hardcore one. Got the collecting bug & all that. I've even got his autograph!

I was surprised to find, upon taking part in the fandom a little bit, that most of my favorites are looked down upon, & conversely, the fan favorites were the ones we didn't particularly care for. So I'm curious to see how we'll measure up here.

ALSO! Gamera, anyone? The heisei trilogy is absolutely incredible. Better than a good chunk of Godzilla out there, I dare say. Shame the two have never met, although attempts were made. How about Ultraman? It was born of the same special effects guys, featuring a ton of cool kaiju, some of which having been repurposed Godzilla pieces.

My favorites, in no particular order...

-Shin Godzilla
Just an absolute masterpiece. Does everything right. Sort of a reimagining of 1954's debut picture, portraying the titular character as a walking natural disaster, an atrocity of man's making. It shows how utterly unprepared the government & military are to deal with something on this scale, how vulnerable cities truly are to great forces of destruction. There's a really artistic eye to its cinematography, intrigue to Godzilla's rapid evolutionary process, conflict between world powers, so much to take in. Best of all is the design of God himself, easily the most horrifying look he's had to date, abilities included, so cool. A subtlety I greatly appreciate is how there is an element of tragedy, in how Godzilla knows only pain, & does not necessarily act with any malicious intent despite its terror. It simply exists although it should not, continuously mutating, being attacked as it comes up for air to explore its surroundings & new body for the first time.

-Vs Space Godzilla
I love evil clone characters, generally speaking. I dunno why, it's just fun to see opposites, I guess. Godzilla's cells, scattered into space, make contact with a meteor of extraterrestrial origin, mutating it into a crystallized counterpart. The dude comes down & just starts terraforming & terrorizing, with a smile. Honestly, part of why I like this movie so much is the monster designs. Spacegoji is just too cool. & I love that Godzilla's son is involved as well.

-Vs Hedorah
It's straight up psychedelic. Total time capsule of the era, with hippies & all. Really, really trippy from visuals to plot elements. Has animated segments, even. Hedorah is just a giant slime creature that moves slowly but it's somehow so damn charismatic, with its little frog croaks & cat-like mewing, not to mention the fact it feeds on smokestacks that no doubt are a nod to bong rips. There's a theme throughout about pollution's devastating effects on the world, not dissimilar to Godzilla & how he is the symbol of radiation's harm, so it was a fitting way to move with the times & draw parallels to man's continued carelessness in the then modern times.

-Final Wars
It's like a remake of Destroy All Monsters in the style of anime meets super sentai meets The Matrix. It's so ridiculously over the top, with motorcylce chases, martial arts (complete with wall running!), a samurai sword wielding muscle man submarine captain, you name it. Practically every freakin' kaiju shows up, & looks incredibly cool. It's balls to the walls through & through, & the makeover that certain old time monsters got, looked great!

-Son Of Godzilla
I know it's really dorky, comedic, outright stupid, even. I just love Minya, he's hilarious. He's so ugly that it comes full circle & becomes cute again. There are a lot of really amusing moments between him & his papa, seeing Godzilla as a parent is too absurd not to fall in love with. The practical effects on all the insect enemies are killer, making up for the less than stellar Godzilla suit, IMO.

-Vs Mecha Godzilla (2002)
Sickest MG design. The concept of it gaining sentience through the posession of Godzilla's DNA is sick. Great action, compelling human parts, just overall of really good quality. Best of all the MG attempts, I think.

-Vs Megalon
A tag-team romp between the two heavy clawed beasts, Gigan & Megalon, against Godzilla & a toy robot made titan size, Jet Jaguar. It's just peak tokusatsu. I love every character design, the ridiculous plot of Atlantians having a rhinoceros beetle as their overseer, Godzilla having a strange acquaintence, it's mega goofy but mega FUN!

Some honorable mentions to The Mothra trilogy! Legit some of the greatest work Toho ever did, I think. Absolutely incredible set of movies that most people don't even know about. They're aimed at a younger audience, but hit all the right notes to please everyone. Kinda remind me a lot of 80's kid's fantasy, stuff like The Neverending Story. Great designs all around, & some superb set design, too, like an underwater temple, complete with a holographic giantess maiden! I also really like King Kong returns, Toho's "sequel" to Godzilla Vs Kong, giving their version of the big ape his own solo venture, fighting not only an evolved T-Rex, but a robot version of himself. It's really wacky, but if you like that showa era cheese, go for it.

I couldn't stand Vs. King Ghidorah '91 or GMK, though most love them...

[Allio]

The Heisei Gamers trilogy is fantastic.

Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters has some of the best mecha fights in Super Sentai (fights ruined by the horrid music/sound usage in Power Rangers Beast Morphers)

Kaiju Girl Caramelise is a shoujo manga with a Kaiju twist. It’s about a girl that falls in love with a boy but if her emotions goes too far she goes giant monster mode.

Gappa is a great movie.

Kaiju Girl humanization project is funky. It’s a comedy series about what happens to Kaiju that are killed by Ultraman - they get turned into anime girls.

Reigo/Raiga series is just campy indie film.

Howl from Beyond the Fog is an interesting one. It’s a short indie film that uses puppetry.

The manga Daikaijuu (or Creature in English) is one that needs to be read. Let’s just say things escalate. It even puts monsters in Godzilla to shame.

Marvel’s first story in Ultraman was okay. Hoping it will pick up.

As for my favorite Godzilla stories, in no particular order:

Original
Vs. Biollante
GMK
Against Mecha Godzilla
Shin Godzilla
Half-Century War

[Leo656]

I still haven't seen them all, but I've slowly started collecting and watching them over the last few years. Which reminds me, I should pick up a few of the ones I'm missing. My wife used to completely not care at all but I've managed to get her into it as well.

I always had what I would call an "appreciation" for the character and the franchise, but most of what I knew firsthand came from choppy Sunday-afternoon reruns back in the 1980s and 90s, which may be how MOST of my generation first "met" Godzilla but could also be argued isn't the "best" way to get into it.

Then a few years ago I was at Best Buy and they had the "Gojira: The Original Japanese Masterpiece" DVD set on sale for a good price, and to be honest I was always kind of holding out until I could watch that before getting any deeper in. And I really, really like that movie. Actually I don't think I ever got through the American version of it, nor do I have much urgency to. I'm sure I will eventually but it does seem kind of pointless.

Like I said, I still haven't seen all or even most of them, and the ones I've seen I admit that I've seen them only a couple of times so I forget titles and whatnot, but I promise I'll try and do better.

I did really like "Final Wars", though, even though it's got some flaws that I readily accept and admit to. BUT, I can't help but love the concept and the execution of it is more or less about as good as could ever be done with that premise. Selfishly, I absolutely love Godzilla's "Ahhhhh, F*CK you!" dismissive defeat of his American bastard counterpart, "Zilla". It's less of a "movie" and more just wall-to-wall fanservice, but you do need that SOMEtimes.

"Shin" was pretty good. I had some mixed feelings about it - I mean it's SUCH a radical departure from anything typical of what one would call "Godzilla", but that was entirely the point and as reboots/re-imaginings go it wasn't bad at all. I'd watch a sequel, but the last I heard they were definitely not doing one. I'd be down for it, though.

Pretty much anything with King Ghidorah in it gets applause from me. I can't help it, I love everything about that son of a bitch.

I must say, though, that much of the "goofy period" stuff just doesn't get a rise out of me. I mean, y'all know me, that kind of stuff is always Hit or Miss with me to begin with; sometimes it's great, sometimes I really can't stand it, it all depends on what it is. With Giant Monster Stuff, I prefer verisimilitude over whimsy. But that's me, and I get why to some people "the goofy stuff" IS Godzilla. And that's fine, I just don't prefer those particular movies. There's entertainment value in them, though.

My all-time favorite visual design of Godzilla is from the "Millennium Series", though. He just looks so goddamn demonic and sinister. Absolutely love that look.

I also enjoy the games from the PS2/Xbox/Gamecube/Wii era quite a bit. There's not a lot to them but I mean, what more could you really want? The only other way to do it would be just a straight-up "Rampage" clone, and that would be fun too but I like what they were going for. I just wish that the controls were generally tighter in those games. Too much of the time it felt like you'd mash buttons and the game either Would or Would Not actually let you perform the move that corresponded to your input. I played them a lot anyway, though. Good times.

[Shark_Blade]

Shin Godzilla - absolutely great. The Japanese know how to deliver their monster film well. I remember an audience was legit terrified when Godzilla was glaring menacingly at us in the night scene - just it’s eyes were enough to spook people

Godzilla: King of the Monsters (feat Millie Bobby Brown from Stranger Things) - thought it was absolutely crap. I’m gonna stick with the Japanese godzilla

[sdp]

Favorite Godzilla movie is definitely Shin Gojira, after that I have favorites which include Godzilla 1954 Jap. ver., Godzilla 1984, Godzilla 1998 yes it's awesome, VS Space Godzilla, vs. King Ghidorah 1992. Overall I'm more into Heisei stuff, need to give Millenium and Showa a chance again since when I watched most of their stuff was in the 00's and couldn't stand the campy takes.

I love Gamera though, and all the showa era movies included. I also think the millenium The Brave movie was a great little tribute to the franchise. We need a revival for this monster.

Other Kaiju stuff, Ultraman doesn't seem to appeal to me despite having had it recommended it before so I've never checked it out. Well I guess I did get into the spin-off Gridman / Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad. You have an ultraman esque character who goes into computers to fight Viruses so it's basically giant Kaiju inside the computer, it's awesome.

[The Deadman]

Favorite Godzilla movie? The '98 version.

That's a lot of fish.

[Wildcat]

I honestly like Godzilla 98. It’s a cool giant creature movie. Just needed a different name. I still have my Zilla toy. Not the big figure but a basic model. Shoots a blue “missile” from it’s mouth.

I’ve seen a handful of Godzilla movies. Let’s see if I can remember. Only seen them once so can’t give much of an opinion. I’m not as into it as others.

Godzilla KotM 1956
Godzilla Raids Again
Godzilla’s Revenge (horribly misleading title)
Godzilla vs Rodan
Terror of MechaGodzilla
vs MechaGodzilla 2
vs SpaceGodzilla
vs Megaguirus
vs King Ghidorah 1991
Godzilla 2000
Giant Monsters All Out Attack
1 or 2 with Mothra. I can’t remember

To my understanding the Showa era is the “silly” era. Where Godzilla looks like a muppet and dances around. I’ve seen him referred to as Cookie Monster. Anyway I don’t like these. A lighter tone and being the hero is fine but the way they’re portrayed is hard to take seriously.

[ZariusTwo]

Godzilla 98 did have a pretty worthy sequel in the animated series

[Wildcat]

Ya I’ve heard it was good. I did not see it but I just checked Amazon and the complete series is on DVD. Only $8.99. I should get it along with the movie.

I saw it in theaters but never got it on home video. I’ve rewatched it a couple of times on tv.

[sdp]

While I really like thatGodzilla 1998 got a sequel with the cartoon, I don't think it's as amazing as people say it is. It's definitely cool but not "better than the movie", it's pretty much a good sequel because it feels like the movie in a way. And many of the things it did were what we would've gotten on a real sequel.

Originally Posted by ZariusTwo

Godzilla 98 did have a pretty worthy sequel in the animated series

Originally Posted by Wildcat

I honestly like Godzilla 98. It’s a cool giant creature movie. Just needed a different name. I still have my Zilla toy. Not the big figure but a basic model. Shoots a blue “missile” from it’s mouth.

Why did it need a different name? It's clearly a more modern Godzilla design, instead of the bipedal T-Rex look the original had, this one is more in line to what a T-Rex looked like. It was supposed to be a new version after all.

[Leo656]

'Zilla '98 had a terrible design. Not threatening at all, no sense of menace. It didn't help that he was booked to go out like a punk, but unlike every other Godzilla, I never got the feeling that "This thing could destroy the whole world if left unchecked." Which is kind of essential for Godzilla.

Shogo Tomiyama and Ryuhei Kitamura hit the nail on the head when they said the '98 movie and creature "took the 'God' out of 'Godzilla'." Although I do think it's neat that he's sort of peripherally become part of the franchise, with the Japanese versions throwing shade at it. It would have been easier to just say "That never happened" but going so far as to reference the '98 movie in their own movies was rather clever. Catty, perhaps, but it made sense.

[Wildcat]

I think Zilla had a really cool design. Like a lean super dinosaur. This would definitely be scary to see come out of the ocean.

Originally Posted by sdp

Why did it need a different name? It's clearly a more modern Godzilla design, instead of the bipedal T-Rex look the original had, this one is more in line to what a T-Rex looked like. It was supposed to be a new version after all.

I guess that’s true. I said it should have had a different name because the character is pretty different. It cannot shoot a beam and could lay eggs.

[Powder]

Originally Posted by Leo656

"Shin" was pretty good. I had some mixed feelings about it - I mean it's SUCH a radical departure from anything typical of what one would call "Godzilla", but that was entirely the point and as reboots/re-imaginings go it wasn't bad at all. I'd watch a sequel, but the last I heard they were definitely not doing one. I'd be down for it, though.

Pretty much anything with King Ghidorah in it gets applause from me. I can't help it, I love everything about that son of a bitch.

How so? I know the design takes some liberties, but the film itself is pretty faithful, no? It's basically 1954, amped up. He storms the city, politicians & military parties strategize & attack, bada bing, bada boom. No sequel's planned, unfortunately, no. There would have been, given how well it's been received (after all, Shin is considered the modern face of Godzilla by default, in Japan) but Toho's plan is to take the "Marvel approach" of a cinematic universe, instead. They want to reboot with a fresh take on Godzilla, & make films for the various other kaiju as well, Mothra, Rodan, etc. like they did in the late 50's/early 60's, & ultimately have them all come together. I'm down for it, just wish Shin was who they were using. I guess it would be hard to one-up him in the threatening monster department, hence starting over, & likely scaling things back a bit to facilitate it.

King Ghidorah is super cool, & iconic, but I think he has, for the most part, some of the worst starring roles. Just about all of the films that feature him as the main antagonist are garbo. A shame, really.

Originally Posted by Leo656

Shogo Tomiyama and Ryuhei Kitamura hit the nail on the head when they said the '98 movie and creature "took the 'God' out of 'Godzilla'." Although I do think it's neat that he's sort of peripherally become part of the franchise, with the Japanese versions throwing shade at it. It would have been easier to just say "That never happened" but going so far as to reference the '98 movie in their own movies was rather clever. Catty, perhaps, but it made sense.

I've always liked Zilla's design. Maybe not for The Big G, but in general, it's pretty cool. Retconning it to be just another kaiju in the vast world of giant radiated monsters was an incredibly cool move on Toho's part, I think. Zilla was basically set aside as an iguana that got mutated, mistaken for Godzilla, destroyed some cities, had some babies, retreated to an island in the ocean, & come back for one last romp, to be beaten by the actual Godzilla. I'm all for it. Much better than just pretending it never existed. If you can treat '98 as a standalone feature for one of Godzilla's future opponents, much like Mothra '61 or Rodan '59, it works great! It's a decent popcorn flick, on a whole.

Originally Posted by sdp

I love Gamera though, and all the showa era movies included. I also think the millenium The Brave movie was a great little tribute to the franchise. We need a revival for this monster.

Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad

I've not yet seen all the showa Gamera entries, but I absolutely love Guiron, & I hope that any future reboot will use him. Brave was shockingly good, wasn't it? Bit of a dorky design for Toto, but what a rich & compelling story. & that enemy design, whoa!

As for SSS, you gotta love how Playmates recycled a ton of TMNT weapons for that toyline, leaving many people confused to this day when they come across a familiar blade in the "wrong" colors.

[Leo656]

I guess by "so different" I mostly meant the visual and evolutionary style of "Shin". Like it's practically a different monster altogether than what one might call "Godzilla". But obviously in-universe those things don't matter because in-universe there's no other "Godzillas" to compare it to. The new ideas were very cool, though.

As far as the basic story and all of that goes, though, yeah that's all pretty much straight Godzilla, for sure.