TALKBACK #6: Invasion of Astro Monster

[DannyBeane]

The monster debate from Ghidrah was one of my favorite scenes! It was very surreal and also features one of the best quotes in the series "Oh Godzilla what terrible language!"

[lhb412]

[tbeasley]

I like the monster summit. It's basically saying if destructive monsters can unite to take on a greater threat humans should be able to as well. Perhaps they could have done it in a less humanizing way, but it's vital to the plot and supports the story and its themes.

The dance is a little different. I like it, but you could snip it out and not make much difference to the overall movie.

[Mac]

Godzilla's character arc in GTTHM is going from scourge of humanity to reluctant (people always seem to forget that) hero.The monster summit scenes are the bridge to that transformation. They're necessary and important.

Godzilla is Monster Zero is essentially the soul-less monster of Mothra vs Godzilla, and a stand-in metaphor for nuclear weapons again, this time dealing with proliferation rather than the fallout itself. When the 'dance' scene happens its totally out-of-character for how Godzilla's portrayed in the film (serious and deadly), and it's what the film is famous for now, which is a crying shame, because it's about as thoughtful as the original Godzilla.

[Russzilla]

Watched this for the 100th time tonight. Still love it. I really wish Nick Adams had done more Toho kaiju films. He was as cool as they came, and his character in Monster Zero was great. Speaking of which, can someone tell me why he didn't come back to reprise his character for the Frankenstein sequel, War of the Gargantuas?

[MekaGojira3k]

[Shin_Edda_Robo!!!!!]

What I really wanna see is The Killing Bottle with Nick Adams.

[Russzilla]

[H-Man]

According to Peter H. Brothers in Mushroom Clouds and Mushroom Men, "Nick Adams was unfortunately unavailable to reprise his role." I think that's probably the case but Brothers doesn't cite his source.

Now why was Adams unavailable? Beats me. A quick glance at his IMDb page shows he made only one film released in 1966, Don't Worry, We'll Think of a Title, and he is uncredited in that. (Probably a small part.) He also guest starred in several TV shows during the '66-'67 season. All of those were first broadcast from October 1966 to February 1967 so he would have spent the tail end of 1966 working on those. WOTG was released in Japan on July 31, 1966, so it seems doubtful that those productions kept him from doing a movie in Japan in early 1966.

And for what it's worth, the IMDb trivia page for Gargantuas suggests that Tab Hunter was the first choice for Dr. Stewart.

[Gwangi]

[MekaGojira3k]

[Gwangi]

Not sure, but the answer may lie in Henry Saperstein. "Frankenstein", "Monster Zero" & "Gargantuas" were his productions. "The Killing Bottle" I believe was not a Hank Saperstein/UPA production, but I am not positive on that.

[MekaGojira3k]

[Dr Kain]

[Hybrid Gojira]

[Shin_Edda_Robo!!!!!]

Monster Zero has one of the least amount of Godzilla/kaiju action in the series, but since the cast is so strong I really don't care. I think Ghidorah had better done monster scenes for certain, and I liked the characters in that one. But as far as performances, I got to put it in Monster Zero.

Still wished there was an International Dub for Ghidorah The Three Headed Monster...

Then I wouldn't be able to hear HULLY UPPU HAYAKU.

[Hybrid Gojira]

[Shin_Edda_Robo!!!!!]

I'm kind of a dub aficionado. One of the things I can't get away from my mind is HULLY UP (HURRY UP). Why bother doing this?

When Mothra vs Godzilla was dubbed, the pseudo cartoony Asian voices didn't resort to that extreme, and it was consistent too

But perhaps what bothered me the most was the inconsistency of the dub. Do they use full blown cartoony Asian voices? Or just dubbed dialogue without any need for accents? Why does Yuriko Hoshi speak in the cartoony asian accent while Yosuke Natsuki doesn't? Or the mispronunciations of names. And of course the ever present

MM HMMM

It's all over the place with that one. I rather like Monster Zero's dub because its mostly well acted, and it prefers to not use the cartoony Asian voices.

[Hybrid Gojira]

[Shin_Edda_Robo!!!!!]

[Dr Kain]

So who do you guys think is a better character. Tako from KKvsG or Glenn from this?

[walshiam]

Any character that makes me laugh gets my vote.

[Shin_Edda_Robo!!!!!]

[Hybrid Gojira]

Watching the dub now.

Glenn is awesome.

Akira Takarada is awesome.

Some of the matte shots are incredible - people running in the foreground with the monsters rampaging behind them - it's sad to see how bad some of the Heisei matte shots are by comparison. This movie also has beautiful color...and it's fun! The last 30 minutes is basically non-stop action.

The Godzilla suit has really grown on me. It looks terrible by comparison in 1966, but in this film Godzilla looks fierce.

Oh, and Rodan owns Ghidorah. He lands the best attack in both GTTHM (when he rams him out of the sky) and here (when he bulldozes KG over as Godzilla is holding his tail).

[DannyBeane]