by Legion » Thu Oct 15, 2009 9:44 pm
I love Mothra vs Godzilla. Look no further than my avatar and sig. But yet I adore Megalon and Terror. Screwy, ain't it? I think being rigid and steadfast in one's preferences is a narrow way of looking at things, especially when it comes to the Showa Godzilla movies, with some entries being polar opposites of others.
When I watch Mothra vs Godzilla I tap into the part of me that loves the serious, Honda/Tsuburaya classics of the early 1960s. I'm certainly not going to use the same mindset when watching Godzilla vs Megalon. If I decide I'm going to watch Megalon I'm going to unleash my inner child for 90 minutes, grab a beer and enjoy it for the gloriously goofy kiddie flick that it is. People who judge the Japanese giant monster genre based on one stringent set of criteria (and I'm not specifically talking about you, zekend) baffle the hell out of me.
I love allegory and awe as much as the next guy. But the Toho kaiju films of the '60s (and especially the '70s) were not going to get by on the same tricks over and over again.