TALKBACK: Rebirth of Mothra Trilogy

[RaymondBurr]

That's right--it's on!



Post your thoughts here!!!

[MekaGojira3k]

[Mac]

[RaymondBurr]

[MekaGojira3k]

[MouthForWar]

Death Ghidorah is pretty cool I guess, but the movie is BORING, which is its biggest sin. If the kids are young enough, they might dig it, but its not a good movie. This movie isn't nearly as offensively bad as the next entry, but its still not good.

And people talk a lot of sh*t about the Heisei Godzilla movies, but THIS is when Kawakita totally lost his mind with the beams. Mothra Leo shoots a beam from like every part on his body.

Hell... THE MOTHRA LAVRA SHOOTS A BEAM!

I just want all of you to process that for a moment.

[RaymondBurr]

Baby Mothra is about to transform herself into Mothy Mothra. It's pretty moving... ok, it's not moving at all. BUT! The Mommy Mothra/Baby Mothra battle with Death Ghidorah knocked my socks off (yes, both of them).

More on this later! Until then!

[Benjamin Haines]

[RaymondBurr]

Ok, I'm back with some thoughts on Rebirth of Mothra. I'll start out by saying that I did like it a lot. The conceit you have to make going in is: this movie is a kids movie. It's. Not. For. You. or for me. It's for the kids. Going in with that on the table, I was freed up to enjoy the monsters in all their Heisei-y glory. The monster designs were great and the suits looked good. I thought it was funny how at first when the Elias fairies begin to sing, the film starts to look like a karaoke video--and we are treated to this on at least three occasions!

It seems like the filmmakers had their audience well in mind as the film is pretty well paced. The first 100 minutes feature plenty of monster appearances and if you count the fairy fire fight, those first hour is packed with action. It's not until after Baby Mothra beats a retreat that things slow down for a bit.

As for the monster battles though, they are top notch kaiju fun. The aforementioned fairy dog fight is not insufferable, and considering the scene was all done with models and green screens, I found it to be a pretty impressive effects scene. Death Ghidorah is really the main attraction here though. I enjoyed how Death Ghidorah's breath weapon builds up as the battle progresses. First he is breathing real fire, then something like fire balls by the time he's fighting against Baby, and then a full fledged fire "beam" while fighting both Baby and Mama Mothra.

While the battle does feature plenty of beam and glitter, the BEAT DOWN on Mothra is physically brutal. During the combat Baby is mauled and stomped by Death Ghidorah to the point of gushing blood, and in fact Mama Mothra also mauled and stomped {:-o I've never been a fan of Mothra, but the battle is so intense, you can't help but root for Mothra.. both of them--no matter how gross Baby Mothra is! In a movie where the monsters are characters, Rebirth of Mothra let's you feel for them, you root for them--AND--you actually hate the bad guy (although he looks very impressive while being bad). All the beamy stuff that happens during the battle didn't bother me because, while the original Mothra was really portrayed as a product of science, the Heisei-era Mothra is portrayed as a mystical creature that draws on "energies" from nature, etc. So at least there is some internal logic, even when Baby shoots her "Green Beam"

The only things that disappointed me about the film were the insistence on calling Death Ghidorah "Des[u] Ghidorah" in the dubbing, and the ease with which the Reborn Mothra dispatches Death Ghidorah during the final battle. It's clear that the choreography of the fight, with beams of energy sprouting up everywhere, was heavily influenced by video game magic duels and special moves. Nevertheless, I found Rebirth of Mothra to be a satisfying monster outing.

I'm planning to check out the remaining two films in the trilogy. But, I remember catching part of RoM II on the Sci Fi Channel years ago and being less than impressed. Even so, I'm going to do my best to go in with an open mind. Mothra's foe in the film looks pretty cool at least. It looks like RoM III is a bit tricky to track down, but I''ll see what I can do--I'd hate to miss another appearance by Ghidorah!

EDIT: Had my time code mixed up. 1:00 = 1 hour not 100minutes-- d'oh!

[MekaGojira3k]

I plan on watching this in a few weeks as well and giving some detailed thoughts (if any are to be had), but I must say that I enjoyed this film well enough as a kid. I don't think I've rewatched them in a while, but I recall this easily being the best of the bunch, with the 2nd being the worst.

[RyanClark]

[jellydonut25]

[MekaGojira3k]

[H-Man]

[ultrazilla2000]

[kiryugoji04]

[MekaGojira3k]

[king_ghidorah]

[Tyler E. Martin]

[kiryugoji04]

[jellydonut25]

[MekaGojira3k]

[kiryugoji04]

[The Shadow]

Gosh, it's been years since I've watched Rebirth of Mothra. I'll have to go back and watch it for more substantial to say.

I picked up Sony's flipper disc release of the first two movies over a decade ago at AAFES (whoever was in charge of getting DVDs at the time did a much better job that whoever does it now). I'm not sure if I knew that the RoM movies were "kid" movies watching them the first time.

[RaymondBurr]