Monster Zero x SciFi Japan - Archive Only

Ok,

I haven't seen Godzilla vs the Smog Monster since I was a kid. I just got a chance to watch it again.

When I was a kid, I HATED this movie and it has caused me to not really be one of Hedorah's biggest fans for years.

However, as an adult and someone who is MUCH more familiar with the late 60's/early 70's counter culture, I actually found this movie pretty good. Yes, it was trippy, weird, and so psychadelic it made the Monkey's "Head" movie look normal. Even Godzilla's atomic breath was that trippy green color. I felt like i should be taking a toke of something while watching this thing.

My question though...

Who was this movie made for?

Not for children certainly. If you ignore all the Dennis Hopper stuff, the fact is that this movie is exceedingly violent and the deaths are very nasty. The monster melts people and the kid weilds a knife he shouldn't even be carrying.

Follow it up with the OBVIOUS drug-culture film style and you have a movie that not many kids will probably like or understand. Just as I didn't when I was young.

It couldn't have been made for the conservative Japanese Adults of the time, I'm doubting many of them were even in the theater watching this movie.

So they obviously made it for teens right?

Would counter culture teenagers have been going to see what were considered kids films at the time?

Who was this movie's target audience?

-Ray

You're right, it was probably made for the teenagers and young adults, considering the psychedelic music and scenes, the drug induced cartoons and violence. Smog Monster has always been and will always be one of my personal favorites.


Ricky

That probably, partially accounts for why the film was a dissappointment at the box-office. It had trouble finding an audience. That, and the fact that Godzilla movies were on their way out by 1970. Personally, I liked the film as a lil' tike, and still do. But then again, I'm stupid, so...

"Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster" was really the first Godzilla movie I ever saw, way back in the summer of '83. Actually, there was an airing of "DAM" that I caught only very small bits and pieces of throughout the airing one day sometime before I saw "Smog", but since I didn't actually watch the entire movie (probably less than 5 min. total) I don't really consider it to be my first G movie. Anyway, "Smog" was the first Godzilla movie I ever saw all the way through, and it has been one of my G movie faves ever since. As far as wondering who its target audience was, I couldn't tell you for sure (we could speculate on this question all day), but I can tell you that I LOVED it when I was a kid, and I still LOVE it to this day!

My first G-Film at 4 years old and still my favorite today, 35 years later.

As a kid, I didn't much care for this one. As an adult, I see it through very different eyes, and I rather enjoyed it. Maybe because I *got* some of the hippy/mod/drug-induced references now whereas as a kid it just seemed goofy and made no sense. I mean, in one scene it's pretty darn obvious Hedorah's toking up off of the factory chimneys.

It's definitely a product of the times, and a neat little time capsule of a movie. As for who the target audience was......yep, I got nothing too.

This, along with Destroy All Monsters was one of the last Showa films I saw. I loved it, don't know why I just did. I saw it when Scifi did their Godzilla showings in the May of 98'. As a result it's one of my favorite Showa films. Save the earth w00.