Monster Zero x SciFi Japan - Archive Only

-Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah:Giant Monsters All-Out Attack!
-Godzilla X Mechagodzilla
-Godzilla, Mothra, Mechagodzilla: Tokyo S.O.S
-Godzilla 2000:Millennium
-Godzilla X Megaguirus




-Godzilla:Final Wars. :puke:

To be honest, I don't remember if I've done this one yet, and I don't feel like combing through the pages, so...

Giant Monsters All-Out Attack - Sure it takes certain liberties with the mythologies of the monsters, but I credit Kaneko with still capturing the essence of a genre film, perhaps better than anyone save for Ishiro Honda. He is clearly a superior filmmaker, and this movie injects some much-needed life into a tired formula. I think it's one of the best, period.

Godzilla X Mechagodzilla - Once you get past the fact that Masaaki Tezuka is more of a fan than a professional director, this one is much easier to accept. It is easily the best of his three Godzilla movies. Godzilla may play second-fiddle to "Kiryu" here, but atleast it makes sense in terms of the story. I think they put alot into this incarnation of Mechagodzilla, all the way from conception to realization. I don't know, I like this movie. I give it more leeway than I normally would.

Godzilla 2000 - Plenty of good ideas here, in a film that plays up the mysterious elements of Godzilla's nature in a way that few movies have. I wouldn't call this a "dark" entry, but there is a certain under-current to it that's kind of effective. Katagiri is a great villian. As typical to his form, Takao Okawara misses the opportunity to develop some of the screenplay's more interesting aspects (Katagiri's insatiable drive to move his way up the ladder, his obsession with stopping Godzilla, his rivalry with Shinoda, etc.), but then again, his style was never suited for anything deep. He's a commercial director of commercial Godzilla movies; he is, what he is. I wouldn't call this a "great" Godzilla movie by any means, just "good".

I'll get to the other three later. Yeah, I'm real lazy right now lol!

Okay, I'm going to start over with this, because I watched Tokyo SOS last night, and I've done a complete "about-face" on it. My attitude towards this movie over the years has been akin to that of a jilted Star Wars fan, which really isn't fair. I expected it to be such a great movie and all, and in that regard it fell short in my eyes. I think we can all agree that Masaaki Tezuka is not much of a director, but I still contend that his child-like enthusiasm for kaiju-eiga is the main selling point in his three Godzilla movies. I get the feeling that he's the type who has watched all of Toho's classic fantasy film multiple times, and that passion bleeds through. Tokyo SOS suffers from sloppy editing and a general lack of development of any of its characters and story elements. The one thing I absolutely despise about this movie is the "Sayonara Yoshito" part. Yeah sure, Kiryu is an artificial intelligence being that can develop a sense of emotion for humans, and blah, blah blah. Don't care. That part sucks. At the end of the day however, I watched it from start-to-finish without stopping, and had no real problem. With me, "suspension of disbelief" isn't just about old-school special effects, or the credibility of a story. It's about what faults of a movie you're willing to overlook in order to focus on the parts that appeal to you. In the case of Tokyo SOS, Mothra is absolutely incredible, the effects work is generally very good, it's good to see Hiroshi Koizumi and Michiro Ooshima's score is extremely well-done. She gets it like no other Godzilla composer since Ifukube and Sato. Also, I think Tokyo SOS is ultimately going to hold a special place in my heart, because it will undoubtedly be the last Godzilla movie to maintain the look, feel and smell of a traditional Godzilla, "tokusatsu" movie. I truly feel that for the forseeable future, whoever is making Godzilla movies will be trying to make them more socially acceptable to today's grossly over-cynical and tasteless society. Roger Ebert said it best when he implied that 'you can't make "The Adventures of Robin Hood" today without adding some Fruedian psychology or "deep" sub-text"'. I think people today are so insecure in their own skin, they cannot allow themselves to accept anything different, and simply be entertained by something to culturally different from the norm. If nothing else, I consider Masaaki Tezuka to be the best "keeper of the blue-atomic flame" of the latter generation of Godzilla filmmakers.

Anyway, now that I've gotten off my soap-box, here's my revised ranking of the "Millennium" Godzilla series...

1. Godzilla Mothra King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack
2. Godzilla X Mechagodzilla
3. Godzilla X Mothra X Mechagodzilla: Tokyo SOS
4. Godzilla 2000 Millennium
5. Godzilla X Megaguirus: G-Eradication Operation
6. Godzilla Final Wars

It's been a couple of years since I've seen any of these, but off-hand I think I'd rank them like this:

1./2. GMK and Godzilla x Mechagodzilla

For the longest time, I considered GxMG the best Millennium film. After rewatching GMK a couple years ago, though, I revised my opinions and now am split between these two. GMK is the superior film (writing-wise, FX-wise, acting-wise, etc.), but I just prefer GxMG's story, concept, and world so much more. Had GxMG been made by GMK's cast and crew, it would've been perfect, I think.

3. Godzilla 2000
4. Godzilla: Final Wars

(I should note, though, that I haven't seen GFW in its original unaltered form in about a decade. I fan edited a version that completely cut out Minilla a little after getting the movie, and that's the version I remember best.)

5. Godzilla x Megaguirus
6. Godzilla: Tokyo SOS

I think I might spend the next week rewatching all of these, then come back and see if I rank them differently.