Monster of the Day #1527

More Gorosaurus than Godzilla, but a neat poster nonetheless. The first Godzilla movie I saw in a theater, and man was I disappointed.

  • Eric Hinkle

    The poster seems to be promising a rather different movie than the one we got.

  • bgbear_rnh

    Only one I saw at a theater too, actually a drive-in. I would have been 9 and learned what an earworm was with that song that I will not name.

    I saw one other Toho film at the drive-in, “Latitude Zero”, the 2nd greatest film with Joseph Cotten.

  • The Rev.

    Are you being sarcastic, Ken, or were you really disappointed?

  • Gamera977

    Always wondered about this one, if Gojira/Godzilla represents atomic energy is this movie about clean atomic power being used to beat pollution? Am I reading too much into this esp considering the Millennium movies pretty much pushed all atomic power even peaceful as being bad?

  • The Japanese and their tentacle porn, right?

  • Ericb

    The only Godzilla movie I saw in a theater was Destroy All Monsters in 1969 or 70. I wasn’t disappointed. My parents (well my dad anyway) also took my family to see Tora!Tora! Tora! (which was absolutely awesome on a big screen) and The Andromeda Strain around this time. He had pretty good taste in movies for a parent of a 6 year old.

  • bgbear_rnh

    I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve

    Imagine the disappointment a kid has when he finds out Adm. Yamamoto isn’t not talking about the the big G.

  • Rock Baker

    I doubt that idea even occurred to the writers. Godzilla had stopped being symbolic with GHIDRAH THE THREE-HEADED MONSTER. It’s an interesting thought, though. Atomic power has one of the ‘cleanest’ records for energy in the world, plus it has the best expenditure/output ratio of any man-made power source. (I can’t help but marvel that there’s enough atomic energy in a cigarette to take us to the moon and back, if only it can be unleashed.)

  • bgbear_rnh

    Cheap, plentiful, and reliable energy is some people’s worst nightmare.

  • Flangepart

    Now I want Harry Turtledove to write a Kaiju flick…it begins in 1954…

  • Ken_Begg

    See, I think it’s even better than Lady Frankenstein*, but we’ll have to agree to disagree.

    [*Or insert any one of half a dozen other titles here.]

  • Ken_Begg

    I was a kid, and for a while my Mom decided monsters were making me too weird (boy had that ship sailed), so she wouldn’t let me go to the heavily TV advertised double bill of War of the Gargantuas and Monster Zero. Instead, I finally got stuck with Godzilla vs the Smog Monster. By the time Godzilla was jet-propelling himself across the set I was pretty annoyed.

  • Wade Harrell

    This is a movie I remember seeing on TV as a kid (probably ’77 or so) and loving it. Possibly it was the first Godzilla movie I ever saw. I haven’t seen it since and don’t want to because I’m sure I’d be appalled, as I was when I saw THE LAST DINOSAUR as an adult. I was embarrassed for my 10 year old self!

  • The Rev.

    What a great double bill that would’ve been.

    You still feel that way to this day? Could be one of those movies you need to see at a certain age. I think this was the next-to-last of the Showa series I caught; I would’ve been 16 or 17 when I saw this the first time. Despite the horrible hippie sing-along sleepover on the mountain, I really dug how weird and off-the-wall it was as a whole. I don’t even hate the flying scene, but I also love G’s drop kick in vs. Megalon so I’m sure I’m in the minority there.