GODZILLA VS HEDORAH
(1971)
So Jenn and I decided to do a Godzilla marathon and this is
one of the movies that went down via DVD. Yeah – I own quite a few Godzilla
movies but not the entire collection unfortunately. This one is a freakin riot –
let me just get that off my chest right away. I am pretty sure it’s the only
movie in the Godzilla franchise, that goes out of its way to show you Japanese
hippies. Complete with fish heads, animated shorts ( that have little to do
with the actual movie) and psychedelic drugs,
this one has just about everything.
The plot revolves around a space alien getting into our
waste here on earth and becoming its own freakin organism. Yeah, like from
kind of a tadpole looking thing, to basically a flying saucer that changes into
a giant pile of crap at will. While this movie is overloaded with what I can
only assume was a pro-environment message, it comes across as more of just a
pretty decent match up for Godzilla. I don’t want to give too much away, but if
for some reason you haven’t watched this one yet, take it with a grain of salt.
Shot mostly in the dark the effects are actually pretty decent for TOHO, even
better than some much later installments. This one does feature one of the
craziest Godzilla acts of all time (at least in the top 2). Design is a big
topic these days and this one falls into the “iconic, but just okay” category
for me. The "people story" in this one is almost non-existent, except for a few
completely nutty explanations as to how Hedorah might finally be killed. The movie
also features a kid who seems to know everything, which is characteristic of late
Showa era Godzilla films. Also to the films credit it was crazy enough to spark
several memes. It was also released under several different titles, but Hedorah is a cooler name than Smog Monster.
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