Godzilla’s Rumble and Tumble Part 3- My Journey through the Heisei Era

Welcome to my belated post about the Godzilla Heisei Era movies. Life got in the way, but well, better late than never. Actually, I don’t know how it happened, but it took me longer to watch the seven Heisei movies than the fifteen Showa ones. Strange. Let’s dive in:

The first movie on the drawing board is Gojira, but not the original 1954 one, it’s Gojira from 1984. That’s the actual, original title. Though its international title is The Return of Godzilla (dir. Koji Hashimoto).

Nine years after Terror of Mechagodzilla, Toho attempted to bring back the franchise and reintroduce the King of the Monsters as the serious, menacing force of nature rather than the benevolent protector of mankind. The end result is quite… mesmerising. To be honest, Gojira (1984) has beautiful cinematography by Kazutani Hara and amazingly soothing music score by Reijiro Koroku. Special effects and outstanding model work cannot be forgotten as well. All the technicalities coupled with the story, in which Japan doesn’t deal with another monster rumble, but the threat of nuclear holocaust between the USA and USSR is (again) mesmerising. The film literally becomes a calming ASMR spectacle in its third act. I have no idea how the filmmakers did it, but it’s quite magical. If you feel anxious, then try to watch this film. It certainly helped to calm me down.

Four years had to pass until the premiere of a direct sequel called Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989, dir. Kazuki Omori). In this movie, Godzilla faces off against an original monster that was born out of Godzilla’s cells. I think I watched this movie for the first time on TV, and it even had the original Japanese audio track. I don’t know why, but this particular movie was never released over here with an English dub. All in all, it’s an enjoyable, action-packed flick, though it has a different pacing than other Heisei entries, mainly because of the original monster that appears in three distinct stages.

The year 1991 saw the release of Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991, dir. Kazuki Omori), and I have to say this is the number one Godzilla movie in my heart. I love everything about it: Godzilla's heartbreaking origin, the wacky time travel plot, Akira Ifukube’s intense music score, and the ultimate badass: King Ghidorah. This movie was my introduction into the franchise! It tried to do something different with the Godzilla character while reintroducing its most popular archnemesis.

In 1992, there was Godzilla vs. Mothra [or, known internationally as Godzilla vs. Mothra: The Battle for Earth] (dir. Takao Okawara). For many years, I had issues with this movie, but I guess it was mainly me than the movie itself. When I rewatched it for this blog post, I kind of liked it. It’s not as spectacular as Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah, but it’s okay. Obviously, it pays homage to classic Mothra movies, but it goes off the rails in its finale when Mothra and Battra (that was supposed to be the baddie) join forces against Goji…

Then, we have Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla [again, different international title: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II] (1993, dir. Takao Okawara). Nearly 20 years after its first onscreen appearance, Mechagodzilla returns, but this time as a peacekeeping mecha built by humans to keep Godzilla in check. But alas, this is not the main premise, because there’s actually Godzilla Jr., known simply as Baby, that hatches in a lab center, and Rodan and Godzilla fight over it. It’s a very interesting and bombastic entry, clearly influenced by Jurassic Park that dominated the box office at that time. Undoubtedly, Godzilla Jr. was a much more well-done creation than Minilla from the Showa series.

The 40th anniversary of the franchise saw the release of Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla (1994, dir. Kensho Yamashita). I think that, now as an adult, this is one of my favourite Godzilla movies. I get that it receives a lot of backlash because of idol/pop-like vibes (Miki Saegusa is the primary heroine and she has a love interest in this story), but I think it suits the tone of the film. I love the menacing design of SpaceGodzilla, the music score by Takayuki Hattori, the grumpy I’m-gonna-kill-Godzilla Akira Emoto as the human hero, the beautiful Towako Kimijima as the female scientist, and the special effects by Koichi Kawakita. To me, this movie is for keeps.

Last but not least, there is Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995, dir. Takao Okawara). I don’t rewatch this movie often, because it’s quite sad. On the one hand, it’s a beautiful nod to the 1954 original with all of its Easter Egg references, but on the other hand (it’s not really a spoiler at this point), Godzilla really dies at the end. It’s a touching, heroic death, but it’s too much for me to handle. When I watched this as a teenager, I just couldn’t withhold the tears.

So that’s it for now. I don’t know when I’m gonna tackle the Millennium Era, so I’m not going to give any specific dates. Hopefully, next month or so. I really want to revisit this last classic era. I don’t feel the need to go back and watch the Monsterverse or the Reiwa movies, at least not yet.

Image attribution: Feature image is a compilation of Toho official posters. The other images used are official promo pictures and also belong to Toho.