Browse: Home / Year of the Month: Roland Saint-Laurent on SON OF GODZILLA

Menu

Skip to content
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login

The-SoluteLogo

A Film Site By Lovers of Film

Menu

Skip to content
  • Features
  • Reviews
  • Long Reviews
  • News
  • Articles and Opinions
  • Other Media
  • Sometimes the Narrative Is Pure
  • The Solute Book Club: FURNACE (An Introduction)
  • TV on the Internet: PAUL T. GOLDMAN
  • Year of the Month: DRY SUMMER (SUSUZ YAZ)
  • New on DVD and Blu-Ray

Year of the Month: Roland Saint-Laurent on SON OF GODZILLA

Posted By Sam "Burgundy Suit" Scott on June 15, 2022 in Features | Leave a response

Jun Fukuda’s Son of Godzilla is possibly the most-hated entry in the Showa era of Godzilla films, and that’s mostly because people confuse it with 1969’s Godzilla’s Revenge/All Monsters Attack. In that film, we follow an obnoxious latchkey kid around his wasteland of a neighborhood and get to see his hallucinations where he has conversations with Godzila’s son Minilla. While it does have its merits, Godzilla’s Revenge is the part of  a Showa* marathon most fans dread. 

Son of Godzilla, however, is a great Godzilla film, full-stop. Yes, this was when the franchise really went all-in on appealing to children, but aside from its obvious value as an entry point for kids (my daughter was obsessed with “Baby Godzilla”), this is also a perfectly paced adventure film. The plot involves scientists on an island working on a weather-controlling device. A reporter crashes in, and one of their experiments leads to the further gigantification of gigantic praying mantises called Kamacuras. They dig up a gigantic egg and start messing with it, and out hatches Baby Godzilla itself, Minilla. Godzilla swoops in to save the day and eventually adopts the little tyke, training him in the finer arts of breathing fire and fighting monsters.

The film is filled with fun scenes of Minilla jumping around and acting a fool, while an annoyed Godzilla attends to parenting duties. If you can let go and be OK with this iteration of the character, then Son of Godzilla ranks as an upper-tier Showa Godzilla entry. Fukuda’s direction has always been more lively than Ishiro Honda’s, and things move at such a clip in this film that you can’t get bored. The human leads are likable, and the film ends on a surprisingly emotional note as both Godzilla and Minilla cuddle while a snow storm buries them, sending them into hibernation. 

More than anything, Son of Godzilla is the perfect gateway to turn children into kaiju fans. My daughter saw me watching King Kong vs. Godzilla and was somewhat interested, mainly in the early scene of natives dancing to summon Kong. At dinner that night I told her, “did you know that there’s a baby Godzilla movie?” and her interest was immediately piqued. From that point, Son of Godzilla has been in regular rotation in our house, and even after watching the goofier Godzilla’s Revenge, she still went back to Son of Godzilla as her go-to. Flash forward to now, and she’s still a fan, and she was hyped about the recent Legendary entries too,

This is all to say that, while fans can be downright snotty about the dubs-vs.-subs debate, I still think that every kaiju film needs to have an English dub specifically for the next generation of fans. My emotional attachment to Godzilla stems directly from holiday marathons on TV, when Destroy All Monsters, King Kong vs. Godzilla, and Godzilla vs. Megalon were played throughout the day and I would sit wide-eyed in awe of these monsters on TV. And of course, these films were dubbed into English, since as a child I probably would have turned it off if I couldn’t understand what people were talking about between the fights. 

But strip away emotional attachment to the franchise and this movie’s function as a gateway for young fans, and you’re left with a solid adventure film that’s still better than many other kaiju films of that era. Minilla is a charming character if you can get past being annoyed by its existence, and Godzilla as a grumpy parent is fun as hell. The villains are pretty weak (giant praying mantises and a giant spider are uninspired heels) but it’s not like you’re expecting Minilla to take down, say, King Ghidorah with smoke rings. You’d have to wait a year to get that in the follow-up, Destroy All Monsters.

* The reign of Emperor Hirohito and the “classic” era of Godzilla before the nine-year hiatus between Terror of Mechagodzilla and Godzilla (1984) — ed.

Posted in Features | Tagged 1967, Godzilla, kaiju, Roland Saint-Laurent, Science Fiction, year of the month

About the Author

Sam “Burgundy Suit” Scott

Sam is a features writer for Looper and studied writing under Kevin Wilson at Sewanee: the University of the South. He’s been a staff writer for The Solute since its launch in 2014 and editor of the Year of the Month series since 2017.

I don’t know how to put this, but he’s kind of a big deal. He has many leather-bound books and his apartment smells of rich mahogany.

Now on Patreon!
https://www.patreon.com/user/creators?u=23744950

  • Tumblr
  • Twitter

Related Posts

Year of the Month: DRY SUMMER (SUSUZ YAZ)→

Wilderness travelersDisney Byways: THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY→

The buffet table should be this long at lunch, no longer.A Quick and Cheap Summary of Roger Corman’s 1963→

Year of the Month: HOP ON POP→

  • Comments
  • Popular
  • Most Recent
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleWonderful piece, Sam. It's made…
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleFellow heretic here. I've never…
  • n***********@gmail.com'
    Ruck Cohlchez on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEI wouldn't have called it…
  • j***********@gmail.com'
    Son of Griff on LIFE ITSELFGlad to hear back from…
  • n*********@gmail.com'
    Jake Gittes on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEThis is the single most…
  • “The End” of SAVAGES

    33251 views / Posted November 10, 2014
  • What the fuck did I just watch? SPHERE

    27267 views / Posted March 19, 2015
  • The Untalented Mr. Ripley: The Craft of Standup Comedy and the Non-Comedy of TOM MYERS

    24588 views / Posted June 26, 2018
  • Scenic Routes: SHOWGIRLS (1995)

    19943 views / Posted November 20, 2014
  • Yvonne, or: CASABLANCA In One Character and Three Scenes

    10914 views / Posted August 21, 2014
  • Don't they look comfy?

    Sometimes the Narrative Is Pure

    February 1, 2023 / Gillianren
  • The Solute Book Club: FURNACE (An Introduction)

    February 1, 2023 / CM Crockford
  • TV on the Internet: PAUL T. GOLDMAN

    February 1, 2023 / Ruck Cohlchez
  • Year of the Month: DRY SUMMER (SUSUZ YAZ)

    January 31, 2023 / Sam "Burgundy Suit" Scott
  • New on DVD and Blu-Ray

    January 31, 2023 / Greta Taylor

Last Tweets

  • Sometimes the Narrative Is Pure - https://t.co/EMnSPhPe3P, 16 hours ago
  • The Solute Book Club: FURNACE (An Introduction) - https://t.co/nM1pl98Pee, 22 hours ago
  • TV on the Internet: PAUL T. GOLDMAN - https://t.co/6p35fILNOI, 22 hours ago

©2014 - 2016 The-Solute | Hosted, Developed and Maintained by Bellingham WP LogoBellinghamWP.com.

Menu

  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login
Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!