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Godzilla

Godzilla (ゴジラ) is a fictional monster, or kaiju, that debuted in the eponymous 1954 film, directed and co-written by Ishirō Honda. The character has since become an international pop culture icon, appearing in various media: 33 Japanese films produced by Toho Co., Ltd., five American films, and numerous video games, novels, comic books, and television shows. Godzilla has been dubbed the King of the Monsters, an epithet first used in Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956), the American localization of the 1954 film.

Originally and in most iterations of the creature, Godzilla is a prehistoric reptilian or dinosaurian monster that is amphibious or resides partially in the ocean, awakened and empowered after many years by exposure to nuclear radiation and nuclear testing. With the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Lucky Dragon 5 incident still fresh in the Japanese consciousness, Godzilla was conceived as a metaphor for nuclear weapons. Others have suggested that Godzilla is a metaphor for the United States, a "giant beast" woken from its "slumber" that then takes terrible vengeance on Japan. As the film series expanded, some storylines took on less serious undertones, portraying Godzilla as an antihero or lesser threat who defends humanity. Later films address disparate themes and commentary, including Japan's apathy, neglect, and ignorance of its imperial past, natural disasters, and the human condition.

Godzilla has been featured alongside many supporting characters and, over the decades, has faced off against various human opponents, such as the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF), in addition to other gargantuan monsters, including Gigan, King Ghidorah, and Mechagodzilla. Godzilla has fought alongside allies such as Anguirus, Mothra, and Rodan and has had offspring, including Godzilla Junior and Minilla. Godzilla has also battled characters and creatures from other franchises in crossover media —such as King Kong— as well as various Marvel Comics characters, like S.H.I.E.L.D., the Fantastic Four, and the Avengers, as well as DC Comics characters such as the Justice League, the Legion of Doom and the Green Lantern Corps.

Appearances
First appearing in 1954, Godzilla has starred in a total of 38 films: 33 Japanese films produced and distributed by Toho Co., Ltd. and five American films, one produced by TriStar Pictures and four produced by Legendary Pictures. He has also appeared in countless other entertainment mediums, which include comic book lines, novelizations, and video games; each appearance expands upon the universe created by the films.

Naming
Although the process of creating Godzilla's first film is comprehensively recorded, exactly how its name came to be remains unintelligible. The most widely accepted report of its origin is that producer Tomoyuki Tanaka named the monster after a sturdy Toho worker Shiro Amikura, the later chief of the theater club of Toho, who was jokingly dubbed "Gujira" (グジラ) then "Gojira" (ゴジラ), a portmanteau of the Japanese words "gorilla" (ゴリラ) and "whale" due to his burly build to resemble a gorilla and his habit to favor whale meat. The account has been acknowledged by Toho themselves, director Ishirō Honda, producer Tanaka, special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya, producer Ichirō Satō, and production head Iwao Mori, with Satō and Mori recalling that the employee was named Shirō Amikura. However, Honda's widow Kimi dismissed the employee-name story as a tall tale in a 1998 BBC documentary on Godzilla, believing that Honda, Tanaka, and Tsuburaya gave "considerable thought" to the name of the monster, stating, "the backstage boys at Toho loved to joke around with tall stories, but I don't believe that one". Honda's longtime assistant director Kōji Kajita added: "Those of us who were closest to them don't even know how and why they came up with Gojira."

Toho later translated the monster's Japanese name as "Godzilla" for overseas distribution. The first recorded foreign usage of "Godzilla" was printed in the Hawaii Tribune-Herald on November 20, 1955.

During the development of the American version of Godzilla Raids Again (1955), Godzilla's name was changed to "Gigantis" by producer Paul Schreibman, who wanted to create a character distinct from Godzilla.

Characterization
Within the context of the Japanese films, Godzilla's exact origins vary, but it is generally depicted as an enormous, violent, prehistoric sea monster awakened and empowered by nuclear radiation. Although the specific details of Godzilla's appearance have varied slightly over the years, the overall impression has remained consistent. Inspired by the fictional Rhedosaurus created by animator Ray Harryhausen for the film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Godzilla's character design was conceived as that of an amphibious reptilian monster based around the loose concept of a dinosaur with an erect standing posture, scaly skin, an anthropomorphic torso with muscular arms, lobed bony plates along its back and tail, and a furrowed brow.

Art director Akira Watanabe combined attributes of a Tyrannosaurus, an Iguanodon, a Stegosaurus and an alligator to form a sort of blended chimera, inspired by illustrations from an issue of Life magazine. To emphasize the monster's relationship with the atomic bomb, its skin texture was inspired by the keloid scars seen on the survivors of Hiroshima. The basic design has a reptilian visage, a robust build, an upright posture, a long tail and three rows of serrated plates along the back. In the original film, the plates were added for purely aesthetic purposes, in order to further differentiate Godzilla from any other living or extinct creature. Godzilla is sometimes depicted as green in comics, cartoons, and movie posters, but the costumes used in the movies were usually painted charcoal grey with bone-white dorsal plates up until the film Godzilla 2000: Millennium.

In the original Japanese films, Godzilla and all the other monsters are referred to with gender-neutral pronouns equivalent to "it", while in the English dubbed versions, Godzilla is explicitly described as a male. In his book, Godzilla co-creator Tomoyuki Tanaka suggested that the monster was probably male; but also suggested that the original 1954 version could have been female. In the 1998 film Godzilla, the monster is referred to as a male and is depicted laying eggs through parthenogenesis. In the Legendary Godzilla films, Godzilla is referred to as a male.

Godzilla's allegiance and motivations, as well as its level of intelligence, have changed from film to film to suit the needs of the story. Although Godzilla does not like humans, it will fight alongside humanity against common threats. However, it makes no special effort to protect human life or property and will turn against its human allies on a whim. It is generally not motivated to attack by predatory instinct; it does not usually eat people and instead sustains itself on nuclear radiation and an omnivorous or piscivorian diet consisting especially of cetaceans and large fish. When inquired if Godzilla was "good or bad", producer Shōgo Tomiyama likened it to a Shinto "God of Destruction" which lacks moral agency and cannot be held to human standards of good and evil. "He totally destroys everything and then there is a rebirth. Something new and fresh can begin." Tomoyuki Tanaka noted in his book that Godzilla and humanity can become temporal allies against greater threats, however they are essentially enemies due to the difficulty to co-exist.

Abilities

Godzilla's signature weapon is its "atomic heat beam" (also known as "atomic breath" ), nuclear energy that it generates inside of its body, uses electromagnetic force to concentrate it into a laser-like high velocity projectile and unleashes it from its jaws in the form of a blue or red radioactive beam. Toho's special effects department has used various techniques to render the beam, from physical gas-powered flames to hand-drawn or computer-generated fire. Godzilla is shown to possess immense physical strength and muscularity. Haruo Nakajima, the actor who played Godzilla in the original films, was a black belt in judo and used his expertise to choreograph the battle sequences.

Godzilla is amphibious: it has a preference for traversing Earth's hydrosphere when in hibernation or migration, can breathe underwater due to pore-shaped gills and is described in the original film by the character Dr. Yamane as a transitional form between a marine and a terrestrial reptile. Godzilla is shown to have great vitality: it is immune to conventional weaponry thanks to its rugged hide and ability to regenerate, and as a result of surviving a nuclear explosion, it cannot be destroyed by anything less powerful. One incarnation possesses an electromagnetic pulse-producing organ in its body which generates an asymmetrical permeable shield, making it impervious to all damage except for a short period when the organ recycles.

Various films, non-canonical television shows, comics, and games have depicted Godzilla with additional powers, such as an atomic pulse, magnetism, precognition, fireballs, convert electromagnetic energy into intensive body heat, converting shed blood into temporary tentacle limbs, an electric bite, superhuman speed, laser beams emitted from its eyes and even flight.

Roar
Godzilla has a distinctive disyllabic roar (transcribed in several comics as Skreeeonk!), which was created by composer Akira Ifukube, who produced the sound by rubbing a pine tar-resin-coated glove along the string of a contrabass and then slowing down the playback. In the American version of Godzilla Raids Again (1955) titled Gigantis the Fire Monster (1959), Godzilla's roar was mostly substituted with that of the monster Anguirus. From The Return of Godzilla (1984) to Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991), Godzilla was given a deeper and more threatening-sounding roar than in previous films, though this change was reverted from Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992) onward. For the 2014 American film, sound editors Ethan Van der Ryn and Erik Aadahl refused to disclose the source of the sounds used for their Godzilla's roar. Aadahl described the two syllables of the roar as representing two different emotional reactions, with the first expressing fury and the second conveying the character's soul.

Size
Godzilla's size is inconsistent, changing from film to film and even from scene to scene for the sake of artistic license. The miniature sets and costumes were typically built at a $1/25$–$1/50$ scale and filmed at 240 frames per second to create the illusion of great size. In the original 1954 film, Godzilla was scaled to be 50 m tall. This was done so Godzilla could just peer over the largest buildings in Tokyo at the time. In the 1956 American version, Godzilla is estimated to be 400 ft tall, because producer Joseph E. Levine felt that 50 m did not sound "powerful enough".

As the series progressed, Toho would rescale the character, eventually making Godzilla as tall as 100 m. This was done so that it would not be dwarfed by the newer, bigger buildings in Tokyo's skyline, such as the 243 m Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building which Godzilla destroyed in the film Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991). Supplementary information, such as character profiles, would also depict Godzilla as weighing between 20,000 and 60,000 metric ton.

In the American film Godzilla (2014) from Legendary Pictures, Godzilla was scaled to be 355 ft and weighing 90,000 short ton, making it the largest film version at that time. Director Gareth Edwards wanted Godzilla "to be so big as to be seen from anywhere in the city, but not too big that he couldn't be obscured". For Shin Godzilla (2016), Godzilla was made even taller than the Legendary version, at 118.5 m. In Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters (2017), Godzilla's height was increased further still to 300 m. In Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) and Godzilla vs. Kong (2021), Godzilla's height was increased to 393 ft from the 2014 incarnation.

Special effects
Godzilla's appearance has traditionally been portrayed in the films by an actor wearing a latex costume, though the character has also been rendered in animatronic, stop-motion and computer-generated form. Taking inspiration from King Kong, special effects artist Eiji Tsuburaya had initially wanted Godzilla to be portrayed via stop-motion, but prohibitive deadlines and a lack of experienced animators in Japan at the time made suitmation more practical.

The first suit, weighing in excess of 100 kg, consisted of a body cavity made of thin wires and bamboo wrapped in chicken wire for support and covered in fabric and cushions, which were then coated in latex. It was held together by small hooks on the back, though subsequent Godzilla suits incorporated a zipper. Prior to 1984, most Godzilla suits were made from scratch, thus resulting in slight design changes in each film appearance. The most notable changes from 1962 to 1975 were the reduction in Godzilla's number of toes and the removal of the character's external ears and prominent fangs, features which would all later be reincorporated in the Godzilla designs from The Return of Godzilla (1984) onward. The most consistent Godzilla design was maintained from Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989) to Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995), when the suit was given a cat-like face and double rows of teeth.

Several suit actors had difficulties in performing as Godzilla due to the suits' weight, lack of ventilation and diminished visibility. Haruo Nakajima, who portrayed Godzilla from 1954 to 1972, said the materials used to make the 1954 suit (rubber, plastic, cotton, and latex) were hard to find after World War II. The suit weighed 100 kilograms after its completion and required two men to help Nakajima put it on. When he first put it on, he sweated so heavily that his shirt was soaked within seconds. Kenpachiro Satsuma in particular, who portrayed Godzilla from 1984 to 1995, described how the Godzilla suits he wore were even heavier and hotter than their predecessors because of the incorporation of animatronics. Satsuma himself suffered numerous medical issues during his tenure, including oxygen deprivation, near-drowning, concussions, electric shocks and lacerations to the legs from the suits' steel wire reinforcements wearing through the rubber padding. The ventilation problem was partially solved in the suit used in 1994's Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla, which was the first to include an air duct that allowed suit actors to last longer during performances. In The Return of Godzilla (1984), some scenes made use of a 16-foot high robotic Godzilla (dubbed the "Cybot Godzilla") for use in close-up shots of the creature's head. The Cybot Godzilla consisted of a hydraulically powered mechanical endoskeleton covered in urethane skin containing 3,000 computer operated parts which permitted it to tilt its head and move its lips and arms.

In Godzilla (1998), special effects artist Patrick Tatopoulos was instructed to redesign Godzilla as an incredibly fast runner. At one point, it was planned to use motion capture from a human to create the movements of the computer-generated Godzilla, but it was said to have ended up looking too much like a man in a suit. Tatopoulos subsequently reimagined the creature as a lean, digitigrade bipedal, iguana-like creature that stood with its back and tail parallel to the ground, rendered via CGI. Several scenes had the monster portrayed by stuntmen in suits. The suits were similar to those used in the Toho films, with the actors' heads being located in the monster's neck region and the facial movements controlled via animatronics. However, because of the creature's horizontal posture, the stuntmen had to wear metal leg extenders, which allowed them to stand 6 ft off the ground with their feet bent forward. The film's special effects crew also built a $1/6$ scale animatronic Godzilla for close-up scenes, whose size outmatched that of Stan Winston's T. rex in Jurassic Park. Kurt Carley performed the suitmation sequences for the adult Godzilla.

In Godzilla (2014), the character was portrayed entirely via CGI. Godzilla's design in the reboot was intended to stay true to that of the original series, though the film's special effects team strove to make the monster "more dynamic than a guy in a big rubber suit." To create a CG version of Godzilla, the Moving Picture Company (MPC) studied various animals such as bears, Komodo dragons, lizards, lions and wolves, which helped the visual effects artists visualize Godzilla's body structure, like that of its underlying bone, fat and muscle structure, as well as the thickness and texture of its scales. Motion capture was also used for some of Godzilla's movements. T. J. Storm provided the performance capture for Godzilla by wearing sensors in front of a green screen. Storm reprised the role of Godzilla in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, portraying the character through performance capture. In Shin Godzilla, a majority of the character was portrayed via CGI, with Mansai Nomura portraying Godzilla through motion capture. In 2024, Godzilla Minus One was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, becoming the first Godzilla film nominated for an Oscar. In the 96th Academy Awards of 2024, it won the Oscars.

Cultural impact
Godzilla is one of the most recognizable symbols of Japanese popular culture worldwide and remains an important facet of Japanese films, embodying the kaiju subset of the tokusatsu genre. Godzilla's vaguely humanoid appearance and strained, lumbering movements endeared it to Japanese audiences, who could relate to Godzilla as a sympathetic character, despite its wrathful nature. Audiences respond positively to the character because it acts out of rage and self-preservation and shows where science and technology can go wrong.

In 1967, the Keukdong Entertainment Company of South Korea, with production assistance from Toei Company, produced Yongary, Monster from the Deep, a reptilian monster who invades South Korea to consume oil. The film and character has often been branded as an imitation of Godzilla.

Godzilla has been considered a filmographic metaphor for the United States, as well as an allegory of nuclear weapons in general. The earlier Godzilla films, especially the original, portrayed Godzilla as a frightening nuclear-spawned monster. Godzilla represented the fears that many Japanese held about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the possibility of recurrence.

As the series progressed, so did Godzilla, changing into a less destructive and more heroic character. Ghidorah (1964) was the turning point in Godzilla's transformation from villain to hero, by pitting him against a greater threat to humanity, King Ghidorah. Godzilla has since been viewed as an anti-hero. Roger Ebert cites Godzilla as a notable example of a villain-turned-hero, along with King Kong, Jaws (James Bond), the Terminator and John Rambo.

Godzilla is considered "the original radioactive superhero" due to his accidental radioactive origin story predating Spider-Man (1962 debut), though Godzilla did not become a hero until Ghidorah in 1964. By the 1970s, Godzilla came to be viewed as a superhero, with the magazine King of the Monsters in 1977 describing Godzilla as "Superhero of the '70s." Godzilla had surpassed Superman and Batman to become "the most universally popular superhero of 1977" according to Donald F. Glut. Godzilla was also voted the most popular movie monster in The Monster Times poll in 1973, beating Count Dracula, King Kong, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, the Creature from the Black Lagoon and the Frankenstein Monster.

In 1996, Godzilla received the MTV Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as being given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2004 to celebrate the premiere of the character's 50th anniversary film, Godzilla: Final Wars. Godzilla's pop-cultural impact has led to the creation of numerous parodies and tributes, as seen in media such as Bambi Meets Godzilla, which was ranked as one of the "50 greatest cartoons", two episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and the song "Godzilla" by Blue Öyster Cult. Godzilla has also been used in advertisements, such as in a commercial for Nike, where Godzilla lost an oversized one-on-one game of basketball to a giant version of NBA player Charles Barkley. The commercial was subsequently adapted into a comic book illustrated by Jeff Butler. Godzilla has also appeared in a commercial for Snickers candy bars, which served as an indirect promo for the 2014 film. Godzilla's success inspired the creation of numerous other monster characters, such as Gamera, Reptilicus of Denmark, Yonggary of South Korea, Pulgasari of North Korea, Gorgo of the United Kingdom and the Cloverfield monster of the United States. Dakosaurus is an extinct sea crocodile of the Jurassic Period, which researchers informally nicknamed "Godzilla". Paleontologists have written tongue-in-cheek speculative articles about Godzilla's biology, with Kenneth Carpenter tentatively classifying it as a ceratosaur based on its skull shape, four-fingered hands, and dorsal scutes and paleontologist Darren Naish expressing skepticism, while commenting on Godzilla's unusual morphology.

Godzilla's ubiquity in pop culture has led to the mistaken assumption that the character is in the public domain, resulting in litigation by Toho to protect their corporate asset from becoming a generic trademark. In April 2008, Subway depicted a giant monster in a commercial for their Five Dollar Footlongs sandwich promotion. Toho filed a lawsuit against Subway for using the character without permission, demanding $150,000 in compensation. In February 2011, Toho sued Honda for depicting a fire-breathing monster in a commercial for the Honda Odyssey. The monster was never mentioned by name, being seen briefly on a video screen inside the minivan. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society christened a vessel the MV Gojira. Its purpose is to target and harass Japanese whalers in defense of whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. The MV Gojira was renamed the MV Brigitte Bardot in May 2011, due to legal pressure from Toho. Gojira is the name of a French death metal band, formerly known as Godzilla; legal problems forced the band to change their name. In May 2015, Toho launched a lawsuit against Voltage Pictures over a planned picture starring Anne Hathaway. Promotional material released at the Cannes Film Festival used images of Godzilla.

Steven Spielberg cited Godzilla as an inspiration for Jurassic Park (1993), specifically Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956), which he grew up watching. Spielberg described Godzilla as "the most masterful of all the dinosaur movies because it made you believe it was really happening." Godzilla also influenced the Spielberg film Jaws (1975). Godzilla has also been cited as an inspiration by filmmakers Martin Scorsese and Tim Burton.

A carnivorous dinosaur from the Triassic period was named Gojirasaurus in 1997. The main-belt asteroid 101781 Gojira, discovered by American astronomer Roy Tucker at the Goodricke-Pigott Observatory in 1999, was named in honor of the creature. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 11 July 2018 (M.P.C. 110635). The largest megamullion, located 600 kilometres to the south-east of Okinotorishima, the southernmost Japanese island, is named the Godzilla Megamullion. The Japan Coast Guard played a role in name, reaching an agreement with Toho. Toho's Chief Godzilla officer Keiji Ota stated that "I am truly honored that (the megamullion) bears Godzilla's name, the Earth's most powerful monster."

Cultural ambassador
In April 2015, the Shinjuku ward of Tokyo named Godzilla a special resident and official tourism ambassador to encourage tourism. During an unveiling of a giant Godzilla bust at Toho headquarters, Shinjuku mayor Kenichi Yoshizumi stated, "Godzilla is a character that is the pride of Japan." The mayor extended a residency certificate to an actor in a rubber suit representing Godzilla, but as the suit's hands were not designed for grasping, it was accepted on Godzilla's behalf by a Toho executive. Reporters noted that Shinjuku's ward has been flattened by Godzilla in three Toho movies.

title: Godzilla


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King Kong vs. Godzilla

King Kong vs. Godzilla (キングコング対ゴジラ) is a 1962 Japanese kaiju film directed by Ishirō Honda, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. Produced and distributed by Toho Co., Ltd, it is the third film in both the Godzilla and King Kong franchises, as well as the first Toho-produced film featuring King Kong. It is also the first time that each character appeared on film in color and widescreen. The film stars Tadao Takashima, Kenji Sahara, Yū Fujiki, Ichirō Arishima, and Mie Hama, with Shoichi Hirose as King Kong and Haruo Nakajima as Godzilla. In the film, Godzilla is reawakened by an American submarine and a pharmaceutical company captures King Kong for promotional uses, culminating in a battle on Mount Fuji.

The project began with a story outline devised by King Kong stop motion animator Willis O'Brien around 1960, in which Kong battles a giant Frankenstein's monster; O'Brien gave the outline to producer John Beck for development. Behind O'Brien's back and without his knowledge, Beck gave the project to Toho to produce the film, replacing the giant Frankenstein's monster with Godzilla and scrapping O'Brien's original story.

King Kong vs. Godzilla was released theatrically in Japan on August 11, 1962, and grossed ¥352 million, making it the second-highest-grossing Japanese film in history upon its release. The film remains the most attended Godzilla film in Japan to date, and is credited with encouraging Toho to prioritize the continuation of the Godzilla series after seven years of dormancy. A heavily re-edited "Americanized" version of the film was released theatrically in the United States by Universal International Inc. on June 26, 1963.

The film was followed by Mothra vs. Godzilla, released on April 29, 1964.

Plot
Mr. Tako, head of Pacific Pharmaceuticals, is frustrated with the television shows his company is sponsoring and wants something to boost his ratings. When a doctor tells Tako about a giant monster he discovered on the small Faro Island, Tako believes that it would be a brilliant idea to use the monster to gain publicity. Tako sends two men, Osamu Sakurai and Kinsaburo Furue, to find and bring back the monster. Meanwhile, the American nuclear submarine Seahawk gets caught in an iceberg. The iceberg collapses, unleashing Godzilla, who had been trapped within it since 1955. Godzilla destroys the submarine and makes its way towards Japan, attacking a military base as it journeys southward. On Faro Island, a gigantic octopus crawls ashore and attacks the native village in search of Farolacton juice, taken from a species of red berry native to the island. The mysterious Faro monster, revealed to be King Kong, arrives and defeats the octopus. Kong drinks several vases full of the juice while the islanders perform a ceremony, which causes him to fall asleep. Sakurai and Furue place Kong on a large raft and begin to transport him back to Japan. Mr. Tako arrives on the ship transporting Kong, but a JSDF ship stops them and orders that Kong must be kept out of Japan. Meanwhile, Godzilla arrives in Japan and terrorizes the countryside. Kong wakes up and breaks free from the raft. Reaching the mainland, Kong confronts Godzilla and proceeds to throw giant rocks at it. Godzilla is not fazed by King Kong's rock attack and uses its heat ray to burn him. Kong retreats after realizing that he is not yet ready to take on Godzilla. The JSDF digs a large pit laden with explosives and poison gas and lures Godzilla into it, but Godzilla is unharmed. They next string up a barrier of power lines around the city filled with 1,000,000 volts of electricity, which proves effective against Godzilla. Kong approaches Tokyo and tears through the power lines, feeding off the electricity, which seems to make him stronger. Kong then enters Tokyo and captures Fumiko, Sakurai's sister, taking her to the National Diet Building which he then scales. The JSDF launches capsules full of vaporised Farolacton juice, which puts Kong to sleep, and rescue Fumiko. The JSDF decides to transport Kong via balloons to Godzilla, in hopes that they will kill each other. The next morning, Kong is deployed by helicopter next to Godzilla at the summit of Mount Fuji and the two engage in battle. Godzilla initially has the advantage, dazing Kong with a devastating dropkick and repeated tail blows to his head. Godzilla attempts to burn Kong to death by using its atomic breath to set fire to the foliage around Kong's body. A bolt of lightning from thunder clouds strikes Kong, reviving him and charging him up, and the battle resumes. Godzilla and King Kong fight their way down the mountain and into Atami, where the two monsters destroy Atami Castle while trading blows, before falling off a cliff together into Sagami Bay. After a brief underwater battle, only Kong resurfaces from the water, and he swims back toward his home island. There is no sign of Godzilla, but the JSDF speculates that it is possible it survived.

American version
Cast taken from Japan's Favorite Mon-Star, except where cited otherwise.

Crew

 * Ishirō Honda – director
 * Eiji Tsuburaya – special effects director
 * Kōji Kajita – assistant director
 * Toshio Takashima – lighting
 * Takeo Kita – art director
 * Teruaki Abe – art director
 * Akira Watanabe – special effects art director
 * Kuichirō Kishida – special effects lighting
 * Masao Fujiyoshi – sound recording

American version

 * Thomas Montgomery – director
 * John Beck – producer
 * Paul Mason – writer
 * Bruce Howard – writer
 * Peter Zinner – editorial and music supervision

Personnel taken from Japan's Favorite Mon-Star.

Conception
King Kong vs. Godzilla had its roots in an earlier concept for a new King Kong feature developed by Willis O'Brien, animator of the original stop-motion Kong. Around 1960, O'Brien came up with a proposed treatment, King Kong Meets Frankenstein, where Kong would fight against a giant Frankenstein's monster in San Francisco. O'Brien took the project (which consisted of some concept art and a screenplay treatment) to RKO to secure permission to use the King Kong character. During this time, the story was renamed King Kong vs. the Ginko when it was believed that Universal had the rights to the Frankenstein name. O'Brien was introduced to producer John Beck, who promised to find a studio to make the film (at this point, RKO was no longer a production company). Beck took the story treatment and hired George Worthing Yates to write the screenplay for the film. The story was slightly altered and the title changed to King Kong vs. Prometheus, returning the name to the original Frankenstein concept (The Modern Prometheus was the alternate title of the original novel). The November 2, 1960 issue of Variety reported that Beck had even asked a filmmaker named Jerry Guran (a possible misspelling of filmmaker Nathan Juran's pseudonym Jerry Juran) to direct the film. However, the cost of stop-motion animation discouraged potential studios from putting the film into production. After shopping the script around overseas, Beck eventually attracted the interest of the Japanese studio Toho, which had long wanted to make a King Kong film. After purchasing the script, they decided to replace the giant Frankenstein's monster with Godzilla to be King Kong's opponent and would have Shinichi Sekizawa rewrite Yates' script. The studio thought that it would be the perfect way to celebrate its 30th year in production. It was one of five big banner releases for the company to celebrate the anniversary alongside Sanjuro, Chūshingura, Lonely Lane, and Born in Sin. John Beck's dealings with Willis O'Brien's project were done behind his back, and O'Brien was never credited for his idea. O'Brien attempted to sue Beck, but lacked the money to do so, and on November 8, 1962, he died in his home in Los Angeles at the age of 76. O'Brien's wife Darlyne later cited "the frustration of the King Kong vs. Frankenstein deal" as the cause of his death. Merian C. Cooper, the producer and Co-Director of the 1933 King Kong film, was bitterly opposed to the project, stating in a letter addressed to his friend Douglas Burden, "I was indignant when some Japanese company made a belittling thing, to a creative mind, called King Kong vs. Godzilla. I believe they even stooped so low as to use a man in a gorilla suit, which I have spoken out against so often in the early days of King Kong". In 1963, he filed a lawsuit to enjoin distribution of the movie against John Beck, as well as Toho and Universal (the film's U.S. copyright holder) claiming that he outright owned the King Kong character, but the lawsuit never went through, as it turned out he was not Kong's sole legal owner as he had previously believed.

Themes
Director Ishirō Honda wanted the theme of the movie to be a satire of the television industry in Japan. In April 1962, TV networks and their various sponsors started producing outrageous programming and publicity stunts to grab audiences' attention after two elderly viewers reportedly died at home while watching a violent wrestling match on TV. The various rating wars between the networks and banal programming that followed this event caused widespread debate over how TV would affect Japanese culture with Sōichi Ōya stating TV was creating "a nation of 100 million idiots". Honda stated "People were making a big deal out of ratings, but my own view of TV shows was that they did not take the viewer seriously, that they took the audience for granted...so I decided to show that through my movie" and "the reason I showed the monster battle through the prism of a ratings war was to depict the reality of the times". Honda addressed this by having a pharmaceutical company sponsor a TV show and going to extremes for a publicity stunt for ratings by capturing a giant monster stating "All a medicine company would have to do is just produce good medicines you know? But the company doesn't think that way. They think they will get ahead of their competitors if they use a monster to promote their product." Honda would work with screenwriter Shinichi Sekizawa on developing the story stating that "Back then Sekizawa was working on pop songs and TV shows so he really had a clear insight into television".

Filming
Special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya was planning on working on other projects at this point in time such as a new version of a fairy tale film script called Princess Kaguya, but he postponed those to work on this project with Toho instead since he was such a huge fan of King Kong. He stated in an early 1960s interview with the Mainichi Newspaper, "But my movie company has produced a very interesting script that combined King Kong and Godzilla, so I couldn't help working on this instead of my other fantasy films. The script is special to me; it makes me emotional because it was King Kong that got me interested in the world of special photographic techniques when I saw it in 1933."

Early drafts of the script were sent back with notes from the studio asking that the monster antics be made as "funny as possible". This comical approach was embraced by Tsuburaya, who wanted to appeal to children's sensibilities and broaden the genre's audience. Much of the monster battle was filmed to contain a great deal of humor but the approach was not favoured by most of the effects crew, who "couldn't believe" some of the things Tsuburaya asked them to do, such as Kong and Godzilla volleying a giant boulder back and forth. With the exception of the next film, Mothra vs. Godzilla, this film began the trend to portray Godzilla and the monsters with more and more anthropomorphism as the series progressed, to appeal more to younger children. Ishirō Honda was not a fan of the dumbing down of the monsters. Years later, Honda stated in an interview. "I don't think a monster should ever be a comical character," and "The public is more entertained when the great King Kong strikes fear into the hearts of the little characters." The decision was also taken to shoot the film in a (2.35:1) scope ratio (TohoScope) and to film in color (Eastman Color), marking both monsters' first widescreen and color portrayals.

Toho originally planned to shoot the film on location in Sri Lanka, but abandoned the idea after being forced to pay RKO roughly ¥80 million ($220,000) for the rights to the King Kong character, which forced the company to scale down their original production costs. The bulk of the film was shot on the Japanese island of Izu Ōshima instead. The movie's production budget came out to ¥150 million (US$).

Suit actors Shoichi Hirose (as King Kong) and Haruo Nakajima (as Godzilla) were given mostly free rein by Tsuburaya to choreograph their own moves. The men would rehearse for hours and would base their moves on those of professional wrestling (a sport that was growing in popularity in Japan), in particular the moves of Toyonobori.

During pre-production, Tsuburaya toyed with the idea of using Willis O'Brien's stop-motion technique instead of the suitmation process used in the first two Godzilla films, but budgetary concerns prevented him from using the process, and the more cost-efficient suitmation was used instead. However, some brief stop-motion was used in a couple of quick sequences. Two of these sequences were animated by Minoru Nakano.

A brand new Godzilla suit was designed for this film and some slight alterations were done to its overall appearance. These alterations included the removal of its tiny ears, three toes on each foot rather than four, enlarged central dorsal fins, and a bulkier body. These new features gave Godzilla a more reptilian/dinosaurian appearance. Outside of the suit, a meter-high model and a small puppet were also built. Another puppet (from the waist up) was also designed that had a nozzle in the mouth to spray out liquid mist simulating Godzilla's atomic breath. However the shots in the film where this prop was employed (far away shots of Godzilla breathing its atomic breath during its attack on the Arctic Military base) were ultimately cut from the film. These cut scenes can be seen in the Japanese theatrical trailer. Finally, a separate prop of Godzilla's tail was also built for close-up practical shots when its tail would be used (such as the scene where Godzilla trips Kong with its tail). The tail prop would be swung offscreen by a stagehand.

Sadamasa Arikawa (who worked with Tsuburaya) said that the sculptors had a hard time coming up with a King Kong suit that appeased Tsuburaya. The first suit was rejected for being too fat with long legs giving Kong what the crew considered an almost cute look. A few other designs were done before Tsuburaya would approve the final look that was ultimately used in the film. The suit's body design was a team effort by brothers Koei Yagi and Kanji Yagi and was covered with expensive yak hair, which Eizō Kaimai hand-dyed brown. Because RKO instructed that the face must be different from the original's design, sculptor Teizō Toshimitsu based Kong's face on the Japanese macaque rather than a gorilla, and designed two separate masks. As well, two separate pairs of arms were also created. One pair were extended arms operated by poles inside the suit to give Kong a gorilla-like illusion, while the other pair were at normal arms-length and featured gloves that were used for scenes that required Kong to grab items and wrestle with Godzilla. Suit actor Hirose was sewn into the suit in order to hide the zipper. This would force him to be trapped inside the suit for large amounts of time and would cause him much physical discomfort. In the scene where Kong drinks the berry juice and falls asleep, he was trapped in the suit for three hours. Besides the suit with the two separate arm attachments, a meter-high model and a puppet of Kong (used for closeups) were also built. As well, a huge prop of Kong's hand was built for the scene where he grabs Mie Hama (Fumiko) and carries her off.

For the attack of the giant octopus, four live octopuses were used. They were forced to move among the miniature huts by having hot air blown onto them. After the filming of that scene was finished, three of the four octopuses were released. The fourth became special effects director Tsuburaya's dinner. These sequences were filmed on a miniature set outdoors on the Miura Coast, According to assistant special effects cinematographer Kōichi Kawakita, the crew had difficulty getting the live octopuses to move. Along with the live animals, two rubber octopus puppets were built, with the larger one being covered with plastic wrap to simulate mucous. Some stop-motion tentacles were also created for the scene where the octopus grabs a native and tosses him. These sequences were shot indoors at Toho's studios.

The special effects crew filmed a sequence in which Godzilla rampages through Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture, and destroys the Takasaki Kannon Statue, but this scene was cut from the final film. Despite this scene being cut, Godzilla is still said to have passed through Takasaki in the film.

Since King Kong was seen as the bigger draw and Godzilla was still considered a 'villain' at this point in the series, the decision was made to not only give King Kong top billing but also to present him as the winner of the climactic fight. While the ending of the film does look somewhat ambiguous, Toho confirmed that King Kong was indeed the winner in their 1962–63 English-language film program Toho Films Vol. 8, which states in the film's plot synopsis, "A spectacular duel is arranged on the summit of Mt. Fuji and King Kong is victorious. But after he has won..." While producer Tomoyuki Tanaka stated in his 1983 and 1984 books, The Complete History of Toho Special Effects Movies, and Definitive Edition Godzilla Introduction that he believed the battle ended in a draw, Toho still maintains that Kong was the victor on their global website in 2023.

Theatrical
King Kong vs. Godzilla was released in Japan by Toho on August 11, 1962, where it played alongside Myself and I for two weeks, afterward, it was extended by one more week and screened alongside the anime film Touring the World. The film was re-released twice as part of the Toho Champion Festival, a children's festival centered on marathon screenings of kaiju films and cartoons. The film was first heavily re-cut and screened at the festival on March 21, 1970, and again on March 19, 1977, to coincide with the Japanese release of the 1976 version of King Kong. The 1970 Champion Festival version was edited by the film’s director Ishirō Honda, who shortened the runtime to just 74 minutes. In 1983, the film was screened across Japan alongside 9 other kaiju films as part of the Godzilla 1983 Revival Festival. The festival's success became the catalyst for relaunching the Godzilla series with The Return of Godzilla.

In North America, King Kong vs. Godzilla premiered in New York City on June 26, 1963. The film was also released in many international markets. In Germany, it was known as Die Rückkehr des King Kong ("The Return of King Kong") and in Italy as Il trionfo di King Kong ("The Triumph of King Kong").

To celebrate the film's 50th anniversary, Bay Area Film Events (BAFE) planned to screen the film at the Historic BAL Theatre in San Leandro, California, on June 16, 2012, as a double feature with Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack.

American version
When John Beck sold the King Kong vs Prometheus script to Toho (which became King Kong vs. Godzilla), he was given exclusive rights to produce a version of the film for release in non-Asian territories. He was able to line up a couple of potential distributors in Warner Bros. and Universal-International even before the film began production. Beck, accompanied by two Warner Bros. representatives, attended at least two private screenings of the film on the Toho Studios lot before it was released in Japan.

John Beck enlisted the help of two Hollywood writers, Paul Mason and Bruce Howard, to write a new screenplay. After discussions with Beck, the two wrote the American version and worked with editor Peter Zinner to remove scenes, recut others, and change the sequence of several events. To give the film more of an American feel, Mason and Howard decided to insert new footage that would convey the impression that the film was actually a newscast. The television actor Michael Keith played newscaster Eric Carter, a United Nations reporter who spends much of the time commenting on the action from the U.N. Headquarters via an International Communications Satellite (ICS) broadcast. Harry Holcombe was cast as Dr. Arnold Johnson, the head of the Museum of Natural History in New York City, who tries to explain Godzilla's origin and his and Kong's motivations.

Beck and his crew were able to obtain library music from a host of older films, including Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). Cues from these scores were used to almost completely replace the original Japanese score by Akira Ifukube and give the film a more Western sound. They also obtained stock footage from the film The Mysterians from RKO (the film's U.S. copyright holder at the time) which was used not only to represent the ICS, but which was also utilized during the film's climax. Stock footage of a massive earthquake from The Mysterians was employed to make the earthquake caused by Kong and Godzilla's plummet into the ocean much more violent than the comparatively tame tremor seen in the Japanese version. This added footage features massive tidal waves, flooded valleys, and the ground splitting open swallowing up various huts.

Beck spent roughly $12,000 making his English version and sold the film to Universal-International for roughly $200,000 on April 29, 1963. The film was released theatrically in the United States on June 26 of that year, as a double feature with The Traitors.

Starting in 1963, Toho's international sales booklets began advertising an English dub of King Kong vs. Godzilla alongside Toho-commissioned, unedited international dubs of movies such as Giant Monster Varan and The Last War. By association, it is thought that this King Kong vs. Godzilla dub is an unedited English-language international version not known to have been released on home video.

Home media
In July 2014, the Japanese version was released for the first time on Blu-ray in Japan as part of Toho's plan to release the entire series on the Blu-ray format for Godzilla's 60th anniversary. Universal Pictures released the English-language version of the film on Blu-ray on April 1, 2014, along with King Kong Escapes. The Blu-ray sold $738,063 in domestic video sales. In 2019, the Japanese and American versions were included in a Blu-ray box set released by The Criterion Collection, which included all 15 films from the franchise's Shōwa era. The 4K remaster of the Japanese version was released on Blu-ray and 4K Blu-ray in May 2021. The special features for the 2021 Blu-ray include one of the Toho Champion Festival reissues of the film, the film's theatrical trailer, and a still gallery.

Box office
In Japan, this film has the highest box office attendance figures of all of the Godzilla films to date. It sold 11.2 million tickets during its initial theatrical run, accumulating ¥352 million ($972,000) in distribution rental earnings. The film became the second-highest-grossing Japanese-produced film in history upon its release and was the fourth-highest-grossing film released in Japan that year as well as Toho's second-biggest release. At an average 1962 Japanese ticket price, 11.2 million ticket sales were equivalent to estimated gross receipts of approximately ¥billion (US$million).

Including re-releases, the film accumulated a lifetime figure of 12.55 million tickets sold in Japan, with distribution rental earnings of ¥430 million. The 1970 re-release sold 870,000 tickets, equivalent to estimated gross receipts of approximately ¥million (US$). The 1977 re-release sold 480,000 tickets, equivalent to estimated gross receipts of approximately ¥million (US$million). This adds up to total estimated Japanese gross receipts of approximately ¥billion (US$million). In the United States, the film grossed $2.7 million, accumulating a profit (via rentals) of $1.25 million. Overall, the film is estimated to have earned US$ worldwide.

Critical response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 52% based on 21 reviews, with an average rating of 5.10/10. On Metacritic, the film has a score of 40/100, based on 4 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

The reviews tended to evaluate the film as an exploitation or kiddie film. Some of the more positive reviews were from James Powers of The Hollywood Reporter who wrote "A funny monster picture? That's what Universal has in "King Kong Versus Godzilla [sic]". Audiences which patronize this kind of picture will eat it up. It should be a big success via the multiple booking, exploitation route." While the review from Box Office stated "Exploitation-minded exhibitors should have a field day with this Japanese import. While the story is preposterous and loaded with stilted dialogue...the special effects are unusual and merit considerable praise". John Cutts of Films and Filming wrote "Sublime stuff. Richly comic, briskly paced, oddly touching, and thoroughly irresistible. Outrageous of course, and deplorably acted and atrociously dubbed to boot. But what matters most is the sheer invention of its exemplary trick work."

The review from Variety stated "To the list of this century's great preliminary bouts—Dempsey-Firpo, Sullivan-Paar, Nixon-Kennedy, Paterson-Liston, Steve Reeves-Gordon Scott—add the main event "King Kong Versus Godzilla [sic]". From the mysterious East comes the monstrosity to end all monstrosities, the epic clash between the 30-year-old, breast-beating, Hollywood-born-and-bred gorilla with the overactive pituitary and the seven-year-old, pea-brained, flame-throated, tail-wagging cross between a Stegosaurus and a Tyrannosaurus rex who fights out of Tokyo, Japan. Onward and upward with the arts". While Eugene Archer of The New York Times said "King Kong Versus Godzilla [sic] should be explicit enough title for anyone. Viewers who attend the ridiculous melodrama unveiled at neighborhood theaters should know exactly what to expect and get what they deserve. The one real surprise of this cheap reprise of earlier Hollywood and Japanese horror films is the ineptitude of its fakery. When the pair of prehistoric monsters finally get together for their battle royal, the effect is nothing more than a couple of dressed-up stuntmen throwing cardboard rocks at each other."

Den of Geek ranked the film at number eight in their 2019 ranking of the Shōwa Godzilla films, writing that the film has a "sturdy, surprisingly crafty story" but calling Kong's design and appearance a "major drawback." Variety listed it number sixteen on their 2021 ranking of every Godzilla film. Collider ranked the film number two on their Shōwa Godzilla list in 2022, describing the fight choreography as "beautiful."

Preservation
The original Japanese version of King Kong vs. Godzilla is infamous for being one of the most poorly-preserved tokusatsu films. In 1970, director Ishirō Honda prepared an edited version of the film for the Toho Champion Festival, a children's matinee program that showcased edited re-releases of older kaiju films along with cartoons and then-new kaiju films. Honda cut 24 minutes from the film's original negative and, as a result, the highest quality source for the cut footage was lost. For years, all that was thought to remain of the uncut 1962 version was a faded, heavily damaged 16mm element from which rental prints were made. 1980s restorations for home video integrated the 16mm deleted scenes into the 35mm Champion cut, resulting in wildly inconsistent picture quality.

On July 14, 2016, a 4K restoration of a completely 35mm sourced version of the film aired on The Godzilla First Impact, a series of 4K broadcasts of Godzilla films on the Nihon Eiga Senmon Channel.

Legacy
Due to the great box office success of this film, Toho wanted to produce a sequel immediately. Shinichi Sekizawa was brought back to write the screenplay tentatively titled Continuation: King Kong vs. Godzilla (続 キングコング対ゴジラ). Sekizawa revealed that Kong killed Godzilla during their underwater battle in Sagami Bay with a line of dialogue stating "Godzilla, who sank and died in the waters off Atami". As the story progressed, Godzilla's body is salvaged from the Ocean by a group of entrepreneurs who hope to display the remains at a planned resort. Meanwhile, King Kong is found in Africa where he had been protecting a baby (the sole survivor of a plane crash). After the baby is rescued by investigators, and is taken back to Japan, Kong follows the group and rampages through the country looking for the infant. Godzilla is then revived with hopes of driving off Kong. The story ends with both monsters plummeting into a volcano. The project was ultimately cancelled. A couple of years later, United Productions of America (UPA) and Toho conceived the idea to pit Godzilla against a giant Frankenstein's monster and commissioned Takeshi Kimura to write a screenplay titled Frankenstein vs. Godzilla, with Jerry Sohl and Reuben Bercovitch writing the story and synopsis for the film. However, Toho would cancel this project as well and instead decided to match Mothra against Godzilla in Mothra vs. Godzilla. This began a formula where kaiju from past Toho films would be added into the Godzilla franchise.

Toho was interested in producing a series around their version of King Kong but were refused by RKO. However, Toho would handle the character once more in 1967 to help Rankin/Bass co-produce their film King Kong Escapes, which was loosely based on a cartoon series Rankin/Bass produced.

Henry G. Saperstein was impressed with the giant octopus scene and requested a giant octopus to appear in Frankenstein Conquers the World and The War of the Gargantuas. The giant octopus appeared in an alternate ending for Frankenstein Conquers the World that was intended for overseas markets, but went unused. As a result, the octopus instead appeared in the opening of The War of the Gargantuas. The film's King Kong suit was recycled and altered to depict Goro in the second episode of Ultra Q, and the suit's torso was later reused to portray King Kong in the water scenes of King Kong Escapes.

Filmmaker Shizuo Nakajima recreated several scenes from this film in his 1983 fan film Legendary Giant Beast Wolfman vs. Godzilla, including the scenes where Godzilla emerges from an iceberg and attacks a train during his rampage on the Japanese mainland.

In 1990, Toho expressed interest in remaking the film as Godzilla vs. King Kong. However, producer Tomoyuki Tanaka stated that obtaining the rights to King Kong proved difficult. Toho then considered producing Godzilla vs. Mechani-Kong but effects director Koichi Kawakita confirmed that obtaining the likeness of King Kong also proved difficult. Mechani-Kong was replaced by Mechagodzilla, and the project was developed into Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II in 1993.

In October 2015, Legendary Pictures announced plans for a King Kong vs Godzilla film of their own (unrelated to Toho's version), which was released in the United States on March 31, 2021, simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max.

Dual ending myth
For many years, a popular myth has persisted that in the Japanese version of the film, Godzilla emerges as the winner. The myth originated in the pages of Spacemen magazine, a 1960s sister magazine to the influential publication Famous Monsters of Filmland. In an article about the film, it is incorrectly stated that there were two endings and "If you see King Kong vs Godzilla in Japan, Hong Kong or some Oriental sector of the world, Godzilla wins!" The article was reprinted in various issues of Famous Monsters of Filmland in the years following, such as in issues #51 and #114. This misinformation would be accepted as fact and persist for decades. For example, a question in the "Genus III" edition of the popular board game Trivial Pursuit asked, "Who wins in the Japanese version of King Kong vs. Godzilla?" and stated that the correct answer was "Godzilla". Various media have repeated this falsehood, including the Los Angeles Times.

There are technically minor differences in the ending between both versions. For example, in the Japanese version, both Godzilla and King Kong's roars are heard during the film's fade to black while in the American version only Kong's roar is heard. However in both versions, the final shot of Kong swimming away alone is unchanged.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: King Kong vs. Godzilla


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Ebirah, Horror of the Deep

Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (ゴジラ・エビラ・モスラ　南海の大決闘) is a 1966 Japanese  kaiju film directed by Jun Fukuda and produced and distributed by Toho Co., Ltd. The film stars Akira Takarada, Kumi Mizuno, Akihiko Hirata and Eisei Amamoto, and features the fictional monster characters Godzilla, Mothra, and Ebirah. It is the seventh film in the  Godzilla franchise, and features special effects by Sadamasa Arikawa, under the supervision of Eiji Tsuburaya. In the film, Godzilla and Ebirah are portrayed by Haruo Nakajima and Hiroshi Sekita, respectively.

During its development, Ebirah, Horror of the Deep was intended to feature King Kong, but the character was replaced by Godzilla. The film was released to theaters in Japan on December 17, 1966, and was released directly to television in the United States under the title Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster in 1968 by Continental Distributing.

The film was followed by the eighth film in the Godzilla franchise, Son of Godzilla, released on December 16, 1967.

Plot
After Yata is lost at sea, his brother Ryota steals a yacht with his two friends and a bank robber. However, the crew runs afoul of Ebirah, a giant lobster-like creature, and washes ashore on Letchi Island. There, the Red Bamboo, a terrorist organization, manufactures heavy water for selling weapons of mass destruction and a yellow liquid that keeps Ebirah at bay, presumably controlling him. The Red Bamboo has enslaved natives from nearby Infant Island to create the yellow liquid, while the natives hope that Mothra will awaken in her winged, adult form and rescue them.

In their efforts to avoid capture, Ryota and his friends, aided by Daiyo, a native girl, come across Godzilla, who previously fought Ghidorah and is now sleeping within a cliffside cavern. The group devises a plan to defeat the Red Bamboo and escape the island. In the process, they awaken Godzilla using a makeshift lightning rod. Godzilla fights Ebirah, but the huge crustacean escapes. Godzilla is then attacked by a giant condor and a squadron of Red Bamboo fighter jets. Using its atomic breath, Godzilla destroys the jets and kills the giant bird.

Ryota and his friends retrieve the missing Yata and free the enslaved natives as Godzilla begins to destroy the Red Bamboo's base of operations, smashing a tower that causes a countdown that will destroy the island in a nuclear explosion. Godzilla fights Ebirah and defeats it, ripping its claws off, and forcing it to retreat into the sea. The natives await for Mothra to carry them off in a large net. However, when she gets to the island, Mothra is challenged by Godzilla due to a previous confrontation. Mothra manages to repel Godzilla and save her people and the human heroes. Godzilla also escapes just before the bomb detonates and destroys the island.

Writing
By 1966, Toho had their sights set on bringing back King Kong back to the silver screen. Their deal with RKO allowed them the use of King Kong for five years, an agreement that would be over in 1967. Why Toho waited so long to produce another Kong film is unknown. The planned movie, Operation Robinson Caruso: King Kong vs. Ebirah (ロビンソン·クルーソー作戦 キングコング対エビラ, Robinson Kurūsō Sakusen: Kingu Kongu tai Ebira), was a co-production with Rankin/Bass, who was about to debut their animated program, The King Kong Show, in September of that same year. According to Toho Special Effects Movies Complete Works, Jun Fukuda was approached about an untitled US–Japanese King Kong co-production April 21, 1966. Even before that, in February 1966, Toho's senior staff member Makoto Fujimoto met with a movie theater owner in Kansai and revealed that the New Year's season would see the release of a new King Kong movie.

The concept was first pitched by Shinichi Sekizawa on July 13, 1966. However, Rankin-Bass was displeased that Toho was dead-set on Jun Fukuda directing the live-action and Eiji Tsuburaya's protege, Sadamasa Arikawa, directing special effects. Rankin-Bass was equally dead set on the creative team being Ishiro Honda and Eiji Tsuburaya. When Toho refused to budge and was unable to compromise, Rankin-Bass dropped out of the project. Toho liked the script so much that they just decided to substitute Godzilla in place of Kong and made it as Godzilla, Ebirah, Mothra: Big Duel in the South Seas for their New Year's Blockbuster. Rankin-Bass and Toho would settle their differences the next year and would begin work on King Kong Escapes (1967), which was based on the recent King Kong cartoon and would feature Honda at the director's helm.

Even with the loss of one of the title characters, though, Toho continued with production on Sekizawa's screenplay. Little was done to tweak the script and Godzilla displays a Kong-inspired interest in Daiyo. It's even possible the electric shock to revive Kong was a nod to the ape's love of electricity in King Kong vs. Godzilla.

According to Teruyoshi Nakano, Godzilla was supposed to fight a giant octopus in this film. However, Nakano likely confused this film with an early version of All Monsters Attack (1969). Both Nakano and Fukuda acted as though they were unaware the film ever started out starring King Kong. Fukuda said, "Godzilla was in the first draft of the script that I saw. I don't know what the earlier drafts were like." Fukuda further elaborated that making the film "was like pouring two cups of water into one. I had to cut one sequence after another." What these cut scenes contained are unknown, but Godzilla's infamous helicopter spin of Ebirah, which exists only in publicity photos, was apparently planned for the film, as storyboards exist of the scene.

Filming
This is the first of two Godzilla films in which a Pacific island is the primary setting, rather than a location inside Japan. The second and final one is Son of Godzilla (1967).

Director Jun Fukuda notes that producer Tomoyuki Tanaka was not particularly active on this production, with the exception of being involved with the budget. The producer would, however, visit the set "often" to watch progress but only as an observer.

Daiyo was originally to be played by Noriko Takahashi, from Frankenstein vs. Baragon (1965), but fell ill with appendicitis during production was replaced with Kumi Mizuno at the last second.

Although Eiji Tsuburaya is credited as the special effects director, actual directorial duties were handed over to Teisho Arikawa, who at this stage had been promoted to Tsuburaya's first assistant director. Tsuburaya still had the final say on effects sequences but served more of a supervisor role on the production.

With a new special effects director in the seat, Toho tried to limit the effects budget. Sadamasa Arikawa lamented that Toho likely did this due to his inexperience and TV history, noting that "Toho couldn't have made too many demands about the budget if Mr. Tsuburaya had been in charge" and that he "was also doing TV work then, so they must have figured I could produce the movie cheaply." To keep the budget down, Toho instructed Arikawa to avoid expensive composite shots as much as possible. Although the movie has minimal composite shots, it is not devoid of them as scenes such as Godzilla's foot composited near actress Kumi Mizuno or a sequence of Mothra composited as her followers rush toward her are some examples of these sequences that made it into the final film.

Jun Fukuda was not fond of the film. In an interview, he was quoted saying, "Toho sent me a copy of the VHS tape edition of Godzilla vs The Sea Monsters when it was released. It was like opening up an old wound, I didn't watch the tape."

Music
Director Jun Fukuda selected Masaru Sato to score his films to give it a "different touch from Ishiro Honda's", noting Sato's music was lighter than Akira Ifukube's. Producer Tomoyuki Tanaka didn't agree with this decision but Fukuda won out in the end.

Special effects
The underwater sequences were filmed on an indoor soundstage where the Godzilla and Ebirah suits were filmed through the glass of a water-filled aquarium, with some scenes of the Godzilla suit shot separately underwater as well. Haruo Nakajima wore a wet suit under the Godzilla suit for every scene that required him to be in the water, which took a week to complete the water scenes, Nakajima stated, "I worked overtime until about eight o'clock every day. I lived in the water! Generally, in the summer, everybody wants to go in the pool and play, but, when it comes to kaiju movies, it is totally different. Most of the scenes that they shoot in the water are not in the summer, but in the winter. In the middle of winter, shooting started at nine in the morning, going until noon, and then we'd take an hour off. But we'd go from 1:00 P.M. until around 5:00 at night. I needed to stay in the water all day in the suit, and shooting took a week."

The Side Monsters that featured in this film were largely dictated by suits and props that were still available from previous films. For example, the Mothra was the same prop seen in Ghidorah, the Three Headed Monster and the giant condor was a repurposed Rodan prop used in flying scenes. Other places where the low budget of the movie can be seen is in the island setting which was picked, as islands are much cheaper to make miniatures of compared to cities. This island trend carries on in other movies such as Son of Godzilla.

Theatrical
Ebirah, Horror of the Deep was released theatrically in Japan on December 17, 1966, where it was distributed by Toho.

The American version of the film was released directly to television by Continental Distributing in 1968 under the title Godzilla versus the Sea Monster. The film may have received theatrical distribution in the United States as a Walter Reade, Jr. Presentation, but this has not been confirmed. It was also featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 as the last episode for the second season.

Home media
The film was released on DVD on February 8, 2005 by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. The film was released on Blu-ray on May 6, 2014 by Kraken Releasing. In 2019, the Japanese version was included in a Blu-ray box set released by the Criterion Collection, which included all 15 films from the franchise's Shōwa era.

There are two English versions. The first one was dubbed in the 1960s by a company called Titra and featured Hal Linden. It was featured on VHS releases. The second one was dubbed with extra scenes and dialogue for DVD and Blu Ray releases. The Titra version did not use the entire movie for dubbing.

title: Ebirah, Horror of the Deep


text:
Son of Godzilla

Son of Godzilla (怪獣島の決戦 ゴジラの息子) is a 1967 Japanese kaiju film directed by Jun Fukuda, with special effects by Sadamasa Arikawa, under the supervision of Eiji Tsuburaya. Produced and distributed by Toho Co., Ltd, it is the eighth film in the Godzilla franchise. It stars Tadao Takashima, Akira Kubo, Akihiko Hirata, and Beverly Maeda, with Hiroshi Sekita, Seiji Onaka, and Haruo Nakajima as Godzilla, and Marchan the Dwarf as Minilla.

Son of Godzilla received a theatrical release in Japan on December 16, 1967, it received mixed reactions from critics and audience. It was released directly to television in the United States in 1969 through the Walter Reade Organization.

The film was followed by the ninth film in the Godzilla franchise, Destroy All Monsters, released on August 1, 1968.

Plot
A team of scientists are trying to perfect a weather-controlling system. Their efforts are hampered by the arrival of a nosy reporter and by the sudden presence of giant mantises. A reporter, Maki Goro, arrives on the island to find the scientists somewhat stir-crazy from the events, and is allowed to stay as a maintenance worker. Whilst there he also glimpses a mysterious woman the scientists were unaware of, apparently living in the jungle. The first test of the weather control system goes awry when the remote control for a radioactive balloon is jammed by an unexplained signal coming from the center of the island. Eventually finding the woman, Saeko Matsumiya, she is revealed to be the daughter of a previous researcher on the island who warned about a gigantic species of spider. The balloon detonates prematurely, creating a radioactive storm that causes the giant mantises to grow to enormous sizes. Investigating the mantises, which are named Kamacuras (Gimantis in the English-dubbed version), the scientists find the monstrous insects digging an egg out from under a pile of earth.

The egg hatches, revealing a baby Godzilla. The scientists realize that the baby's telepathic cries for help were the cause of the interference that ruined their experiment. Shortly afterwards, Godzilla arrives on the island in response to the infant's cries, demolishing the scientist's base while rushing to defend the baby. Godzilla kills two of the Kamacuras during the battle while one manages to fly away to safety. Saeko introduces herself to and bonds with the baby kaiju, feeding him some fruit. Godzilla then returns and adopts the baby as his son.

The baby Godzilla, named Minilla, quickly grows to about half the size of the adult Godzilla and Godzilla begins instructing his new charge on the important monster skills of roaring and using his atomic ray, as Maki and Saeko observe them. At first, Minilla has difficulty producing anything more than atomic smoke rings, but Godzilla discovers that stressful conditions (i.e. stomping on his tail) or motivation produces a true radioactive blast. Minilla comes to the aid of Saeko when she is attacked by a Kamacuras, but inadvertently awakens Kumonga (Spiga in the English-dubbed version), a giant spider that was sleeping in a valley which killed Saeko's father. Kumonga attacks Saeko's cave where the scientists are hiding and Minilla stumbles into the fray.

Kumonga traps Minilla and the final Kamacuras with its webbing, but as Kumonga begins to feed on the deceased Kamacuras, Godzilla arrives. Godzilla saves Minilla and they work together to defeat Kumonga by using their atomic rays on the giant spider. Hoping to keep the monsters from interfering in their attempt to escape the island, the scientists finally use their perfected weather altering device on the island and the once tropical island becomes buried in snow and ice. As the scientists are saved by an American submarine, Godzilla and Minilla embrace and begin to hibernate as they wait for the island to become tropical again.

Writing
For the second Godzilla film in a row, Toho produced an island themed adventure with a smaller budget than most of their monster films from this time period. While the a-list crew of talent was hired to work on that year's King Kong Escapes, (Ishirō Honda, Eiji Tsuburaya, and Akira Ifukube), the second string crew of cheaper talent was once again tapped to work on this project as they had done with Ebirah, Horror of the Deep. This included Jun Fukuda (director), Sadamasa Arikawa (special effects), and Masaru Sato (composer). This was the first film where Arikawa was officially listed as the director of Special Effects, although he did receive some supervision from Tsuburaya when he was available.

The early draft of the film, done by Kazue Shiba, titled Two Godzilla's: Japan S.O.S. (2つのゴジラ：日本S.O.S.!, Gojira: Tsu no Nihon S.O.S.!). The overall plot is the same but Kumonga and the Kamacuras are not in the story.

Filming
Filming took place in Guam and areas in Japan including Gotemba, Lake Yamana, the Fuji Five Lakes region, and Oshima.

Toho wanted to create a baby Godzilla to appeal to the "date crowd" (a genre of films that were very popular among young couples during this time period), with the idea that girls would like a "cute" baby monster. For the idea behind Minilla, Fukuda stated, "We wanted to take a new approach, so we gave Godzilla a child. We thought it would be a little strange if we gave Godzilla a daughter, so instead we gave him a son". Fukuda also wanted to portray the monsters almost as people in regards to the father-son relationship between Godzilla and Minilla, as Fukuda stated "We focused on the relationship between Godzilla and his son throughout the course of Son of Godzilla.

At the time, Sekizawa was already tired of writing the series and likely complained that he had run out of ideas for further monster movies, and director Jun Fukuda heartily agreed. Producer Tomoyuki Tanaka then proposed the idea of introducing a son to Godzilla.

The budget for the film was 260,000,000 yen. When Son of Godzilla was released on December 16, 1967 in Japan, it sold 2,480,000 tickets. When the film was re-issued on August 1, 1973, it received 610,000 attendees, adding up to a rough attendance total of 3,090,000.

Special effects
The Godzilla suit built for this film was the biggest in terms of size and girth. This was done in order to give Godzilla a "paternal" appearance and to give a parent-like stature in contrast next to Minilla. Because of the size of the suit, seasoned Godzilla suit actor Haruo Nakajima was only hired to play Godzilla in two scenes because the suit was much too big for him to wear. The smaller suit he had worn for the films Ebirah, Horror of the Deep and Invasion of Astro-Monster was used for these sequences. The much larger Seji Onaka instead played Godzilla in the film, although he was replaced midway through filming by Hiroshi Sekita after he broke his fingers.

Minilla was designed to incorporate features of not only a baby Godzilla but a human baby was well. Minilla's face was patterned after the character Chibita from the popular manga Osomatsu-kun published by Shogakukan in Weekly Shonen Saturday at the time. "Marchan the Dwarf" was hired to play the character due to his ability to play-act and to give the character a childlike ambiance. He was also hired because of his ability to perform athletic rolls and flips inside the thick rubber suit.

Outside of the two monster suits, various marionettes and puppets were used to portray the Island's gigantic inhabitants. The various giant preying mantises known as Kamacuras and the huge spider Kumonga. Arikawa would usually have 20 puppeteers at a time working on the various marionettes. The massive Kumonga puppet needed 2 to 3 people at a time to operate each leg.

Styrofoam and paraffin were used for the snow falling on Solgell Island.

Deleted scenes
Many scenes were shot but deleted showing Godzilla being mean or harsh to Minilla. One sequence shows Godzilla leaving Minilla behind on the freezing Sollgel Island and making it to shore before turning back was cut from the final film's ending. A portion of this sequence has been preserved in both the trailer and an outtake reel included with the Godzilla Final Box DVD collection as supplemental material. More deleted footage included Godzilla expecting the newborn Minilla to get up and walk after the Kamacuras have been defeated. Another featured Godzilla head-butting Minilla to make him stop following Saeko. One scene included Minilla being able to fire his own type of atomic breath during his fight with Kamacuras. However, in the final film, the smoke rings and his Godzilla breath were utilized instead. It is unknown who was responsible for these bits being deleted, but it was possibly Tsuburaya since he would not have allowed time and resources to be wasted shooting each such scenes if he was not okay with them in the first place.

Theatrical
Son of Godzilla was distributed theatrically in Japan by Toho on December 16, 1967. The film was released theatrically in the United Kingdom in August 1969, as a double feature with Ebirah, Horror of the Deep. Son of Godzilla was never released theatrically in the United States, instead being released directly to television by Walter Reade Sterling as well as American International Pictures (AIP-TV) in some markets in 1969. The American television version was cut to 84 minutes.

Home media
In 2005, the film was released on DVD by Sony Pictures in its original uncut length with the original Japanese audio and Toho's international English dub. In 2019, the Japanese version and export English version was included in a Blu-ray box set released by the Criterion Collection, which included all 15 films from the franchise's Shōwa era.

Reception
In a contemporary review, the Monthly Film Bulletin declared the film to be "out of the top drawer of the Toho Company's monster file, with the special effects department achieving their best results in monster locomotion" and that the film "has the advantage of a more soundly constructed story than most of its predecessors and a delightful vein of humor that allows for a gentle parody of the genre."

According to the Polish writer Aleksandra Ziółkowska-Boehm, the film appealed to Polish journalist Melchior Wańkowicz: "On August 9, Tomuś's birthday, we all went to see Son of Godzilla. I was afraid [Melchior] would be irritated by this film's type. I was again surprised, I watched with what interest he looked at the picture. Later he said that he had never seen this genre, but he was delighted with the technique of realization."

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, approval rating of 60% based on 15 reviews, with an average rating of 4.7/10.

title: Son of Godzilla


text:
Destroy All Monsters

Destroy All Monsters (怪獣総進撃) is a 1968 Japanese epic kaiju film directed by Ishirō Honda, with special effects directed by Sadamasa Arikawa and supervised by Eiji Tsuburaya. The film, which was produced and distributed by Toho Co., Ltd, is the ninth film in the Godzilla franchise, and features eleven monster characters, including Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, King Ghidorah, Anguirus, and Minilla. The film stars Akira Kubo, Jun Tazaki, Yukiko Kobayashi and Yoshio Tsuchiya.

In the film, humans have achieved world peace by the year 1999, and various giant monsters are confined to an area known as Monsterland. The monsters are freed from the area and are mind-controlled by aliens known as Kilaaks, who send them to attack major cities. When the monsters are freed from the Kilaaks' influence, the aliens send King Ghidorah to challenge the other monsters.

Destroy All Monsters was released theatrically in Japan on August 1, 1968. The film was released by American International Pictures with an English-language dub in the United States on May 23, 1969. Contemporary American reviews were mixed, with praise mainly held for the climactic monster battle. Retrospectively, the film has received more praise, and is considered a favorite among Godzilla fans for its "audacious and simple story", "innovative action sequences", and a "memorably booming" score by Akira Ifukube.

The film was followed by the tenth film in the Godzilla franchise, All Monsters Attack, released on December 20, 1969.

Plot
At the close of the 20th century (1999 in the dub), all of the Earth's kaiju have been collected by the United Nations Science Committee and confined in an area known as Monsterland, located in the Ogasawara island chain. A special control center is constructed underneath the island to ensure that the monsters stay secure and to serve as a research facility to study them.

When communications with Monsterland are suddenly and mysteriously severed, and all of the monsters begin attacking world capitals, Dr. Yoshida of the UNSC orders Captain Yamabe and the crew of his spaceship, Moonlight SY-3, to investigate Ogasawara. There, they discover that the scientists, led by Dr. Otani, have become mind-controlled slaves of a feminine alien race identifying themselves as the Kilaaks, who reveal that they are in control of the monsters. Their leader demands that the human race surrender, or face total annihilation.

Godzilla attacks New York City, Rodan invades Moscow, Mothra lays waste to Beijing, Gorosaurus destroys Paris (although Baragon was credited for its destruction), and Manda attacks London. The attacks were set in to motion to draw attention away from Japan, so that the aliens can establish an underground stronghold near Mount Fuji. The Kilaaks then turn their next major attack onto Tokyo and, without serious opposition, become arrogant in their aims until the UNSC discover, after recovering the Kilaaks' monster mind-control devices from around the world, that they have switched to broadcasting the control signals from their base under the Moon's surface. In a desperate battle, the crew of the SY-3 destroys the Kilaak's lunar outpost and returns the alien control system to Earth.

With all of the monsters under the control of the UNSC, the Kilaaks call King Ghidorah, who is dispatched to protect the alien stronghold at Mount Fuji, battling Godzilla, Minilla, Mothra, Rodan, Gorosaurus, Anguirus, Kumonga and Varan. While seemingly invincible, King Ghidorah is eventually overpowered by the combined strength of the Earth monsters and is killed. Refusing to admit defeat, the Kilaaks produce their ace, a burning monster they call the Fire Dragon, which begins to torch Tokyo and destroys the control center on Ogasawara. Suddenly, Godzilla attacks and destroys the Kilaaks' underground base, revealing that the Earth's monsters instinctively know who their enemies are. Captain Yamabe then pursues the Fire Dragon in the SY-3 and narrowly achieves victory for the human race. The Fire Dragon is revealed to be a flaming Kilaak saucer and is destroyed. With the Kilaaks defeated, Godzilla and the other monsters eventually return to Monsterland to live in peace.

Writing
Special effects director Sadamasa Arikawa noted that Toho were going to potentially end the Godzilla series as "Producer Tanaka figured that all the ideas had just run out." Several sources attest that the film was announced alongside Son of Godzilla, possibly as a competing project.

The film was written by Takeshi Kimura and Ishirō Honda, making it the first Godzilla film since Godzilla Raids Again not written by Shinichi Sekizawa. Takeshi Kimura is credited by his pen name Kaoru Mabuchi in the film's credits. Kimura and Honda's script developed the concept of Monsterland (referred to as Monster Island in future films).

The earliest screenplay, written by Kimura in 1967, was titled Monster Chushingura (怪獣忠臣蔵, Kaiju Chūshingura). (The word chushingura refers to a famous historical story in Japan about the rebellion of 47 samurai who took revenge after their master was unjustly forced to commit suicide). Supposedly, in this version, every monster in Toho’s arsenal was to be included, even King Kong, Sanda, and Gaira. In an interview with David Miller, Ishiro Honda even said “the original idea was to show all of the monsters.”

The first initial screenplay, preliminary titled Monster Total Advancement Order (怪獣総進撃命令, Kaijū Sōshingeki Meirei), by Takashi Kamura (as Kaoru Mabuchi) was submitted on November 22, 1967, and included a confirmed roster of Godzilla, Mothra (larva), King Ghidorah, Rodan, Baragon, Varan, Kumonga, Manda, Maguma, and Ebirah. Everything plays out just as in the finished film except that Maguma and Baragon guard the Kilaak base and Baragon actually attacks Paris. Also, in this iteration, Varan and Rodan work in tandem to attack King Ghidorah in the final battle.

When it was decided to adapt Two Godzillas!: Japan SOS (an earlier version of Son of Godzilla) instead, the script was shelved for next year. By then the rights to Kong had expired. Honda also wanted to show lunar colonies and brand new hybrid monsters, the results of interbreeding and genetic splicing. He planned to delve more deeply into undersea farming to feed the monsters, but because of budget constraints this was not included. In later scripts, the number of monsters was cut as well.

Filming
Director Honda was fascinated by the concept of a "monster farm", in particular the idea of how humanity could feed them. He noted that a "huge amount of protein" would be needed and envisioned cloning along with undersea farming to accomplish this. However, despite the director's fascination with this concept, the final movie devotes very little time to it outside of the brief introduction to Monsterland and showing Rodan feasting on a dolphin. The director laments that of the original complex idea only the basic "idea of [a] Monster Island survived."

As the film has several monsters who continuously return in the films, the location was developed to be a faraway island where the monsters are pacified. This tied other films not related to the Godzilla series within its universe, as creatures such as Manda (from Atragon) and Varan (Varan the Unbelievable) exist. The film features footage from Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964), specifically King Ghidorah's fiery birth scene.

As with Ebirah, Horror of the Deep, Teisho Arikawa was the actual special effects director for the movie, although Eiji Tsuburaya is credited for it. Tsuburaya had more of a supervisor role regarding the special effects.

During the monster’s attack on Tokyo, you can see Godzilla steps over a construction crane model. Looking back on it, Haruo Nakajima did so because he worried he might trip over it and fall. He regretted doing that since he should have kicked it out of the way since it was a very non-monster like thing to do.

During the movie's production, Toho arranged for a visit to the Mount Fuji set by a group of around 100 kids who where entering first grade, who got to see all the monsters in action, as well as actors Akira Kubo and Jun Tazaki. Actress Yukiko Kobayashi, as well as the monsters, also paid a visit to a member of the child actors cast of an Imperial Theater of London production of Oliver! in Tokyo.

At the climatic battle at Mount Fuji, Haruo Nakajima wanted Godzilla to reprise his “jumping shie” from Invasion of Astro-Monster, but Ishiro Honda removed it from the final film.

Special effects
New monster suits for Godzilla and Anguirus were constructed for the film, while Rodan, Kumonga, Minilla, Gorosaurus, Manda, Baragon, Mothra, and King Ghidorah suits were modified from previous films, with King Ghidorah having less detail than he had in previous films.

There were 3 different scales of the Moonlight SY-3 created or the film. The largest was 1 meter (3 feet) long used mainly used for shots of the spaceship flying across the surface of the Moon, landing and taking off, and for battle with the Fire Dragon (UFO). The core of the model was solid wood with surface details made of balsa wood and molded fiber glass with puddy and paint used to disguise the wood grain and the seams. This model had collapsible wings, functional landing gear and fully firing engines. A 50 cm version was made for use for the booster stage and a 30 cm version was made for perspective flying shots. Both smaller versions were made of balsa wood covered in putty and paint.

For the scene when Gorosaurus comes out of the ground (through a tunnel presumably dug by Baragon) under the Arc de Triomphe, the floor of the set was six and half feet above the ground with the arc built on top of it. A forklift was brought in under the set and the monster was put on the forklift. They then raised the monster up through the ground by raising the forklift.

The fire trap set by the Kilaaks to trap the Moonlight SY-3 used real flamethrowers. Fire retardant materials were used in the rock walls in the crater.

Deleted scene
After attacking New York, Godzilla was to arrive in London and fight Manda but the scene was cut. The scene release in the 1990s included bonus features of the film’s Japanese LaserDisc. Stunt performers fighting for fun a way of goofing off between takes, director Ishirô Honda said "why was the scene is cut? Because it doesn't makes sense of wise story, Godzilla and Manda were being mind-controlled by their same as villains, they wouldn’t just start fighting each other. It wasn’t a great fight by any means, since Manda is one of the few monsters in the franchise that Godzilla never fought and appeared in two films with Godzilla, yet they didn’t battle in any of them."

Box office
Destroy All Monsters was released in Japan on 1 August 1968 where it was distributed by Toho. It was released on a double bill with a reissue of the film Atragon. The film had a budget of roughly ¥200,000,000 yen and received an attendance of 2,580,000. The film was reissued theatrically in Japan in 1972 where it was re-edited by Honda to a 74-minute running time and released with the title Godzilla: Lightning Fast Strategy (ゴジラ電撃大作戦, Gojira Dengeki Daisakusen). Destroy All Monsters continued the decline in ticket sales in Japan for the Godzilla series, earning 2.6 million in ticket sales. In comparison, Invasion of Astro-Monster brought in 3.8 million and Son of Godzilla collected 2.5 million.

US release
The film was released in the United States by American International Pictures with an English-language dub on 23 May 1969. The film premiered in the United States in Cincinnati. American International Pictures hired Titra Studios to dub the film into English. The American version of the film remains relatively close to the Japanese original. Among the more notable removed elements include Akira Ifukube's title theme (the credits are moved to the end of the film) and a brief shot of Minilla shielding his eyes and ducking when King Ghidorah drops Anguirus from the sky. Destroy All Monsters was shown on American television until the early 1980s. It resurfaced on cable broadcast on the Sci-Fi Channel in 1996.

Home media
The AIP release of Destroy All Monsters was never released on home video in the United States, despite Orion Home Video at one point having distribution rights. It was finally released on VHS by ADV Films in 1998 which featured English-dubbed dialogue from Toho's own international version of the film. In 2011, Tokyo Shock released the film on DVD and Blu-ray and in 2014 the company re-released it on DVD and Blu-ray. In 2019, the Japanese version and export English version were included in a Blu-ray box set released by the Criterion Collection, which included all 15 films from the franchise's Shōwa era.

In 2021, Toho premiered a 4K remaster of the film on the Nippon Classic Movie Channel, along with seven other Godzilla films also remastered in 4K. The film was downscaled to 2K for broadcast.

Critical response
From contemporary reviews, both Variety and Monthly Film Bulletin noted the film's best scenes involved the monsters together, while criticizing the filmmaking. Variety reviewed the English-dubbed version of the film stating that it may appeal to "Sci-fi addicts and monster fans" while stating that the "plot is on comic strip level, special effects depend on obvious miniatures and acting (human) is from school of Flash Gordon" and that the film's strength relied on its "monster rally". The Monthly Film Bulletin opined that "the model work is poor, and as usual the script is junior comic-strip". Both reviews mentioned the monsters' final scene with Variety commenting that it was "clever" and the Monthly Film Bulletin stating that "apart from [the monsters] statutory devastation of world capitals [...] the monsters have disappointingly little to do until they get together in the last reel for a splendid battle" The Monthly Film Bulletin commented that the film was "almost worth sitting through the banalities for the final confrontation on Mount Fuji" noting the son of Godzilla "endearingly applauding from a safe distance" and "the victorious monsters performing a celebratory jig".

From retrospective reviews, Steve Biodrowski of Cinefantastique commented that the film "is too slim in its storyline, too thin in its characterizations, to be considered a truly great film [...] But for the ten-year-old living inside us all, it is entertainment of the most awesome sort." Matt Paprocki of Blogcritics said the film is "far from perfect" and "can be downright boring at times" but felt that "the destruction scenes make up for everything else" and "the final battle is an epic that simply can't be matched".

The film is considered a cult favorite among fans of the Godzilla franchise. In Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski's 2017 book covering Ishiro Honda's filmography, they expressed that Destroy All Monsters is now seen as the "last truly spirited entry" in Toho's initial series of kaiju films, due to "its audacious and simple story, a bounty of monsters and destruction, and a memorably booming soundtrack from Akira Ifukube".

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, approval rating of 80% based on 10 reviews, with an average rating of 6.6/10.

title: Destroy All Monsters