Alternate Titles: Three Giant Monsters: The Greatest Battle on Earth, Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster
Year: 1964
Director: Ishiro Honda
Special Effects Director: Eiji Tsuburaya
In The Suit: Haruo Nakajima (Godzilla), Masaki Shinohara (Rodan), Shoichi Hirose (King Ghidorah)

Toho continues with the formula from King Kong vs. Godzilla and Mothra vs. Godzilla but goes much further with it. This movie is the first encounter between Godzilla and Rodan, but Mothra is included in the film as well and eventually they team up to go up against a new monster, King Ghidorah. So this movie is a huge monster mash and works better in that regard than the later film and explicit monster mash Destroy All Monsters. Actually, if you look a the original Japanese name for this film, "Three Giant Monsters: The Greatest Battle on Earth", i guess this was an explicit mash too. I also wonder if the "Three" in that title is giving Mothra (who only appears in larva form) short shrift or was keeping Ghidorah as a surprise. If it's the latter, then it's a direct contrast to the US version of the film, which bills this specifically as a Ghidorah movie (actually spelled "Ghidrah" originally, and that's how it's pronounced in the English dub). Note that none of the titles of this film refer to it as a Godzilla movie. This isn't just a Godzilla film that happens to feature some other monsters; all the monsters get equal billing or it's a Ghidorah movie that happens to feature some other monsters. But this is a turning point for Godzilla because it's the move where he, thanks to Mothra's diplomacy, makes the shift from villain to hero, and with that, basically concludes the transition of the film series to something more kid focused. With Godzilla basically being a hero going forward, King Ghidorah will become the closest thing he has to an arch-villain.

A sign of the more matinee style nature of the Godzilla movies is the fact that the opening credits for the film open with scenes of the end battle. It makes it feel more like a tv show, perhaps a way to hook us into sticking around through all the set-up. Because while i've been saying the movie is more kid oriented, it's actually pretty complex from a plotting perspective with several separate threads.

The first of these is Reporter Naoko Shindo (played by Yuriko Hoshi, the photographer in Mothra vs. Godzilla). She works for a company that puts out a "Mysteries of the World" television show and she's currently observing the local UFO Club. However, they don't observe any UFOs that night, and they blame it on "noise" from the reporter, who is interested in but doesn't believe in UFOs, and her brain waves are therefore sending thoughts to the flying saucers that make them suspicious and repel them. The UFO club does observe some shooting stars, though.

Shooting stars are actually observed throughout the world. And there's also a heatwave in Japan in January, causing an outbreak of Japanese encephalitis. In the long run, the heat wave and the encephalitis don't have anything to do with the movie except for contributing to a sense of unusual phenomenon.

Our second thread is the Princess Maas Doulina Salno (played by Akiko Wakabayashi, the jewel thief in Dogora, and Falling Down Girl's mean friend/neighbor), from Selgina, a small country in the middle of a domestic dispute.

And apparently still stuck in the middle ages.

She's traveling to Japan to get away from the political intrigue, but her rivals have rigged her plane to explode. She's contacted by a mysterious voice and told to jump out of the plane moments before it is destroyed.

Next we jump to Professor Miura, who was a character in Mothra vs. Godzilla played by the same actor, Hiroshi Koizumi...

...except in that movie he was a zoologist and in this one he's been called in to investigate a meteorite that has fallen near the dam at Mt. Kurobe (He's a scientist. That automagically makes him an expert in all things sciency. Der.). Hiking to the location of the asteroid, Miura finds that his compass isn't pointing north. Min would like you to know that his associate's response, "You must have bought a cheap one. Let me check mine." is both hilarious and unsurprising.

He must know my father.

They eventually locate the meteorite and set up camp. The meteorite demonstrates magnetic tendencies, although only sporadically, and it starts to grow in size. I'll give away now that the meteorite contains King Ghidorah. What's interesting is they never explain the multiple shooting stars or discuss why this particular one exhibits magnetic attributes. You would think that magnetism might in some way be the key to defeating Ghidorah later in the film and that the demonstration at this point is a kind of Chekhov's gun, but in fact that's not the case. There's, therefore, room for a continuity insert here, explaining how Ghidorah came to be trapped in an asteroid (in future movies, he'll be able to fly around in space on his own power) perhaps after battling the Venusians who used magnetic weapons against him. But i'm getting ahead of myself.

Our next thread involves police Detective Shindo (played by Yosuke Natsuki) whose boss (played by Akihiko Hirata) had assigned him to be Princess Salno's bodyguard during her visit.

But now that her plane has exploded, Shindo is obsessed with finding out what happened (he seems to have become a bit smitten with the picture of her that he was given: "even a woman like this can get involved in politics").

Excuse me?

Shindo is right to still be thinking about the princess, because she has indeed survived. However, she's definitely possessed by the voice that rescued her from the plane explosion, and has taken to gathering in front of crowds in Japan and saying things like, "Everyone! Have you ever thought about the universe that expands to the infinity?".

I think the expression on the face of the woman looking over her shoulder says it all.

We're getting into the 1960s so you can kind of see this as a parallel to the burgeoning flower child movement, although we're not in the heart of that era yet and people still think it's funny to ask if she's a boy or a girl because she's wearing men's clothing. Of course these people also ask, when she says she's from Venus, if that's a place in Africa.

Again i'll throw in a little spoiler and confirm that the princess really is possessed by someone from Venus (or Mars if you're watching the English dub, and it's Jupiter according to the main subtitle file that is floating around on the internet). And that marks this as the first mainline Godzilla film that features aliens. It's fairly subdued in that regard. Other than the disembodied Venusian prophet and of course Ghidorah there are no aliens in this movie, but this is the foot in the door that will explode into full blown Mysterians-style plots beginning with the next movie.

The prophet predicts (vaguely) that something will happen at Mt. Aso. No one seems to remember that that's the spot where Rodan was (seemingly) killed.

Our final set-up thread for this movie is a "Where Are They Now?" television show, where two little kids ask the hosts to see Mothra. The show has apparently arranged for the Infant Island Fairies to come to Japan to perform a song.

They seem to have enjoyed their previous (forced) performances. Or maybe they realize that continued outreach to the public is necessary in order to prevent further nuclear testing on their island. Either way, they perform a song (a new one, unfortunately, not the awesome "Mosura-yah!") and tell everyone to close their eyes so that we can see a vision of the Mothra larva.

They can't sing that song. That's the "Come rescue us and don't worry about the property damage" song.

And yes, larva, singular. It's said that the other one passed away (due to internal injuries thanks to Godzilla thumping it repeatedly with his tail in the previous movie, probably). The one that survived is identified as a "she" and it's said that she's still a baby. That seems to be in contrast to the first Mothra movie, which had an egg hatching and then the larva becoming an imago all within the course of that one film. Despite that, it's nice to see an acknowledgement that there were twins; we are definitely watching a continued series at this point.

Back in Selgina, the person behind Princess Salno's assassination sends his agent, the awesomely named Malnus (played by Hisaya Ito) to Japan. You have to love the ruffled collars on these guys.

I don't know which country they're insulting here, but clearly insult is being given.

The evil Selginans have recognized Salno from newspaper reports on the Prophet, but they've noticed she isn't wearing the golden bracelet that identifies her as the Princess. We'll later find out that she traded the bracelet to a fisherman for the clothes that she's been wearing, and it eventually winds up with detective Shindo.

Guess that makes the fisherman the new princess of Selgina. Cause possession of a piece of jewelry is clearly the only way to identify people. Can't see how that could go wrong. Also, why is she only a "princess"? There doesn't seem to be a current king/queen frantically trying to recover their missing daughter.

The Prophet's first prediction comes true, and Rodan emerges from the volcano at Mt. Aso. By the way, we noted in the Rodan entry that people were taking honeymoon photos at the desolate site, and we thought that was weird (we totally did), but i guess it must be a real thing because people are doing it in this movie too. There's also a scene with the comedy actor that played the guide in King Kong vs. Godzilla where he gets himself hired to climb down into the volcano area to retrieve someone's hat. He does so over the warnings of the Prophet, who shows up there, and sure enough, Rodan emerges.

Rodan seems to emit a Godzilla-roar when he first comes out, but at least he still makes jet noises when he flies.

It's at about this point that detective Shindo starts trying to convince his boss that the Prophet is the Princess. The police chief asks how the Princess could have survived the plane explosion, and Shindo earnestly relays the theory of the president of the UFO club who he recently interviewed. According to that guy, it's possible she fell into "the gap between two dimensions".

My mom fell in the gap between the train and the platform once.

We don't even go back to the police chief for the reaction to that, so i guess we're supposed to take it at face value (and Shindo's not even a scientist!)? Note that the UFO club guy also has models of the flying saucer from Mysterians/Battle In Outer Space, so can we use that to confirm the fact that those movies take place in this continuity?

We're going to anyway, even if you say no.

Our various plot threads start to come together. If you haven't noticed by the fact that they share last names, the reporter Naoko Shindo is detective Shindo's sister, and Naoko has also been interviewing and sort-of dating Professor Miura ("No no no. It's nothing like that. We just meet sometimes...and have coffee...and I drive her home...Don't beat me up."). Both Shindo siblings are interested in the Prophet for different reasons. The Prophet also shows up at the boat that was going to take the Fairies back to Infant Island and warns everyone not to get on the boat. The boat captain not-very-politely decides to ignore the advice, despite her previous prediction having come true (Look, one point does not make a line. Plus, how do you expect him to take her seriously when she goes around dressed like a boy?). The Fairies are asked if they can telepathically sense Rodan, but they respond with the unusual answer that telepathy is not for prediction!

Can't or won't?

That doesn't mean that they don't put stock in prediction, however, so they decide to heed the Prophet's advice, and they secretly follow when Naoko takes the Prophet to a hotel room for an interview. Also at the hotel, coincidentally, is Malnus and his goony goons.

Naoko's brother shows up as well. While he and his sister are in the lobby fighting over who gets custody of the Prophet, Malnus confronts the Prophet and tries to scare her into admitting that she's the Princess. She is unfazed, and the Fairies occupy the goons...

...until the Shindos return and scare off the bad guys. The Fairies had turned off the lights, and when it's all clear and the lights are back on, the Prophet is seen reading a book entitled Study on Acute Megalomania and Amnesia.

There's one in every hotel room. Way better than the Gideons' Bible.

Now, it's nice that the Fairies heeded the warning of the Prophet and didn't get on the boat, but they are trusted celebrities at this point and it's kind of a failing on their part that they didn't tell everyone else to listen to her. Because soon after launch, Godzilla rises out of the water and blasts the boat to cinders.

This is part of the Fairies' long game. You think they're your friends, but they're secretly plotting revenge for all the nuclear testing on Infant Island plus the deaths of Mothra and the Mothra baby.

We were shown a school of whales or something swimming in the water before Godzilla appeared, and i'm curious if he had been chasing them for food? Or is once again just waking up and immediately destroying everything in sight?

He's the anti-hero!

After doing a little rampaging, Godzilla notices Rodan flying above. Godzilla makes a "mahrp?" noise. It's the first time he's seen Rodan, and he doesn't like it. He waves his hands around. And then he immediately starts trudging after him, clearly calling out rude names.

The Prophet, meanwhile, is taken to a psychiatric facility that helps police. The head doctor is Dr. Tsukamoto (played by our good friend Takashi Shimura).

He inspects her and says she's normal. She finally reveals her main purpose for being here. She says that she's here to warn about King Ghidorah. "King Ghidorah will turn the Earth to a dead planet." "He is a space monster who destroyed the entire culture and science on Venus." She'll later confirm that that all happened 5,000 years ago, and she and some other Venusians "fled to Earth the day Venus perished". Unclear if she had her own body at one time or if she's always been possessing people. It is said that as the Venusians mingled with humans, they lost a lot of their vast powers, and now "only part of their instinct has been inherited, the ability to predict the future". Of course, "inherited" doesn't seem like the right word if the Prophet herself has been here since Venus was ravaged.

Mebbe it's an inherited shared memory reincarnation sort of thing. The princess could be an ancestor of the original Venusians who landed on earth and the arrival of King Ghidorah triggered that dormant memory.

But with that revelation, we go back to the scientists camped near the asteroid, and it starts acting funny. At this point people in Japan know the score, so someone says "Professor, there must be a monster". And indeed, the asteroid "hatches" and out comes King Gidorah, first in some kind of energy form.

Word gets out fast, because we soon hear the calming monster chime that we also heard in Godzilla Raids Again, followed by this message: "It has been determined that the space monster that appeared at Kasumi-zawa last night is King Ghidorah." The debate was already raging about whether or not to use nukes: "Have you the courage to use nuclear bombs on Godzilla and Rodan?". People at this conference continue to henpeck the military demanding to know what they're going to do, and a general eventually says he's just going to accept God's will.

Quitter.

Meanwhile, Godzilla has caught up with Rodan and they are fighting each other.

This time, Godzilla's breath weapon looks like his steam breath from the first two black & white films.

The battle between the two monsters is awesomely fun, but definitely more goofy than early fights. It's all head pecks and googly eye shakes.

Meanwhile, King Ghidorah goes on a separate rampage. He is really awesome looking, and in addition to his crazy unpredictable three heads and lighting breath...

...he makes a weird high pitched chirping noise that you'd never associate with a giant dragon monster.

Back where they are discussing what to do about the monsters, Naoko gives away the location where the Prophet/Princess is being held on live television (*sigh*), so Malnus and his goons head over to the psychiatric center. But the good news is that the Fairies propose a monster team-up against Ghidorah. They offer to summon Mothra to negotiate the alliance between her and Godzilla and Rodan. To do that, they sing their song, but again it's their new single "Happiness is crying" and not the real Mothra song.

Goddammit! What is this crap? I want the Mothra song!

Back at the psychiatric center, Dr. Tsukamoto says, "OK, let's try shock treatment.", and the set-up for that just seems really dangerous. First of all, it's said that anything above 500 volts is dangerous to a patient, but the meter goes up to 3,000. Why would you have something that goes that high? And on top of that, the control for the device is in another room, so you have to go into that room, set the voltage, and then walk back into the main room to administer it. This is just ripe for shenanigans, and that's nearly what happens when Malnus and crew arrive (although how they immediately knew what the device was for, i'll never know). Luckily, at this point Rodan has picked up Godzilla...

...and dropped him crotch first on a power transformer, cutting out all power in the area. The good guys flee the psychiatric center to get away from the bad guys while the Rodan/Godzilla battle devolves into taunts and goofy head shakes.

Mothra shows up while Rodan is trying out his patented wing-generated wind blow.

She starts spraying Godzilla with silk...

...which Rodan finds amusing...

...until she sprays him too.

Godzilla finds that funny.

So funny that he has to sit down, in fact.

Rodan also settles down to listen to Mothra's pitch of "Let's forget the past" and "the world is for all of us".

However, it doesn't work. Both Godzilla and Rodan don't like that the humans are "always bullying" them.

And they also haven't resolved their own differences enough for an alliance.

But Ghidorah's rampage continues.

So Mothra decides she needs to go fight him all by herself...

..and that shames the other two.

Especially since i don't know what a giant (baby) caterpillar is going to do all by herself against this:

So here's the first historic encounter between Godzilla and King Ghidorah.

Godzilla doesn't like jerks. Godzilla is the only guy that gets to be a jerk around here.

But this definitely is a team effort, with Rodan using his ability to turn 180 degrees on a dime in the air against Ghidorah...

...while Godzilla lets Mothra grab onto his tail to drag her to the new designated battle area.

Godzilla starts things off with some rock tossing.

Ghidorah's response is more explosive.

So Godzilla moves in for melee combat...

...while Mothra goes around behind him to create the undefinable flying silk-spraying Rodanthra combo.

Attacked from both sides...

...Ghidorah is forced to admit defeat, and he flees back into space.

Quitter.

Interestingly, Godzilla never used his breath weapon during that entire fight.

Meanwhile, Malnus' goons were all killed incidentally by Ghidorah. But Malnus soldiers on, chasing the Prophet to an isolated cliff. Luckily, he seems to be armed with only a BB gun, because no matter how many times he shoots with his sniper's rifle he can't seem to kill her or Detective Shindo. Eventually, the fight between the monsters (you guys are missing the greatest fight ever!) causes a boulder to fall down the cliff and Malnus catches it...

Bwahahahaha!!!!

...and then jumps off the cliff out of shame. Malnus' BBs restored the Princess' memories, and she's soon off to Selgina after sharing some poignant looks with Detective Shindo.

Gross! You were possessed the whole time you knew him! There wasn't time for romance! He thinks you're too pretty to have a brain and be able to work in politics!

The human stuff isn't bad, but the monster stuff is just awesome. Toho is definitely not taking themselves as seriously with this point (a trend that began in King Kong vs. but becomes full fledged here), but that's fine because the result is awesome fights. It's both ridiculous and cool to see the monsters communicating with each other (we get a translation thanks to the Fairies), and it's great to see them teaming up against King Ghidorah. Definitely one of my favorite Godzilla films.

Here's a nice final group shot of the good guys.

Surprisingly light on the drinking game hits this time:

Godzilla Drinking Game
	Someone thinks it's a good idea to drag a giant monster across the ocean on a raft (giant eggs count).
	Attacking planes fly directly at a monster, with no possibility of avoiding a crash even if the monster didn't swat them down.
	People refuse to believe in the existence of a giant monster even though they've already acknowledged that Godzilla exists.
	A submarine explodes.
	Teens have a dance party on a boat. Two drinks/head smacks if they get attacked by a monster during the party.
	The government is completely ineffective when faced with a corporation doing something illegal.
	A humongous lumbering monster manages to sneak up on someone. Two drinks/head smacks if it's the army and they're supposedly using radar.	After Godzilla first wakes up and destroys the boat, everybody seems to completely lose track of him until he arrives on shore. People! How do you lose track of a 150 foot monster?
	A scientist suddenly figures everything out with little-to-no information and explains it all to everyone.	I'm tempted to count Dr. Tsukamoto's almost immediate declaration that the Prophet/Princess is completely sane, but i'll let it pass.
	A monster suddenly grows in size just because.
	People expose themselves to major amounts of radiation with no concern.
	Everyone suddenly knows a monster's name. Two drinks/head smacks if everyone else nods appreciatively and repeats it.	"It has been determined that the space monster that appeared at Kasumi-zawa last night is King Ghidorah." Mebbe they got a hold of an intergalactic wanted poster with Ghidorah's picture on it.
	Army missiles can't seem to hit a 150+ foot monster and instead explode harmlessly around it.	You know, i didn't make a note of this happening. I'm sure it does. It always does. I'll just have to wait until the next time we watch the movie to prove it.
	A woman falls down for no reason.
	Bad dinosaur science. You have to give a little leeway for the time period, but pretending a children's picture book is a scientific journal is always worth two drinks/smacks.

Monsters Appearing: Godzilla, King Ghidorah, Mothra, Rodan