Alternate Titles: Invasion of Astro-Monster, Invasion of the Astro-Monsters, Invasion of the Astros, Godzilla vs. Monster Zero, The Great Monster War: King Ghidorah vs. Godzilla
Year: 1965
Director: Ishiro Honda
Special Effects Director: Eiji Tsuburaya
In The Suit: Haruo Nakajima (Godzilla), Masaki Shinohara (Rodan), Shoichi Hirose (King Ghidorah)

It's kind of hard to top the four issue monster fest of Ghidorah, the Three Headed Monster (although Toho will do so soon enough), so for this movie they dial it back to just three monsters and make up the difference by bringing in a race of (human-sized) aliens. Ghidorah also acknowledged the existence of aliens with the mostly extinct Veusians, but it's with this movie that we get a full fledged alien invasion the likes of which we've only seen (in the Tohoverse) in Mysterians and Battle In Outer Space so far.

This actually raises the question of what year it is. I mentioned this in Battle In Outer Space, when the heroes made a pretty casual trip to the moon. That was in 1959, and this movie came out in 1965 and begins with a joint US/Japanese manned space flight sent by the World Space Authority to a newly discovered planet beyond Jupiter. In real life, the first lunar landing was in 1969 and at time of writing we still haven't made it any further than that. Now, one possibility is that in this alternate Tohoverse, maybe thanks to increased funding due to all the monster attacks, and the way all the world's nations have had to repeatedly come together to face a common threat resulting in a more effective United Nations, plus examination of the tech left behind by the Mysterians and the Natalians, has resulted in advances in space technology beyond what we have today. The other possibility is that this story takes place in the future. Destroy All Monsters will explicitly take place in 1999 but the technology seen in that movie is pretty similar to what they have here. There's also the most likely, least fun, explanation, which is that Toho just figured they'd throw in some science fiction elements into the movie to spice things up.

We have the English dubbed version of this, but i'm happy with that because it means we get to see the latest in Toho's experiments with bringing these movies to the US. After the earliest movies were pretty heavily edited and included additional scenes with white people explaining the plot, the more recent movies were sent to the States pretty much as-is and then dubbed. The problem with dubbing, though, is that either the people's mouths don't match up with the words coming out of them or, worse, the script has to get changed to line up the mouth movements, which may look more realistic (emphasis on may!) but often resulted in completely nonsensical dialogue. So for this movie, the star character is an American actor, Nick Adams, playing the astronaut "Glenn". Adams was friends with James Dean and Elvis Presley (or, by some accounts, a hustling hanger-on), and he brings a similar kind of attitude to this film. His little quips and flippant manners are a little unusual for a Godzilla movie but definitely add some spice and some personality that an American audience could latch on to in a way that would be more difficult for dubbed characters. And the big thing is that Toho had Adams speak all his lines in English during the original filming, so that he wouldn't have to be overdubbed for the US release (in Japan, he was dubbed).

The story has Glenn and another astronaut, Fuji (Akira Takarada, the salvage operator - and homewrecker! - from the first Godzilla film), piloting Spaceship P-1...

Amazon.com spared no expense with the air cushions while packing their heads.

...to investigate Planet X, "A mysterious planet [that] has been discovered beyond Jupiter". There are in fact several planets beyond Jupiter, but this one seems to be directly behind Jupiter and may possibly actually be a moon of Jupiter based on the fact that Jupiter is visible from the surface at all times. The planet is also said to be "in the Scorpio constellation" so i'm actually at a complete loss regarding the astronomy. Planet X is very "dark" and can not be observed with telescopes. It was discovered by "Central Observatory", which was tracing strange radio waves. Our main scientist for the movie says, "I can now tell you that Planet X has been causing our recent Magnetic disturbances". I'll remind you that King Ghidorah was initially magnetic in the early part of his first appearance last movie, but then i'll cop to the fact that that's not really relevant.

It doesn't look that dark.

Fuji's sister (Haruno, played by Keiko Sawai) is working at the World Space Authority...

...and our lead scientist Dr. Sakurai (Jun Tazaki)...

...detects some tension as Fuji and Haruno talk - instantaneously - during Fuji and Glenn's flight. He guesses, correctly, that it's because Fuji doesn't approve of Haruno's boyfriend, the struggling inventor Tetsuo Torii (played by Akira Kubo, the longest surviving Matango victim).

That lady doesn't want to hear any of your crap about how you have a baby now and therefore can't be expected to make your house presentable for guests.

Tetsuo has just sold an invention, the Ladyguard, which, er, makes a horrible noise, but he won't be getting paid until the device is marketed. He takes Haruno to a fancy restaurant where they meet the buyer, Miss Namikawa (played by Kumi Mizuno) a representative of the World Education Corporation.

How is she keeping that pillbox hat on? How do hatpins work????

It's a really weird restaurant that they're eating at...

...proving that this must take place in the future or some alternate dimension. As they leave, Tetsuo says, "I wish Fuji was here so I could tell him about the $100,000. I'd really stand him on his head.". With that we go to this scene:

...wherein Glenn realizes he's miscalibrated the gyroscopes (which matters a lot when there's no gravity). Humor!

Glenn and Fuji arrive at Planet X...

...and radio home with the question "After landing, may we act on our own judgement?". Dr. Sakurai responds, "I can not lead you men by the hand from here."

I'll admit right now that the astronauts check for radiation before exiting their spaceship, and also note that the temperature is 15 C (59 F), Gravity is 2/3rds of Earth, and the pressure is about half. "That's another surprise".

It's three years before 2001: A Space Odyssey will be released, but Toho spends a lot of time showing off how a spaceship might align itself for landing with thrusters and has fun showing us how the astronauts get out of the ship once it lands. Of course, unlike Stanley Kubrick, they use super-imposed images and little dolls.

The first thing the astronauts do once they've landed is get ready to plant a UN/Japanese/US flag. That's pretty amazing considering they went there to see who was sending strange radio and magnetic waves. The idea that the planet might already have intelligent life on it didn't occur to them?

All your base are belong to us!

When Fuji returns from his flag planting, he notices footprints in the ground and then realizes the ship is gone. Now that must be terrifying!

Clearly, planting a flag takes all of your concentration so you wouldn't notice things like an entire spaceship being taken away.

But he's quickly contacted by "the Controller of Planet X" who insists that he step into a cylinder.

I love all the space scenes, by the way. Really cool sets.

Once the cylinder lowers him under the ground, he hears, "Follow the light. The light is your guide.".

He eventually comes face to face with the Controller and his minions.

Glenn is already there.

The strange way that they were brought underground has left the astronauts wary, but their suspicions are put somewhat to rest when Planet X is attacked by "Monster Zero", who turns out to be King Ghidorah.

The Controller (Toho alum Yoshio Tsuchiya) says Monster Zero is "the demon of our galaxy" and the reason they can not live on the surface. "On Earth, you gave this terrifying monster the name of Ghidorah. Everything is numbered here." He then makes a series of awesome and indecipherable hand gestures.

It's how i communicate with Fnord now.

During Ghidorah's rampage, it's said that the "hydrogen-oxide plant" was damaged. The person making the report starts to say "if we are to maintain control..." but then the Controller cuts him off and literally puts the two Earth astronauts in the dark. For the benefit of those in the audience not up on their chemistry, the astronauts let us know they're talking about water.

When Ghidorah is seemingly taken care of, the Controller returns and says that all they want from Earth is to borrow Monster 01 and Monster 02 to fight King Ghidorah. That turns out to be Godzilla and Rodan. It's said that it was only by their combined strength that Ghidorah was defeated the last time, in Ghidorah, the Three Headed Monster. And that completely neglects Mothra! Sexism.

In return, Planet X offers a cures for all disease. In the Japanese version, it seems like it was a cure for cancer only, but you always have to take things a little further to keep Americans interested (just like how Godzilla was said to be 400 feet tall instead of 150 in the original Godzilla movie). Planet X claims to know the location of the monsters and has the means to extract them. No one asks why the Earth astronauts had to be lured all the way beyond Jupiter in order to hear this proposal. I guess the win-win situation of getting rid of two giant monsters while also getting a cure to all diseases seems like too good a deal to look a gift horse in the mouth.

The astronauts are returned to the P-1, and then they fly home and relay the message to the "Supreme Council". The Supreme Council considers the offer. We learn that the Physicians League favor the agreement. And the Organization of Women have no objections and acknowledge the message of peace. And those are the only two groups heard from (we're definitely in the future). So they decide to agree to the deal.

Now, Min will tell you that Earth is screwing over its monsters. But to be fair, until the last reel of the last movie, both Godzilla and Rodan were bad guys that went on multiple rampages and destroyed Japan several times over. So i can see the people of Earth, even in this utopian future world without fear mongering political parties, agreeing to send the two giant monsters away. And it's not like they can go and talk to Godzilla and Rodan, and ask if they'd be willing to go to Planet X to fight Ghidorah. Actually, they could ask them if they used Mothra as an intermediary, but she's conspicuously absent from this film (i suppose she could be in cocoon form right now, since she was in larva form last movie and we'll next see her in Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster as a full grown moth).

This is crap. They only want Godzilla and Rodan around if it benefits them. Otherwise, they don't care what happens to them. Jerks. Next time there's a douchey space monster trying to take over the planet, don't come a'callin'.

To check in with our cast, we have our inventor Tetsuo trying to get his money for his Ladyguard invention. They say they are "still studying" it, but then the boss (not Miss Namikawa) tells a grunt to "get rid of him politely", and burns the invention blueprints. They really would have saved themselves a lot of trouble if they had just paid him. Judging by their headquarters, they had the funds.

Why the hell did Tetsuo hand over his blueprints before getting paid? And why didn't they just pay him? Who's in charge here? Let me speak to your supervisor.

Failing to get paid, Tetsuo now has to face his girlfriend's disapproving brother. Before Tetsuo and Haruno arrive, we see Glenn and Fuji at the bar. Glenn mentions that he's going to have to leave early for a date. Fuji says, "A Japanese girl? Not the wrong kind, I hope!". Wow.

The what now?

Glenn responds that if you checked up on every girl's past before you went on a date, you'd never fall in love. They then start talking about their experience on Planet X and what they heard about the water plant and start wondering if Planet X might really be after Earth's water. Great, guys. Start thinking about it AFTER the world has agreed to Planet X's deal.

Then Tetsuo and Haruno come in, and we have this dialogue about Tetsuo having sold his invention:

Fuji: I can't believe they'd pay that much money.
Tetsuo: They haven't given me anything yet.
Fuji: That's what i thought. You know, Tetsuo, I don't think you can take care of my sister.
Tetsuo: I know!
Haruno: You don't have to agree with him like that! [To Glenn] What do you think? We have mutual trust in each other. Isn't that the most important thing?
Glenn: I think so! Mutual trust is a beautiful thing,
Fuji: Mutual trust doesn't buy groceries.
Glenn: I was just stating a general fact.

Fuji is a homewrecker, so he has no right to judge. (She means because of the love triangle in the original Godzilla, with the same actor that now plays Fuji.)

Glenn heads off for his date, which turns out to be Miss Namikawa from World Education.

The next day (i think!) Glenn goes to Fuji and tells him that while he and Namikawa were sleeping together in a bungalow (i guess she wasn't the wrong kind of Japanese girl after all) he had what might or might not have been a dream that had Namikawa talking to the Controller of Planet X. He learned that they had a base at a lake near the bungalow. Glenn takes Fuji there, but they find that the area has been blocked off by the army because the lake has now been found to be radioactive (not that the army is too concerned about standing around it).

We learn that the way to get past an army blockade in a Toho film is to just shout "Space Authority!", and soon Glenn and Fuji see a flying saucer coming out of the lake.

It turns out that the Planet X-ers have secretly been here all along, and that's a point of contention when they land and start up the negotiations with the astronauts and some scientists that come along, including Dr. Sakurai.

But the question of their secretiveness is forgotten in the face of the more technical concern over how the aliens know where Godzilla and Rodan are (incredibly, but characteristically, the Japanese government seems to have lost track of them since the end of the last movie) and how they'll transport them to Planet X. No problem. Godzilla is in the lake:

Godzilla is soooo cute the way he holds his tail while he sleeps.

And Rodan has buried himself into a nearby cliff wall. He seems to like doing that.

Having gathered the monsters...

...the X-Aliens are ready to go home, and they want to take Dr. Sakurai, Fuji, and Glenn with them to get the disease cure (are they trying to rack up frequent flyer miles or something? why didn't they just bring the cure with them?). Miss Namikawa goes to Glenn, begs him not to go, wants him to just stay and get married to her. Glenn doesn't understand (not exactly putting the clues together considering what he saw in the bungalow) and tells her they can get married when he comes home.

That's all these dames care about - getting hitched.

Min would like you to see that the Planet X uniform includes curled-toe elf shoes.

It's hard to accept them as menacing villains with shoes like that.

As they are flying through space, the Controller says that their saucer is controlled by brain waves. A weird question from Glenn: "Can you do the same to animals and plants, then?". But he's right. "That is correct. You have an extremely inquisitive mind, Astronaut Glenn. I shall feed that fact to the memory bank of our computer." Ooops.

Monsters in Space!

They arrive back on Planet X in record time...

...and the monsters are lowered down...

...and revived with FAHP guns.

The battle with King Ghidorah starts up quickly.

Godzilla and Rodan win pretty handily (especially after Godzilla does a jump and tackle move that happens too fast for me to catch a screengrab of), so i guess Mothra wasn't that important after all. Godzilla then launches into this hilarious jump of joy, a really crazy moment in Godzilla's history.

Meanwhile, the suspicious astronauts do a little sneaking around inside Planet X's underground base, and they find that gold is really common on Planet X. They also find that all the women on Planet X look the same, and just like Miss Namikawa.

The gold and water thing is kind of weird. First, before they start snooping, the Controller tells them that water is more precious than gold on Planet X. Then they find the room full of gold, which seems to confirm that. Then after the astronauts are caught snooping, they're asked what they've learned and they say they've discovered that water is more precious than gold. Well actually, he told you that. But then the Controller denies that water is more precious than gold. This is the sort of thing that gets us shouting at the television.

Arrrrrgh!

Despite catching them sneaking around, the X-Aliens send the Earthlings home with a tape containing the disease cure, and on a new replica of their P-1 spaceship, which is still labelled P-1 instead of P-2 or P-1 Prime or something. Now again, you'd think this would be a Chekhov's gun type of moment, where maybe in the end the astronauts realize that there's something wrong with the spaceship that Planet X built for them and they need to go back to the original one to defeat the bad guys, or something. But this is never mentioned again. It's totally just extra information, an additional random thing that happens. Interesting storytelling.

"Interesting."

As the Earthlings are leaving, they catch Godzilla and Rodan looking sad.

They seemed perfectly happy to fight Ghidorah, but it seems they thought they'd be going back to Earth with their human friends. Not the case, though, and Glenn says, "Hey, those two have given us enough trouble already. Don't worry, they'll find their own ways." So sad! Goodbye!

Assholes.

Back on Earth, the inventor Tetsuo makes another attempt at getting paid, and winds up getting imprisoned, because of course the World Education people are really Planet X-ers. Again, they should have just paid him off, or, at this point, you'd think they would kill him and also rig the astronaut's plane to explode. But that's not the case.

Actually i guess the astronauts have to get home to deliver the tape, which doesn't include a cure to any disease and instead plays the following message, "I command that you obey the following orders. You will place the earth under our absolute control and be governed as a colony.". Oops. I don't know why you'd send that home on a tape instead of just saying it in person or over a flying saucer's loudspeaker, unless they just wanted to be dicks.

Planet X's message is met with world wide protests, with some (according to an announcer) demanding peace at any price and abject surrender to Planet X. Other protests get violent. Definitely reflecting the zeitgeist of the 1960s and very different than how the alien threats united the world in previous movies.

Planet X's main weapon turns out to be the monsters that we dumbly gave to them.

Who's laughing now, Glenn? I guess you'll just have to find your own way, asshole.

Ghidorah is in the United States "completely controlled by our computer through magnetic waves"

The scientists are working on a way to break the mind control. The plan is to "sever the magnetic waves".

Uh...should you guys be standing directly in the path of those waves?

But no one's talking about how they're going to apologize to Godzilla and Rodan to keep them from rampaging even after they're no longer under control of Planet X.

Anyway, here are the devices...

..and they work.

Hrrrrrrrrr...

Godzilla wakes up first and wakes up his buddy with a tail pat.

And the good news is that Godzilla and Rodan are feeling magnanimous and willing to fight King Ghidorah despite the shoddy treatment they got from the humans of Earth.

Good thing it wasn't me. I would have gone back to the bottom of that lake to go back to sleep, and that's if you were lucky and i didn't go on a rampage first.

This battle ends with Rodan lifting Godzilla...

...and slamming him into Ghidorah. All three fall off a cliff into the sea and it's the last we see of them.

I've joked a bit about Mothra, but i really do like my King Ghidorah extra powerful and requiring at least three monsters to defeat him. It's a little weird do see him losing twice to just two monsters in this movie and then being expected to take on a heck of a lot more later in Destroy All Monsters. But it's still a fun fight, with Godzilla "boxing" King Ghidorah's heads and doing all sorts of fancy footwork during the battle.

Let me jump back a bit, because while this battle is going on, there's also the human resistance against the Planet X aliens. After those protests, we have a jump forward in time to when Japan seems to be already in ruins, and Glenn runs into Miss Namikawa. She tells him, "I am governed by electronics under orders of our world's controller". She tries to get Glenn to run away with her, but fails, and the Planet X goons show up to kill her and imprison Glenn. She does manage to slip a note in his pocket. Not sure when she had time to write it since it references the conversation from right before she got killed. But Glenn is thrown into a cell with inventor Tetsuo and they find the note, which tells them that Tetsuo's Ladyguard device generates a sound that paralyzes the people of Planet X. And the really good news is that Tetsuo happens to have the device in his pocket. Not only did they not kill the guy, they didn't even search him before throwing him in prison.

They activate the device, which causes the guards to run into the room conveniently collapsing right outside the cell bars so Glenn can reach over and grab the key. The local Planet X-er seems unable to deal with this crisis on his own, and sends a message: "Controller, controller, our prisoners have escaped. Please handle.".

But Glenn and Tetsuo make it back to where Dr. Sakurai and Fuji are working on severing magnetic waves, and despite having been missing and imprisoned for weeks, they barely get a nod and they just start talking about their magnetic severer. Eventually Glenn and Tetsuo get a word in edgewise to tell them about the Ladyguard sound, so they're allowed to start working on a project to amplify that.

In the end, the scientists target Planet X's flying saucer with the Ladyguard sound. Inside, the computer dependent Planet X-ers start talking like they've been taking acid, complaining that "the red dots are decreasing" and finally "We'll escape. We'll escape into the future. Into that dimension we have never seen." And maybe they do, and maybe they don't. Their saucer explodes for sure, though.

With it all over, Glenn talks about taking some time off to rest, but instead he's told that he's going to be the new ambassador to Planet X. He responds, "Whatever's fair, pal!" and then he and Fuji make the weird Planet X hand gestures to each other.

Planet X tried to take over the planet. With your own monsters. Isn't it too late to build an embassy?

Definitely a fun crazy a movie, with the plot being fun science fiction stuff that would make for a good B-movie even before the giant monsters are thrown in. There is a lot of repeated footage used in the fights, including scenes of Rodan's powerful wings blowing things away and similar scenes that were actually taken from Mothra, with a "New Kirk" sign clearly visible. There's also that weird habit of using repeated footage from the current film, like repeatedly re-using shots of planes flying or missiles launching. Do you think we can't tell?

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.	No new monsters this time, and the aliens don't come as too much of a shock either.
	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.	First, how did the governement lose track of Godzilla and Rodan after the end of the last film? But even beyond that, these monsters are moved all around the Earth by the Planet X aliens and the humans don't find out about them until they are attacking.
	A scientist suddenly figures everything out with little-to-no information and explains it all to everyone.	The science of blocking the mind-controlling waves from the aliens is just wacky.
	A monster suddenly grows in size just because.
	People expose themselves to major amounts of radiation with no concern.	I was pretty impressed with the careful checking of radiation when the astronauts landed on Planet X, but later at the lake everybody's very casual about standing next to a giant radioactive body of water.
	Everyone suddenly knows a monster's name. Two drinks/head smacks if everyone else nods appreciatively and repeats it.
	Army missiles can't seem to hit a 150+ foot monster and instead explode harmlessly around it.	There is one great shot where Godzilla takes a missile right to the face. But there is plenty, and i mean plenty, of the usual missing as well.
	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, Rodan