Year: 1996
Director: Okihiro Yoneda
Special Effects Director: Koichi Kawakita & Kenji Suzuki

With Godzilla being unavailable due to the upcoming American film, Toho instead made a trilogy of films about their second most popular monster, Mothra. These three films are much more kiddie-oriented than the Heisei Godzilla films, and they are a very Disney-fied kind of kid movies, which we find particularly annoying. But there are still some cool monster fights.

On the question of continuity, i guess the answer is that there is none. We last saw Mothra flying into space in an attempt to stop a meteor that was destined to hit Earth in 1999. These movies make no mention of that, and Mothra is first seen (back?) on her island. Other people don't recognize Mothra and the larva is mistaken for a bad guy. And we get a different history for Mothra, plus the appearance of a Desghidorah that no one observes is remarkably similar to King Ghidorah. So the intention is clearly that these three movies take place in a separate continuity from the other Heisei films.

My fanfix is that the meteor that was going to hit Earth was actually the American Godzilla film. Mothra was unable to stop it. So she instead used her moth dust to give everyone amnesia so that they would forget the horrible film. But she didn't realize that the movie was delayed (it was originally supposed to come out in 1996), and instead she accidentally made everyone forget about the Heisei Godzilla films.

One thing that this movie does have in common with previous Mothra films is a strong environmental message. The movie begins with scenes of a corporation clearing a virgin forest so that they can turn the trees into paper. During the course of doing that, a tiny seal, about the size of a half-dollar, is discovered.

This gets the attention of what will turn out to be an evil version of the Mothra Cosmos. Her name is Belvera (played by Aki Hano).

The good Cosmos are on the island with Mothra.

What are they wearing? The Peanuts wouldn't be wearing crap like that.

Their names are apparently Lora and Moll (played by Sayaka Yamaguchi and Megumi Kobayashi, respectively), although in our dubbed version it sounds like Laura and Mona, which seemed like pretty mundane names for Cosmos.

Actually, i should admit that they aren't called Cosmos this time, or Fairies (that name is reserved for the little version of Mothra that they fly around on). Instead they are Elias, the surviving members (along with their sister Belvera, although that isn't revealed until the end of this movie) of an ancient civilization that once trapped the monster Desghidorah underneath that seal. At least until the logging company middle management guy pulled the seal up.

Here's Fairy, which the Elias summon by holding their hands up in front of Mothra and saying "Fairy".

The logging company guy brings the seal home and turns it into a pendant for his daughter. His family, by the way, is completely dysfunctional. His wife is upset that he's never home despite the fact that he's totally stressed out at his job. Their two kids fight constantly, which the wife is completely oblivious to. She's one of those parents that can carry on a telephone conversation all while their kids are screaming, and not even hear it.

The next morning, the girl is looking spooky...

...and she's got telekinetic powers, throwing her brother around. Turns out she's mind-controlled by Belvera, who has arrived on a tiny flying dragon named Garu-Garu.

She stays home from school eating junk food, and we'll later see that she's got her mom tied up behind the couch (she deserved it.). Belvera catches her brother peering in the window at the sister, and chases him around the yard. He has to climb a tree to avoid a mind-controlled dog. He's rescued when the good Elias show up on Fairy.

What the hell is this crap? Where's Mothra?

After that, about six hours of the movie is taken up in a scene with Belvera and Lora and Moll fighting in the family's living room. I mean this goes on forever. These two tiny things flying around zapping each other with lasers and destroying furniture while the kids and mom scream.

Pacing is definitely a problem. Look, if you didn't write enough story to fill a whole movie, that's ok. Just show us giant monsters fighting, and we'll be happy. We're really not that difficult to appease.

It goes on for so long we weren't sure if there was going to be any more to the movie. But eventually, and we do mean eventually, we get past the fight and Belvera gets away on Garu-Garu with the amulet. Fairy is too injured from the fight to chase after her. The Elias explain that Belvera is going to release Desgidorah, which is described as a terrible space monster that came to Earth 65 million years ago (when all the dinosaurs were wiped out). Desgidorah used to wander in outer space, sucking life out of planets. It first destroyed Mars, and then came to Earth when the Elias' civilization stopped it and sealed it beneath the ground.

Parts of that origin are very similar to the Showa version of King Ghidorah's origin.

The family gets on a plane to wherever the father's logging company is to try to stop Belvera. They pretend that Fairy is a toy and the Elias are dolls.

Um...at least they didn't put them in an airless box this time?

Meanwhile, the logging company is busy dealing with a feisty activist/reporter when Belvera arrives. Belvera does something with the seal that creates a giant mountain, and then mind-controls dad, and makes him load up a construction vehicle full of explosives and drive towards the mountain where Desghidorah is trapped. Dad jumps out before the vehicle explodes.

So the Elias and the rest of the family arrive too late, but they do use a kite (since Fairy is still hurt) to get the seal back from Belvera and use its magic to heal Fairy. In the meantime, Desghidorah emerges.

Desghidorah makes lame elephant noises, but looks a lot like King Ghidorah except it's a quadruped and (for now) doesn't have wings.

Mom had run to dad after the explosion, so they get separated from the kids. The Elias urge the kids to flee, and the girl falls down.

Min: Ooh! Drink! Does that count?
Fnord: They're running from a monster!
Min: But she's nowhere near the monster!
Fnord: But the fairies are making them run!

It's very important to set the ground rules for your Drinking Game before beginning a Godzilla marathon, people.

The Elias then summon Mothra (using a conga version of the original Mothra song) to fight Desghidorah, although there is concern that she is too old.

Rude. No one ever mentions the age of the male daikaiju as a negative.

It's said that when Desghidorah was first defeated, there were "many Mothras". But now she's all alone. And old. And weakened after giving birth.

Maybe you assholes shouldn't have killed off Godzilla!

At this point mom & dad and brother & sister are wandering the woods separately, trying to meet up with each other. This time mom falls down.

Min: Ok, that counts!
Fnord: Yeah, that counts.
Min: Those are inappropriate shoes for running through the woods.
Fnord: Well no one told her there would be running.
Min: Oh really? They got in a plane to stop an ancient monster from being released, and she thought she could just daintily walk in high heels the whole way?

But getting back to what we're all actually here for, the fight between Mothra and Desghidorah continues. We noted in Godzilla vs. Mothra that Mothra has lasers now, which were pretty necessary given all the powers that Battra had. There seems to be an arms race going on amongst the Kaiju. Time was, two guys would get into some rubber suits and beat each other's brains out with wrestling movies, but nowadays it's all lasers. I blame Mechagodzilla. At this point even Godzilla mainly stands at a distance from his foes and uses his breath. That continues here, with Mothra still having an array of lasers, fairy dust, and lightning.

Meanwhile, the kids continue to flee the battle (although no matter how far they go, the fight between Mothra and Desghidorah seems to be occurring at the same distance in the background). And then suddenly, the forest is full of lava.

WHAT THE HELL? WHERE DID THAT FUCKING COME FROM?!?

At that point we had to close the back door, lest Min's outraged yelling upset the neighbors.

He's always shushing me.

Mothra winds up getting grabbed by Desghidorah and tossed to the ground.

Where's Godzilla?

Immediately a new egg back on her island starts to hatch. This alarms the Elias, who say that the egg is too young to hatch. It's also said that Mothra's strength is only the strength of its willpower. Then the Elias get a certain look in their eyes.

OMG, they're going to sing!

Momma Mothra is still alive, and shows up and saves the kids when Belvera arrives to menace them and try to take the pendent.

The kids and Mothra then watch as the new larva Mothra arrives.

That worm is a fast swimmer.

The kids then use the pendant to heal adult Mothra. Meanwhile, the larva heads straight for Desghidorah and uses its trademark silk spray.

What are you doing Larva Mothra? This is such a bad idea. Get back in the egg!

But the Kaiju Arms Race has reached even baby Mothra, whose spray is now enhanced with rainbows and electricity.

It's not enough to stop Desghidorah, though, and the three headed monster blasts the larva, all while continuing to make lameoid elephant noises. Desghidorah then bites the larva.

The restored mother Mothra returns to the fight.

And her attack is supplemented by her kid, who at this point has given up all pretenses of having caterpillar-related abilities and just straight up blasts Desghidorah with a laser canon.

Whoaaaaaah...

Desghidorah weathers it all well enough.

At least they stopped those loggers. Let's see you try to make paper out of tree ash!

The two Elias are terrified to see the two final Mothras engaged in a life or death battle. It's also worth noting that no government authorities show up during this battle. No tanks or planes are deployed. Just let the monsters fight it out amongst themselves.

Mebbe they've finally admitted they can't hit a target, no matter how huge, so they might as well stay home.

Desghidorah manages to get momma on the ground and starts stomping on her.

So baby demonstrates yet another power - the ability to turn invisible.

When the rest of the family acts surprised by this, the boy says "all moths use camouflage!" Duh!

Anyway, the family is busy trying to escape the forest fire. It seems that even the movie camera has caught fire at this point.

The larva's larva camouflage actually didn't help much, but the mother moth manages to escape Desghidorah and then trick it into destroying a dam, causing a flood that carries it away.

The mother rescues her kid and tries to fly them back to their island.

But her injuries are too great and she winds up landing in the ocean.

There's a sad scene as mother and child say goodbye, and then the mother sinks under the waves.

As the larva swims away, the Elias tell the human family that "it" (and you'll notice that both the movie and i have been careful to not specify its gender so far) has to go and transform into a full grown moth. The Elias say that the location where larva Mothra will transform is a secret even to them. But it won't be a secret for long, because the Elias clearly intend to follow it. They leave the pendant with the girl, since she did such a great job of protecting it so far.

I...can't even...

Desghidorah has survived, and transforms to have wings.

He starts flying around, and his mere presence seems to cause the local flora to start decaying.

The human family winds up in the hospital, since the father was pretty badly injured. While the father is resting, the two kids occupy themselves by using cups to take water out of a fish tank to feed it to a a dying houseplant.

You know, the fish need water too.

The camera shows the parents very pleased by their kids' actions.

Min: It's not ok for your kids to do that.
Fnord: They think it's wonderful.
Min: They checked out years ago. Those kids are raising themselves.

News reports discuss the actions of Desghidorah, and also report that the Mothra larva has been spotted. They talk like they don't know what Mothra is, and assume that it's going to attack Japan too.

Mothra actually goes to a nature preserve island where there are 10,000+ year old trees. The Elias follow.

They're gonna sing again. They've got that look on their faces.

As the new Mothra builds its cocoon, we see shots of various creatures watching, including Fairy...

...a deer...

Japanese deer have adorable teddy bear ears!

...and some monkeys.

Fnord: Show the monkeys again!
Min: Why aren't they in their hot tubs?

Mothra sprays a lot of silk over the tree that it has chosen.

Mothra, the *tree* is not going to become a moth. *You* need to be covered in the silk.

Eventually the familiar peanut-shaped cocoon is formed.

Could you imagine how terrifying it would be if this was really how caterpillars became butterflies? With entire trees getting covered with silk?

When the cocoon hatches, a million tiny butterflies made of light emerge, and then come together to form a giant one.

The new Mothra is looking different. Green eyes and different colors, and almost looks like it has a beard.

Now, we've always understood the Mothra situation to be a case of continued death and rebirth, basically a kind of reincarnation. Obviously that's not the case here, since the Elias spoke of there once having been multiple Mothras that fought Desghidorah, and since mother and child were both active at once in this movie. And now that we see it in moth form, you can see that the intention was that it is an entirely new version, not just a return of the previous one. In fact, it seems that this one is a boy, and his name is Mothra Leo.

Well, i guess that's it for the Mothra lineage, then. How is a boy going to lay an egg?

News of the new Mothra reaches the hospital.

Mom: Even if it is that big, it's still a moth. How can it defeat that monster?
Fnord and Min together: It's got LASERS!
Boy: Hey mom. Every year, more people die from bee stings than from snakes.
Fnord: Uh... you got a point here, kid?
Min: I bet he drank the fish water.

Mothra Leo returns to face Desghidorah. And the Elias resume their dogfighting with Belvera.

Oh, thank god. I was afraid the 6 hour fight in the living room was going to be all we got of these guys chasing each other. Never skimp on the exciting stuff, that's what i always say.

Mothra transforms back into the million little light butterflies.

Magic Missile!

Then back to giant moth form. And if you thought there were a lot of lasers in this movie already, wait until you see this.

Min: Now we know where the budget went.
Fnord: Sorry, no money for a screenplay, but we've got laser effects!

Meanwhile, the Elias manage to blast Belvera's Garu-Garu dragon, which turns out to be a little robot.

As for the main fight, the final blow comes when the fuzzy adorable moth and the giant three-headed dragon ram each other in the air, and the moth wins out. Then Mothra does some other new thing.

So many new powers!

Mothra had lots of hero points saved up.

The heads look pretty dumbfounded about their defeat.

Do you see this? Can this be happening?

What's with all those new powers? Totally cheap!

At first we thought Desghidorah was dead, and we were like, gee, he doesn't really seem like much of a threat. Last time it took all your moths and you could only seal him in a mountain, but this time one moth kills him all by himself? But it turns out they actually do just seal him up again with the pendant.

Belvera then manages to escape, and it's revealed that she's the sister of the other two Elias. The Elias say that they still love their sister, just like the human boy and girl love each other even though they fight all the time, and even though she "caused a little trouble". Yeah, i'd say releasing a giant dragon that rampaged through Japan and probably killed thousands of people counts as causing a little trouble.

Desghidorah had also turned the surrounding area into a wasteland...

...but Mothra fixes all of that.

There's an environmental message in this movie, but it seems to be that you should get yourself a giant moth for a friend cause he'll fix stuff up for you.

Mothra also gives the two human kids a ride, which the parents are just sanguinely ok with. Whatever.

Not even sure how they got dad, who is in a wheelchair, out into that field.

Then, when it's time for Mothra to leave, there's just a lot of silence. Mothra and Elias stare at the human family, and the humans stare back. No waves, no smiles, no saying "goodybe". It goes on for an uncomfortably long period. Then, when Mothra finally flies off and is facing away from the family, the girl starts to wave and say goodbye. Too late, kid.

It's weird for this movie to not be in continuity. After watching the eight Heisei Godzilla films, we're trained to expect the movies to build on each other. And then suddenly everyone's talking like they've never heard of Mothra before. It's especially weird when it's the Elias being surprised about things like the Mothra egg hatching. Like, "are you people new to your jobs?" But the idea is that this is supposed to be a reboot from the previous films. I feel like there ought to be a disclaimer or something at the beginning. But these are definitely movies for a younger audience. Much more dumbed down than i think even movies targeting kids should be. But still some nice monster fighting, if you don't mind all the lasers.

Now some housekeeping notes. One thing that some people probably won't like. In Final Wars, there will be another quadruped version of King Ghidorah, called Keizer Ghidorah, aka Monster X. I've decided to use the Monster X tag for both Desghidorah (AKA Death Ghidorah) and Keizer Ghidorah. I figure they're just variant versions of the same creature from different eras, just like the Moguera from Showa and Heisei. After all, how many variations of King Ghidorah can there be? If you don't like it, just keep in mind that i originally considered just tagging Desghidorah as a King Ghidorah appearance. I also buy into the notion that each iteration of Mothra is a resurrection of the previous one (hence the fact that this film trilogy is Rebirth of Mothra), so i haven't tagged Mothra Leo as a separate character.

We are definitely light on our usual drinking game items. Which is not to say that you shouldn't drink while watching this movie.

Godzilla Drinking Game
	A woman falls down for no reason.	We have a definite on mom and a maybe on daughter.

Monsters Appearing: Monster X, Mothra