Alternate Titles: Monster Island's Decisive Battle: Godzilla's Son
Year: 1967
Director: Jun Fukuda
Special Effects Director: Sadamasa Arikawa
In The Suit: Yu Sekida & Seiji Onaka (Godzilla), Little Man Machan (Minilla)

Min HATES Minilla. We haven't even started the movie, we're just on the language selection screen, and she's all, "Look at his stupid little snout." But hey, it's a canon Godzilla film, so she soldiers on. She usually convinces me to skip Godzilla's Revenge, but at least she agrees to watch this one.

Ugh, he's so ugly.

We start with Godzilla still in the South Pacific, to the dismay of some people on a small plane.

The plane's radio operator had been having some trouble with the radio. When asked, "Is it the storm?", the guy responds, "It's more like a brain wave.". Whoah. Either that guy is high or he has some unique ability to detect a brain wave with mundane equipment, and either way he shouldn't be helping pilot a plane. He should either be home playing video games or working in some kind of research lab, respectively. Anyway, the interference is not caused by Godzilla, but is coming from the nearby Sollgel Island.

After some goofy intro music during the opening credits, we get to see the extremely colorful construction of the scientific outpost on Sollgel...

Unsure what WFPO stands for. World Food Program Outpost, maybe?

...and we learn that the scientists there are having trouble with interference too.

Our two main scientists are Dr. Tsunezo Kusumi, played by Tadao Takashima, the slightly less goofy Pacific Pharmaceuticals guy from King Kong vs. Godzilla, whose hair has been died grey so that he looks more senior than Dr. Hujisaki, played by Akihiko Hirata who is really getting short shrift lately. This man has been a chief scientist since the first Godzilla! But in Sea Monster he was just a lackey and now he's only the #2 guy?

Cereally. You know, he never gets to be the main good guy hero ever? The best he can hope for is "wise scientist who helps the real hero".

Speaking of Sea Monster, the WFPO based seems to be constructed out of the same Lego materials as Red Bamboo's fort from that movie. Local contractor using the same materials, i guess.

The scientists don't put any effort into hunting down the source of that interference, a decision that will come back to bite them.

A reporter gets dropped off by a plane (a different one than the one in the intro) in order to find out what secretive things the scientists are up to.

Since they can't send him home, he's forced to cook and clean for the scientists, and there's some comedy when he rehydrates vegetables in a tub that was used to clean people's underwear. Hah, hah. Dysentery is funny. But he does learn what the group is there for. It's said that "world population is reaching a limit. You know why? The food supply. There won't be enough food to feed the population. So we must start thinking about uncultivated lands, Siberian tundras, African jungles, and control the weather, to feed the world". So they are working on weather controlling technology. They're keeping it a secret because "if someone abused the technology, it would be the same as a nuclear holocaust".

While the reporter is at the camp, he gets a look at "Kamacuras", a giant praying mantis (Gimantis in the English dub). It's unclear exactly how big it is since it will later grow to near-Godzilla size and therefore it's not supposed to be that big yet. But we never see it in a shot with a person for scale. I guess it's about man-sized. That is still incredibly large and should constitute a scientific discovery all on its own.

Pfft. They've got Godzilla. You think some man-sized, carnivorous insects are anything to talk about?

The reporter also sees a young girl swimming in a lagoon, but he can't convince the scientists that she is real and they don't hesitate to move forward with their experiment, convinced the island is free of "natives".

We then jump into a musical montage scene as the scientists prep for their experiment. Once the process is ready, they first release a "freezing balloon", then they have their towers release silver iodide...

...and then they release a "radioactive balloon". But that "brain wave" interference comes back again during the experiment, and instead of weather control they have the predicted nuclear holocaust. "Thus, sunlight converged on Sollgel Island.", it is said, and "then came the thunderstorms, hot rain came in torrents". It's said to go up to 70 degrees Celcius (158 F) for four days before cooling to 37 C (98 F). How could anyone have possibly survived that?

But everyone is actually very upbeat for having destroyed an ecosystem and nearly getting cooked to death. Except for one guy, Hurukawa, who was showing signs of PTSD even before the experiment went bad.

I think Yoshio Tsuchiya is Toho's resident PTSD guy. Except for Godzilla Raids again, he's always playing the character who cracks under the stress.

Dr. Hujisaki pretends that their radio is broken so this poor guy can't ask to be sent home. Nice!

Another problem with the experiment is that it caused the Kamacuras to grow to their larger size.

It turns out there are actually three of them.

And they are attracted to a big mound that turns out to have a giant egg in it.

The Kamacuras keep hacking at that egg for days.

In the meantime, the mysterious girl makes a raid on the scientist camp, stealing a shirt.

The egg eventually hatches.

Oh, it's hideous

Why does its butt look like that?

Min: OK, here's my problem with it: it's body is so bulbous, but its arms are unnaturally thin. Baby crocodiles look like miniature crocodiles, even those robin babies in that nest in our backyard weren't proportionally... "wrong".
Fnord: Yeah but he's a preemie!
Min: He's gross is what he his.

The creature is named Minilla, which i guess means mini-Godzilla? The name comes with no explanation, it's just assigned to him.

Min says that it was Minilla that was generating the brain waves that were interfering with the radios. I have to accept that because i don't have a better explanation.

Whatever you think of it, it's pretty defenseless right now, and the Kumacuras are getting ready to eat it.

Meanwhile, Hurukawa finally goes mad and tries to walk home, never mind that there's an ocean in the way. He's stopped by Godzilla, who finally emerges from the water.

This is one of the most terrible Godzilla suits, very possibly the worst.

They've been trying to make him look cuter to fit with the progressively lighter tone of the movies, but something seems to have gone horribly wrong this time.

Whoever they consulted for "cute" in this movie should be fired. Nothing that should be cute is cute. Minilla *shudder*, goofy Godzilla...it's all just terrible.

Anyway, Godzilla immediately smashes through the scientists' camp, which was already in bad shape thanks to the failed experiment. It's completely destroyed now.

Oh Godzilla, c'mon! When are you going to learn that people live in these things and you can't just go stepping through them...?

Godzilla shows up to help the baby.

The baby mews about on the ground.

Oh you're hideous. Why don't you have a snout?!?!

Godzilla blasts one of the Kamacuras...

...and then the other two play a kind of soccer game with him, batting a rock back and forth before a surprise launch at Godzilla.

Needless to say, these bugs are no threat to the big man, and he soon drives them off. He then takes a look at the little premature creature...

...and then thwaks it with his tail and leaves.

We then see the mysterious island lady, whose name is Reiko (played by Bibari Maeda, credited as Beverly Maeda in the movie). She throws the baby creature some fruit.

Oh god. Stop making me look at him!

The actual delivery of the fruit doesn't look so good.

Then Godzilla returns, angrily tells the kid no fraternizing with the humans, and leads it away.

Look at his arms! His arms!! Arrrruugghhhhh!

Now, based on the name of this movie, we have to assume that Minilla is Godzilla's son. But that raises some questions. Is there a mommy around? If not, was this egg laid millions of years ago? But that can't be the case because Godzilla is clearly not a normal dinosaur; he's been mutated by radioactivity. And Minilla has radioactive breath too. So did Godzilla lay this egg? Is he autogamous? There's no explanation or any theorizing in this movie.

The radio is out of order for real after Godzilla's attack, and things are pretty bad now that the camp is destroyed. Luckily by this point the group has hooked up with Reiko, and she lets them use the cave that she lives in and that shielded her from the radioactive destruction they unleashed on the island. It turns out her father was an archeologist that left for this island in 1955 and died 7 years ago, leaving Reiko alone on the island to fend for herself. It's not clear what an archeologist was doing on this island that shows no signs of any civilization.

Meanwhile, Godzilla and his son are hanging out near some weird red bubbly water.

Minilla has grown up. In previous scenes he was depicted with animatronics, but he's now in a proper Toho rubber suit. The suit is piloted by someone credited as "Little Man Machan".

Ok, now he's only kind of hideous.

Minilla is jumping around, playing, leaping on and over Godzilla's tail. Occasionally falling down.

Godzilla is asleep again, because that's what Godzilla does.

Reiko starts playing with Minilla again. But dad still doesn't like Minilla playing with his toys and/or friends, and wakes up and starts schooling him.

Dr. Kusumi has been reading Reiko's father's journal, which mentions "Kumonga", which Reiko says is a giant spider.

It's noted that between Godzilla, his son, the Kamacuras, and now this Kumonga, this place is a real "monster island".

Indeed considering the alternate Japanese title for this film, i put it to you that this is indeed the first appearance of Monster Island (one movie earlier than Destroy All Monsters, which is the official debut of that aspect of the Tohoverse).

Most of the other scientists are suddenly showing signs of sickness and high fever. It seems like it's supposed to be an ordinary sickness of some kind, but i kind of suspect radiation poisoning after the failed experiment and the "radioactive balloon". They've certainly been traipsing around on the island with no concerns after that. And Reiko says that the cure to this sickness is the red liquid that is near where Godzilla and son are resting. Is the water red because it contains the same mold that exists on Infant Island that cures radiation sickness? Or am i just making stuff up?

If they are just "regular" sick, maybe they shouldn't all be crowded into the same cave with the healthy people.

Even mice know not to bring your sick back in the home.

Reiko says that the red water is guarded by Kumonga, but he's currently sleeping. The reporter volunteers his clumsy self to go with the stealthy island girl that's been living here all her life, because obviously she needs protection. Grrrr. He's warned that according to the journal, Kumonga's webs can only be destroyed by flame, and then he's told to bring a torch gun. Errr...

Godzilla's training of Minilla continues.

Godzilla tries to show Minilla how to use his radioactive breath.

But Minilla is unable to do it, which gets him a scolding. (read: physical abuse)

Eventually he produces a radioactive ring puff.

He can do the real thing when Godzilla stomps on his tail.

Watching him, the reporter says that Godzilla is "just like the education fanatics in Japan."

Godzilla is the original Tiger Mom.

Later, Minilla gets into a fight with Kamacura.

Is that baby Kamacuras? Weren't the mantises the same size as Godzilla before?

He can only produce his ring breath, and isn't able to defeat the giant mantis. So daddy has to show up and rescue him.

On their way back from collecting the red liquid, the reporter predictably kicks a bunch of rocks down into Kumonga's pit, waking him.

Kumonga is referred to as Spiga in the dubbed version, by the way.

I'm not clear if Kumonga was always this size. Kamacuras was supposed to have been smaller prior to these dimwit scientists and their radiation balloon. Was Kumonga possibly smaller, too? I originally thought that Kumonga was the source of the mysterious brainwaves from earlier in the film, but Min has convinced me that that isn't the case.

Anyway, he webs up the reporter and Reiko...

Oh, if only someone had known! They could have brought a torch! Oy.

...and luckily they at least have a cigarette lighter to burn their way out of the webs. But Kumonga follows them back to their cave and webs them all in. They are saved only because Minilla gets involved again.

Of course, Minilla is no match for Kumonga.

But daddy's sleeping again.

Since the battle between Minilla and Kumonga is happening above Reiko's cave and threatens to collapse it, they decide to start up their "experiment" again (I certainly can't think of a better time to start a delicate experiment. What could go wrong?). They also fixed the radio and made contact with a rescue boat.

Meanwhile, Minilla is in real trouble...

...so luckily Godzilla eventually wakes up.

The fight with Kamacuras is a little weird. Spiders can actually jump on you and bite you, that's a better way of attacking than just spraying webs indefinitely, but that's all Kamacuras does. And it doesn't react at all when Godzilla blasts it with his breath, like it isn't really there. And then when Kamacuras is defeated, there's this bizarre sequence where i guess it's supposed to look like Godzilla is peering really closely at the spider and it shoots out a stinger and stabs him in the eye, but they were unable to actually show Godzilla bending down and interacting with it. So they show a close up of Godzilla, and then the stinger, and then an even closer shot of Godzilla, then back to the stinger, etc, and then finally Godzilla is holding his eye in pain. It looks nothing like Godzilla getting stung in the eye. You have to have an advanced degree in Godzillatology to understand what's supposed to be going on in that scene, but the good news is that we here at SuperMegaMonkey are so accredited.

But i guess here is where we have to cop to the fact that our Drinking Game checklist icon isn't really a picture of Godzilla smacking himself in the head.

Shut up. He's totally smacking his head thinking "This spider fight is totes lame."

There's a fight with Kamacuras in there somewhere too.

The scientists' experiment works (i guess?) this time, and soon the island is being hit with an arctic ice storm. They luckily somehow have winter clothes for Reiko.

Godzilla shows up but he makes Minilla continue the fight alone.

It's very Darwinian parenting. Minilla lets out a little roar while he fights.

Fnord: See, he's cute!
Min: No, he's hideous.

Godzilla does help out Minilla in the end, and they initiate a double breath weapon attack.

Then they huddle together as the snow continues to pile up around them.

Yes, i can see how this would be an ideal climate for growing crops of all varieties. Good job, scientist guys! *thumbs up*

It's said that they won't die, they'll just hibernate until it's all over.

I hope this wasn't the intended result of the experiment, although based on the scientists' reaction, it seems to be. I'm not sure how turning a tropical island into an arctic wasteland helps anyone grow food.

The rescue boat turns out to be a submarine. Jesus, that was risky. It was smart to wait until the very end of the movie, though. The less screen time a submarine has in a Toho movie, the greater its chances of survival.

The next question is how long Godzilla and Minilla hibernate on that island. The next movie by publication date is Destroy All Monsters, which takes place in 1999. But i speculated in Monster Zero that we're already in the future. So if i'm right about this and also about this island actually being Monster Island, then maybe this is how Godzilla and Minilla (and Kumonga) wind up captured there. The government comes and builds the deterrents around the island and starts adding the other monsters as the arctic temperatures eventually die down. If not, well, we skip Destroy All Monsters and then go to Godzilla's Revenge, but Godzilla's appearance in that one is i think just a dream sequence. So then we go all the way to 1971's vs. the Smog Monster before we see Godzilla again.

By the way, on this movie and the last one, at least on our DVDs, the soundtracks are mixed so high that sometimes it's hard to hear the dialogue. That's not really a problem for me since it's subtitled so i'm basically reading. But it annoys Min, who actually listens to the dialogue and is learning some rudimentary Japanese because of it.

Hokai hokai! Yup. Lot of opportunities for me to whip that phrase out if i ever visit Japan.

It should be noted that Minilla - sometimes called Minya in the English dub - is different than Godzooky or Godzuki, the name of Godzilla's nephew from the cartoon show. They have different looks, and Godzuki is explicitly a nephew as Godzilla whereas if we go by the title of this movie, Minilla is his son. Godzuki and the cartoon series in general is out of scope for the purposes of this project.

Wait. He's got a nephew now, too? That means Godzilla must have a sibling somewhere out there, crushing people's homes. How have we not heard about them before??

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.	No army attacks in this one at all.
	People refuse to believe in the existence of a giant monster even though they've already acknowledged that Godzilla exists.
	A submarine explodes.	Dodged that bullet!
	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.	Oh, there's a great scene where the reporter and Reiko are being chased by Kamacuras, and they come across the main scientist, and he sees them run up in a panic and he just casually starts telling them about the repairs he's been making. He doesn't notice the 100 foot tall giant preying mantis following closely behind them.
	A scientist suddenly figures everything out with little-to-no information and explains it all to everyone.
	A monster suddenly grows in size just because.	This is a bit meta, but i'm not sure why were were introduced to giant Kamacuras and then really giant Kamacuras. There's an in-story reason for him growing, sure, but why not just have them be regular praying mantises that were mutated because of the radiation. Why clutter things up with there already being monsters on the island? ...Look, i'm counting it. You don't have to take a drink if you don't want to.
	People expose themselves to major amounts of radiation with no concern.	Well, we just irradiated this entire island. But let's not go home. Let's pretend the radio's broken and hang out here some more. Who wants some water? I think all of the humans should have turned into Gargantuas.
	Everyone suddenly knows a monster's name. Two drinks/head smacks if everyone else nods appreciatively and repeats it.	Minilla definitely counts. I suppose Kamacuras and Kumonga are are legitimately given names by the humans.
	Army missiles can't seem to hit a 150+ foot monster and instead explode harmlessly around 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.	I'm tempted to count the whole basic "Godzilla suddenly has a son" concept.

Monsters Appearing: Godzilla, Kamacuras, Kumonga, Minilla