Apparently the Mothra larva took eight people to operate.
I was curious about that. I was going to ask you.
How many injuries were sustained under?
As far as I can tell? No major injuries.
Haro Nakajima made it out of this movie, unscathed.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Castle Bravo.
A Godzilla versus retrospective. I'm Derek.
And I'm Charlotte. And we're two siblings here to
examine the history of the Godzilla franchise one movie at
a time. Charlotte, what's up?
How we doing today? Pretty good.
Once I clear my throat, okay. Um, two games that I care about
a lot, had new games come out. So I've been doing that and
nothing but that aside from watching, Today's movie.
Yeah, this has been a really stacked couple of weeks for
games, like not to advertise other games.
These are just talking about things that we love for a
moment. We had what new Samurai
Warriors, we had now, two new, a satyr knees, drop together, new
the world, we knew the world ends with you, like this is good
shit. This is good shit.
And then I'm kind of curious. I think it's cyberconnect2 put
out this little game called fuga Memories of Steel that for some
reason, every time I see screenshots of it, Is really
getting my attention as a cool. Weird little indie project.
And I just know, there's been a bunch of stuff that I'm going to
miss. This is we've been in a drought
and now there's a bunch of things and it's exciting.
Yeah, I've been doing okay, likewise just loaded down with
games, very busy, very tired. I'm wearing a mask again in the
grocery store. You know, how it goes?
Because I know, because I never stopped wearing it because well
for a while cases were low. And then Here we are.
I still did it. Yeah, yeah.
Good on you. Yeah.
But it's, you know, a wonderful thing is that we get to escape
from the radioactive hellscape that is our everyday life and
watch these movies about radioactive monsters.
That was such a good transition. Oh, it wasn't So so far in
Castle Bravo, we've had some ups and downs.
We started with the original Godzilla, which was incredible,
it's direct sequel, which was less.
So we had Rodin, which was incredible, we had the
mysterians, which I think we both liked quite a bit and saw
his like ahead of its time. It was good.
Yeah, like it's definitely very different and I can see where a
lot of people wouldn't dig it so much, but I thought it was.
I we thought it was interesting and had a lot to say.
Yeah. And then last episode we About
Varan, The Unbelievable, which was very unfortunate monster
movie that went through a ton of production woes, the American
co-producer pulled out at the last minute, it was meant to be
a black-and-white 4x3, made-for-tv movie and had to be
converted at the last minute to fit in theaters and a lot of
that shows. But the nice thing is that
today, we're moving back into what I consider one of the high
points of the season with. Yeah.
With daily sounded, real hard. Yes, they did with today's movie
moth. Thera.
Funny thing, we are actually only a couple days past the 60th
anniversary of this movie's release.
As of, uh, as of time of recording.
Not as of time that you listener, listening, I can't
make that magic happen. So you can wait a year to
release it. No, first, you know, that would
give me a lot of time to goof around and not edit these
podcasts, but I was chairman, I do need to get these out.
So Charlotte tell us what Mothra is about.
So Mothra is a movie that is about 20 minutes longer than any
of the movies we've seen so far. So there's a lot of plot.
I will do my best to kind of Squish that down.
Now, let's cut it down to the CliffsNotes.
Yeah, so our starting seen its typhoon season.
There's a powerful one. Heading past the Caroline
Islands, there's a large ship being caught in it and that ship
is starting to drift towards infant Island.
Where the Is a lot of radiation. It is, it's a radiation Zone.
There were nuclear test on there.
So the ship's capsizing, the crew escapes, they end up
drifting on to the island as well, and then they have to go
and rescue them. Luckily, the all the people are
still alive, despite the radiation.
And then we get our first protagonist.
Fuku de the the newspaper boy, he works for the newspaper, he
doesn't deliver them. He's a reporter is what we
should probably say. That's, that's the word.
You know what? The word wasn't coming, but he's
there. Reporter, sorry.
I know. That's probably offensive to you
too, right? No, not at all.
I have to slam two words together all the time.
Just to come up with a vague idea when there's a much simpler
word at the ready. Yeah.
I don't know, fukunaga comes and starts questioning the crew
because the crew states that the natives on the island, gave them
this special red. Juice to help them survive the
radiation. Yeah.
They're like, holy shit. There were people on this
island, we were supposed to have checked and there was nobody
there, right? And so, during this, the
realistic on government, which I saw them, and I saw their flag,
I had I went and I looked them up because I was like, is there
a country? I just don't know about, but no,
they made this country up for this movie.
Yeah. So this is, I want to, I want to
because I think this is important for the rest of the
movie as we describe it. We're Lissa is A made-up
country, it is intended to be kind of a fusion of both the
United States and Russia that, you know, two of the biggest
Global superpowers at the time without being too specifically
either, right? So, it's kind of a stand-in for
giant Western superpower, but not any of the real ones.
I think this is interesting because the original book that
this movie is based on does explicitly use the United
States. And what we can, maybe talk
about why that might have been changed later.
But anyway, yeah, I think I know why fictional stand in Western
Country. Right.
Everybody has they sound like they're from New York?
But they can also all speak Japanese.
But everybody was like Soviet uniform.
Yeah and the flag almost looks Turkish.
I thought it did it first. When I was on its side I thought
it did like the colors were wrong, but that's actually just,
it's an eagle. I thought it was okay.
I didn't catch that and then the capital is Newkirk City.
Yeah. So so they put together an
expedition team to go to infant Island fuka.
De has snuck on the Expedition ship and forgot his very funny
the whole movie. Yeah.
This is opting to be some. This is a much funnier movie
than the last like anything that's come before.
There's a lot more slapstick in it.
Yeah. Not like overdone but it's this
is a movie that's having a little fun with itself and I
appreciated that. Yeah, I'll talk more.
That later. But yeah I don't know this movie
did like everything. Well who could have snuck onto
the ship where he meets Nelson? Who is fucking Nelson?
Actually our villain And Nelson threatens him, you know, all
that but they arrived to the island in Phuket has now somehow
part of this Expedition, he managed to Charisma his way and
onto the Expedition team because I mean I guess they can't just
leave him on the ship. Yeah.
Which is weird because you absolutely could just leave him
on the ship but but he's a big known as a big Stout guy.
He could be helpful. Who knows?
He had an outfit like he was like cleaning.
Yeah, so I really feel like after the run-in with Nelson he
ran off and just found when the expedition Suits, you know, this
is a guy belong here, Nelson. Also in like Nelson, is this
realistic in businessman who's kind of funding the Expedition
and catches him sneaking around in his cabin?
Looking for Clues. It's also possible Nelson.
Just didn't want to leave him on the ship like while while while
everybody else was off of it because who knows what?
He could find any sense. I didn't think about that until
just now, but that does make sense the island is covered.
In Jungle. And fukudome managed to Fumble
his way through it and Nelson. Finds him out there while dr.
Chu's. Oh, who?
I guess I did not mention up to this point but dr.
Choose 0 is an anthropologist that they sought help from he
hadn't been to important up till now because all ye that he had
done is briefly on the boat, he talks about how frustrated he is
that they're going to have to hand over their research, to
Nelson, this foreign businessman, rather than having
control of Their own findings. Yeah.
Dr. Choose 0 is separated, from the team and he wanders into a
Grove and it's got like alien fungus everywhere Vines from the
ceiling, come down and grab him. While these two tiny twin girls
start singing at him, wonderful one detail in because there's a
cool parallel here that I only caught watching it.
This time that I did not catch as a younger person.
All of the Expedition team have like an alarm on there.
So that if they get in trouble, they can press the button and it
will sound the alarm and people can come and find them right
hand. And he sets that off when the
vines catch him and that's what leads the the girls to him and
leads everyone else to him, as well as he's got the come help
me alarm anyway. Yeah.
And then the team tracks, the origin of the sounds like the
girls singing and then the girls start trying to sing to them.
And that's basically how they communicate the team.
He kind of gets the vibe, they're putting down and they
promised the girls. Hey, we're not going to do any
more nuclear tests, the girls are satisfied, but then Nelson
and another team member from realistic.
Oh, just grab the girls and then a bunch of the people that live
on the island show, ups are clashing rocks together and like
surrounding them threatening them until they return the
girls. So then the Japanese team
returns to Japan. But Nelson's, team stays behind,
which honestly, when I was reading when I was watching that
rather that seems a little Confusing.
Because I thought everybody went home.
Did you pan? But no Nelson, still there with
his team? No, I think they went back
because remember Nelson comes back on the ship and and
everybody is like welcoming the boat back and he gets in the car
real frustrated and won't talk about the Expedition and then
and then they go back, I think. Okay.
So because they went and they found the two tiny twin girls
which they're like they say 30 cm tall.
So that's what like a foot roughly something like that.
Yeah, so these two tiny Foot Tall Island women.
Yeah, that they tried to kidnap and then have to come back
without and it's pretty clear that like that was the entire
point of the In secret. I mean, I guess I missed that
part, but basically doctor choose 0 has brought back a
scroll and it's talking about something called Mothra which
he's unsure on, but then Nelson goes back and they kidnapped the
girls and when the people of the island come and start
surrounding them again. They just shoot them.
And then one of the, the people on the island goes to like a
ceremony area and starts crying out for Mothra and the wall
breaks apart and then there's just mothra's egg.
Egg. And that's pretty cool.
I like the design on mothra's egg to that kind of yellow and
blue, swirly pale pastel, kind of look, it's very recognizable.
So yeah like I see that and I'm like yeah it's Mothra Nelson
brings back. The twins to Japan for a Showbiz
act because of course he did. The Twins start seeing about
Mothra And dr. Chu's.
Oh, fukunaga. And Phuket, his little brother
who I didn't really make note of when I took notes because he's
not important yet, he's also there, but they go and they
asked Nelson to bring the girls Back to the Island.
And then they get to meet with the girls and the twin start
speaking Japanese to them. They asked to be freed.
They warned that she will come for them regardless of what they
do. If they don't bring them back
and meanwhile the people on infant island or doing a ritual
to awaken Mothra. And so now mothra's in, you
know, larval State, giant grub, basically Japan sees a giant
object floating in the South Pacific and that's Mafra
swimming towards them swimming towards the girls yet.
Can I, can I bring up the parallel that I Mentioned
earlier. Yeah, so the sequence where the
two kidnapped girls, the the show begin are forced to do
their little song, and dance routine for the crowd and it
cuts back and forth between them and the tribal people back on
the island doing the ceremony to like wake up moth or and hatch.
The egg. One thing I noticed is there is
a like a stone Dyess I think I pronounced that word correctly.
There's there's like a stone platform like almost like a
almost like a platform in the in the center that is very similar
to the little raised platform. That the girls are singing and
dancing on for the crowd back in.
Oh yeah, Japan. And in Japan, they have all of
the fake performers dressed up as tribes people.
But then you go back to the tribal people actually doing the
real Sara. Knee.
And it's very clear that the girls the show begin, would have
done that song and dance on the stone platform.
It's like, it's like a ritual to wake up mathur and it got to
work because they did it at the same time in two separate
places. Yeah, and I thought that was
cool. But there's also another thing I
never caught which is the whole. They make a big point about
people, having the alarm to set off to summon help and then the
girls, you know, they sing and dance and that is Itself the
alarm to call for help true. So I don't know, just a cool
parallel that we show. I think it's foreshadowing that
they make a big deal. Out of all the crew members
having this rescue alarm and then the song and the song of
the dance that the show be Jenner forced to do is like, hey
remember this? This concept we were bringing up
repeatedly on the island works the other way around, right now.
That's true. I didn't Really pick that up
since it was my first time, but yeah.
Anyway, so yeah, Martha is coming across the ocean.
She body slams through a ship, which was pretty cool and then
that brochure Ives. Yeah, well, I mean, she's just
trying to get to her destination and the shortest distance
between two points is a straight line.
So the Press arrives in starts grilling Nelson over it because
they're like, hey, you kidnapped these girls and no a giant
monsters crashing through our Navy and then hookah.
And Choose 0 go and speak to the girls.
Again, meanwhile fuka is having like a fight scene with Nelson's
cronies, which is great. I love it and I love him.
He's my heart and our with. Yeah, the reporter guy, they
call him the snapping turtle, because once he grabs onto his
story, he doesn't let go, and he's this lovely Stout.
Very, he's a chunky boy, and he's just very good.
I love him. He's a tough boy.
He's a good boy, he's reliable. Yeah, you know, He's a silly
boy, he's all kinds of good manner of boy.
So he's having this fight scene with Nelson's cronies choose 0
goes talks with the girls and then they return to dr.
Hirata who was somebody at the beginning who has a ball or
mustache? Yes, he does.
They're trying to see if there's a way to stop the twins
telepathy with Mothra. So that Martha doesn't come and
destroy everything. Meanwhile, the military does
what it does. And they send planes try to
intercept mathur with bombs. That doesn't work.
Meanwhile, fuka Dorada and choose 0, give Nelson a box that
will block the twins telepathy and I kind of like the the scene
where they're talking about that because they're talking about
this material, they could have bullshit their way.
If you like yeah we have invented a telepathy blocking
material but they're like, no we were working on this to block
radio waves and this might work and it kind of does and I like
the the implication that the telepathy that they are using is
really Ali, just like an ultra low band, like radio wave, which
honestly gives it more, you know, even more in common with
an alarm. Yeah, yeah yeah.
Yeah. So they given this box and it
doesn't really matter much because mothers already on, on
the way there she arrives at the coast of Japan, she is held back
by a dam but she starts destroying it.
Meanwhile, Nelson's, like, I gotta get out of here.
So Nelson, puts the twins. I got a fucking ghost.
Y'all can't catch. Can have some girls and now
there's a giant monster out for me.
I'm fully in the country. Yeah, hold on.
Just like dude, just give them back like at this point.
Come on. Have you considered no money?
Yeah. Nelson puts the Twins and their
special box because they are just singing from author.
The whole time, the dam burst, fukudome runs out until I get a
bridge being destroyed by the water and he saves a baby.
What a fucking Champ. Like, who does the man?
And then his little brother Shinji.
Is his name. Sneaks into Nelson's office and
steals the twins away from him just like his big brother a
fucking Champ. That's right, gets caught.
But I mean, what a cool. I love.
He leaves. The little boy.
Leaves. A note that says he's stolen the
show, begin to free them and then everybody gets up in like a
panic and starts going everywhere else to try to look
for him. And then he's inside and
underneath like a prop in the hallway and he goes into the
room and then goes to them like he faked them out and I'm like
what a baller eight-year-old this child is.
So, yeah, he does get caught and they do retain the twins,
unfortunately, but the realistic on government who, you know,
Nelson's with them. Essentially starts demanding,
the release of the twins. They've turned on them, because
it's starting to affect the relations with Japan because
he's going to cause Japan to be destroyed, and that's how it
goes hookah and choose. Oh, go and they save, Shinji.
Meanwhile ball throws crawling through Tokyo, the Air Force in
tank troops. Try to drive with her back, but
of course, Some work Mothra pulls down what I think is Tokyo
Tower it is Tokyo Tower yes snaps it in half and like gets
underneath it and just start wrapping herself in a cocoon so
she can transform so she can get the twins off the island at the
same time. Nelson is smuggling, the twins
out of Japan. And there's one point where
they're just like, okay, pretend you are a diplomat from Roll
Issa and you just like, puts on some glasses and he's just like,
hello, I'm a diplomat for Melissa.
Roll the skies check for past. Yeah.
Past anyway, but so he's leaving Japan, and the Japanese
realistic and governments gather around mothra's cocoon and start
firing Atomic, heat cannons to basically microwave Mothra.
I had a lot to say about this at the time because I was concerned
that this is a world that has been ravaged by atomic Ends and
here they are just bringing out their atomic weapons.
Yeah. So this is the beginning of a
long trend of weird, super weapons in the military's Armory
basically. And it's the only time that I
can think of that they are Atomic weapons.
You will see a lot of like lasers and super fancy missiles
and you know, freeze rays and things like that.
But this is this is the only time I can think of That they
are Atomic heat rays. And what I think is interesting
is that that's exactly what good Godzilla's breath is supposed to
be is an atomic heat ray. Okay.
So I don't know if that's an intentional thing.
I like the new visual effect. Oh yeah.
It look great. Yeah.
But it is kind of like, hey guys?
Yeah. Yeah, the whole time.
I was like, what are you doing? But they do burn the Cocoon.
So the Cocoon is on fire and they're like, all right, we did
it. We killed moth.
Good job, everybody. Nelson is listening to all this
happen from realistic. Oh, he thinks he's escaped but
he puts the twins down. He's like, ha ha, got it.
And then the twins started seeing them author again and
Mothra just emerges from her flaming cocoon fully formed and
she flies towards the Twins and the wind from her wings just
blast all the armies back. It's very like rhodium.
Yeah she's not flying as fast but I think the extra force from
flapping. Ying.
You clearly see it like flinging tanks and shit around.
Yeah, she starts flying towards Newkirk City and Nelson goes.
I got to get out of here. You guys driving away, but he's
immediately noticed by like everyone in town and the cops.
They're all like that's Nelson and so he comes out of his car
and he starts he like he shoots a cop.
I think. I don't know if it was a And he
shoots a cop and then like 100 cops.
Shoot him. Yeah.
Like he starts running away this old guy like always like, hey,
like grabs his leg keeps him from getting away while the cops
are shooting at him just Falls over dead.
Meanwhile dr. Choose 0 and the others are
going to the fairies. And the fairies have been taken
out of the car by a crowd of people.
And the crowd of people was like, when we just return these
these twins, I don't, Want them here.
I don't want to die and our whole gang, is there choose a
hookah the reporter lady that I didn't write the name of down
and they all deduce that the symbol on the scroll and also
unbeknownst to them on one of the cave walls to Mothra has
like a cross with a sun around it and that's supposed to be a
sign that's significant to Mothra.
And so they basically create like a landing area from author
by drawing. The symbol there and the church
bells are Meanwhile, they're considering this and they sound
a lot like the twins song so they have them, they have all
the churches in realistic, a ring their Bells at the same
time, so that Mothra will hear it.
Go to the landing area, and come down, and they can give Mothra
the Twins and then it works and they just do it.
Just kind of works. It's it was mathur goes.
Hey, there's a religious. Yeah, it's kind of weird because
they're, like, looking at the cross on the church and and I
guess it makes sense because they're in a Western Country
that they are. Yeah you know that this Western
country is going to be more more specifically Christian religious
than generally spiritual as you tend to see more in Japan at the
time. Hmm.
But yeah. It's very interesting and then
Mothra lands on the landing pad and they give her the fairies
and then she goes back home That's it.
That's all I wanted dickheads. Yeah, they spent like an hour
like most of the runtime. Just not giving back the people.
They say they kidnapped. And then who knows how many
people died? Yeah.
Well they they don't like to focus on that but, you know,
very nearly at least one baby. Yeah.
Luckily fuuka does the mayor hookah is the fucking man.
You know, one other person I made special note of who They're
when they're talking about at the end when they're all at the
church. There's just this one priest who
is incredibly Italian compared to everyone else.
Like I think they just got like there were like look all these
people are white. They're all going to seem the
same to Japanese audiences. Just work with it.
Oh, this was a really good movie.
I really enjoyed it. It's, it's definitely Really.
I think it's the first of these movies that have had such a
large and defined and recognizable cast instead of a
bunch of characters representing, some specific
faction of people. Yeah, this one is treated
differently than most of the ones before it.
I Mothra is still treated as a force of nature but it's a force
of nature awakened by the fact that they won't just do what
they need to do to stop it. Yeah like it's not something
outside of their control that they need to rise to defeat.
It's something totally within their control that they could
have just not screwed with But Nelson wanted to make money.
Basically, the plot of this movie is just King Kong except
they took two Islanders instead of the giant monster.
And then the giant monster came and-- wreck shit because it
wanted to return the kidnapped Islanders.
But other than that, like on paper, it's it's greedy.
Businessman wants to make money off of exotic things from
Island. And bites off more than he can
chew. That's a tale as old as time.
I want to shout out one particular scene, which is
really where I knew this movie was going to be great is when
the two reporters are trying to interview this Japanese man who
had gone on previous expeditions to unexplored islands and he
doesn't like getting his photo taken.
So he's always got a newspaper up in front of his face as he's
talking to them. And the reporter lady tries a
couple of different ways to like sneak Photo of him and can't
trick him. So they put the camera away and
then she pulls out this lighter and she very like conspicuously
lights Phuket has cigarette for him which also super weird to
see all these people smoking indoors so much in like public
buildings, but it was the 60s. Yeah.
But and she keeps holding the lighter in a very conspicuous
kind of way towards the guy's face as they're talking to him,
because he's become more comfortable.
Since they have, put the camera away and And basically, there's
a hidden camera in the lighter that she uses to get a picture
of him and it's just very slick and it's kind of a funny
sequence and they pull that gag not gag.
Like that comes back later when they need to get a secret
picture of the twins. They have the hidden camera in
the lighter and so on. But I just think it's, that was
a point where I knew like, oh, this movie is going to be kind
of funny. These characters are going to be
memorable. They're going to bring things up
that. Be important at later moments
that will get echoed at some future point in the plot.
Just very, very good. So, we got to talk about Mothra
because Mothra is, at this point, may be one of the most
well-known giant monsters in movie history, and this being
mathur has debut. I think it's interesting how
mundane Mothra is in this movie. Yeah.
I mean, she's just a giant. Yeah, there's no laser beam
antennas. There's no weird superpowers.
There's no, this is a big moth and a mom.
That big can cause a lot of damage, just by virtue of being
that big, right? None of the damage she did was
deliberate. Yeah, it's pretty much just, I'm
gonna get where I'm going to get and if something is in my way,
you know, not my problem. So exactly.
That's still probably more aggressive than we tend to see
Mothra in later movies. But, you know, it is worth
noting. This is not mathur coming in
shreking a city until somebody brings the fairies, it's just
Mothra on a, on a straight line. Line, pretty much and and help
God help you if you're a boat on that straight line basically or
a damn, yeah, that damn gets fucking wrecked.
I loved the sequences with the dam bursting that must have been
so incredible to shoot because it's all miniature work but it
looks great. Yeah, so they and like when the
dams breaking upon the water's coming through.
Yeah, and it's breaking bit by bit and I, you know, Did that
thing once again, where they shot it at a, at a higher frame
rate and then slowed it down. So that the water coming out and
moves a little slower and they must have been using some kind
of special lenses, I don't know, but they managed to take this
little bitty scale. Miniature of a dam with water
trickling and coming through it as it breaks and make it look
incredible. I mean it's this great work with
the scale Miniatures and this this has probably the most
failed miniature work. I've seen in these movies so
far. Yeah, I would agree with that.
Yeah, but I loved I loved Martha.
This is the first time Martha appears.
We got a good. Look at both the larvae form and
Mothra herself and you know, I don't apparently the Mothra
larvae took eight people to operate.
I was curious about that. I was going to ask you.
How many injuries were sustained under?
As far as I could tell? No major injuries Haro.
Made it out of this movie, unscathed.
Finally, this man caught a break.
They were like, look, this is a family movie.
We can't Mame Nakajima again. He put it in his contract for
this one. He needed a break.
Poor Nakajima is over in the corner with like a black eye,
and a cast on his arm. But yeah.
So it took eight people to operate the Mothra larva.
And then Mothra itself, I think was mostly a puppet.
But yeah, that would make sense. But yeah, looks great.
Fantastic work. This is a kind of an interesting
movie because a, what a lot of people don't realize is that
Mothra is actually based on a Serial novel was published so
many chapters at a time, in an ongoing magazine called the
Luminous, fairies and Mothra. So this is not made up by, you
sure do Honda or a writer like for a movie.
This is then looking at something that is Been
previously published and deciding to make something of an
adaptation of it. That is going to happen a few
more times throughout this season.
Honestly. And I feel like that happened a
lot. But yeah, yeah.
And then like I said, the only major change as far as I can
tell is that they changed the United States and New York City
for roll essica. And Newkirk City, they
explicitly made it a sort of United States.
Russia hybrid too. Make it a generic Western
superpower rather than specifically the US.
And if you look that up Mothra is the only thing that comes up.
But yeah, it doesn't show up in anything else.
There's a couple reasons why that could be why they might
have changed the United States for this fake country.
There was a certain amount of censorship and control from the
United States on Japan in there. They're like film and their pop
culture exploits. So I don't know that they could
have Away with making the US, the villains or seem like the
villains. Like, that's a complication that
we have to acknowledge and also the fact that this was partially
co-produced with an American company, but we do also know
that Honda generally doesn't like playing the pointing the
finger at a country kind of game so eight, that's what I have
foreign country, kind of gives you the opportunity to not point
a finger at an existing Ally and be like, hey fuck.
Q, dude, it's kind of the way that that in a lot of ways in
the United States, we have a tendency to make up fake Middle
Eastern countries for a lot of war movies.
And I'm not going to say that's a great practice, but it's an
attempt to get around that. Yeah, I also note that like
realistic as a country is not necessarily the villain of this.
It's really just Nelson know. It's really it's just this Rich
dickhead Nelson and once the pressure is on to the realistic
and government they go. Okay.
Look, you do need to give up at first, they're like, look, he's
got the right to do business and, you know, however, he
pleases and then it's like, okay, no disaster is coming.
Fuck this guy. This is not our shit.
So it is just Nelson and he's basically a mob boss.
I could almost like a fart. He's like an art Thief sort of,
I mean, they even compare him to somebody who would go into
historical sites and steal artifacts and, and sell them.
And that's where he gets his money.
Yeah. So it's pretty clear that he's a
very crooked businessman, right? This had kind of a troubled
production. They basically shot at a
Different ending that they liked better than the one that they
initially pitched to their co-producers.
And like so I guess they were just they pitched one version of
the movie and then started filming a different ending.
But then the co-producers were like, no, this is different from
what we agreed to. You've got to do the original
ending, which they were fine to do.
They went back and did it, but they'd already spent a lot of
time and money working on the ending.
They didn't get to use. So but you wouldn't really know
that. That from watching it, it
definitely pulled together. Much better than save.
Aaron. Did I'm going to?
I'm going to put one, one more, very unfortunate point on here
which is we got a lot of scenes of the natives.
Let's talk about the infant Island, natives for a bit so
UPS, and fucking Downs. Huh.
Ya know, I made a lot of noise. Yeah.
That's as it was happening and especially when they're dressed
up, as the people from the island to do this.
I was like, oh my so the infant Island natives are Japanese
actors in Brown face, in varying degrees of round face.
It seems like the men are broadly darker than the women,
but that's not like a universal. And it's kind of obvious and
that's really uncomfortable from a western standpoint, where
we're used to seeing black face and you see all of these lighter
skin actors with this very obvious Brown.
Kind of makeup and paint on them, but then not their lips.
So, they've still got the bright pink lips and that's that
trigger some really uncomfortable feelings.
Yeah, there's just not an excuse for it.
I mean I would have been really great for them to cast
Polynesian actors to be these these characters, you know these
extras the monetarist song is in a Polynesian dialect if I
remember correctly. So yeah, the the scroll was.
Yeah and So the show begin are portrayed by a famous Japanese
singer duo called the peanuts. There are two twin sisters.
And, you know, I don't necessarily like that.
Once again, we're using Japanese actors to portray Polynesian
people, but at least the makeup work on the show be Jin is not
offensively done. Do you know what I mean?
It's relatively subtle. They look more tanned, but they
basically look like tan Japanese people, and I think you could
get away with that. They don't look like they're
slathered and shoe polish compare that to the Hours.
And a lot of them are very obviously slathered in, you
know, dark brown makeup and it might have just felt less
uncomfortable if the natives had been much more toned down in the
makeup work, but, but here we are.
You're right? Yeah.
The movie, the movie tries to be on the side of the natives
broadly. Like this is, this is something
we're Honda. And the crew wanted these
natives to be portrayed, as they are living in peace.
They have their own way of life. They're doing great for
themselves. They've even got their own down
to Nature way to deal with the Radiation of the island with the
red juice that they drink, you know, and then it is portrayed
as a bad thing for, you know, businessmen from civilized
Nations, there's scare quotes on that, for those who can't see
me, which is everybody, but it is a bad thing for them to come
in and kidnap these two women and take them out and make them
pop stars basically for the time and Nelson.
Ian tries to play it off with this whole but look, they live
in such Grand Comfort. What could possibly they want
more than this? That's like well home.
This is a thing that primarily European people but not
exclusively European. People is something that
colonizers the world over have done throughout history which is
you go to a place that you consider to be less advanced
than you less civilized than you and then you you kidnap young
people and you try To raise them within your culture.
With the idea that oh we're making them better, we're
teaching them English or French. We're having them dress and eat
like, good proper. You know, upper Upper Crust
people and we will, We Will. And then when they're questioned
about it, they go, oh, we brought them roads and yeah,
it's a pain to the savagery know this.
Yeah. And it's like, you know, this
movie really clearly does want you to recognize that that's
It's not good that you need to leave these fucking people alone
or if you're going to come to them you need to come to them on
their terms. I mean, the sequence where they
just mow down the Islanders is it's a little kitschy in terms
of the acting and effects work. But it's a pretty harsh scene,
because they do straight up just mow down, dozens of Islanders.
Who were only trying to protect two of their own, and who posed?
Basically no threat to all of these armed.
You know, I they're not it's I think that Nelson works with
some Japanese people and some realistic ins, right?
Yeah. I mean like he's got kind of a
mix in his posse his main guy like he would when he's in the
car at the end. That guy is from.
Yeah. And but then he has like a bunch
of yeah. Yeah with with all kinds of
ridiculous accents and Nelson, himself speaks Japanese with a
pretty stilted dialect which I think is interesting.
I don't know if that actor could only sort of speak Japanese or
what, but it sounded like a Westerner who kind of knew
Japanese, who was speaking Japanese.
Yeah, he's very he enunciates things, hardships.
He enunciates things like like an American who knows Japanese
but does not have the accent. So like at one point he says,
like machito and S, which is of course, and he, when he says
that he says, like Mochi told me things like Mochi, Roan death.
Yeah. Like, you know, but I think that
that's a good detail that they captured and I think we're
talking about the the island. Natives is like, obviously this
is this is one of the more political movies out of a long
string. I think a fairly political
movies so far in this podcast. I mean, the whole movie is about
some rich business. Fuck going into an exotic
location in stealing. NG to foreign women to make him
rich. And yeah, just yeah.
Like it's bad and then you stop and think about put this in the
context of directory. Sure, o Honda having guarded.
One of the Comfort women camps during World War Two and side
note, small detail. I don't think I've brought up so
far, but apparently he wrote and published a book, that was a
collection of the stories of the various women who Were at that
camp that he had to guard as a way to kind of like talk about
what it was like to be in there and to share the stories of
women who were forced into that position and I would love to
find a translated copy of that. But like a lot of books about
many of these these people that were talking about and about
many of these movies, they're old, they're out of print, they
weren't translated, I would have loved to find a copy of the
Luminous, fairies and Mothra and read it in English and that's
just not an option. Option.
So, but but yeah, so you take that very impactful part of his
life. And then you go to a movie that
is about the taking of foreign women and forcing them into
servitude, and then almost kind of like the Revenge fantasy of
their people. And their ways overpowering
Advanced civilization just through forests of because it's
what's right. Yeah, I don't know.
This is, is this an interesting movie and it's just a fucking
good movie. Like the, it's a greasy, it is,
I'm stuttering so bad today. And I'm sorry, it's okay with a
lot of these movies. We've had to spend a lot of time
explaining the depth of their politics and themes, and I think
Mothra, where's its politics right out on its sleeve?
It doesn't need a lot of deeper examination to understand, and
then it's just a good fucking movie on top of that.
Yeah, it has. It's like I said to you, you
know, outside of this earlier. It's the first movie that has
like a villain because Nelson's just yellin.
We've had monsters that are villains.
And then in the mysterians we had the enemy faction of the
mysterians with. Maybe they're one leader as the
kind of stand out. But this is the first time we've
had a characterized human villain who drives the plot and
he's just a nasty motherfucker and I Hating this dude.
Yeah, you sent me a screencap of him with a gun pointed at fuka
the reporter. And he's got this, just
shit-eating grin on his face. Fuck this guy, fuck this Nelson
dude. He has an expression on like
everyone of God, I know. And then he gets mowed down by
cops in his home country and it's just it's very satisfying.
The plot takes care of him on its own.
It just goes, you know what, it's, it's kind of like the bit
where the, the icicle Falls and kills the pedophile in The
Lovely Bones. It's just the plot going.
We're going to wrap this up for you because we're, I know we got
to focus on other things that are happening.
But fuck this guy in particular. So this is I'm going to actually
ask you this because I think this is kind of an interesting
question. This is where we normally talk
about, where does this fit in to kind of the Godzilla versus
moving forward and pop culture. This will be your first time
having seen the introduction of Mothra.
What do you know of Mothra prior to now?
And how do you think that's changed?
Having seen this movie? Because this isn't like Varan
were very in as a one-off. Right?
This is fucking Mothra, right? No, I mean I've played as Mothra
and games, several games. I knew that she had like the two
small women that speak for her and that's basically all I knew.
I don't know, I like her more now because I understand where
she comes from. I thought that this movie would
be about batra as well because all one of the only other things
I know about mathur has that she supposed to be like the opposite
of batra. So that's that's one movie in
the 90s which is a good one and I'm excited to get to.
So we have another movie later in the season.
We're mouth is going to show up in Martha, versus Godzilla,
spoiler alert. And then we also have a Godzilla
versus Mothra in the 90s and both of them pull so heavily
from the tone and the themes of this original movie.
But yeah, Bachelor is a purely 90s.
S1 movie thing. Well, that's a situation where
like, I know this and that but not what they, you know, I don't
know. Anything.
Can write the information that I know, I just like, oh, I know
that from a video game, but I just like, I mean, this is this
is fucking Mothra and Mothra is the closest thing to a heroic
giant monster. I think we've seen so far.
Yeah, I think, as you can describe a lot of the other
monsters as maybe tragically neutral, but mothra's straight
up. Good guy.
You get to mathur a tearing ass through the through Tokyo, and
getting attacked by the military and you're rooting for Mothra.
Instead of for the military, right?
So it's a very oh, you know what?
It also avoided the military shooting him on.
Yes, yes, I was going to say, I saw the bit where Mothra finally
comes into the City, and they start the military, you know,
fight sequence up. And my first thought was, oh, I
better see how How long this drags out because this is a
thing that Charlotte has been harping on movie after movie.
And I think they do a pretty good job of varying, the pace up
and then wrap in that scene. Yeah.
And I think they do that by because I mean there's the the
scene where they set up, they attack Mothra, it's not working.
They cut to our main characters. Again, they cut back there's a
different setup, they fire, it Mothra, it's not working, you
know? So what's funny is, this is a
thing that people bitch about Out in the legendary Godzilla
movies, a lot that excuse me, they cut away from the action
too much to something that people are doing for a moment or
two or like a reaction from people.
But I think now that we've been watching a lot of these movies,
we can see that having just non-stop monster vs.
Military. Or we haven't really gotten to
big monster vs. Monster slugfests yet.
If you don't find, Find some way to either break that up or
switch the pacing up, it just drags.
Yeah. So I also, I also think it's
interesting that once again, from the perspective of many
westerners, who I don't think of seen many of these movies
constantly asked. Well, why do we even bother with
the the people stories? And every one of these movies
has had a story focusing on human characters and on people
and on how this impacts But whether it's this Alien Invasion
or this monster emerging, yeah, that's the point.
Yeah, so I did it. Boggles my mind when I hear
Godzilla, fans go or or people in general go, well, we just
need to stop having these stupid human story.
Like, what what else do you want, then?
Do you want to attend minute music?
Video of a monster breaking up a city.
And that's the whole thing is Mothra, would not be what it is.
I don't think Rodin would be what it is, or the original
Godzilla, without the human story.
At the center of it. Hey, those are my top three
moves easily and I think it's it's not a coincidence that
those three become kind of the face of this franchise for a
little bit. Once they start trying to pull
everything together, shit, I really should have brought this
up earlier before we wrapped, but one last thing that I will
leave, I guess it's a stinger is this movie was made and clearly
I think the original serial novel and the movie took a lot
of inspiration. Raishin directly from King Kong
and this begins. If you accept that premise, this
begins a long stretch of Tahoes interest in King Kong very
specifically, King Kong, and then like Frankenstein's monster
end up being weirdly of interest to Touhou through the next, you
know, 15 years of their filmmaking.
So yeah, I'm still unsure how Frankenstein's we're gonna get?
Out there. It's not going to make any
fucking sense when we got there, but I'll at least give you some
context for how it happened. Okay.
Do you have anything else you want to say about Mothra before
we finish up? Um, no.
I think that design-wise Martha is probably one of my favorite
monsters. Yeah.
Well, with that, that's a wrap on this episode.
Thank you all so much for joining us, both on our journey.
And for this film specifically, next week, will be returning to
more traditional pulp sci-fi, with the 1962 film.
Gorath, you can follow us on Twitter for more of our
sparkling personalities. I'm at Derby City, Derek and I'm
at this Arrow complex, and you can follow the show itself at
Castle Bravo. Pod for production updates.
Take care everyone. Castle Bravo is a production of
Derek Van Dyke and Charlotte landel.
All editing is performed by Derek Van Dyke.
Special thanks to julienne, Lamont for Designing our
original art assets and to David Van Dyke, for providing our
theme song pools of memory.