Welcome to Derek's Dinosaur Corner look.
I'm sorry, I was a dinosaur kid and I am still autistic so.
I was going to say the powers. Of but I haven't kept up on on
dinosaur science in a in a while so.
Yeah, once they said they were all feathered, which, true or
not, made me very upset. I stopped.
I was like, I'm going to come back.
I'm going to come back when the science is done.
Done. Hello everyone, and welcome to
Castle Bravo. A Godzilla verse retrospective.
I'm Derek. And I'm Charlotte.
And we are two siblings here to examine the history of the
Godzilla franchise, one movie at a time.
We're joined by both of our guests from the previous
episodes. First, Matt Storm from certain
point of view, Hi I'm back. And secondly, Jason of Jason
does music. Hello.
I'm back to. Somehow, I was invited back.
How's how's everybody do? Like you know what to avoid the
gap that we had last time, which is is the only gap I did not
shorten when editing. I left the entire awkward pause
in it. Made me laugh when.
I listened to it. It was very good.
I was like, yeah, Stormy, How you been doing, bud?
I'm doing OK. I'm grateful to have watched a
real movie this time. Took three times, but like a
full-fledged movie from start to.
Finish. Yeah, we kind of like got to to
something like truly enjoyable on its own merits instead of
just as like MST3K fodder. Yeah, but I'm OK.
I enjoyed a good break. I actually sort of relaxed for a
change because my day job was closed between Christmas and New
Year's, so. And before that break.
What is that like? I mean, I didn't because then I
played. I finished Persona 5 Royal in
that week and I had 30 hours to go.
And so I mainlined that game for a week, which was worth it, and
I loved it, but like it, probably not the smartest way to
play that game. Jason, how you doing, bud?
Doing pretty good, lots of lots of work.
So I've been able to do much music stuff, but I I have to
follow through on my pact with my fiance 'cause I finally got
her to agree to play Fortnite so long as I finally finished
Yakuza Kiwami 2A game. I've been playing for like 2
plus years every time. I jump in good, but it's it's
it's so fucking meaty, though. And well, my issue is I keep
jumping in and then going, oh, let me go do some cabaret club
stuff, let me go do some module of construction stuff.
Oh shit, I forgot to play the campaign again.
I just need them to make I, I, I Yakuza cabaret club like is its
own like $30 games, you know, right.
Would totally buy that, like on a phone or like what you're
doing? Yeah.
Oh, perfect. Switch fodder for sure.
Yeah. Charlotte.
Yeah. How you been doing?
I'm good. I started, yeah, yeah, I mean, I
I started that new position finally.
The one I told you about. Right.
Right, July, So yeah, it. Took them long enough.
Yeah, so I'm officially an actual software engineer.
Yeah. And so that's been good, but
also like stressful because I'm like, I feel like I kind of
stumbled into the position a little bit.
Yeah, you know, I mean, every new job is a little bit fake it
till you make it right. Like, yeah, yeah, you know, But
Lord knows you got this. You've been working at this shit
for ages. So I'm glad that you were
finally there now. So now the now the real learning
can begin. That's right.
Eventually you will get promoted into a position you truly cannot
handle, but that is for down the road.
I'll do my best when I get there, but.
Yeah, so we are here today for Rebirth of Mothra 3.
Obviously the the four of us have gotten together to do all
three movies in this trilogy. I am breaking the timeline
slightly to do Rebirth of Mothra 3 next because actually Godzilla
98 comes out like a few months before Birth of Motha 3.
So like, yes, we've skipped Godzilla 98 for now.
We're going back to it. That will be the next episode.
I really wanted the trilogy to be contiguous, but also because
I think that Rebirth of Motha 3 like still exists because of the
Mothra holding pattern, right? Like we've talked in previous
episodes about how, you know Toho, you know, we killed
Godzilla in Godzilla versus Destroyer.
They knew that that Sony and Tristar were putting together
their Godzilla movie and the Mothra series has been their way
to kind of try to extend the the vibes of the hey say era of
their Kaiju movies without having access to Godzilla.
So like all three of these start production, you know, and and
you know basically finish before the Tristar movie comes out.
You know, they would have, they would have finished shooting
this well before Tristar's Godzilla released.
So that's just a lot of words for me to say.
I'm doing the easy thing and putting the trilogy all
together. There's once again not a lot of
news in regards to like hey, why did they make a rebirth of Moth
for three? Maybe because the last two made
some fucking shmoney and they wanted to make some more and
they couldn't make a Godzilla. What is interesting to me is
some of the ways that the cast, like the crew, changed around.
I mean the cast obviously because it's a new film, but the
crew changed around. So for the first time, if I
remember correctly, because long time series producer and
original producer Tomoyuki Tanaka passed away after Rebirth
of Mothra 2 released, we have a movie that has no involvement
from Tamayuki Tanaka. He is not the producer.
We have a new series like lead producer at least for the time
being named Shogo Tomiyama. This is not a newcomer to the
series as is kind of tradition at this point.
He was like a a fellow producer alongside Tanaka on a bunch of
the hey say era movies. So now it's basically just like
all him in the producer seat, the scriptwriter we have Masami
Suitani who wrote both of the previous Rebirth of Mothra
movies, but Suitani Co wrote them with Tanaka.
Obviously Tanaka had zero involvement in this movies.
This is Suitani alone and like I don't want to speak I'll of the
dead. But considering how much fucking
better of a movie we got, like on a structural level, it does
make me wonder what might have happened to the rest of the
series, to the last two movies had it been this crew from the
beginning. Because we also have the
director from a rebirth of Mother one is back Okihiro
Yoneda. So music Toshiyuki Watanabe,
Same person who did the the score for the last two movies.
This is now the first movie in the hey say era that Koichi
Kawakita is not doing special effects for.
It's a man named Kenji Suzuki. He as a tradition aidid under
Koichi Kawakita like all through the hey say era.
But what's interesting to me is we basically have a direct
through line of like all of the same creative team that worked
on the 1st movie, right? And and now that y'all have seen
the third movie, how fucking wild is that, given how
different the third Mothra movie is from the first?
Yeah, it's crazy. I think also it's weird like of
the consistent characters throughout the films.
I think we've got the first recast of one of the characters
in this film, right, Laura, I think.
I think Laura is a different actress this time, that might
be. I fully admit I did not check
like actor casting and that that could be the case.
Also not Belvera. So I just was only paying,
right? Sure, all that matters.
I'm going. To take like. 30 seconds.
I thought it was a new actress for Belvera.
I was like, no, that's just a glow up.
Yeah, that's his. That's his makeup.
Hang on, I'm going to take just a moment to do a little
confirmation here. So it is Akihano as Belvera the
entire way through. Megami Kobayashi is still Mole.
But yeah, Laura was recast. Yes.
Huh. You know, I didn't.
Because also the makeup choices and costuming choices really
changed and glowed up from the 2nd to 3rd movie.
So I I might not have recognized even the same actress.
Yeah, because because like you said, like Belvera almost looks
like a different actress at first, right?
You know, given how different the the makeup, the costuming,
the lighting is in. I'd say honestly, literally
everything in this movie is levelled up.
Yo, yeah, everything about the production design, Everything
about the editing, like the. Compositing even is better.
Yeah, the comp, I pointed that out and then we immediately saw
something just kind of lazily float by.
I was, like I said, better, not good.
Yeah, yeah, a lot of it's good. But yeah, there's still some,
like they made this movie on, you know, a a relatively tight
budget in the grand scheme of things.
You can tell what the late made effects were like the last
minute. Oh shit, we need, you know,
these boulders falling off of the cocoon.
Yeah, that kind of stuff. But but it's wild because like
we spent all this time in in the last episode about Rebirth of
Mothra 2 talking about how rough that movie was and like how my
my theory again is just that that movie got slammed through
the edit. There's telltale signs all over
that, like this movie just did not get time to actually get put
together. That wire work was the biggest.
One. Yeah.
Still.
Had those wires. Same effects.
People. Same budget.
Like there's no reason why those wires had to be so lazily, like,
blurred over, unless you just consider they just did not have
time. By comparison, this movie feels
like it has like, hey say era Godzilla movie levels of
attention and care put into it. In fact, there's a few things in
this movie that I think are more impressive than most of the
stuff in the Godzilla movies. But yeah, we're we're kind of
what we'll get to that and and we'll get to that through
Charlotte, Charlotte, what happens in Rebirth of Mothra 3.
A lot, but like positive a lot. So our movie starts and there's
sand falling away and they're, you know that the, the voice
over saying you will always have hope, right?
And it reveals the the little Mothra symbol that's been in all
the movies for a long time. Now the sick epic like logo
reveals CGI exists. That's right.
So then the title or birth of Mothra 3, right?
And now we go deep into this temple.
And here, here is Belvera and she is wearing like this black
dress with like, I don't know, I'm going to call them
pauldrons. She's got pauldrons, that's for
sure, she. Kind of has pauldrons and like a
crown, and she's opening this chest with a key.
She is fully she's gone from like goth party girl to like
goth queen who is here to bring about the end times.
She stopped shopping at Hot Topic, started shopping.
Exactly. Exactly.
Also the scene as it's panning around, I sent the group chat a
a gag of like, oh, I love Zelda because it looks like a Zelda
temple. And then in 2 minutes from now,
when Charlotte gets to it, we're going to actually have some
Zelda ass shit that was like, what the hell?
And the funniest thing about that was I hadn't seen that
message and I said the same exact thing.
She's like, oh, I love Legend of Zelda.
So the twins show up because they're trying to stop her from
whatever she's doing. We don't know yet.
But it's Belvera, so we have to stop her.
But Belvera shows up and she takes this, this Triforce.
Yeah. She's trying to capture it.
Triforce. It's it's it's love, wisdom and
courage, right? Yeah.
Right. So it's it's the Triforce,
except they swap power for love. Right.
And she asked the the twins. Like, have you ever heard of the
the Elias triangle? Because that's what this is.
It holds great power and she drops a couple of them on the
way out, but she just lets the twins have them because she's
like, you're going to need those because the King of Terror is
coming. What a great, what a great.
You call any motherfucker the king of terror and you do have
my attention. That's true, right?
And I. Like that.
These are actual literal triangles that fit into their
sword. Like it's not even a little bit
like Zelda. It's literally son of a bitch.
It's actually. Zelda Yeah, I love that they
managed to rescue two of them and Belvera gets away with one
and they like play with the triangles for a minute and
realize that one of them fits into one of their swords and it
like powers up, the little knife turns into like a full blown
like Wu Shaw style like long sword and then they're like oh,
but this one doesn't fit mine so this must be for Belvera's and
Belvera has has mine. Yeah.
Right. Yeah, that was actually my next
note. It was about the sword.
So then an asteroid strikes the atmosphere, because a lot
happens very quickly and there's these shards flying across the
sky. I hope that's not like a meteor
rather than an asteroid, but I didn't really want to check
myself on that. A rock.
A rock came and it. Broke up and some more rocks.
So there's some kids hanging out at home, right?
And and they're looking at their hamsters and they're like,
there's something going on with these hamsters.
But then their dad comes home and the first, most important
thing in this movie is in the shot because he gets out of his
car and there's a tails doll in his, in his, in his truck,
right. Yep, the.
Sega advertising is heavy in this movie for sure.
So heavy. Because this this came out like
a month after the Dreamcast did in Japan, and one of the launch
titles for the Dreamcast was Godzilla Generations, and it had
this little game you could play on your VMU where you would take
care of the little little Kaiju's.
Godzilla, Tamagotchi, right? Basically, yeah, yeah.
So the father has brought a watermelon home with him.
It was. It was a gift from old Tanaka
because you know it, it's it's around summertime, so it's time
to eat. Watermelon I do believe this is
meant to be like a nod to producer Tanaka.
I mean, I know Tanaka is a common name, but like also
there's a picture of Tanaka like in their living room.
Like he's a relative, so. Oh, is he one of the guys at the
top? Yeah, he's one of the, he's one
of the guys in the photographs. Yeah, so.
OK, so he comes home, he tries his wife's cooking and it's it's
pretty good. And she's like, Oh well, our son
Shoda helped me with it. And he's like, Oh well, good job
Shoda. He was kind of savage about it
too, like he was. She was like, hey, what's what's
what? How does this taste?
And. Just it's all right.
And then the other one just need to chop the onions more finely.
He's like this kid is. He's not even autistic coded,
he's just. Yeah, he's just autistic.
The onions are too big. It's not good.
I don't like the mouthfeel of this.
Sorry. Not the first thing extremely
autistic coded about about Shota.
True. So lights continue to flash
across the sky, and one of them, one of the shards of rock, lands
in Alki Forest nearby. And the earth shakes.
And it's it's in Fukui, it's at. So nothing really comes of it
that night. But the next day, the parents
are heading out. They've got to go to work.
The kids have to go to school. Except for Shoda, who does not
go to school. They even have like a a
conversation where like the dad who I guess it's like a trucker
or something, right. Because he's driving the big
delivery truck like home and back and it's implied that he
works long hours. But like the dad talks to me,
he's like, hey, look, I'm not I'm not trying to, I'm not
trying to like force you to go to school, you know?
But like it would it would be it would mean a lot to me if you if
you eventually started going back like and it's a great
moment of this, this very human like I don't know what to do
with you but I love you and I'm trying to support you.
I just don't know the rights. Like this is immediately a way
more mature movie, and it's in the way it handles the like
child parent dynamic. It was very gentle parenting and
not only that. And there's another point, and
I'll bring it up when that is closer to the timeline of the
movie here. But he's very gentle with the
kid and very just like, I think it's time.
Not like you need to go back. Think it's time.
Yeah, this was also the moment where I went.
I would die for this family. Yes, they're delightful.
This is a good. Family that does not have
dysfunction. They are like working together
to make it through. I love.
This, and the actors, children and all, are all charming and
like like we it's been a mix of performances over the last.
Two movies have the very manic, like, like, you know, when
adults make a kids movie and try to make it like, we're going to
make it from the perspective of kids.
We're like kids are really cool and competent and grown-ups are
the dumb ones. And like, I instead think this
has so much more of a compassionate view because also
this family is clearly, like coded to be like very lower
class, right? They live in a small house.
They're in a rural area. The dad drives a truck.
You know, they look like not glamorous, right?
Both parents are working and she thinks that might be the reason
that he's not going to. School.
Yeah, like their their their clothes are not nice, right?
Without being like cartoonish, it's a very subtle even the ways
that like their hair is done right is a very subtle like this
is a poor family trying to make it by like in the outskirts.
Yeah and yeah, the the the parents during this scene do
have a conversation about Shota not going back to school.
And like the mom's like, well, I I just don't know, like he won't
go back to school. And the father's like, well, he
just has his own ideas about things.
Like that's how he puts it. Yeah.
But yeah, Shota made their lunches for everybody and the
the kids are talking to the parents showed his brother and
sister they are Tomako and Shuhei, who I don't mention by
name again in this script. Neither does the movie.
Basically except for. When the parents are looking for
the kids, usually only Tomako's name, they're shouting out.
Yeah. Yeah, but she's the smallest, so
you know, but that. But they're talking to the
parents and they're like, well, there's this girl at school,
right? And they force her to eat her
lunch every day, but she doesn't like her lunch.
And I don't think you should force people to do things they
don't want to do. It's so cute because it's like
the kids trying to latch on to the only frame of reference they
have of like, you know? Is another autistic kid I've
seen. Yeah, exactly.
But like you know this is this is like you can't and and it's
like the parents being like OK well this is clearly not like
about him having to eat lunch but like.
Yeah, like we can't force him, but we're like trying to figure
out what's best here. It lays the groundwork, like I
said, for just like for a a lower class, deeply
compassionate family doing their best to navigate a tricky
situation. And also the fact that it, like,
takes the time to point out that, like, Shota made everyone
lunches is like, this is not, like, neat stuff.
This is not stereotypical. Like I locked myself in a room
and obsessed with manga all day. Like, no.
This kids like Capable and he's responsible.
He's functional. He's just doing his own.
Thing. He just is not engaged with
school. Yeah, you know, and like that's
a thing that's going to hurt his future.
But like, you know, what can you do when you see that?
It's not like a total shutdown, it's it's a very specific
shutdown. Right.
Yeah, again, points to autism. So.
For who? So the twins and fairy
investigate the crater that was created by the asteroid and
fairy's like it was caused by a dinosaur and twins are like the
dinosaurs are are are very dead. Oh, did we miss bringing up Garu
Garu's back? And he has a Google.
Now he. Does point it out a little more.
Yeah, that's. A little later.
But he shows up briefly, I think in the when that when Bulvera
escapes. But like, you don't see as much.
Yeah, he's back. He's got one Google, One little
Google. He's got that little, say,
invasive visor. Yeah, it's better integrated
into him. It's not like half machine, half
flesh. It's like flesh with machine
around. It's an accessory.
Yeah, so then they're like, OK, yeah, but the the king of terror
killed all the dinosaurs, so I guess it must be back now if
this is what fairy sang. So then they cut to school and
all the kids are singing and that one kid is playing his
VMUI. Have to point it out.
Yes, they do a close up of it. Like right after the scene they
do a close up of the VMU. So it's not just you.
Like, they're literally like, let's show this Sega thing to
like, work on that brand deal. He was taking care of Rodan.
Yeah. Oh, you know what?
You're right. And that's something really
interesting I'll have to get into later, yeah.
And also something that I wanted to point out at this point.
Me and my fiance were trying to figure out what the message of
this movie was because there was some, like, vaguely visual
pollution imagery and but there's also just the autistic
child. And aren't they trying to say
that autism is pollution of the brain or some shit?
Like what? What's going on here?
It is not after the first two movies were deeply like blatant
and heavy-handed with their like anti like like anti, like
pollution, like pro environmentalist messages.
This movie being very subtle early on is kind of weird.
It it was, yeah. Because we were just like it's
usually at this point, pretty explicit what they're trying to
say is bad. What What is this?
Yeah. Right, so then a giant monster
flies overhead and all the kids just disappear.
They all get like Spirited away and Belvera swoops in.
Is like, ah, this was King Ghidorah.
King Ghidorah now has the power to make children teleport away.
Which movie? Maker dissolve effect.
Yeah, well. I kind of like though because
it's clearly everything from like the the like framing of the
shots to like the music and sound effect choices.
It is kind of a silly like dissolve effect on the kids
where they like warp and get like pixelated away, but it's
everything else is terrifying played as a very eerie thing to
just like watch as crowds of children just get like powdered
up and like sucked into the sky. Yeah, we're back to like 10, you
know, 10 out of 10 music like. The, the music.
Is incredible in this. Yeah, just so good.
The hero theme that we that we'll get later.
But even like even this. Yeah, like the scoring behind
this horror. Like, it could be played for
laughs, but the music really does amp up the Wow.
This isn't good. This is unnatural, Yeah.
And this is another one of the points where we were pointing
out how good just the shots, where the Dolly zooms, the
angles, just everything was so well shot.
Yeah, well, most things. Yeah.
Yeah, so Ghidorah continues to fly like past the school, and
then just over more children who get spirited away.
I do also love that we don't see much of Ghidorah.
We're basically getting a brief blurry outline of him from
below. Right.
With almost no details, he just like flies past.
Very quickly they are holding back on showing us ghidorah.
More good ear and monster stuff. Yeah.
Yeah, so despite being told not to, Shota goes to Alki Forest
and he manages to follow, like the trail of helicopters and
police vehicles to find his way towards the crater.
The twins are shocked to see children disappearing and
they're like, well, Ghidorah killed the dinosaurs before, so
I guess he's killing children now, which is kind of an
interesting leap, but they call for Mothra because that's the
the Kaiju on retainer to fix this.
Ghidorah flies over the city now.
It's like destroying everything, looking generally menacing.
We've got more like the the traditional dragon aesthetics of
like the antlers and everything. Now you know Shota looks through
the forest, and he happens upon like a flesh Dome.
It's horrible, dude. It looks like a nut sack it.
Looks. Like a badly animated nut sack.
Because it's also like pulsating.
Didn't like that. It's very gross, like pulsating.
Yeah, I mean, it's the late 90s, so I mean, it looks like
something you'd see in like Blue Stinger or something.
Yes, absolutely correct. Yes, 100%.
One of the kids tries to throw like a soccer ball at it, and
the soccer ball, like, evaporates.
So all the kids are like, all right, we're not touching.
We can't. Just do shit here.
Have we gotten? The close up on Ghidorah's face
yet? I think there's like not not a
close up, close up when he's looking over everything
menacingly, but. OK, OK, we'll we'll make a note
when we hit the close up, because holy shit.
Yeah, I know that there is one right before the thing happens
to Laura. But that might be it anyway.
Yeah, so Ghidorah arrives at the at the Flesh Dome and just like
looks down into the Flesh Dome. It is.
It's just being menacing. Some more Mothra finally shows
up and Mothra immediately just starts blasting.
Ghidorah shows up. I started.
Blasting, you know, I was going to say.
That. Oh, you beat me.
To it Charlotte and the energy is so good because we have this
very like cool, very modern, like I love Martha Leo's design
and Leo is a very modern take on a Mothra design, right?
But this incarnation of King Ghidorah to me feels like we put
money and modern production value behind like the 60s take
on Ghidorah, right? And in that way, it's like a
very like visual clash in a way that I think is very interesting
and sells the idea of Ghidorah being something like old and
different and above, right? Yeah, I mean, Ghidorah feels
like like ancient, like the design feels like ancient
Japanese Dragons kind of design. It's very ornate, yeah.
And like, I just love that. Also this, like, this is a
version of Ghidorah that is not meant to be connected to any
other version of Ghidorah. Just like the rest of these
movies. Like this is an isolated this is
Ghidorah. Ghidorah was the destroyer of
the dinosaurs, and here he is now, back to kill our children.
And it's going back to even, like the show, a version of
Ghidorah in terms of concept, right?
Because it's this alien thing, right?
It it comes from outside of Earth and comes to Leech like
it's galactus right? It's dragon galactus.
You know it. It it it comes, it crash lands
and it it fucking steals all of the you know the planets life
force and then moves on and it almost did it once it caused the
extinction event you know that wiped out the dinosaurs and it's
it's back to do it again. Just.
See, I guess I was having like a prolonged moment because I was
still kind of like, why is he doing it to just children?
But I guess if you use the logic from the second movie that
children have more life force than other.
Things, yeah. And also like if you kill the
children, it'll be harder for the human race to continue
exist, right? Because those children won't
have children, won't have children, these parents would
have to have new children. You're kind of.
It's a way to kill off the human race.
And thematically, right if, if. If Ghidorah, This incarnation of
Ghidorah is tied to terror, right?
Like the single greatest way you sow terror through civilization
is you get rid of the kids, right?
Because a, that's the single scariest fucking thing that you
could do like to most adults and you also create that like degree
of terror within the children. Like it's it's kind of
maximizing the the the impact of like I'm not just here to take
energy. I am here to cause fear.
So it's a good it's a good call. Yeah, yeah, the tracks.
So Mothra is blasting. Ghidorah, Ghidorah shooting is
lightning back. Yeah, I I'm actually doing that
with my hands. Too finger guns.
Finger guns for the audio listeners because there's no
visual representation. Right.
Mothra is the one functioning F35 in existence.
Right, exactly. Right.
Mothra gets hit, starts losing altitude and then Ghidorah just
like slams down on Mothra with its entire body weight and grabs
Mothra by the wings and just starts slamming it into the
ground. It is brutal.
Ghidorah's not fucking around. Yeah, after that, like.
Hop when he stomps on on Leo like, Oh my God, it was just
like. Like, and before this point, I
wanted to point out that this is the first time that we've had
like good city destruction action.
Like we've had destruction in the forest, we've had it out in
the water, but never in the city.
And just seeing those shots was so good, Yeah.
This is a ghidorah that is not fucking around.
Not at all. There is.
Immediately. All right, I got your kids.
I'm going to fuck up the least. Amount of fucking around that a
Ghidorah has done maybe since his first appearance.
Yeah, yeah. So this is the point.
Like there's a close up on Ghidorah because Laura looks
directly into Ghidorah's eye and like her face changes.
That fucking eye dude like that was really cool actually.
So much work into. I mean when even the eyes look
that impressive and intimidating, I think the only
like it reminds me of how much detail and care went into
painting the like 80s and 90s Godzilla suits like eyes right
To display just like the sheer amount of like rage through the
eye alone. And and just seeing that shot,
you can see just immediately, like, oh, they're fucked.
Oh yeah. Oh yeah, that is fucking evil.
Yeah, and I guess I failed to mention because I was trying to
segue about the close up, but the twins are there too.
Ghidorah throws Mothra into the air and just like shoots him
while while he's in the air to death, basically like he's done
at this. Point.
And then Laura starts strangling Mole and then they like fall off
a fairy down towards the the flesh Dome.
Ghidorah, like roars, flies back to the city and they're they're
trying to evaculate the schools because I mean, don't know what
to do at this point. The kids are all going to get
teleported away, but then the kids get teleported away and
Belvera is investigating the Dome and she gets like dragged
in by the tentacles that the the Dome forms.
Yeah, horrible. Like also like at first I was
like why tentacles? And then I went of.
Course it's 98. It's time.
Like, tentacles are now firmly pop cultured.
Yeah, we know, Yeah. Yeah, and.
They're our dad's watching. They they offer Shota too but
Fairy shows up and like saves Shota from being dragged in.
Also Laura is lost in in the Dome now and has been overtaken
by Ghidorah. Like her she's been brainwashed
basically just from looking in Ghidorah's eye and at current
3000 children have been taken away or and they're in that
Dome. I don't think they do a great
job of demonstrating the fact that there are 3000 children
yet, but. They probably could not get 3000
extras, I would imagine. Well, OK, that's fair.
And I'm glad they didn't put any CGI children.
That's horrible CGI doll children.
They look like the characters from reboot.
It'd be awful. But I like reboot.
I I mean, I love reboot, but the the let's just say the CG has
not aged as well as the content of it.
So all the parents hearing the news report on this like they
they found the Dome. So all the parents are are
rushing towards the forest to try to get to this Dome.
After this news report show to shows mole how to get to the
wind cave because that's how you get through towards the Dome.
And they discuss how older children like Belvera tend to
have it harder. They finally wrap around on the
like why Belvera acts the way that she does.
Yep, First child syndrome, right?
I also love that we get into like what this kid has been
doing during the day when everyone's at work and school is
like, he just goes out and fucking explores the forest.
Full Legend of Zelda. Like he's he's made, he's made a
tunnel in a cave. He's he's exploring, he's got
supplies. He's got a ladder.
Like he's he's set. Yeah, so they find Mothra, who's
currently healing in the forest from the horrible damage Mole
tells showed that Mothra can sense good people, and so he
shouldn't be afraid, but he does hesitate.
He's like, I don't know, what if I'm not good, you know?
But he he starts approaching. Mothra showed his parents come
home to find him to figure out how to get to the wind cave so
they can get closer. But he's already gone, and
they're like he must already be at the wind cave.
He does love adventure, the father says.
At that point I specifically there's a difference between the
sub and the dub. We had the dub like or the the
sub subtitles on from the sub, not from the dub.
So we could see some of the differences here.
The original says the kid likes adventure, but in the dub the
the dad says I told you you should have used the belt on him
more often. I was like there is those are
two different lines. What's?
So, out of place for the tone of this family.
What the fuck exactly? I told you you should have beat
that little autistic fuck more often.
What this? Is like this is just goes back
to like the the Americans need things harsher.
It's like the Kirby thoughts art all over again.
Yeah. It's just like I don't
understand why Kirby. Has.
To be aggressive in America, it doesn't understand.
But now I I understand. It's because we, American TV
should. Use the belt on and more.
Yeah. Oh my.
God we're. Just like what is this?
This is so that's not the. Read that line again.
Oh, that's. That just means somebody looked
at this script and was like. We got to punch it up here.
American. It's got to be harsher.
That's that is like a a ghost stories dub like level of you
did not need to punch this up. It's the only time we paused the
movie too. Just we had to recollect
ourselves and just hang on. Belvera still in the Dome, of
course. Can't get that out of the Dome,
but she's like trying to restart Gara.
Gara going to restart Gary. Like a like a motorcycle.
Yeah. Very good actually.
But then she gets to do a sword fight with Laura, who she
recognizes has been possessed by Ghidorah like Belvera is now
like a hero. In the store.
And it sucks because Laura got like the triangle and made her
sword more bigger and Belvera still got like.
It off of Belvera's choker. Kitchen knife, you know.
Right, right. So meanwhile, Shota's parents
find his bike and so we're like, OK, he is here, They go into The
Cave to look for him. Mothra and Mole talk about how
to stop Ghidorah and they're like, well, we.
Have to go back and. They're like, we have to go back
in time to stop Ghidorah. I don't know how we're going to
do that. And then Mothra's like, oh, I
can do it, but I'm not going to be able to come back.
But in Mothra language. And Mole says what I think is a
very like hard line in this movie, where she says the scope
of the mind is unlimited. OK, did not not deeply connected
to anything going on at the moment, but go off qui.
Autism. It's autism.
It's all. It's all autism all the way
through. So Mothra starts flying and Mole
starts singing and Mothra is traveling back in time and
actually I I guess to to survive time travel like transforms into
a different form it's. Funny though, because Mantra
turns into fucking like the the water Mothra that we got at the
end of the last movie. And then the water Mothra turns
into the fucking time travel Mothra.
And it's like this is a weird digivolution path, guys.
Oh my God, that's like the old like I.
Didn't realize I was watching the first Tron movie.
Those fucking light ships. Yeah, it's a very which Superman
movie is it where he just has to fly around the world super fast
to go back in time? Not 22.
OK, yeah, we're pulling a Superman 2.
Mothra's is going so fast that she's travelling.
Have we ever really established if Leo is a boy or girl?
So Leo is a boy, according. To everything.
So Leo is a boy according to everything, but I'm pretty sure
Shota go she when referring to Mothra in this film.
Gender's a construct. It's fine.
Mothra's gender, I mean, it's not.
It's true. It's not real.
This is just. Drag King Mothra like, exactly.
There. You go, So Mole asks Shota to
save her sister in the Dome, and then she turns to Crystal and.
Just. Fucking.
She used up all her power. Yeah, this.
Is genuinely sad. Yeah, it was like, Oh my God,
it's a pretty effective scene. Yeah, she like falls backward
into the water and like crystallizes underwater and is
like at the bottom of the pond. Which to her is like.
Massive and I like the idea that like, this is the thing that
might have worked if the two, like if if Laura and Moll had
worked together, but she just. Like, yeah, that's the
implication. Deeply over expended herself to
do it alone so. Yeah, and so she she does give
show to her sword. Yeah, I I like that.
She's like, here, you'll need this.
And it's this big sword in her hand.
And then he's holding it and it's like a toothpick.
Sigh. Like half.
A toothpick. Take this like Toy Autistic.
Child pretty much, yeah. Mafa arrives in the past.
Which you know is is the Time of Dinosaurs because it could not
look more like Time of Dinosaurs.
Everything is is palm tree jungles and like giant piles of
rocks with a red filter. It's so good.
This is Cartoon Network dinosaur
times. Yeah, and like the dinosaur
suits slash puppets are like, like just a little less
impressive than Jurassic. Park all the budget went into
Mothra and Ghidorah and those the dinosaurs, like my kid has
some dinosaur toys. Yeah, I'll go grab those.
Yeah, I love. Them.
But back in the present Belvera notes that her triangles for
courage just to know who's is who's here And Guru Guru like
almost blasts her legs off while she's trying to restart him
showed his parents arrive at the end of the cavern path And I
skipped the part in my notes here because it just says he
yells out for Ghidorah who absorbs him to the Dome.
It's Shoda Shoda. Shoda yells out for Ghidorah.
He's like, why don't you take me too, huh.
And he gets absorbed him to the Dome.
The Dome like shifts colors and then this ink substance starts
erupting from the floor and it's like it looks acidic.
Hey, do you want to know what's fucked up?
It's a stomach. What?
Oh, it is a stomach. You're so kids are in a fucking,
like weird external stomach. Horrible.
And. They're going to be digested.
That is horrible. Yeah.
And like this, like bluish, like black ink starts coming out and
like bursting for pustules and it's like filling up and the
kids. Are trying to get to like higher
ground to get away from it. They show like a backpack
melting into A to show that it's, yeah, it's horrible.
But then we cut back to the past and you know, it's the age of
the dinosaurs because the T Rex is trying to eat a triceratops
and it doesn't, It's not very good at it.
No. T Rex was notoriously not very
good at eating triceratops, in fact.
So this is truth in television? But I also, the minute I saw the
T Rex attacking the the Triceratops, I went, OK, I know
how this is going to go. Then Ghidorah is going to attack
the T Rex to show the dominance. And that's exactly what happens.
I was like, all right, I don't hate it.
And what blew me away in this moment is when we get a good
look at Ghidorah, he looks quote UN quote younger and it's a
different. Suit a completely different
suit. Wild.
And what's funny is that they would do that closely resembles
the hey say like the the 90s suit.
Like it's so funny how they've done like they've really like
intentionally tied together all these different design elements.
So they've made it like a simpler version of the more
complicated 90s suit, while making the adult version look
like this like heavily ornate like version of the much simpler
60s suit. Basically a gold king Ghidorah
there. Yeah, I love it.
But I'd also like to point out in terms of truth to television,
I'm pretty sure they they disproved that triceratops
exist. So anyway, Mothra swoops in.
Keep going, I'm just Googling, don't mind me.
I mostly said that to set off. There, I thought it was that
they did find that like another species, Brontosaurus, that they
saw wasn't real. Yes, that's correct because
that's two different. But Triceratops, I think what it
is, is there is a different species that was smaller that
for a long time we thought was a separate species and we we I
think believe is actually just a young Triceratops.
I might have it backwards. It might be the other way around
I. Welcome to Derek's Dinosaur
Corner look. I'm sorry, I was a dinosaur kid
and I am still autistic so. I was going to say the powers of
but. I haven't kept up on on dinosaur
science in a in a while, so. Yeah, once they said they were
all feathered, which, true or not, made me very upset.
I stopped. I was like, I'm going to come
back. I'm going to come back when the
science is done, done. Like, because it's amazing.
Exactly. So anyway, this this side
conversation is the thing most likely to get me.
Adm Bravo. I'm going to get a dinosaur
person like, hey bud, I got to fucking tell you the truth about
Triceratops now. I don't think T Rex and
Triceratops existed at the same time.
I don't. Think that's a.
Mistake. I mean, we frequent, but also
King Ghidorah didn't exist in real life.
So I think we're true. I did.
Truth and television King Ghidorah did eat T Rex so.
Mothra does swoop in to attack Ghidorah, and Ghidorah shoots
fireballs. Ghidorah is not yet at
Lightning, which, as we know from Avatar, the Last Airbender
is just stronger fire, right? Yes.
There's also the scene where he's like chasing Mothra.
He doesn't initially fly. And the gun, the running.
The running. I love that fucking.
He does like a fucking What are the metal gears with the lady
legs in in Metal Gear Solid 4? All the ones that, yeah.
It does like a runway strut run and I love that.
So funny. I just want to put the
Scooby-doo running sound underneath it.
But despite the fact that this is like a weaker Gadora, those
fireballs are still strong enough to ground Mothra like
Gadora is still not a pushover back then.
Yeah, Gadora is still really strong and like, Mothra is still
really weakened from the earlier fight.
Like Mothra did not have time to recover.
So it's still like, OK, we went back in time and I'm still
fucked, right? I went back in time to kill
Hitler as a baby, and now baby Hitler's choking me to death.
How did this happen? How did we get here?
Well, Mothor starts clawing and biting at one of the heads, but
gets shot like point blank. When Mothor started doing that,
I was like, this can't end well. You do not have long limbs.
I don't know what you expected to happen here.
They both take off into the air and start flying around in the
present. Ghidorah is like lashing around
because of the things. I guess it's like suddenly
remembering that it took damage from in the past.
It was really odd. Like almost like flashback pain.
It wasn't. Really cool.
If like Mothra managed to like scratch out an eye and then we
went to the future and saw like an eye get damaged, something
like that. See, There's a reason that
doesn't happen. Right.
So good point. You know, we'll get to that,
Yeah. Now Laura moves to attack Shota
and Shota's like begging her. And like Mole is dead and her
last request was that you would help Mothra, so I need you to
snap out of it. And so Laura has her internal
psychic conflict with herself and passes out.
Is this where she jumps up to like his shoulder, or is that
later? Yeah.
And like. Hold the tooth back to his neck
and it like just begins to sink in and it's very like.
Yeah, yeah. No, she was going to kill.
You're going to stab this child in his carotid artery.
Yeah, so Laura and Bull's swords combine together because that's
just what they do, because it's the 90s and everyone has
pauldrons and combining swords. True.
Belvera finally gets Gara Gara to to move and then combines her
sword with theirs to create like the final sword.
And she's like, yeah, now courage, wisdom and love are
combined, and this is the true power is this sword.
It's the Elias triangle or whatever.
That was another point in which the dub and the sub completely
conflicted because and it was just one word missing.
But in the like dub and original version, or in the sub and
original version, they say that wisdom, courage, and love are
not effective on the earth, are not effective on their own, but
that together they are strong. And in the dub, for some reason
she just doesn't use the word not.
It's like you just completely flipped the meeting here.
Why did you do? This we have a a moth powerful
sword. Who gets that sword?
Velvera, strongest blade in the world.
However, it is so fragile as to shatter when handled by any
force other than the delicate touch of a lesbian.
My favorite drill tweet. So back in the past, Mothra cuts
off one of Ghidorah's tails and present Ghidorah like falls over
and this tail like starts digging itself into the ground.
And I was like, oh that's going to come back later.
So Belvera has full hearts right now.
And what that means is when she's when she slashes the
sword, a beam comes out and she like attacks the the Dome trying
to make an exit with it. There's just a lot of Zelda in
this movie. I don't.
Know much? Yeah.
Well, for. For a sake of time, head, come
out by now so you know, Yeah. Yeah, but also like this was
very clearly a Sega funded on some level of Sega, like
sponsored movie and yet tons of Zelda references.
Right, so meanwhile, Ghidorah has started, like, tearing
Mothra's wings apart and burning him, and we are just going back
and forth from past to present. Yeah, Laura wakes up, Shoda
tells her to support Mothra, and she's like, all right, I know
exactly what to do. Start singing immediately.
This wakes up Mothra in the past, having you know, just
been, you know, beaten half to death by this Ghidorah.
He starts hitting Ghidorah with his golden powder and then like
lifts Ghidorah up and just dunks him into the nearby volcano.
Literally eats him right into the volcano.
This is what is this a Tekken game?
Ghidorah in the in the present falls down like into the Dome,
like almost crashes into the children, but disappears from
the timeline just in time because that Ghidorah is dead.
The kids are freed from the Dome.
Everyone's so happy to not be digested.
Showed his parents find their way there and showed tells the
siblings, oh it was Mothra. Mothra went back in the past and
saved us and everybody's like breathing a sigh of relief at
this point. Belvera and Laura go to Mole's
body in this little pond, but then he goes to the past and
Mothra is basically dead from the volcano blast like gave his
life to to kill Ghidorah. But then this Mothra larva from
the past. I I wrote Primordial Mothra.
You know that it's a dime. Out of the forest.
Mothra because it has armor plates.
Yeah, it's not slimy, it's just got little spikes.
Yeah, but they they all crawl out of the forest and they start
making a cocoon around Mothralea.
And so they go back to the future.
And Belvira's like, you know, I think it's kind of weird that
we're all still here, being that all that stuff happened in the
past. I don't think that any of this
should be happening, right? Point there is like, OK, they're
trying to play with time travel stuff and there's this like this
is happening at the same time at in the past as it is now, so.
Oh no, I've gone cross. So are we in a separate
timeline? Oh.
Shit. But The thing is, Belvera
shouldn't have said that because she's in a movie.
So Ghidorah shows back up because it regrew from that tale
that buried itself. Ghidorah never fucking died.
That's right. The kids start getting warped
away again. Which, you know, if you're one
of those kids that's got to suck so much.
Like you finally get out of this giant stomach and you go right
back in. Yeah, and like for for some of
the kids, like Choda's parents are helping the kids get out,
like go back through the wind tunnel.
Some of the kids are in their arms and get like, spirited
away, like from their arms, which has got to be terrible,
Belvera tells Laura. Like, look, it's up to us now.
It's just us. And look, we may not agree all
the time, but I've got you all right.
Like we got to get. There you do.
That's what we're like. Not a great You tried to
genocide people twice now, Belvira.
I tried to kill people, not destroy the planet.
That's a difference. Like this magnitude by.
The way going to point out like continues to tie back like to
where like Belvira is almost more of like a Batra fairy
analogue because her whole time her shit has been humans fuck
this place up. What if we get rid of them,
right? What if that's what's better for
the planet, but when the chips are down and the whole planet is
on the line, it's like, just to remind you all, like now I'm on
the good guy's side. Like when she was fighting the
child earlier. Not Belvedere.
Laura was fighting the child earlier.
She's like, you can't kill him. You'll start the end of
everything or something like that.
I was like you tried to start the end of everything twice.
Now you. Know it's different.
It's different. Only I get to do that.
It's different when like a good aligned fairy does it right.
Like, yeah, you're going to have like a a.
You're going to cross the moral event horizon and have like a
breakdown when you get back to normal.
We can't have that. That's right.
So they fly off on fairy because it's up to them.
Now Belvera does say a line in in the sub here that is a little
odd because she basically is like kindness becomes more
powerful when you realize your capacity for anger.
Yeah, which? Is like quite the idea, but
yeah. Well, in the dub version, it's
basically a version of Fuck the paradox of Intolerance, Destroy
Evil, Get rid of it. Kill you?
Yeah. Also good.
Right. It was like, yeah, no, I'm there
with you, sister. So Mothra emerges from a cocoon
that it's been placed in by those ancient larva.
It's been there for millions of years.
It you know, it does like a Oh well now I'm behind you
situation. Yeah.
Like, has it always been that? Always.
Has, but like Mothra now has. Like this armor that I guess
it's formed over millions of years.
Like there's silver parts all over it.
And now that they Mothra and Ghidorah start fighting in the
air and Mothra like sideswipes Ghidorah's wings like cutting
half of one of the wings off. Like Mothra's really dangerous
now. Yes.
And at this point, Mothra finally learned after three
movies maybe I should be metal sometimes when fighting fire
things and I won't get set on fire.
I really do feel like. It's weird because Metal bug
would be 4 times weak to fire I think.
Yeah, it would, Yeah. I just think it's funny because
I feel like the theme of this movie is like how I learned to
save the world through the Power of Love, Chapter One.
The Power of Love, Chapter 2, The Power of Incredible.
Violence. But yeah, like the Ghidorah,
after having its wing cut off like Mothra, like swoops back
around, just runs Ghidorah through completely.
It does. The cool like shinobi slash
super sentai thing where like Mothra's past him, he looks
back, then Ghidorah looks at him and then starts to disappear and
it's like it's just so dramatic but they're too Kaiju cut.
Them like an onion it would be. It would be so much more
dramatic if they were people like expressing and saying
things, but like they're these two giant Kaiju suit slash
animatronics who have the same basic expressions but they still
trade looks. It's so good.
It's great. It's.
Yeah, and having done that, Mothra's armor, like, starts to
dissipate. Basically, could serve its
purpose At that point, Yep. Mothra tells Belvera and Laura
that they need to go hand the sword to Mole because the sword
can revive her. So then so they they hand this
sword to Mole and then Mothra does some mole magic and Mole
gets revived, which I honestly thought Mole was just going to.
Stay ahead but. You know, Mothra thinks Shota
for his help. And Belvera's like, all right,
well, we're still not going to agree on everything, but I had
you this one time. OK.
Bye. It's pieces out and.
It was very much a mood of like the sisters finally accepting
their lesbian sister, but like you can come to Thanksgiving and
Christmas, try to not act too. So the the kids all start to
emerge from the forest and now it gives you the idea that
there's like 3000 children. Yeah, I think this was like
composited children because, like, there were definitely some
double s I saw in that crowd a little bit and.
Seeing the children coming over the hill, I was like, oh God,
that's terrifying. Yes, it is.
But yeah, Shota and his siblings like, reunite with their
parents. And honestly, it was a little
weird to me. The difference between them,
them greeting Tomako and and Chuhe and them greeting Shota, I
don't know, because he like stayed back a little bit and
they looked like they had like conflicting emotions to see
their son. Like the respect and glance from
a distance that you normally see in action movies towards
different, you know, protagonists of said action
movie, except they're like 2 feet from each other.
And also, it's parents and kid. Like, right?
You can't. You can't just give your
autistic son the like the upward nod.
You know the. Yeah, yeah.
So everyone reunites and the twins fly off on ferry and then
Mothra flies off and that's the end.
That's it. This was surprisingly concise
for an ending of one of these movies.
Like and complete and complete, I will add as well.
Like no grand statement, new question ending.
It was like it just ended like it was.
It had a it was summed up and then ended.
It's a movie. That doesn't have like a blatant
like particular theme, right? Which is one of the wildest
things to me because Rebirth of Mothra is like the the 1st 2
movies were so on the nose. And this movie doesn't really
set out like this. Doesn't feel like Martha One and
two felt like they started with, OK, we want to do like an
environmentalism story, right? And then like worked out
villains based on that and worked out their story and their
characters and everything to like tell a child's version of
that story. This feels like they started
with like, we want to tell a story and we're going to have a
couple of, like, characters and relationships to build off of.
And it turns out there's a reason why we tend to do it that
way when we write stories. Right.
It's so wild, it's funny to see. So this is actually I missed.
This is something I was going to talk about before the Plot
Summary and I forgot to but this movie went through like many
Godzilla movies, some changes. So the original plan they knew
from the beginning they wanted like a fire based enemy so and
they wanted to do time travel. So the original plan was to
actually have Rodin as the villain and do and do like a
time travel plot back to like medieval Japan right?
And like fight. Fight like a younger Rodin, like
in medieval Japan, and then. The idea was like, well OK, but
like King Ghidorah is just a cooler villain and we didn't
technically do King Ghidorah, we did desk Ghidorah.
We did like the spin off. So like what if we dust off
because because they have been planning for ever since the 92,
I think it is Godzilla versus King Ghidorah.
They've been planning this idea of what if we did the real King
Ghidorah, right. What if we brought in the actual
like from outer space motherfucker and said that the
90s King Ghidorah was some knockoff bullshit that that got
like copied off of the real one and and now he's here and it's
kind of neat to see them like they they finally get the chance
to dust off this idea of like we're going to do the real King
Ghidorah. And it's also just very funny
that it made its way into a time travel movie.
So now we've had a second King Ghidorah time travel movie.
It's a weird association to make if I had a Nickel for Every time
only twice. But it's weird, it's happened
twice. The other thing I want to point
out, because I didn't mention it during the movie, is like Garu.
Garu has been great throughout the trilogy, but in this one he
has real freaky little guy energy, like he's making all
these noises. He sounds practically like a
Pokémon and like it was the most endearing thing.
Like he was fun in the 1st 2:00, but this one he was like he was
just a little. A freaky little guy.
He's also like the most clearly not a living thing in this
anymore. From the fact where it's like he
gets stuck and she like kicks him and it like turns on random
functions like you. It's like, oh, this is a parts.
More like biological, sure, but this is a this is a machine.
This is the equivalent. Of this point, he's a Cyborg
more than like at that's the closest.
He is little dragon. Buddy is a motorcycle.
That's what he is. You think about that, though,
like she ran him into the ground.
Yeah, she did. Like he was a living dragon.
And now was he? He's like a motorcycle that
won't start. I mean, we don't.
Know really from the first time we see him.
Remember, he gets like blown open in the first movie and he's
all robotics inside, right? Or he's he's so like we don't
really know which way he started.
But he sure does get patched up like a cheap auto mechanic like
Job where they just slap. Parts, yeah.
And maybe it would make more sense if she had to make her
own, since she was not chosen to have.
Barry And that's another thing, is like if she was meant, as we
talked about in the first episode, if she was meant
originally to be like a Bachelora fairy, she might have
had her own little steed. But instead she's just one of
the three who, you know, found out she was gay and went off to
a different state. She moved to the West Coast and
you know. If this teaches me anything,
this trilogy is that I want a Belvera origin film.
Yeah, with the original. More Belvera.
All of this. Let's fucking go.
Yeah, let's. Do it Easily The best character
of this entire 80s, nineties run of movies.
Yes, it's so good watching this because like, I've seen
basically every movie like we're we're ever going to cover on
Castle Bravo. This is one of the rare ones I
have so little memory of because this movie, very famously like
the first two rebirth of Motha movies, came out in the West on
like a DVD dual pack that was not hard to get a hold of.
And for some fucking reason, Sony never brought the third one
over. So all they did was they
licensed it to sci-fi and it would begin airing on sci-fi,
you know, but like, that's it is it would occasionally air on the
sci-fi Channel. It didn't actually hit the West
in any other format in any like home video or on demand until
the 20 tens. So like, I saw this once as part
of a marathon with the 1st 2 movies and I was homesick.
So that tells you how well I remember most of this.
And yeah, like it's just wild to realize, like how fucking much
better this movie is in the first two, how much it like like
like you said stormy. It kind of like justifies.
Maybe not. Maybe justifies is too harsh of
a word, but like, it does very much like redeem the last two
movies. You know, retroactively.
It's a really good it's my favorite probably version of
Ghidorah so far. Yeah and it's easily like these
are my favorite, some of my favorite Kaiju films.
I think just because I really like the straightforward
narrative, the hero's story and like that's The thing is like
Mothra more or less is always been like considered this kind
of heroic or anti heroic character, never really a
villain and so like to get this trilogy of like wandering Ronan
almost filmed. Yeah, it's a good call out
actually. Like I just.
I love that. And like while I like the first
one, don't really like the second one and loved the third
one. I think them is a complete
story. Having Belvera's arc, in all
seriousness, like all of the, like, the twins and Belvera have
such a strong arc through the three films.
Like, I think that's actually really cool.
Or even to see how they work with these kids versus how they
worked with kids in the other two films and how like what
they've learned and how they're like.
I didn't expect to get that kind of a through line.
I just was thought it was going to be more explosions and
monsters. But like, there was actually an
emotional arc with the fairies and I I really liked that a lot.
Yeah, absolutely. Like, the first two were fun
movies. They weren't exactly good, but
they were fun. This one was still fun, but this
one was actually good and I think honestly make the other
two better in Retrofit. For sure.
And it's also like it's it's so interesting because all I can
see now seeing that this is basically for all intents and
purposes the same crew that did the first movie.
It's very like, and again, same writer has done all three.
Like, to me, what this tells me is that it was Tanaka, like very
intentionally deciding that he wanted to make movies aimed at
like very young children, right? And like, call that a good or a
bad choice, right? Because we're not very young
children. We're not the target audience
that that Tanaka as producer and writer like was aiming at, but
the movie that comes out of Mothra 3 where everybody
involved kind of starts to aim back towards a more general,
like still family friendly but a more general going audience just
turned out a a significantly more mature movie.
Not in terms of its content necessarily, but in terms of how
it handles its emotional themes and and and like how it was like
the care that was put into it. Yeah, yeah, This movie fucking
rips. Yeah, yeah.
This movie rules. Yeah, I have a question for
Charlotte. Since you tend to always give us
like the what was the message stuff in these episodes?
Because I don't have one. Do you have a clear message for
like what they were trying to say with this film?
Because I I don't see it here. I have some theories, but like I
really don't see what. Faith in other people.
OK, yeah, because it was. About It's a story about Shoda
breaking out of his shell, and about trusting Belvera at the
end. So.
That's good. Yeah.
Actually, I'm. Angry how easily You just shot
that out there right now and I'm just here like you are.
That's it for that. Yeah, that's it.
You got it. Yep.
You're right that the confidence and the immediacy, no.
And the the other theme is just, It seems to be because it's
mirrored between not just like the twins and their older
sister, but also the three kids and parents.
Is just kind of Just because you may be an outcast doesn't mean
you don't. Belong.
Yes yes very much wants to intentionally focus on the idea
of like it is important for family to embrace each other and
support each other. Like regardless of conflict,
which you know coming from 4 queer you know podcast, you know
people at the moment like is a thing.
I really wish more family actually embraced.
But yeah, God damn this movie. This is a good one.
It yeah, this one's going to stick with me.
I really enjoyed this. If if one of these was going to
be truly good in its own right, like this was the one that that
needed to be. Yeah, I'm glad it was the.
Last, imagine if the first one had been this good, and then two
and three had been like goofy bullshit, right?
Yeah, that that would have been disappointing, but this is, this
was a good kind of climax to end the trilogy, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, this is not only just a good movie and a good
movie in this trilogy, but I think puts Mothra at a higher.
I have always liked Mothra, but like this secures.
Mothra is one of my favorite Kaiju characters and this is one
of my favorite Kaiju films. Like, it's so different from a
bunch of the other ones that I really love, but I'm OK with
that, right? Especially having just seen
Godzilla -1 a few weeks ago. This is so the opposite of that,
and yet still feels as equally Kaiju.
Important, I guess, to put it. And like, yeah, I really, I dug
it. I'm so glad that this ends on
such a strong note. I need.
Yes you do. Yes, you absolutely fussy.
Do. I came out of that theater and
like Charlotte will attest, I was just immediately in like,
Galaxy brain mode. Just staring off the space, My
entire personality. Yeah, just breaking everything
down piece by piece. Like because this is what I do
with movies when I walk out of theaters.
I was waiting for him to be like, okay, so we're going to
shoot an episode about this tomorrow.
No, right. Yeah.
And just shelve it, I'm thinking.
In fact, like, unfortunately, some of the things I'm thinking
of might put it even further down the road.
But I got. I got to talk to Charlotte about
that stuff inside baseball. I will.
But I love movies like that, where you end up walking out and
you're just like, I'm completely changed as a person.
Because like, even recently Barbie did that to me a little
bit, like as stupid as that is to say, And I know that.
Was a great fucking movie. That's.
Attached themselves a lot more to a huge message there, and
it's Greta Gerwig. Of course there's going to be
mother issues popping up, but it's just one of those things.
Like somewhat jokingly but also not jokingly.
I am just in. The good ways.
In the good ways. I think one last thing that's so
interesting to me right, is it's it's kind of difficult to talk
about this and not acknowledge that this came out in the same
year as the infamous like 98 Godzilla, which was May, So it's
like half a year apart. This movie would have started
production before Godzilla 98 released, before we had any way
of knowing quite how badly audiences would react to that
movie. So this movie releases, we have
no way of knowing what Toho might have done.
You know, had the 98 Godzilla been a different movie, right?
Had the 98 Godzilla been better or just better received?
I'm I'm trying to be fair because I haven't seen it in
ages. So I want to like save my energy
for next episode. But would we have gotten more
Mothra? Would would they have tried
something brand new, like, you know, we don't know they
intended to leave Godzilla alone as long as the Sony movies were
making money because they thought they'd get multiple and
they clearly didn't happen, right.
So it. Would be a many many years until
then. Especially since they won't be,
you know, showing up for that one.
I have to say I'm one of the I actually.
Yeah. Like, I know it's not great, but
it's one of those that I still every once in a while, I got a
yeah. I got introduced to fellow
fellow A certain point of view member Case Aikens show another
pass through their episode on Godzilla 98 and like I think
that's a really good episode and I do think like listeners go
check out another pass and specifically the Godzilla 98
episode. It did soften a lot of my long
built up like resentment towards the 98 Godzilla and I tried to
tear apart like the fanboy walls of like I don't like this thing
because it's different. I've I've worked really hard on
breaking that down but Godzilla's Godzilla's in it.
Like, again, are Shin Godzilla episodes gonna get me in trouble
with the fandom? And it's it's only worse now
that I've seen -1. I hate to break it to you folks,
but. But no, I always loved the that
kind of stuff. So I'll I'll definitely have to
check out that episode. I I just really enjoy.
I get really excited when like Cinema Wins Per SE puts up a
video on a movie that I did not like like OK, let me find a new
appreciation for. I probably still won't like it,
but I can appreciate some things that I was busy.
Yes, yes, I am excited as a much more emotionally mature person
you know and and to come back to this movie that I don't think
I've seen since 98 you know and and really like re evaluate how
it is on its own. But yeah it's just it is so
interesting to me. We will never know what might
have come after Rebirth of Motha 3 because like spoiler alert,
Godzilla 98's not well received and Toho immediately turns
around, revokes the rights and makes Godzilla 2000 instead,
which I also saw in theaters so. But Godzilla 2000 was the first
Godzilla movie I saw in theaters.
Toho Godzilla movie that I saw in theaters, I saw Godzilla 98
in theaters as well. I've probably not seen it since,
and so I don't. I just remember all of my
friends being mad that Jimmy Page worked with Puff Daddy and
I was like, but who cares? Like, I mean, Puff Daddy's Puff
Daddy's a problem for a whole other host of reasons now, but
like, but like, who cares? Like, I don't know, I liked rap
rock a lot. And ironically, so like it did
meant it. You.
Were fucking at all the mid 2000s then hell.
Yeah, pretty much, pretty much. I still like.
But, but, but I do. I do think, well, I don't always
watch the movies that you guys cover before I listen to the
episode for Godzilla 98. I might just because I don't.
Also, I think it's been a long time, multiple decades since
I've seen it. Because it's been a couple
years. So I'm definitely, I wanted.
I wanted that to be the season, the Season 3 finale for a
reason, so. Yeah, that makes sense.
But yeah, I mean, does anybody have any, like, last things they
want to say about Rebirth of Mothra 3 beyond just fucking?
Good. All of the costume designs are
so fucking good, minus the dinosaurs.
But the other costume designs, hey?
The monster seats are good. The fairies.
The fairies, like dresses, are super ornate and super
interesting. The the dress again, like I
brought up how even like through the family's clothes, they tell
like a story of poverty. The fucking New York Yankees
cap. All of the design was on point
and just the I said it a little bit before, but I cannot
emphasize how many times throughout our watch, both me
and my fiancee were like, damn, that shot was really good.
That Dolly Zoom was incredible or this music is amazing.
Like there was a lot of love put into this one that might have
been put into the other two had they been given more time.
But after the success of those, glad they were.
Yes. And that's that's been like my
experience going back to Godzilla.
Like, all the way back to. I mean, everyone knows the first
movie's a masterpiece, right? But like, even going back to the
first movie, like most of my time with Castle Bravo has been
spent going like holy shit. For as much as we socially.
And even I remember them as like B movies.
When you take them seriously and look at them as works of art and
like craft, and you look at the production design that goes into
them, like you see the work that gets put in.
And like, I'm, I'm going to go ahead and say it for the first
time. Like I do think there's a lot of
casual racism involved in in how we look at these movies and take
them so unseriously. I will 100% agree because like,
you see the same thing with like Bollywood films up until
recently with like RRR and things like that.
Like people would watch Bahubali and like kind of laugh at the
funny special effects, that kind of thing.
But also there's like human stories being told there.
And if you take a second to kind of slow down and just appreciate
what's going on, no matter what you might think is goofy, just
because you're not used to it can really appreciate just the
more underlying seriousness and just through art of that.
You look at like the craft that's being done on minuscule
budgets compared to what Hollywood gets to do and often
times looking better. Despite that, I keep saying the
the 90s Godzilla movies have better like night sequences in
terms of like visibility and and selling like visuals at night
than fucking anything in modern Hollywood, you know?
Absolutely. Yeah, I think that's also
something that Godzilla -1 is doing now is like reminding
people that when the masters are behind the wheel again, they can
make something that's just craft.
And like I've heard so many normies, I know, for lack of a
better term, like folks who don't, I don't always hear
talking about Godzilla obsessively, like everyone on
this call that, like they're talking about Godzilla and how
it was their favorite movie of the year.
And so that's huge. Like, even when Godzilla 2000
came out, though, it was one of the more larger received
American releases of a Godzilla film.
I don't think it's anything compared to, like, the way I've
heard people buzz about -1 and I'm really excited for that kind
of stuff. And like like watching a film
like this in a trilogy like this, it reminds me that as
goofy as this stuff is, they can still pull some really
incredible stuff. And I just want to speak to the
music again one more time. Because besides the first film,
which I think is a flawless score, this is some of the best
music I've also heard in a Kaiju film.
Just because, like we, like I said, we get hero themes with
Leo in a way that we didn't really get with a lot of other
Kaiju. And I love that.
I love that kind of like Super Sentai and like very Japanese
anime kind of hero themes grew up on Dragon Ball Z like they
were very much in this trilogy, Dragon Ball Z moments, and Leo
is very much the Goku, the underdog who gets back up.
And I love that about these films.
And I think it's really cool to see a series of films that get
to do that, and then we still get other takes on these
characters forever and ever. But I like this Isolated 3 movie
version. That's just really interesting,
yeah. Absolutely.
And I like seeing that contrast between like just, you know, the
Godzilla versus Kong and the Godzilla -1 where people can
appreciate both. And I'm glad that people are
starting to realize that Godzilla is ABS.
Both where it's, you know, these serious melodramas about the
human condition and also cool ass fucking fights with a big
monkey. Godzilla's always been like the
movies have have jumped around in terms of tone and and like
seriousness. You have your original
Godzilla's, you have your, you know, Godzilla versus Mothra.
That's like a very serious movie about like you know capitalism
and exploitation, right. You have your Godzilla 84's,
things like that. But then, like sometimes
Godzilla does a sliding dropkick on his tail and and fucking
dropkick's a a big beetle and it's great.
And I love them both. And I'm glad people are starting
to love both, but also appreciate both for the.
Yeah. That, that, that there is like
you get to have all of this energy.
It's all correct. So, yeah, well, I believe that's
a wrap on this episode. Thank you all so much for
joining us on our journey so far, Jason.
You got anything you feel like plugging for our listeners?
Well, first I just want to say thank you for having me trilogy
episodes. I really enjoyed it.
I'm going to miss you guys, but as I mentioned last time I did
my little soundtrack album, this isn't a game, but it could be.
And that's my conceptual, You know, I don't have a game I've
made, but this is the start of My Portfolio.
Hire me and I've had the three singles I've put out so far,
Working on a little project with my brother.
Can't really say as to when the release date is, but we are sons
of nothing. And yeah, go take a look.
Let me know what you think. I enjoy constructive criticism
or just hey, fuck you. At least I know you listen to
it. Maybe.
Don't DM Jason just to tell him
fuck you, please. I'm going to request that.
But I do. I do like attention.
I mean, don't we all? Stormy, what about you?
Well, I also want to thank you. I, you know, I loved doing that
Jet Jaguar movie. It was very straight and, you
know, no queerness in that movie, very heterosexual movie,
very normal movie about two men who were just friends, just
friends. But it was a blast to do that.
And I'm glad when you asked when I asked to come back on or bully
you to come back on, as I like to do for most of the shows, I
love that you said yes. And I have an idea and this has
been a delight. It's been a delight to share
some time with Jason as well, who I didn't know super well
before this week, ships in the night on the internets.
But it's been really great to get to chat with.
Right. And of course, you and
Charlotte, I love this show and I'm grateful to be a part of it.
As far as stuff to plug, I mean the big one I'm pushing on right
now is Fun and Games, my video game podcast, I'm going to be at
PAX. East.
Oh, you. Are we're going to be covering?
Yeah, me and Jeff are both going, yeah, we're both going
and covering. Jeff my Co hosts.
So I'm going to meet him in. Person It'd be good to see you
when I'm not dying because. Yes, since you were dying at the
last one. It's so funny occasionally to
see, like see people who talk about getting deathly ill at PAX
East 2020. Like I was watching a fucking
Hassan video where Hassan talks about getting like the the Black
Plague from PAX East 2020 and it's like I infected Hassan
Piker. I'll.
Have to make it out of PAX East at some point because like, I'm
here in Ohio, I'm not that far off and I would love to, you
know, meet some of you guys. Yeah.
We would love that. But but yeah, so Jeff and I
gonna be covering that, having lots of interviews like we've
had over the years, but we're also just pushing the podcast.
I've gotten some really major review codes in the past year
and gunning for someone some to cover stuff this year.
So if you really want to support any of the stuff I'm doing, go
to patreon.com/fun and Games Pod.
There's a free subscription tier where you just get notified when
I release articles and episodes, and then there's paid tiers as
well. Every little bit helps, but
like, that's the thing I'm really directing people towards.
We have a great episode on the retrospective of Godzilla and
Kaiju and video games with Charlotte and Derek.
It's a great starting point. Derek has done, I think, three
side quests so far and is on the hook to do another one pretty
soon. So it's a lot of folks talking
about games they're passionate about and why they love them as
well as the main show. Definitely worth checking out.
You can also find fun and games pretty much wherever you listen
to podcasts. We're on every platform, so I
push people towards that. And then if you want to find me,
I'm DJ under Score Stormaggeddon in most places except Blue Sky,
which doesn't like under Score, so I'm just DJ Stormaggedon
there. Confusing.
So confusing. Yeah, thanks, Internet.
But I do love loads. Yes, so much better.
Just need video support and I. Can I was going to say I just
need Twitter to die. Like, that's the problem.
Twitter has to die for all of us to make the critical mass shift.
I have replaced the icon like where my Twitter used to be on
my phone. That's where Blue Sky is now,
and I go there first when I wake up.
I can only do one. Better start social.
Media app at a time. I just don't have the ability
to. It's like I'm not on Instagram.
I can't. I'll never be on Instagram.
I don't have what it takes. I've tried.
I just give. Me, the chronological timeline.
I'm not on era. I'm never going to be on era.
I'm not in my own SDGC Discord. I'm not like that's for other
people. Not me, like, folks, if you've
enjoyed this episode of Castle Bravo, please consider rating
and reviewing us on your podcast app of choice.
Recommend the show to your friends and cohorts to help us
beat the whims of the almighty algorithms.
That's all we've got this week. See you next whenever and take
care everyone. Castle Bravo is a production of
Derek Van Dyke and Charlotte Landale.
All editing is performed by Derek Van Dyke.
Special thanks to Kyrie Lamont for our art assets and to David
Van Dyke for our theme song Pools of Memory.