Destroy All Monsters (1968) "Review 9"

[abraxas]

Destroy All Monsters (released in Japan as Attack of the Marching Monsters), is a 1968 monster Movie. The ninth in Toho Studios' Godzilla series, it was directed by Ishiro Honda with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya and Sadamasa Arikawa. This was the last Godzilla film in the Showa series to receive positive fan reaction. This is the fifth film to feature Mothra, third to feature King Ghidorah, second to feature Gorosaurus, Anguirus, Kumonga, Manda, Minilla, Baragon, and Varan.

Varan
Gorosaurus
Manda
Baragon
Rodan



I have no idea what the hell is going on with this movie, its totally nonsensical, this film should have been called "Destroy all Continuity"

I don't even know where to begin......

The film starts off with all of the Toho monsters living on an island, the problem is that several of them did not appear in a Godzilla movie before this time, a few of the monsters came from other Toho giant monster films. Gorosaurac came from 1967's King Kong Escapes, Manda is from a children's monster movie called Atragon, Baragon, one of the weirdest looking monsters is from Frankenstein Conquers the World, and Varan (an unbelievably stupid looking monster) is from Varan the Unbelievable.

For some reason Godzilla, Mothra and Rodan are now friends with Anguirus. How and why they are on the island is never explained, several devices which emanate some kind of mysterious gas keeps Godzilla and Mothra on the island, but exactly why they are repelled by this mist is also never explained. Rodan is kept on the island due to a magnetic wall.

Perhaps the oddest thing about the film is that Godzilla went from looking like a cuddly iguana in the last film to looking pretty cool in this particular film. The Godzilla suit used in this film would go on to be among the most popular suits, named the Soshingekigoji, and would retire in 1972.

PLOT:

Slug-like aliens in human bodies from a planet which they never give you name of, want to created a technologically superior civilization, first they have to destroy a few cities and kill a few people to make room. A special team is put together to try and strop them, that's about it.

I do have to admit that the all out giant monster battle royal at the end of the film is pretty cool, but this is still one of the worse Godzilla films.

2 out of 5 roars for this one

[GL]

Man, you really missed a lot:

They've been corralled on the Ogasawara Island chains, and the UN has designated the area as Monsterland.

It's supposed to be all the surviving monsters that the studio produced, regardless of connection to the Godzilla series. This is the film that links them all together, and really, only Angilas and Kumonga have died, all the others are still alive, and with this being so far into the future, it stands to reason that if one of them was around, a second one should be (remember, all these films use the second Godzilla, not the original, so if he survived, the others should.) And Kumonga is just as easily explained by the fact that the rescue team on Solgell Island found a second one hidden away under the dirt and brought it back with the others when it was constructed.

As the film is set in the future and not in the 60s like the rest, it doesn't matter how they got there, mankind managed to find a way to do, and the poison canisters at sea keep the monsters from escaping, while the electronic force-fields keep Rodan and Varan from flying away (and presumably Mothra once she changes into the imago state) simply because mankind found a way to do so. It doesn't matter how they did it, it only matters that they did it.

You call the physical change odd? I call it a godsend, that monstrosity should've never been created.

Despite it all, I've never cared all that much for the final battle. There's been a lot better in here. It's only gotten the good reputation from the concept of all them going at it and that's about it, as far as I'm concerned. In terms of action and fun, there's others I prefer much more.

[abraxas]

For me its a little too speculative, no other Godzilla film ever did that, you always knew exactly what was going on. And lets face most of the Godzilla movies that were too "speculative" or tried to veer to far from what was established within the franchise winded up being some of the worse films in the series, at least IMO.

[GL]

Well, you are making leaps at to what's going on, but it's not like they're very hard to arrive there, it's quite easy to make those assumptions.

If mankind has not only mastered the ability to travel to the moon but has done so in a way that it's a daily occurance, why not have the ability to corral and control the world's monsters on an isolated series of islands and keep them there successfully?

As the other films in the series were more contemporary but this one set in the year 1999, why is that such a hard idea to grasp?

[abraxas]

Well it would would have been better if they actually explained it in a future film, so obviously the concept didn't do very well because its hardy considered Godzilla lore

[GL]

Every Godzilla book I've seen covers the island, it's change from Monsterland here to the name of Monster Island in the 70s. Everyone just slightly bit into Godzilla knows about it and the name change.

[abraxas]

They certainly haven't done much with it so far, been nearly 40 years

[GL]

So you expect them to keep up a storyline that wasn't needed in the later part of the 70s and won't fit in with their current mode of storytelling since the 80s revival ignored that part of history altogether? That's just pure out-and-out bullshit.

[abraxas]

Well they probably should as its just a film with no home within the series, a dead end which adds nothing to the franchise. Personally I could do without it

[GL]

It's a little overrated to be sure, but to say it's useless is a little strong. There's others out there which have even less importance into the franchise, and this one does have the spectacular fight at the end to even things out.