Go-Go-Godzilla: #9 Son of Godzilla

Japanese Name: Kaijū-tō no Kessen: Gojira no Musuko [Monster Island's Decisive Battle: Godzilla's Son]
Director: Jun Fukuda
Studio: Toho
Year: 1967
Length: 1h26

The Creature's' Story:

Stupid bugs make Godzilla's baby born premature. Godzilla fight bugs. Godzilla kick rocks at bugs. Godzila burn bugs. Godzilla save Godzilla's ugly baby from stupid bugs. But now Godzilla got to care for stupid Godzilla baby? No thanks. Godzilla leave ugly baby to be ugly by baby's self.  Oh, Godzilla can't be bad dad. Godzilla's dad bad dad, abandon Godzilla. Cat in cradle and silver spoon. Godzilla give ugly baby tail ride like good, fun dad.

Fun dad tired. Ugly baby amuse self while fun dad sleep. Ugly baby learn agility or something.

Godzilla awaken to find ugly baby gone? Where ugly baby go? Godzilla find ugly baby playing with stupid humans. Ugly baby must learn stupid humans are stupid. Godzilla drag ugly baby away from stupid humans by tail, like good, fun dad. Different tail ride.

Good dad teach ugly baby how to spit fire. Ugly baby only blow smoke rings. Ugly baby ugly and stupid. Oh, step on ugly baby's tail and ugly baby spit good fire. Good ugly baby. Godzilla good mommdaddy. Godzilla sleep now.

Godzilla awake. Where stupid ugly baby now? Sigh, stupid ugly baby messing around with stupid bugs. Blast bugs, send them flying. What this now? Stupid spider has wrapped up stupid ugly baby in silk. Godzilla remember what this like when Mothra do that. So annoying. Stupid baby learn.  But Godzilla good dad and rescue ugly baby and kill spider dead. No! Stupid spider play dead and spit in Godzilla eye. Godzilla and ugly baby roast spider together. Fun dad back!

Why so cold? Godzilla and baby go sleep now.

The Human Story:
It took me until Ebirah to realize that Toho likes to use the same players over and over in its Godzilla films. The confusing part is they tend to play different characters. Most of the players here are repeat visitors in new roles.

Goro Maki, freelance reporter, airdrops into Sherbet Station, a research facility on Soelgel Island. He's not greeted with the warmest of welcomes, but the alternative to tossing him into the ocean is getting his help...with cooking and cleaning. The station, Goro learns, has a giant mantis stalking the perimeter. Goro also learns the station is building a Weather Dominator (a G.I. Joe term, not a Godzilla one) to control the weather in order to make lands more cultivatable to produce more food for humanity's growing population. But in the wrong hands, it could freeze the planet.

A test of the Weather Dominator goes horribly awry as the radiation trigger doesn't fire, receiving interference from the center of the island.  It sets the island's temperature up past 45 degrees (Celcius) roasting the men of the station, but they manage, especially as the heat does eventually start to drop.

Goro finds a girl, Saeko, the daughter of an archaeologist, who has been living alone on the island for many years since her father died.  Saeko is kind of awesome but also part of the "born sexy yesterday" trope.  Goro also finds a hive of mantis (Kamacuras) who unearth an egg. The Kamacuras crack the egg open and a baby Godzilla is inside. It's real ugly and so helpless. The Kamacuras propose to eat the baby Godzilla (literal lip-smacking from those bugs) but daddymama Godzilla hears its cries and is on the rampage. It wrecks the station.

Godzilla saves his baby, but immediately abandons it. Saeko feeds it until Godzilla has a change of heart and returns, giving the baby a ride on his tail.  Later, Saeko and Goro are out on a "friends date" and they spy baby G, and Saeko believes they're friends, like the Grizzly Man once did with the bears. 

A fever runs through the camp but Saeko knows the cure, but they have to get around Kumonga, a giant spider and go down to the red water where Godzilla sleeps.  It all goes off smoothly and is quite anticlimactic. The men are saved, but after a few days in the cave, the Professor finally concedes defeat on his experiment to Weather Dominate and solve world hunger.

Saeko, gathering food, awakes a Kamacuras, but baby G is there to save the day, except he's blowing smoke rings again. The fight doesn't go well for baby G, and then Kumonga awakens. But so does papa G.  Baby G gets sprayed with silk, an annoying family tradition. The cave is starting to collapse and the Professor says their only hope to get out alive is to Weather Dominate the island and freeze the monsters. Which they do. Hooray?  

The ending with Godzilla and Minilla cuddling up in the snow reminds me of the Sesame Street Christmas Eve special where Big Bird damn near freezes to death on the roof waiting for santa.

Godzilla, Friend or Foe:
Whatever

The Sounds:
Has a theme that sounds like a 60's sitcom, and a lot of 60's swinging, groovy repetitive rhythms and staccato horns.

The Kamacuras make a squelching noise like  a cross between the whistle of a boiling kettle and a baby eagle. When it walks around it makes hissing noises that sounds like blowing up a balloon.

Kumonga makes a "pew pew" sound, but it's less like a laser gun and more like compressed air.

Baby G makes vaguely baby-esque noises that sounds like a doll with a pull-string from the 60's. Only vaguely recognizeable as baby sounds. Like the doll found at the end of Planet of the Apes.

The Message:
Bugs suck. Babies are ugly, but you love them in spite of that I guess. Also, Weather Dominating is hard.

Rating (out of 5 Zs):
Z - this really quite sucks. It's ugly and sloppy (at least once the camera catches a glimpse of outside of the miniature landscape's matte painting backdrop), boring and ruins the mystique of Godzilla even more than Godzilla dancing, or batting rocks around with Rodan. Baby Godzilla ain't no Baby Yoda.