Original Release: July 10th, 2018
Before we start on the Heisei era of the Godzilla franchise, let’s take a look back on the longest era of the franchise: the Showa era.
This era is easily the most iconic of them all. Seriously, ask anyone to name a Godzilla movie, and they’ll probably name one from the Showa era. These include, as covered in the last few weeks, the following films:
Gojira (1954)
Godzilla Raids Again (1955)
King Kong VS Godzilla (1962)
Mothra VS Godzilla (1964)
Ghidorah, The Three Headed Monster (1964)
Invasion of Astro Monster (1965)
Ebirah, Monster of the Deep (1966)
Son of Godzilla (1967)
Destroy All Monsters (1968)
All Monsters Attack (AKA GODZILLA’S REVENGE) (1969)
Godzilla VS Hedorah (1971)
Godzilla VS Gigan (1972)
Godzilla VS Megalon (1973)
Godzilla VS Mechagodzilla (1974)
Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)
These are some of the best (and worst) movies in the entire series. The original film is widely held as a masterpiece to this day, considered to be the best film in the whole franchise (until Shin Godzilla, the best film ever made, came out) and the rest of the franchise shaped kaiju movies for years to come.
Even the bad movies had some of the best moments in the history of cinema. These include… this.
And this
Not crazy enough? How about this:
Okay, that one clearly isn’t stupid enough. Remember this one?
Oh! And this one!
And finally, one of the least appreciated:
The Showa era is really dumb and I love it to death. Even the worst films are fun in some dumb way (save for All Monsters Attack, but we don’t talk about that).
I’m actually kind of sad that we’re done with the Showa era. These films are easily some of my favorites. The original is in my top five movies of all time, Mothra VS Godzilla is easily the movie I watched the most as a kid (right next to the Lord of the Rings and the original Star Wars series) and Ghidorah the Three Headed Monster taught me a ton about how to make an intimidating villain in storytelling (no I’m not joking).
Still, some of these movies are actually really terrible. Fun? Yes. Good? Not really. But I love them nonetheless.
Nevertheless, I cannot wait to get to the Heisei period. They have some of the best in the series, including mother-fucking SPACE-GODZILLA and a time-travel based Ghidorah movie! Plus, we’ve got Biollante, another Mothra movie, and DESTROYAH!!
God I’m so excited!
Jonah's Daily Rants 