borisandbelarule wrote:

The sideplot with the crooks is pretty typical Toho fare. They're incredibly stupid, which I'm sure was done on purpose to lighten the mood. You always feel that there is a better chance that they'd accidentally hurt themselves before they could do anything to the kid.

And why were the planes attacking Godzilla? I thought Monster Island was supposed to be where we wanted him to live. Also, considering that Godzilla killed about a dozen pilots during that scene, wasn't it a bit tacky to have the kid cheering their deaths?



GODZILLA'S REVENGE, or rather the Japanese version of it, is one of my favorites! It certainly helps that I adored it when I was 6 or 7, creepy adult Minira voice and all. Almost all the Godzilla films are geared mostly to children, so that approach doesn't bother me in the least. And I can't stop admiring just how far away it veers from the norm of a Godzilla movie.

Oops, meant to just address the two things of your post I quoted.

In ascending order; I don't think Monster Island was ever intended to be the Monster Land seen in the previous movie. But much as Toho in the 70's seemed to forget DAM was set in the future, the Monster Island of Ichiro's imagination got mixed in with the Monster Land idea.

And if you've seen GODZILLA VS THE SEA MONSTER, you'll know those planes were piloted by dirty, rotten commies! And not just any commies, cartoon James Bond villain commies!

Is it just me, or does HOME ALONE owe a huge debt to GODZILLA'S REVENGE?

And as to "the message" of the film, I too at times have found it questionable. But in the end I gotta' conclude it's much more useful advice to give to children than any sugar coated idealized moral. Especially when you consider conformity has always played a big part in Japanese society for both bad and good. And besides, Ichiro stood up to the bully, earned the respect of the said bully and his friends, and at the same time saved himself from a bleak future as a lonely shut in obsessed with Godzilla movies.

Oh crap. Maybe I should had been paying closer attention to the message as a kid.


-Clark