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Son of Godzilla 1967

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Son of Godzilla (1967)
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Synopsis

In Son of Godzilla, a strange weather experiment has awakened Minya, a miniature Godzillasaurus! Attacked by giant insects, Minya cries for help and Godzilla responds, taking the youngster under his wing. As Godzilla teaches Minya proper monster etiquette, they are attacked by a giant spider which will prove to be young Minya’s first test of his fledgling monster skills.

Review of Son of Godzilla

In short, Son of Godzilla isn’t that bad. Yes, that’s damning with faint praise — but it’s true. Son of Godzilla marks the point where the Godzilla franchise began to be aimed at children. Having said that, the basic concept is interesting. A group of scientists are working on remote island, trying to create a device to control the weather, because the world will soon be overpopulated. Four billion people! That’s unsustainable! It’s funny in hindsight how old this particular fear goes back … But, their motives are pure, wanting to make the Sahara desert lush.

Goro, a journalist, stumbles across the scientists, and smells a story. A story that the scientists aren’t eager to give him. Instead, to earn his keep, they make him do various menial tasks around the camp, including cooking. But Goro sees a beautiful girl on the supposedly deserted island — and the others think he’s crazy.

Kamacuras / Gimantis

But, he’s not. Her name is Saeko, and she’s quite real. She even manages to survive the disaster when the weather control experiment goes wrong. Something interferes with the connection to the “weather balloon”, and instead of causing a snowstorm, it’s a radioactive storm instead. This mutates the already-enormous praying mantises on the island to 100-foot long monsters – Kamacuras (Gimantis in the American version).

Introducing Minya

These creatures find, and crack open, an egg — planning to eat the contents. But it’s apparently a baby Godzilla (Minya, aka. Minilla). The scientists realize that the baby’s telepathic cries for help were the cause of the interference that ruined their experiment. Shortly afterwards, Godzilla arrives on the island responding to the infant’s cries, demolishing the scientist’s base while defending the baby. Godzilla kills two of the Kamacuras during the battle while one manages to fly away, Godzilla then adopts the baby, and begins raising it.

Spiga

Minilla quickly grows to about half the size of the adult Godzilla. Godzilla tries to teach Minilla how to be a radioactive monster – including his trademark breath attack At first, Minya has difficulty producing anything more than smoke rings. But Godzilla discovers that stressful conditions (i.e. stomping on his tail) or motivation produces a true radioactive blast. Minya comes to the aid of Saeko when she is attacked by a Kamacuras. But he accidentally awakens the giant spider Kumonga (Spiga in the English version) – the main antagonist. Kumonga attacks the caves where the scientists are hiding and Minya stumbles into the fray.

Kumonga traps Minya and the Kamacuras with its webbing — lunch is served!. But as Kumonga is feeding on the Kamacuras, Godzilla arrives. Godzilla saves Minilla and they work together to defeat Kumonga by using their atomic breath on the giant spider. Frankly, Kumonga has to be one of Godzilla’s strongest opponents, based on how many times it manages to shrug off Godzilla’s radioactive breath attacks. Not to mention nearly blinding him!

Hoping to keep the monsters from interfering in their attempt to escape the island, the scientists use their weather altering device, and the once tropical island becomes buried in snow and ice. Kumonga is defeated, and Godzilla and Minilla begin to hibernate as they wait for the island to become tropical again. The escaping scientists, along with Goro and Saeko, are rescued by an American submarine.

Conclusion

Son of Godzilla is an enjoyable kids’ movie, and should be treated as such. It’s far from the dark, serious mood of the original Gojira. And that’s okay.

Cast of characters in Son of Godzilla

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