Post by spykid on Jun 23, 2010 22:01:19 GMT -5
After their success with Godzilla, Toho studios wanted to create new monsters. One of them was Mothra.
The first Mothra movie is related to the Godzilla movies, but it is also an adventure movie. After shipwrecked sailors survived on a radioactive island, a group goes to the island in search of the natives who helped them survive. Instead of the natives, a man who almost gets killed by a mutated plant discovers a pair of one foot high twins (full grown adults) who rescue him from that plant.
When the search party returns to the island the bad guy kidnaps the twin fairies and forces them to perform in a show back in Japan. The larvae form of Mothra hatches out of it's egg, and goes to Japan to rescue the twins. Mothra brings destruction to Japan as it searches for the girls.
Mothra then forms a cocoon and becomes the fully grown moth and wrecks most of the city. The local officials decide that the girls must be turned over to Mothra.
To attract Mothra they rang the local church bells, which reminded Mothra of the fairies' voices, and then painted Mothra's symbol on an airport runway.
The special effects looked good for the time, but for today they are just ok. Even so, the movie is exciting, fun, scary, and even funny. Mothra is not necessarily a bad monster in this movie, she is just upset and angry that people kidnapped the fairies. The actors were very good, and the movie looked good.
The DVD picture quality was very good and I suggest that everyone who reads this should buy the Toho Collection: Icons of Sci-Fi, which also includes The H-Man and Battle in Outer Space.
Score - 75 out of 100