Talkback Thread #10: All Monsters Attack (1969)

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Re: Talkback Thread #10: All Monsters Attack (1969)

Post by Terasawa »

But at least one of those points is very valid: the extensive use of stock footage does not help the movie at all. (Unless you want to argue that it helped get it made, which is certainly the case.)
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Re: Talkback Thread #10: All Monsters Attack (1969)

Post by eabaker »

Terasawa wrote:But at least one of those points is very valid: the extensive use of stock footage does not help the movie at all. (Unless you want to argue that it helped get it made, which is certainly the case.)
The stock footage didn't just help it get made, it is the basis of the whole movie. It is, by its nature, a clip movie; criticism of that aspect should begin with the question, "How well did it build its story around those clips?"

The use of stock footage is certainly, in and of itself, a valid complaint in movies like Gigan and Megalon, which used it to awkwardly supplement their new material. Here, it's the new material that's supplementing the stock footage.
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Re: Talkback Thread #10: All Monsters Attack (1969)

Post by Terasawa »

But the whole purpose of a clip show -to reuse existing footage to sell something new- is rather disingenuous, don't you think? And the point was certainly to make a new Godzilla movie. If not they would have reissued one of the island Godzillas for that specific Champion Festival.
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Re: Talkback Thread #10: All Monsters Attack (1969)

Post by Spuro »

I would also argue that the simple fact that it's a kid's movie shouldn't excuse it for any of its faults. The reason why Disney is so successful is because they, for the most part, make quality children's films. Kids deserve good movies too.
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Re: Talkback Thread #10: All Monsters Attack (1969)

Post by eabaker »

Kaiju-King42 wrote:I would also argue that the simple fact that it's a kid's movie shouldn't excuse it for any of its faults. The reason why Disney is so successful is because they, for the most part, make quality children's films. Kids deserve good movies too.
When people bring up "it's a kid's movie" as part of the defense, it's not to excuse faults, it's to frame the discussion in the appropriate terms. "It's a kid's movie, and thus the criteria by which it is judged are different from those you would apply to Gojira." Nobody ever says, "All Monsters Attack is a kid's movie, and thus we should forgive it all its sins."
Terasawa wrote:But the whole purpose of a clip show -to reuse existing footage to sell something new- is rather disingenuous, don't you think? And the point was certainly to make a new Godzilla movie. If not they would have reissued one of the island Godzillas for that specific Champion Festival.
Well, the executive decision to do a clip show is strictly profit motivated, sure - but, then, the same is true of the vast majority of movie sequels, too, and we don't dismiss Monster Zero on the grounds that the motive for its production wasn't pure artistry. In terms of production, I'd say clips shows are usually crafted disingenuously, but here I think Honda and Sekizawa used the footage to construct something significantly, meaningfully new. That the new context has a transformative effect on the reused scenes is really pretty impressive. I actually think some of the Sea Monster sequences play better here than they did in their source movie.

ETA: Thank you for making that point, Terasawa! Way to elevate the level of the discussion! :D
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Re: Talkback Thread #10: All Monsters Attack (1969)

Post by Terasawa »

eabaker wrote:Well, the executive decision to do a clip show is strictly profit motivated, sure - but, then, the same is true of the vast majority of movie sequels, too, and we don't dismiss Monster Zero on the grounds that the motive for its production wasn't pure artistry.
Good point, I'll give you that. But I do think the intent with Revenge was to get a Godzilla movie in theaters and to do it as cheaply as possibly. I don't think the same could be said of most of the previous Godzilla films, or of many of the ones that followed.
In terms of production, I'd say clips shows are usually crafted disingenuously, but here I think Honda and Sekizawa used the footage to construct something significantly, meaningfully new. That the new context has a transformative effect on the reused scenes is really pretty impressive. I actually think some of the Sea Monster sequences play better here than they did in their source movie.
I guess I just feel differently. I watch it today and can't help but thinking how much more I'd like it with entirely new footage. I might even be able to come to terms with it if it had been a true "Best of" movie instead of stock shots from just two films. And because you mentioned Sea Monster, I'll mention Son: I think the re-editing of those sequences here is pretty poor. A lot of care was taken to remove Minya from that footage but there's no way the modified Godzilla vs. Spiega battle is anywhere as good as the original. And I definitely don't prefer Miyauchi's score to Sato's work in the previous films.
ETA: Thank you for making that point, Terasawa! Way to elevate the level of the discussion! :D
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Re: Talkback Thread #10: All Monsters Attack (1969)

Post by godzillalives88 »

I rewatched this last year as part of a marathon to get ready for the Legendary film, and I'm happy to say I've done a complete 180 (or maybe, 360) on it.

I used to like it as a kid, but when I got older I became dismissive of it (without ever actually rewatching it) on the basis of the stock footage.

Rewatching it, it's occured to me that the stock footage is justified in one of two ways.

1. This movie takes place in a universe where Godzilla movies exists, and as such, Ichiro is remembering highlights from his favorite films (as any of us would) and participating in them.

or

2. This movie takes place in the Godzilla universe and Ichiro is recreating events from Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster and Son of Godzilla as relayed by the human survivors to the Japanese public (and inserting his own content).

To me, this is a different use of stock footage from Gigan or Megalon, because it's actually used to covey the imagination of a child rather than to simply pad out battles.

Anyway, just my two cents. I still wouldn't rank the movie especially high in the series but it's no longer a contender for the worst or second worst movie for me either. In fact, I rewatched it twice last year just to make sure I was enjoyed it as much as thought I did.

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Re: Talkback Thread #10: All Monsters Attack (1969)

Post by Shobijin »

Watched the Japanese version, and felt it was better than the English dub that I had watched many times, first as a kid.

Ichiro is a sympathetic character- one of the best in Godzilla movies, I dare say.

The clip show/fantasy aspect does take away from the enjoyment and ultimately forces me to rank it at the bottom of the first 10 G-movies, but I know back then not everyone had access to see every movie. Some people may have been tricked. It did flow better than I had remembered. It was not as bad as the reviews online.

I really enjoyed the plot, story, and characters. Toy Maker is awesome, and Ichiro's parents and real. There are some funny and sad parts. It is pure kid's fantasy, and I am pretty sure many other boys engaged in the same imaginary worlds.

Regarding the huge debate earlier in the thread about if Ichiro actually transported to Monster Island, if Godzilla was fictional, etc:

It obviously is supposed to be that he is using his imagination and we are watching his fantasies, as opposed to literally going to Monster Island. Gabara is obviously the child bully, and Minilla is obviously Ichiro, along with other analogies.

The clips were supposed to be "new", not replays from earlier movies, obviously. Also, Ichiro was not remembering previous Godzilla films.

Regarding if Minilla's existence is publicly known and/or if Godzilla is a fictional character: and these questions arise because the adults either ignore or humor the poor boy about his fantasizes. I think it could be played either way- Ichiro could be living on our earth, or he could be living on Toho's earth. Now, either way, it is clear Gabara is an imaginary monster (as opposed to a "real" monster..lol!!!).

It is amazing how the Toymaker pretty much created a highly advanced personal computer which could see the moon in 1971.

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Re: Talkback Thread #10: All Monsters Attack (1969)

Post by mschenk »

Watched this last night. I mostly bought it for my kid, and ended up liking it better than I thought I would. Nostalgia may have come into play a little bit too. I interpreted the movie differently than when I was a kid, and maybe this will make you feel differently about the movie too. Ishiro in the movie is actually young Ishiro Honda. The reason for all the stock footage is because Ishiro already has the stories and characters in his head and retreats to this fantasy world whenever he wants to get away from the real world. When he grows up, he'll turn them all into movies.

And actually now that I think about it, for that to work it would have had to be set at least in the 30s if Gojira came out in 1954...

I mostly liked the Japanese version better due to Minilla's voice.... I didn't like the song at the beginning of the Japanese version.

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Re: Talkback Thread #10: All Monsters Attack (1969)

Post by JAGzilla »

The Barney voice is one of my favorite parts of Revenge, for the record. I will need to actually watch the original version one of these years, though, just for comparison.
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Re: Talkback Thread #10: All Monsters Attack (1969)

Post by Zarm »

(Hmmmm... reading the last page of comments, this view may be a bit more controversial than I expected it would be...)

All Monsters Attack, a cheap sequel produced to see if the franchise could still turn a profit, has the potential to be harmless and inoffensive- if only it weren't so chock-full of the strident and the grating.

The soundtrack is a particular offender, but our protagonist, Ichiro, is kind of a whiner too. Honestly, there is just a lot that is a bit obnoxious about this film. Adding to that the fact that this is the lowest form of life in the media food chain, the loathsome ‘clip show,’ and- well, it's an unfortunate confluence of factors. Any one of them might not have been fatal, if it hadn’t been combined with the others as well. As it is... well, I hate to be cliché, but yeah- it’s pretty terrible.

Our protagonist, Ichiro, is a proto-Kevin McCallister in this proto-Home Alone… and frankly, he is just kind of a brat. I get that life is hard for him- a latch-key kid with two working parents, bully troubles, and an industrialized landscape just shy of post-apocalyptic for a backyard… but sheesh, kid… try to be a little less obnoxious.

To be fair, the film does a good job capturing the random exuberance of youth; when it’s not trying to be clever or surreal, it’s actually very real in the way it portrays kids.
On the other hand, this overdramatic layabout (actually, he’s kind of a proto-Lilo from Lilo and Stitch, too) doesn’t really evince any sympathy for his injured grown-up friend, abandons the little girl that is apparently his only child friend to the group of bullies that terrifies him, and while he appears to be the victim for most of the film (even giving up the new treasure he’s found to refuse to join the bullies in pulling a cruel prank that could get someone seriously injured), he also appears to be completely self-absorbed, prone to extremely unwise choices (‘Let’s go play in that condemned-looking, falling-apart abandoned warehouse’), and at the end, proves that he was kind of the jerk all along. He attacks the bullies after they invite him to join them, and then proves that he just wants to be a little rat-jerk on his own terms, since he still goes and pulls the cruel prank that he took a stand against earlier just to show off! And his father even has to offer to pay to watch the man's clothes, squandering some of the hard-earned money that it’s been established he and his wife have been working hard to try and scrape together to move the family to a better place. I mean, this seems to be the most hard-up family you could ever hope to meet, and his parents barely-seen characters are defined by their constant work and far-off dream of being able to save up enough to get out of the ghetto- and now the dad is having to blow some of that hard-saved money on a dry-cleaning to keep a rightfully-furious painter (who was… painting in his good clothes, apparently, so he’s also an idiot?) from pursuing his delinquent child.

Is that the message that this film is trying to give us? Once Ichiro finally gets up some courage and comes out of his shell, he is unprovekedly-violent, selfish, cruel, and gives no thought to the consequences of his actions. Is this supposed to be a positive message? Because, man… F- on morals.

I get that the tendency toward unwise and dangerous choices, thoughtlessness, and the obnoxious fixation on monsters (or any other craze) are the typical behavior of youth (which is why I didn’t add the latter to my list of complaints)… but it’s also the behavior that we parents parent in order to train OUT of their behavioral patterns! Here, it is practically glorified as the thing that shows that Ichiro has come into his own! He’s really just a little jerk, and the one thing that he’s shown taking a stand for is simply a resistance to coercion, apparently, rather than any kind of moral stand. Once again, the comparison to Home Alone is apt, as our protagonist is actually not all that nice a person. He's resourceful, he's put into plights you can empathize with or feel sorry for- but in a very 'two wrongs don't make a right' scenario, when his own personality shows through, it's not exactly a winner. Now, you could go deep and argue that this is supposed to be a portrayal of the damage to the psyche that such environs and lacking family-life can engender in a kid, but the film seems to trumpet this narcissistic thuggishness as a positive change, so I think any such interpretation can't stand as the writer's intent. The character of Ichiro is a misfire; something that isn't intended to be negative, but only because those responsible didn't think through what they were putting together closely enough. He earns pity- but not sympathy; in the end, he embodies just as many of Gabara's traits as Gabara does.


That said, we aren’t really given many other ‘characters’ in the film. The father is barely present, having only one painfully-expository 'Hello, coworker I apparently just met today - let me tell you my life story' conversation scene before the ending. The mother is likewise a near-nonentity, and her end-scene in which she blandly apologizes for leaving her son alone all day, ‘and oh, bummer you got kidnapped by murderous thieves,’ before blithely letting him walk to school alone right afterward (clearly not written by anyone who was or has ever met a real-life mother) nearly make her seem like the most absurd character in the movie. I will give the film credit- her breakdown after Ichiro leaves hints that she’s just putting on an absurdly-effective, bland ‘brave front’ for her kid, and hints at a much greater depth than the actual performance (does any real parent have THAT good a poker face the day after their son is kidnapped? The terror that something horrible will happen to your kids is hard enough for a parent to manage when nothing actually has happened…), but even so, it’s hardly enough to render her a real three-dimensional character.

Incidentally, that’s part of the extreme dissatisfaction of the film’s real-world narrative; almost nothing is resolved. At the end of the film, the family’s situation and neighborhood are still terrible, money is still short, the mother is traumatized (as her son, fortunately, isn’t somehow) and will be working less, possibly increasing the dire financial straits of the family, out of worry for her son… Ichiro is a hooligan and his father is stuck making restitution, and… the end? Nothing has improved; if anything, the repercussions (financially, emotionally, and psychologically) of the entire ordeal are just starting to manifest, and are terribly glossed over. It’s a really terrible way to end the film that just sort of seems to shrug and say ‘Eh, it’s just another day in the life here down in the slums- at least Ichiro’s got some self-confidence, now’… and since even that result is unintentionally negative, it’s actually a very depressing non-resolution.

The comparison to Home Alone flounders with the robbers, who are hardly characters enough to be called by the descriptors, only broadly ‘sinister’ and ‘bumbling’ in the most broadly-sketched way. (Oh, and the consequences of the newspaper pit-trap, with a seeming (at first) broken ankle? Both more realistic than the Home Alone films, and a bit jarringly-dark for a kid’s film!) Likewise, the bullies are apparent as actually bad guys only for one unkind shove in the opening sequence, and their theft of the vacuum tube; beyond that, their ‘cruelty’ (and Gabara in particular being any worse than the others) are completely Informed Attributes. Honestly, if it wasn’t for those two scenes, I’d almost suspect of Ichiro of making it up, and being the real bully; certainly, he becomes that in the end. (Have I mentioned that I don’t like Ichiro?)

The only real character besides Ichiro in the human world is his toy-maker friend (who, with his talk of selling his inventions, felt oddly derivative of Invasion of Astro-Monster’s inventor), who appears to serve as both friend and guardian to Ichiro more than his actual parents (he’s also the one to comfort Ichiro following his ordeal). And also… landlord? Or just trusted family friend? Sadly, his personality is bland enough to preclude any real character, and despite serving the surrogate-father role in Ichiro’s life, he’s still absent and inactive enough to make it feel as if this boy is essentially raising himself. (He does have the distinction of declaring that Minilla is god to the children in the same way that God is god to the adults, which is… a doozy of a proclamation, to say the least. So there’s that.)


So then, we get to the stock footage portion- I mean, the kaiju portion of the film; a.k.a. The Land Of Disappointment. I mean, it does raise the oft-debated fandom question of whether this is the only film to take place in ‘the real world,’ with Godzilla, Minilla, etc. being film characters that Ichiro is dreaming about meeting just as you or I would, or whether it takes place in the same kaiju universe, and Ichiro is simply dreaming about meeting an anthropomorphized version of real creatures that exist in that world. (The difference between a kid in a movie dreaming about meeting Captain Kirk, or just a talking Rhino). The evidence there is… inconclusive. The toy-maker seems to know about Rodan and other major kaiju, and considers getting their roars on his kid’s computer (can we talk about how its picture for Apollo 11 has absolutely NOTHING to do with the real Apollo 11? It looks closer to the comic that convinces the Peabody family that Marty McFly is a spaceman than to any actual NASA missions…), but this could be true of a well-known set of movie monsters or real-life ones. Minilla is not well-known to the reporters, but since he only appeared in Son of Godzilla at this point in the timeline and has not rampaged any major cities, he could be just as unknown to anyone who isn’t a kaiju-phile and read about the Monster Island incident in a kaiju-are-real universe as he would be to non-daikaiju fans in a they’re-only-movies universe.

Interestingly, the stock footage used is primarily from vs. the Sea Monster and Son of Godzilla (with a few closeups from Destroy All Monsters), which I was not expecting; I think they were trying to limit things to an island-setting to maintain ‘continuity’ (even though there are vastly different terrains, which they sometimes use extremely crude foreground ‘matte paintings’ to briefly try and tie together, making that effort somewhat moot); I would expect them to pull form a broader range of sources. Then again, these films contain short, flashy, not-particularly-dire battles that can fit the lightweight plot, and no signs of civilization, so that’s probably a good motivator behind using them, too. (Notably, though, if kaiju don’t exist in the world, it makes sense that Ichiro might only have seen those three movies, having been too young for the predecessors, hence why only that material is incorporated… though the absence of Ghidorah as the big bully seems striking, and would almost point more toward ‘kaiju are real,’ with the events of DAM’s climactic confrontation not yet having happened, and the original Ghidorah attacks having occurred when Ichiro was too young to remember…)

So, yes- inconclusive.

Having grown up with the dub of this film, and the goofy ‘go get him, Godzilla!’ cartoon dumb brute voice that they used, I was very curious to hear the superior, original Japanese version. Which turned out to be… a grown woman, pretending to be a child, from inside a large mixing bowl. Not… quite the direction I would’ve taken it. Still, it fits with the lazy, half-hearted lip-synching, the incredibly ugly mask (did he always have those horrid buck-teeth), and the generally-poor portrayal of Minilla. In Son of Godzilla, I found him cute; here, he is anything but. And for a starring character, the barest minimum of effort is put into actually portraying him on-screen.

The character itself, while too humanized, fits well enough with the frightened, learning little kaiju from Son of Godzilla (I sure wish we would’ve seen HIS alien-induced rampage in DAM). Still, considering that Monster Island is apparently a nightmarish gauntlet of unending, lethal attacks (complemented by human invasion attempts), you’d think he’d take it a little easier on his kid for not wanting to confront the adult-sized lightning monster that is shown to be a challenge for even the adult Godzilla! (Also, Minilla’s shrinking-growing powers would actually be made canonical in a later series, which is just… bizarre.)

Since Godzilla and the majority of the monsters here appear only as stock footage, I’ll really only comment on Gabara, the one new kaiju, in this section; as a design, he just looks goofy- too childish and cartoony, better-suited to a totsokatsu show than the G-series, even as its kiddiest… but his lightning attack looks pretty cool, and the action with him is generally well-handled, including the fake-out defeat giving Godzilla at least a little something original to do in a Godzilla movie.


The film itself opens with one of the more noxious songs to ever be committed to a film soundtrack (you don’t need to scream every word, kid!), a sort of roughousing, destructive 8-year-old-boy version of ‘It’s a hard knock life,’ and I really have to credit the ambitious subtitler working on this for Classic Media, who rotates the song lyrics and a screen-full of credits with panache. They must have had either fun or extreme frustration subtitling all the nonsense noises throughout the film (‘Eeeee!’ in particular), just to let us know that these were not actual words in a foreign language, but childish gibberish-sounds.

Also, that song (about how basically the late 20th century sucks worse than having to constantly defend yourself against radioactive monsters trying to rip out your throat), contains the line ‘Megaton, smog, and exhaustion- that's the real monsters!’ which is a work of either utter genius or absolute stupidity; I haven’t yet decided which. Even if it loses something in translation, the holistic approach from world-ending threats down to the level of overworking society is either profound in how evocative three words can be, or pretentious as all get-out. Or both.

Considering the heavy amount of stock footage, it’s hard to judge the production values here; the sets look dingy and small, but they’re supposed to be- the ramshackle, run-down surroundings are not visually interesting, but they aren’t meant to be. The ‘trippy’ dream effects are cheap, the anime-like bluescreens of Ichiro and Minilla falling are awful (and Ichiro was absolutely killed by that fall, despite touching down light as a feather yet still complaining ‘Ouch!’), the plane cockpit moving itself is a nice practical effect, and the lightning Gabara uses looked great. At least a few unusual camera angles elevated otherwise-mediocre material, especially in the run-down warehouse, and there were some nice, artsy touches (like Ichiro’s slow-mo flight from Gabara) that really work. (Though others, like the still-frame bully fight, really don’t). The film is experimental, trying to wring more interest out of a stock plot with artistry, and I can appreciate that.

The music was the same forgettable jazz that we’ve been getting throughout the 60s films; for ‘Ebirah!’, it was noteworthy and somewhat memorable; by now, it’s worn out its welcome.

All told, while it is hardly an original conclusion, All Monsters Attack is terrible. It didn’t have to be; its inherent cheapness and use of stock footage are not fatal flaws. But rather than transcending those limitations, All Monsters Attack makes them look like prime selling points by comparison with an awful script. The actual actors aren’t bad; the scenes and lines they’re portraying are. The result wasn’t meant to be the thing it is, I think- but all the little touches can fix a fundamentally-flawed narrative with an existentially-horrifying ending.

In the end, only snippets of better-made films make this one watchable, and as part of a marathon, they’re too recent to even be interesting; we just watched those fights. And one can’t even say that it makes a decent compilation of disparate material to serve as a ‘greatest hits’; just pop in Ebirah, and you’ve seen most of it. Pop in Son of Godzilla, and you’ve seen the rest- unless you’re really jonesing for stock shots of less-common monsters from the opening or ending of DAM. None of which is a good enough reason to sit through even the scanty barely-over-an-hour of an annoying kid and a hopeless family to get to. It’s not even the stock footage- the clip-show nature that seems to make it an easy target and obvious choice for disparagement, that kills it. Those are the good parts. It’s the original material that’s truly awful.

I’ve been pretty hard on Rodan, Astro-Monster, and return of Godzilla as being majority-rubbish, wholly undeserving of the fandom pedestals that I perceive them on… so knowing that I consider these (or, for that matter, vs. Megaguirus and Tokyo S.O.S.) in such low regard, can this one truly be the ‘worst Godzilla movie’ that everyone claims? Well, I have to watch through another five films or so before I can really draw that kind of conclusion… but yes. Yes, it is.
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Re: Talkback Thread #10: All Monsters Attack (1969)

Post by Maritonic »

I may have to give this a rewatch. This has always been my least favorite Godzilla film, even as a kid. I think I've only ever actually sat through this movie three times in total.

I don't remember (not saying it's not accurate, simply saying my memory has failed me) this being set in "our" world; I was thought it was just a kid who liked Godzilla, kind of like the kid in Godzilla vs. Hedorah. Never occurred to me, or maybe I didn't pay enough attention, to it being a child in our world who loved the movies and that's why he daydreamt about them.

I *may* have to give this a rewatch tonight...
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Re: Talkback Thread #10: All Monsters Attack (1969)

Post by Ivo-goji »

Maritonic wrote:I was thought it was just a kid who liked Godzilla, kind of like the kid in Godzilla vs. Hedorah. Never occurred to me, or maybe I didn't pay enough attention, to it being a child in our world who loved the movies and that's why he daydreamt about them.
No, you were paying attention.

Ichiro lives in a science fiction universe where eccentric bachelors build astral projection machines and giant monsters are real.

Its the other people who weren't paying attention. Since there's literally no indication in the movie that the Kaiju are supposed to be fictional.
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Re: Talkback Thread #10: All Monsters Attack (1969)

Post by Zarm »

Ivo-goji wrote:
Maritonic wrote:I was thought it was just a kid who liked Godzilla, kind of like the kid in Godzilla vs. Hedorah. Never occurred to me, or maybe I didn't pay enough attention, to it being a child in our world who loved the movies and that's why he daydreamt about them.
No, you were paying attention.

Ichiro lives in a science fiction universe where eccentric bachelors build astral projection machines and giant monsters are real.

Its the other people who weren't paying attention. Since there's literally no indication in the movie that the Kaiju are supposed to be fictional.
There is no Astral Projection machine. The inventor creates a kid's talking computer toy. Ichiro is the one who has a 'machine' built out of junk that he daydreams can send him to Monster Island, even though when he wakes up he explicitly states he was just having a dream. (I assume this is what you mean by astral projection machine, but presumably it also vaporizes an entire plane-load of passengers if what we're seeing are literally-transpiring events? ;) )


The thing is, there's no indication whether the giant monsters in the movie are real OR fictional. The movie just doesn't say either way. The adults generally have an ignorance of the giant monsters, which either indicates a lack of knowledge about real-world events in a world with giant monsters, or a lack of familiarity with giant monster movies in a world where kaiju are fictional.

Ichiro's either dreaming about interacting with fictionalized versions of real monsters that exists in his world, or 'real' versions of the fictional monsters that only exist in movies in his world. There really isn't enough evidence to say either way (believe me, I was watching for any!). Any references are ambiguous enough that they could be interpreted either way; it all comes down to personal interpretation.

One thing that is for certain, we do not see any actual kaiju interacting with the real world outside of Ichiro's dreams at any point.
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Re: Talkback Thread #10: All Monsters Attack (1969)

Post by Ivo-goji »

Zarm wrote: The inventor creates a kid's talking computer toy.
That's not how the inventor describes it to the audience.
Zarm wrote: Ichiro is the one who has a 'machine' built out of junk that he daydreams can send him to Monster Island, even though when he wakes up he explicitly states he was just having a dream.
If Ichiro is only daydreaming, why is the inventor's device introduced in the story at all? If Ichiro is only daydreaming, why is he unconscious of anything that happens to his body while he's on Monster Island, like when the kidnappers abduct him and he only sees a plant creature attack him? Daydreams do not work like that.
Zarm wrote: The thing is, there's no indication whether the giant monsters in the movie are real OR fictional. The movie just doesn't say either way.
Yes, but this film is an entry in a series of other films where giant monsters are real. Common sense should tell us it takes place in the same setting as those other films, and nothing we see on screen contradicts this conclusion.
Zarm wrote: Ichiro's either dreaming about interacting with fictionalized versions of real monsters that exists in his world, or 'real' versions of the fictional monsters that only exist in movies in his world. There really isn't enough evidence to say either way (believe me, I was watching for any!). Any references are ambiguous enough that they could be interpreted either way; it all comes down to personal interpretation.

One thing that is for certain, we do not see any actual kaiju interacting with the real world outside of Ichiro's dreams at any point.
Yes, but this movie is a sequel to films like Godzilla vs the Sea Monster and Son of Godzilla, and builds on the relationship established between Godzilla and Minilla in the latter film. Treating this movie's versions of Godzilla and co as separate from the regular Showa incarnations interrupts their character development.
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Re: Talkback Thread #10: All Monsters Attack (1969)

Post by Zarm »

Ivo-goji wrote:
Zarm wrote: The inventor creates a kid's talking computer toy.
That's not how the inventor describes it to the audience.
Are we talking dubs or subs? Because I can't speak tot he English dub, but in the original, he is a toymaker. He shows Ichiro his new creation, a 'children's computer.' It appears to be an educational toy, as it shows a (wildly inaccurate) picture of the moon landing and talks about Apollo 11. Ichiro seems to think it's boring, and suggests the toymaker add kaiju roar sound effects to his computer.

Regardless, Ichiro then goes into his own apartment, pulls out his own 'computer' cobbled together out of bits of junk, and 'turns it on' before the first Monster Island sequence. The neighbor's invention, toy or not, is never involved or present, and has nothing to do with kaiju when it's activated.
Ivo-goji wrote:
Zarm wrote: Ichiro is the one who has a 'machine' built out of junk that he daydreams can send him to Monster Island, even though when he wakes up he explicitly states he was just having a dream.
If Ichiro is only daydreaming, why is the inventor's device introduced in the story at all? If Ichiro is only daydreaming, why is he unconscious of anything that happens to his body while he's on Monster Island, like when the kidnappers abduct him and he only sees a plant creature attack him? Daydreams do not work like that.
You're right, 'daydreaming' was the wrong term. Ichiro was dreaming, period. He was unconscious. After the first sequence, he complains 'You woke me up, I was having a great dream,' and tries to go back to sleep to resume the dream (as kids think they can). At night, when he is kidnapped, he is also asleep. And like many physical sensations in the real world, the feeling of being kidnapped is briefly translated into the dream as he is waking up, hence the plant creature attack.

Either way, the sequences on Monster Island aren't actually happening. Otherwise, there is a distinct need to explain the plane to Monster Island (not a destination with any civilization or airport or openness to the public), the disappearing passengers, Ichiro's surviving a distinctly-lethal fall... and Minilla. We'll get there in the last point.

Ivo-goji wrote:
Zarm wrote: The thing is, there's no indication whether the giant monsters in the movie are real OR fictional. The movie just doesn't say either way.
Yes, but this film is an entry in a series of other films where giant monsters are real. Common sense should tell us it takes place in the same setting as those other films, and nothing we see on screen contradicts this conclusion.
Aberrant entries are possible, therefore common sense does not mandate that conclusion. Nothing we see onscreen necessarily contradicts that conclusion (though again, the grownups ignorance of current events and Ichiro's extreme knowledge of things that civilization are largely unaware of would be strange; but there are other elements that would be similarly strange for a world in which kaiju are fictional.

I can respect reaching that conclusion, but I cannot agree that it is in any way the only conclusion, or even favored by the evidence. There is no conclusion favored by the evidence, either way, so far as I can tell. You really can take it either way.

Ivo-goji wrote:
Zarm wrote: Ichiro's either dreaming about interacting with fictionalized versions of real monsters that exists in his world, or 'real' versions of the fictional monsters that only exist in movies in his world. There really isn't enough evidence to say either way (believe me, I was watching for any!). Any references are ambiguous enough that they could be interpreted either way; it all comes down to personal interpretation.
One thing that is for certain, we do not see any actual kaiju interacting with the real world outside of Ichiro's dreams at any point.
Yes, but this movie is a sequel to films like Godzilla vs the Sea Monster and Son of Godzilla, and builds on the relationship established between Godzilla and Minilla in the latter film. Treating this movie's versions of Godzilla and co as separate from the regular Showa incarnations interrupts their character development.
But here's the thing- whether this is set in a kaiju universe or a kaiju-movies universe, we never see any actual real monsters. So there is no character development, regardless. Whether there are a real Godzilla and Minilla out there somewhere, or merely characters in a film, these monsters are solely the product of Ichiro's mind. They do nothing to further the relationships of the real kaiju.

This is not the same Minilla. He has the sudden abilities of human sentience, speaking Japanese, and shrinkage to human-size (where he chooses to spend most of his time). He learns the same lessons he already learned over again. He and Godzilla fight monsters that are already canonically deceased. These events aren't real; they're only in Ichiro's head. Thus, none of these events furthers Godzilla's character development or Minilla's character development (since this is his last film in the series, there's nothing to interrupt).

In short, it really has no bearing on past or future films whether All Monsters Attack exists in the kaiju world or a world in which kaiju are fictional, because in either case, we never see a single frame of actual kaiju- only a little boy's imaginary versions- and thus there is no impact on the real kaiju and their relationships or development at all. At best, it could be an exploration of their impact on the world around them, if one chose to ascribe to the 'this happens in a kaiju world' option.
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Re: Talkback Thread #10: All Monsters Attack (1969)

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AMA is basically a spin-off, all things considered. It has nothing to do with the Showa 'continuity', doesn't exactly add anything new world or character wise, and really doesn't focus all that much on the monsters. The film's entire point, or message, is in a totally different place.

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Re: Talkback Thread #10: All Monsters Attack (1969)

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Question, can anyone tell me what song is played on the Japanese Version menu from the Classic Media DVD of All Monsters Attack? I can't find it on YouTube.
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Re: Talkback Thread #10: All Monsters Attack (1969)

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Maritonic wrote:Question, can anyone tell me what song is played on the Japanese Version menu from the Classic Media DVD of All Monsters Attack? I can't find it on YouTube.
It's the main title music from the American version. It's on YouTube under the title "Crime Fiction" (Ervin Jereb), but the film version is a different edit.
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Re: Talkback Thread #10: All Monsters Attack (1969)

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Terasawa wrote:
Maritonic wrote:Question, can anyone tell me what song is played on the Japanese Version menu from the Classic Media DVD of All Monsters Attack? I can't find it on YouTube.
It's the main title music from the American version. It's on YouTube under the title "Crime Fiction" (Ervin Jereb), but the film version is a different edit.
Hey alright! Thank you very much!
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