Most pointless plot devices in the Showa Series

[LegendZilla]

Coming off of a particular thread from the Heisei section, I've decided to start one of my own revolving around the same idea, only this time for the Showa era. What plot devices do you think were the most pointless and poorly executed back in the oh-so perfect and flawless glory days of Toho?

[GojiDog]

One that instantly jumped out at me was the King Caesar statue from Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla.

I mean, it fulfilled its purpose and all that. They woke up the guardian monster.

The problem is that once he awakens, Caesar is kind of useless, lol. I feel like Godzilla could/would have won the fight without him.

[Spuro]

I came here to say King Caeser, but I've been beaten to the punch.

How about the Fire Dragon from Destroy All Monsters? It adds literally nothing to the movie and unnecessarily drags out the otherwise exciting climax.

[edgaguirus]

Agreed about the fire dragon. All it does is give our heroes a chance to show off at the end.

[GojiDog]

Agreed on The Fire Dragon! To me, once King Ghidorah gets stomped into oblivion and the alien base destroyed, why have an underwhelming climax tacked on after that? Everything should be wrapped up by that point no?

[LSD Jellyfish]

I often forget the Fire Dragon is even a thing. It’s strange how it briefly attacks Rodan, and destroys a bunch of buildings, before the Moonlight Sy3 attacks. It feels like something that should’ve come before Ghidorah, not after. It’s not a bad idea, just random.

King Ceaser isn’t entirely useless. He puts up a decent fight against MG, and does get some big damage in with Godzilla at the end. It’s just not the type of thing that needed that much build up.

[HedorahIsBestGirl]

The Fire Dragon is easily the most pointless plot device in the Showa Godzilla series, as mentioned above. But if kaiju themselves can be counted as plot devices, I can think of five right off the bat:
1) Maguma - shows up for two minutes to pad out the runtime of the film, gets killed easily and forgotten.
2) Manda - gets built up as the supposed "God Protector of Mu", finally gets unleashed on Gotengo and then gets turned into an ice cube without even putting up a real fight.
3) Giant Condor - shows up out of nowhere, attacks Godzilla, gets deep fried in 30 seconds, never mentioned again.
4) Giant Sea Snake - attacks Kong, gets thrashed without fighting back, the end. Especially pointless after the much better Gorosaurus fight that preceded it by all of two minutes.
5) Griffon - literally just sits there until the very end, attacks the Black Shark, dies in a random rock slide.

[godjacob]

King Caesar isn't the most pointless, but given the amount of freakin anticipation & focus his statue sub plot got vs. his actual contributions when he is awakened it feels like the most taxing one. All of that build up and he amounts to at best tokens support for Godzilla against Mechagodzilla who easily could have won that fight on his own with his magnet powers.

Other stuff, Maguma, Giant Sea Serpent, Fire Dragon etc...are introduced and fall off pretty much just as quickly as they came. So it doesn't weigh the film down as much for me.

Personally a plot element I always felt was pointless was the aliens pretending to be nice in Invasion of the Astro Monster. They already knew where Godzilla & Rodan where, already had the means to get them and already had Ghidorah under their control. The whole ruse of pretending they were attacked by Ghidorah seems pointless given they could have just gotten the Kaiju and attacked the Earth which they did anyway.

[LSD Jellyfish]

King Caesar isn't the most pointless, but given the amount of freakin anticipation & focus his statue sub plot got vs. his actual contributions when he is awakened it feels like the most taxing one. All of that build up and he amounts to at best tokens support for Godzilla against Mechagodzilla who easily could have won that fight on his own with his magnet powers.

Other stuff, Maguma, Giant Sea Serpent, Fire Dragon etc...are introduced and fall off pretty much just as quickly as they came. So it doesn't weigh the film down as much for me.

With the Giant Sea Snake, it's just supposed to be something to add tension and make the Island Kong was on more interesting. It's the same with the giant octopus and the giant condor. They aren't meant to be serious foes, just something to provide tension and fodder for Kong to beat up.

Maguma Is different because it is just there to include a monster in the story.

[godjacob]

King Caesar isn't the most pointless, but given the amount of freakin anticipation & focus his statue sub plot got vs. his actual contributions when he is awakened it feels like the most taxing one. All of that build up and he amounts to at best tokens support for Godzilla against Mechagodzilla who easily could have won that fight on his own with his magnet powers.

Other stuff, Maguma, Giant Sea Serpent, Fire Dragon etc...are introduced and fall off pretty much just as quickly as they came. So it doesn't weigh the film down as much for me.

With the Giant Sea Snake, it's just supposed to be something to add tension and make the Island Kong was on more interesting. It's the same with the giant octopus and the giant condor. They aren't meant to be serious foes, just something to provide tension and fodder for Kong to beat up.

Maguma Is different because it is just there to include a monster in the story.

See out of all of these the only one I could see is the Giant Octopus. I didn't include it cause I felt it did have a solid role as not only adding tension to Faro Island but providing a sample foe for Kong to beat up to establish him before he faces Godzilla. The Giant Octopus being shown threatening the mother & child native and tussling with the locals/commercial boys works well for that.

Giant Sea Snake never got a chance to threaten the crew before Kong bopped it with a rock first and Gorosaurus already had the role of being the threat and means to establish Kong's strength, Giant Condor (Who fought Godzilla not Kong) attacked the Kaiju not any of the humans and that skirmish lasted like 30 seconds before he was turned to roasted bird. Not really much time to establish tension there.

[edgaguirus]

The condor doesn't do much to help the plot or make Godzilla look tough.

I suppose the Xiliens put on their ruse because of arrogance, not wanting to destroy cities they could use, or both. They felt that their display of superior abilities would intimidate humanity. And why destroy and rebuild when you can come on in and just take possession of the buildings and houses there? It would be a big time saver.

[godjacob]

The condor doesn't do much to help the plot or make Godzilla look tough.

I suppose the Xiliens put on their ruse because of arrogance, not wanting to destroy cities they could use, or both. They felt that their display of superior abilities would intimidate humanity. And why destroy and rebuild when you can come on in and just take possession of the buildings and houses there? It would be a big time saver.

You could accomplish the same thing by using the Kaiju as a threat against humanity rather than pretend to be their friend pointlessly; which they ended up doing anyway before unleashing the monsters.

[LSD Jellyfish]

The condor doesn't do much to help the plot or make Godzilla look tough

It’s most likely a remnant of when the film was a Kong movie. And it’s not just to make Godzilla look tough, but also show that Godzilla will save the cast and is a solution to everyone’s problems. When it originally appears it looks like it’s going to attack Daiyo. It’s a reference to all the birdlike creatures that attacked Kong on skull island.

[Terasawa]

King Caesar is basically a MacGuffin but I wouldn't say it's "poorly executed" since it achieved its purpose of bringing all the characters together for the climax.

Edit: It's not even pointless. You might be dissatisfied with the monster's eventual role in the film, but you couldn't have that film, as shot and released, without the Caesar statue. It's that crucial to the structure of the finished film.

[shadowgigan]

Never found anything pointless. Not sure what you mean by that.

[Tyrant_Lizard_King]

5) Griffon - literally just sits there until the very end, attacks the Black Shark, dies in a random rock slide.

Eh I don't really agree on that. The Griffon is a major part of Kroiga's character arc. Completely loyal to Malick, betrayed and turned into a monster, and in the end saves the day by basically sacrificing her life to end his.

[TitanoGoji16]

Agreed on The Fire Dragon! To me, once King Ghidorah gets stomped into oblivion and the alien base destroyed, why have an underwhelming climax tacked on after that? Everything should be wrapped up by that point no?

It's made even worse and more obvious by that brief moment of Godzilla, Minya, Anguirus, and Gorosaurus standing there, looking around like "...Now what?" and doing nothing.