We've reached the halfway point of the countdown, featuring 1992's Godzilla vs Mothra, a very colorful remake of 1964's Mothra vs Godzilla, with the introduction of Battra as Mothra's nemesis counterpart, who both join forces to combat the King of the Monsters. This movie is great in all regards even though the plot is almost the exact same idea as Mothra vs Godzilla. An exploratory adventure to infant island allows 3 explorers to discover Mothra's egg, which a business man in Japan purchases as an attraction for his company. As the egg is being transported back, Godzilla intercepts it, and attempts to destroy it. The explorers, one an Indiana Jones lookalike, the other a ruthless entrepreneur, fight over the fate of the egg, with Indy winning. He detaches the egg from the ship as it hatches. Larval Mothra then attempts to battle the monstrous Godzilla, who knocks her around quite easily. However, Battra arrives, in her towering larval stage, almost as big as Godzilla, and takes the King of the Monsters to the bottom of the ocean for a seafloor battle, where their combined powers rupture the Philippine plate and they are swallowed alive into a lava chasm. It is assumed they are dead. Mothra heads towards Japan in search of her fairy twin goddesses, who have been captured by the business men as their new attraction now that the egg is destroyed. Mothra destroys Tokyo before finding the fairies, and then cocoons herself to the capitol building of Tokyo, the Diet Building, to morph into her final adult form as the Mothra we so dearly love as an iconic Toho figure. Suddenly, the lava pressure in nearby Mt.Fuji sky rockets, and a massive eruption is triggered. Godzilla steps forth from the lava and destruction, his invincible form now realized as the Japanese forces look on in awe and terror. It's one of the more badass moments in the Heisei era, to realize and see Godzilla's brilliance as he crawls out of a massive eruption. He was inside the lava tube and crawled to Japan that way for thousands of miles, and one character puts it best as he observes the King of the Monsters march down the slopes towards Tokyo saying, "This is beyond our present knowledge or understanding." It gives me chills. Meanwhile, Battra arises out of the sea and morphs into her final winged form. She flies to Tokyo to combat Mothra in an aerial battle, but Godzilla interrupts them and the two enemies decide to join forces to stop Godzilla's rampage. Battra and Mothra buffet Godzilla with wing blasts, shoot him with energy beams, drop a monstrous sky scraper on Godzilla's neck, hit him with a 200 foot tall ferris wheel, and cover him in dust energy, yet Godzilla keeps coming back for more. Once the two flying insects knock him down using their dust particle attacks, they carry him out to sea together, but Godzilla bites Battra and uses his atomic ray to kill her in mid air, and Mothra drops the two beasts into the deep ocean. She then flies into outer space to finish Battra's ultimate mission of saving the Earth from a coming Asteroid. The plot of this film falls off sharply once the Monsters begin battling in Tokyo, and all the characters soon become onlookers, which is a battle for any monster movie, in getting the human characters to do more than witness the monsters for the audience, so this is forgivable in a sense although it is noticeable. The special effects are fantastic and really believable, especially since Mothra can actually use her wings to fly at times. Godzilla's Mt. Fuji eruption arrival is one of my favorite scenes ever, and the final battle is very cool despite the fragility of the Moths in the wake of Godzilla's power constantly being a factor. Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth has strong themes of environmental awareness and the fault of human greed, and clearly it is a film that promotes the health of the entire globe. It is a rock solid Godzilla movie that everyone should see.
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| Godzilla battles Battra before they are swallowed by an underwater volcanic eruption. |
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| Mothra and Battra work together to carry Godzilla away from Japan. |
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