Watched the entire Rebirth of Mothra Trilogy!
I can...kind of see what they mean by it was more geared towards younger audiences, but honestly, only the 2nd movie really stood out as being especially childish. The first movie was more like "This is intended for the whole family!" style fun, and the 3rd has some very dark shit in it (the villain actually tries to EAT CHILDREN. Yes, we have a literal baby eating villain here...). It does have children as prominent protagonists, especially the 2nd where the children are the only actual serious human characters, as the two adults are just comical idiots, who are the butt monkey of like every joke. The other movies had serious adult characters, which kind of made them feel more like a general audience flick.
They are a lot more playful, I'll grant, but again, that just feels more like "lets appeal to general audience!" than "lets appeal to children!" By which I mean while Godzilla movies will have some cheap melee action where people are strangling each other (I mean, these scenes aren't enough to be considered actual action scenes, just adults fighting briefly), maybe a few gun shots here and there, the Mothra Trilogy will have cartoon style silly antics like CATAPULTING ROCK!
But anyway, the movies were enjoyable enough though the 2nd one felt a bit boring, cause...yeah, like I said, that one really felt geared towards children. That, and Degarla is far less awesome than Desghidorah and the villain of movie 3.
Though, I was trying to figure just what was really different about the Mothra movies in terms of style, which allowed for such a playful atmosphere, and more focus on Monster vs. Monster rather than Monster vs. Mosnter vs. MILITARY (military always loses...it just does...)...then it hit me! The Mothra Trilogy was an attempt to throw back to the ORIGINAL Mothra movie, in terms of what it was.
See, most Kaiju have a sci-fi element in it. This is obvious in Godzilla movies where there's big particle beam cannons that don't exist in modern times being used in the 70s to futility take down the monster. Not to mention that most monsters are from Space, Radiation, Genetic Engineering or a combination of both.
Mothra? More of a fantasy feel. The monster in question is a legendary guardian monster of sorts; no alien powers, no radiation nonsense, just...mystical. It hit me when I realized most of what is going on is magical, and not sci-fi, and there were no Tanks or anything fighting the Monsters, just Moth vs. Dragons (yeah, all the villains are Dragons, for...some reason. It makes sense in Movie 1 and Movie 3, but seriously, couldn't Degarla be more interesting?) I do have to question why a MOTHRA TRILOGY didn't use Battra, the EVIL Mothra...
...then I saw movie 3's ending, Armored Mothra, and its basically Battra with a paint job. Ok, so they did use Battra's DESIGN <_<
Anyway, movies are fun enough, nice to see Mothra break away from Godzilla and do things on her own, rather than just be a second stringer in a Godzilla movie. They did give her a shit load of new powers though...we're talking about 15 different new kinds of laser beams and lightning wings here, as well as transformations...but they made fight scenes more interesting, so hey! Also, the Fairies being portrayed completely differently than usual was a nice boon; making them actual characters, and able to think separately, rather than always talking together, and basically being uniform beings that exist in two bodies and...ok, its hard to explain but just know that in most movies, the Fairies are pretty much mirrors of one another!
Making an EVIL Fairy who was basically Rita Repulsa (ie a comical villain) didn't hurt either; just added to the playful charm.
Mothra did get its ass kicked repeatedly in the movies, then turns it around and kicks some ass...granted, fight scenes in these movies were a larger focus than Godzilla movies, and took much longer, so that's to be expected. As far as the enemy monsters...
Desghidorah was pretty cool. 3 Headed Dragon that breathes Fire and Red Lightning, sucks up energy...ok, I should note that each Mothra movie clearly has an underlying moral. Moral of the first movie is clearly "SAVE THE RAIN FOREST!" type shenanigans, as it involves the monster sucking life of trees, and mothra saving the day! This movie also had a rather sad moment, odd considering we're looking at clearly fake monsters, between the Mother Mothra and its child as it drowns in the sea. ANYWAY, Desghidorah is pretty cool, though obsolete in Godzilla movies for obvious reasons.
Degarla...WHY WEREN'T YOU BATTRA!? You even resembled him at times! Seriously, you're just a lame sea dragon whose only cool aspect is SHOULDER BOMBS. Honestly subpar for a Toho monster, and considering Desghidorah was a blatant rip off another, that says something. This movie did have some mild redeeming features, that one being ANCIENT AZTEC LASER BEAMS!!! ...in Japan...from a submerged pyramid. I am not making this up.
Friend's response to that statement: Ok, now that's just historically inaccurate. Everyone knows the INCAS had the Laser Beams!
This movie's theme was "Don't pollute the waters. It creates evil Jellystarfish created by a giant monster of death." ...Toho needs to not do Anti-Pollution movies, cause they're clearly not very good at them, for all that this movie is infinitely better than Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster.
3rd Movie...well, Toho knew how to end things:
"So, we need to end Mothra on a high note, so we need a villain who could totally kick ass, and people would cheer for it, but then Mothra would one up it and look even more bad ass as a result?"
"LETS USE GODZILLA!"
"*Smacks* NO! The whole point of this series was to NOT USE GODZILLA DAMN IT!"
"Oh, right...so...uh...how about...King Ghidorah?"
"You mean Godzilla's #1 rival who has never appeared anywhere Godzilla wasn't, and is a Space Monster, thus undermining the fantasy feel with an actual sci-fi creature, but cause he's a dragon he still fits?"
"Yeah, that guy."
"...THAT'S BRILLIANT!"
Yeah, movie 3's villain isn't anyone original, its just King Ghidorah...THIS IS NOT A BAD THING THOUGH; King Ghidorah is generally good at making things better, and he doesn't disappoint. He's as awesome as always here, and yes, they made him a BABY EATING VILLAIN. So many villains only pretend to eat babies, but Ghidorah decides to prove how bad ass he is by actually attempting to eat one! Unfortunately, he gets stopped by a giant moth in the process, but hey, he ALMOST did!
Anyway, for movies that were supposedly "intended more for children", they are so much better than the old Gamera movies its not even funny. for starters, the children aren't as annoying, and they don't seem to be like 10x more intelligent than the adults (outside of the 2nd movie, where it was more played for comedy; Gamera movies would have the kid playfully say something and they'd be like "Wait, that's a great idea to stop the monster!" Thank god the 90s Gamera said "to hell with the kids; the youngest character in this series is 16 years old!"), and the movies have generally pleasing visuals. They're decent enough for what they are, I guess, and pretty much work as a contemporary to the 90s Gamera (they were made more or less along side each other...how fitting that Toho releases its own Guardian Monster movie trilogy alongside Daiei or whatever company makes Gamera...this might be coincidental but I found it amusing that the two are similar, though Gamera's trilogy was clearly a lot more similar to Godzilla in style, which was a GOOD thing in that case. Mothra was more an attempt to try something new for Toho, going back to Mothra's original purpose.)
So uh, yeah, I guess onto the 2 Millenium Mechagodzilla movies! Mostly cause Megaguirus inspires so much apathy; if I want to see Godzilla fight giant bugs, I'll watch one of the movies where he fights Mothra <_<
