Mothra

Okay – I fell asleep watching this last night but I have seen it before I was just trying to make sure my memories were correct. Now I don’t care.

Anyway – the film opens as many Toho Monster (or Kaiju egi – which means giant monster, well duh) films do with a storm. In monster movies it is very dangerous to travel or live in cites. A ship runs around on an island were there were atomic tests. One character seems somewhat worried about that. My feeling was, you know, we’re run aground; we’re stuck in the middle of a typhoon. If we manage to get out of this alive, then and only then will I worry about atomic radiation’s effect on my long term health. First things first people.

Several members of the crew are rescued and turn out to have no symptoms of radiation sickness or any sign of exposure to harmful levels of radiation. A rather pudgy reporter manages to infiltrate the scientists gathering (he’s nicknamed Bulldog and will be in the rest of the film) and while he’s interviewing the survivors discovers that they were given a drink by the natives of the island.

That there are natives on this island comes as a great surprise to everybody including the Rolissicans – a country to the east of Japan who speak English and are mostly Caucasian (Cough – America – cough) who dropped the bomb on the island in the first place. (They couldn’t come right out and say America in 1961 so they invented Rolisica) so the Rolisica and Japan send an expedition to the island (called Beiru) to explore. They find the remnants of the natives of the island along with a small patch of jungle including man-eating plants – and as a side note how the hell do man eating plants get to be man eating plants – the Venus flytrap grows in very poor soil where it needs the insects it eats to continue living. It eats flies cause well – there are a lot of flies about. Where the heck are there going to be enough people about for a plant – a big plant mind you – to get around to eating people. Not in a jungle – to enough people and really not enough large animals – you get the big fellows (herbivores and predators) out in the bush country – not a tropical island. Hell species get smaller when they are trapped on islands (need to eat less) like the pigmy elephant and the recently discovered small human like folks who lived on some south sea islands until about 12,000 years ago (they are called hobbits). No not enough targets there. In a city yes – so keep your eyes out there, but not in a jungle. End Side note.

Anyway the Lead Scientist (LS) is trapped by said man eating plant and in the process is rescued by two small (1 ft tall) women that are called either the girls or fairies.

The evil Clark Nelson (you can tell he’s evil he has two last names – no so did Clark Kent well never mind) grabs one of the little ladies and tries to get the other, as this happened the natives come out of the woodwork banging stones. Nelson wants to keep the girls and shoot the natives but the Bulldog Reporter (BR) and LS and the rest stop him.

But all is for naught – sometime after the expedition leaves the island (vowing not to talk about the girls) Nelson with an all Rolissican crew come back to the island and take the girls, shooting a not unimpressive number of natives who try and stop them by banging rocks together. Guys, the next time a) at least take spears and b) if you are being shot at duck or something. It pisses me off to see folks who supposedly survived an explosion of an H-bomb on the island get killed because they are acting dumb.

Nelson then, because it is a Japanese movie, sets up shop in Japan and exhibits the Girls – the show is in a huge hall with a huge stage and lots of dancers and the two 1 ft tall women (played by twin sisters who were better known singers they were called the peanuts) stand on some kind of tree trunk in the middle of the stage and sing. .

You see the problem here. You paid good money you’re in the back you can’t see jack. It reminded me of Steve Martin who when he played a sold out Nassau Coliseum and performed his “magic dime trick” for the people in the back.

Still the show is a huge hit. I’m not sure why – even if you like doll like Asian women, 1 foot tall is a bit small yes? Well maybe not – I’m not going there.

Anyway they sing the Mothra song (which was a hit in Japan for real – which frightens me deeply for some reason – maybe it confirms that the Japanese are far crazier than we can ever understand) it was written in Malay to make it sound more exotic to Japanese audiences

This is the song (Phonetically rendered Malay)

Mosu-lah, ya, Mosu-lah!
Dongeng kasad ku yang
Ing doa mu.
Rut tok wira doa
Hamba-hamba, mu ya.
Randa, bangun, radang
Tong yu, kang-lah!
Kasad ku yang.


English Translation:

Mothra, yes, Mothra!
I wish to chant to your divinity
A prayer for you.
Heroic, wonder-working deity, endure the prayer
Of your servants, yes.
Go about, rise up, become angry
At this barrel of sharks, Kang-lah!
I wish this of your divinity.

Bloody things an ear worm that will not go away once you hear it – turning you brain into mush pudding. Oddly enough it’s not on my space – maybe they wouldn’t allow it. Trying to keep people sane. If we ever get big - it might be our “show’s over tape” which would have the added bonus of driving people out of the theater once the show was over.

Back on the island the natives are praying to a rock and then when the rock shatters to an huge egg that hatches the larval form of Mothra (she and she is a she) is a big like huge like 10 story tall don’t know how long caterpillar.

We next see Mothra swimming towards Japan, in the process, ramming a ship amidships and sending it to the bottom. One assumes the captain was drunk or the lookouts were blind

“Captain, off the starboard bow”
“What”
“Something huge and headed this way.”
“Well never mind then.”

Meantime the BR, LS and Female lead (FL) and the ever present annoying kid (AK) (god even as a kid I hated these kids – why do they keep sticking them in these films – hell there was one in Godzilla: Final Wars (not a lot but he was there) End side note) find the fairies and discover they can talk to them. They speak at the same time with a weird close harmony. The group wants to rescue them but they can’t right now. The fairies are not worried about themselves; they are worried about everybody else.

And no matter how many times the girls explain it to the lunk heads – they don’t get it. The fairies are not in danger - a caterpillar the size of an aircraft carrier is heading to Japan to rescue them. It’s everybody else that is just fucked as Mothra comes ashore smashed damns and cities as it heads to Tokyo. There is some other tooing and frowing but mostly we are just watching Mothra destroy shit.

And then Tokyo tower (which has been destroyed about 36 times in these films) is toppled over by mothra who then spins a cocoon. The army decides to take this chance to bring up their super weapon.

Nelson meantime, with the fairies in a box that cuts off the telepathic waves that link them to Mothra, escapes to Rolissica (I don’t know the spelling nobody knows the damn spelling okay?).

The army brings in their super weapon which doesn’t work. This is the essential difference between Japanese and American Monster movies – The super weapon works in the US films all the time and every time (right up to ID4 – thank god the aliens didn’t use apple that’s all I can say there) in Japan, not so much, yeah in the first Godzilla and couple of times later, but most of the time the damn things a total bust. Like here.

As the smoke clears Mothra – now a huge moth – emerges from its cocoon and takes off. But where?

I’ll tell you - Nelson – hiding out in his ranch and hearing the initial reports that Mothra has been killed – opens the box and lets the fairies sing out taunting them that Mothra is dead. So Mothra knows where they are. You’d think that you’d at least wait until the story has been confirmed before doing his taunting but he’s a Rolissian and they aren’t that bright. Greedy yes, but not bright.

So Mothra comes to Rolissica’s capital city with looks a lot like San Francisco to tell the truth and wrecks it. Then Nelson (who has fled the ranch) is discovered and killed allowing the BR, FL, AK, and the LS to figure out a way to get Mothra to land at the air port and take the fairies home. It’s a happy ending – except of course for the thousands of dead and wounded the two wrecked cities and the rapidly liquefying brains of anybody who has heard the Mothra song. Other than that, it’s all good.

Couple things occur to me just now – if the fairies could commutate with mothra couldn’t they just tell him to wait a bit? Or did mothra only know their position?

Did the mothra cocoon have an effect on silk futures – that thing was huge.

More later
Peace love – silk