When I first heard of an "ULTIMATE" Godzilla box set - from SONY, no less! - I did my Jig of Joy and ran out to the nearest supermarket to buy soda pops, popcorn and lotsa butter. At last, a DVD collection worth having! Just like Columbia did with the old Jackie Chan catalog from Simitar, we would have restored & unadulterated Godzilla fare from the Showa period, uncut, untampered and full of extras! At last I could upgrade my old, out-of-print Simitar box set! Wheee! Happy happy happy, joy joy joy, and all that implies.

Then I saw the specs of the "new" set. All titles... in full-fucking-frame! The image quality is decent (not restored), but why not keep the original scope, like the Simitar releases? Trailers? Ferget it, sonny. Extras? Nussin´ but an ad for Atari Game Cube´s "Destroy All Monsters Melee", where Godzilla and ten other titans fight like Bruce Lee and Neo. Untampered? Try "with the same lame dubbing of yore, and lotsa minutes chopped". Ultimate? Ultimate my ass, chum!

Oh well, enough with the bitchin´, let´s get down to business and give you the lowdown of the flicks.

GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS (1954)
Yep, the one that started it all - but not "the original black and white classic starring Raymond Burr" as the back cover states, cuz the REAL Godzilla runs two minutes longer, is Perry-Masonless, and generally better. On the plus side, even the tampered version remains powerful from the very first frame, with an opening shot of Tokyo in shambles more impressive than Irwin Allen´s catastrophe flicks from the 70´s. In fact, one entering the theater without reading the opening credits could easily mistake this for a serious drama about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - at least until the part where ´Zilla makes his very first appearance as a glorious... glove puppet! The original Gojira plays more like a mystery than a monster movie. It starts in the vein of Disney´s 20.000 Leagues Under the Sea, with Japanese merchant ships in the Pacific being decimated by a weird radioactive glow from beneath the water. The only survivors soon die of radiation poisoning the culprit, of course, is a 50-meter tall dinosaur christened "Gojira" by the superstitious citizens from Odo Island. It´s up to a scientist named Dr. Serizawa to snuff the beast with his recently discovered Oxygen Destroyer - a weapon so dangerous, that the pacifist Serizawa will only use as a last resort and at a great cost. Caveat emptor: this is NOT the usual monster mash associated with Godzilla movies. Nope. This is a very serious sci-fi movie, produced by a country still scarred from the atomic bombing that happened only nine years earlier. The images of destruction are creepy and powerful because they show the effects of Big G not only on model buildings, but on the people as well. All this carnage is narrated by the journalist Steve Martin (Burr, in scenes shot by Terry Morse for the American version), and even if some people may hate the Americanization version, it gives a cool international tone for the disaster (during a scene in a press room, you can hear some journalists broadcasting the G-Menace in several languages, including, to my surprise, a perfect Brazilian Portuguese!).

RODAN (1956)
Although not directly related with the Godzilla franchise at the time (he would only meet the Big G in 1964´s Ghidrah, the Three-Headed Monster), Rodan is historical by two reasons: it was the first color kaiju eiga produced by Toho Studios, and the character became the blueprint for Mothra (who debuted in 1961 on a solo movie and THEN was incorporated into Godzilla´s lore). Ignore the shots of atomic bombings that kickstart the movie, spliced there by the American distributor to force connections with the Big G´s radioactive origins. In fact, Rodan´s "birth" owes more to The Lord of the Ring´s Balrog: when greedy miners dig too far and too deep, they unearth... a bunch of man-eating caterpillars! Of course, they're only there to serve as food for a bigger monster - in this case, a prehistoric pterodactyl that can fly at sonic speeds and cause hurricanes with his mighty wings. Oh, and he also has a MATE! The movie is excellent, creepy, explores ecological themes that would be later re-used in the Mothra franchise, and ends on an ironic note showing us that monsters aren´t that bad. But do yourself a favor and try to get the Japanese version, with an extra 8 minutes.

GODZILLA VS. MOTHRA (1964)
This one is more or less of a remake of the original Mothra, with Godzilla put in to add more, uh, "stomp". The movie starts with a giant egg appearing on the shores of Japan. A greedy businessman promptly purchases the egg to build a theme park around it and make lotsa money. Problem is, said egg belongs to the giant moth that rules Infant Island. At first, two pint-sized singing girls try to retrieve the egg with the help of a reporter, a photographer and a scientist. They fail, so Mothra herself decides to pay a visit to the Egg Theme Park. Problem is Godzilla also appears - and he wants an egg salad! Of all the Godzilla sequels, this is touted as one of the best, and with good reason: the story is cool, Mothra´s first appearance is iconic, and this may be one of the first (and only) Godzilla movies that´s actually LONGER in the American version - namely, during all the mentions of the Frontier Missile, in scenes shot at request of AIP to give it an international feel.

GODZILLA´S REVENGE (1969)
Oy vey, this one IS silly. It´s Godzilla in the way of Sid and Marty "H.R. Puff´n´Stuff" Kroft, and one of the lamest entries of the Showa period. But, somehow, children love it - mainly because it puts together an ungodly amount of monsters in stock footage (Ebirah, Gabara, Anguirus, Gorosaurus, Kamacuras, Kumonga and even Manda!), a kid named Ichiro, AND a friendly monster who resembles a talidomide version of Baby Sinclair from the Dinosaurs TV series. It´s Minya (or Minilla), ´Zilla´s son, and guess what… he TALKS! While Ishiro has troubles with his schoolmates (maybe for basically being a sissy who talks about Monster Island all the time, instead of giving some love to the cute girl who´s obviously smitten with him), Minilla is also being bullied by Gabarah - kind of a scaly version of Nelson Muntz. With the help of Godzilla, Ishiro and Minilla overcome their fears. Minilla kicks Gabarah´s tail, and Ishiro… uh… he single-handedly defeats two stupid bank robbers who act like Abbot and Costello after a lobotomy. Hey, I SAID this one was silly, didn´t I?

TERROR OF MECHAGODZILLA (1975)
And then there´s the classic Terror of Mechagodzilla - a.k.a. the one with the most convoluted plot ever (second only to the time-travel hijinks of 1998´s Godzilla Vs. King Ghidorah). This one mixes a mad professor embittered with humanity, his cyborg daughter (you can tell she´s a robot cause she never blinks - and you thought Spielberg was smart in A.I., eh?), space invaders who dress like Esper and wants to rule the world with the help of a meanie called Titanosaurus, and, of course, the robotic title character. The American version chops off four minutes of plot that explains a major character's sacrifice, but hey, by then we should already be used to that! But at least there's lots of exciting fight scenes, and it's a fitting end to the Showa period.

Now let's sit and wait for a REAL Ultimate Collection of our favorite giant lizard, cause this one is just a false alarm.

Note: Each title in the set is available individually except for the Rodan disc. Rodan is exclusive to this Box Set and this marks the films first appearance on DVD as well.