Destroy all Monsters (1968)
Production: Toho Co. Ltd.
Director: Ishiro Honda
Some images come from Godzilla Stomp (check them out!)
By Scikaiju

Introduction

Before GMK came along this was considered to be the ultimate monster jam, featuring an unprecedented eleven monsters, from Godzilla to Varan. This is one of the few movies that actually makes me feel like a little kid when it's on. For me Destroy All Monsters is one of those films, where even though you love it, you don't watch it that often because you don't want to ruin the magic.

The Story

It is the year 1999. The United Nations Scientific Committee has created a base on the moon and the spaceship Moonlight SY-3 to travel there and back. Meanwhile the monsters of the world are confined to a group of islands called Monster Land where they can be studied. Everything is normal until a mysterious gas knocks out every human and monster on the island. Television feeds at the UNSC show that the island is in ruins. Later the monsters start attacking the major cities of the world

The SY-3 is sent to the main island to investigate and it finds the scientists there are controlling the monsters using techhnology from an alien race called the Kilaaks. Their goal is to create a new culture based on scientific research lead by them, but in order to do that a few million earthling have to die. Naturally the captain disagrees and after a brief struggle and shoot out the crew of the SY-3 manages to escape with the head scientist. While being questioned he jumps out the window, committing suicide. Ateam from Monster Land, led by the captain's sister, tries to recover the body but is driven off by the UNSC security. During an autopsy of the dead scientists' body a device is discovered behind the dead man's ear, which is determined to be miniature transmitter.

The SY-3 is sent to locate signals from similar devices. Several are found and it's then theorized that this is how they are controlling the monsters. A plan is devised to use the devices to locate the Kilaak base. Before this can be done though, the monsters attack Tokyo and decimate the city. Afterwords the UNSC sets up a temporary base and the captain's sister reappears to deliver the Kilaaks demands. The captain rips her earrings off realizing that they are transmitters, after which she returns to normal and plans are made to send forces to the estimated location of the Kilaak's base. A couple of attempts are made but the forces are driven off by the monsters. The Scientist returns to Monster Land to study the transmitters and discover the base on the moon.

The SY-3 then goes to the moon to deal with the Kilaaks and end their control of the monsters. They discover the base and blast their way in. There the crew discovers the Kilaaks turn to metal like slugs when in cold temperatures. They deactivate the control device and head back to earth. While plans are finalized to take the fight to the Kilaaks Godzilla reappears in Tokyo. The scientists at Monster Land reveal that they created their own device and are now controlling the monsters.

Godzilla and the rest of the monsters are ordered to Mt. Fuji to fight and then the Kilaaks reveal their trump card, King Ghidorah. After a long struggle the monsters defeat Ghidorah and uncover the Kilaaks base. Another monster called the Fire Dragon is summoned which takes out the human Control device. Godzilla , realizing the Kilaaks are the enemy, stomps into the base and the SY-3 goes after the Dragon. A freeze missile reveals that the Dragon is just a flying saucer and they shoot it down. The monster are returned to Monster land and things return to normal.

Review

Directed and co-written by Godzilla legend Ishiro Honda, Destroy All Monsters is the kaiju equivalent of the all star movie. Just about every monster in the TOHO invetory is used in this one. Godzilla, Larva Mothra, Rodan, Kind Ghidorah, Angirus, Minya, Baragon, Varan, Manda, Gorosarus and Kumonga all make an appearance. All in original footage with hardly any stock footage used, although to be honest there are a couple scenes with Kumonga and Ghidorah that I think are stock footage.

One of the highlights of this film is seeing the monsters attack other cities. Godzilla is in New York, Rodan is in Moscow, Gorosarus (even though he's identified as Baragon) is in Paris. We also see Mothra crash into a train in Beijing.

The Kilaaks that are seen are female, the only males appear to be the captured humans. They wear this white/silver jumpsuit with a poncho (I guess you can call it that) that covers their head. The leader wears a sequenced version of the suit. An interesting twist is that they turn into metal slugs when the temperature drops. So they need high temperature area, like hot springs or a volcanic region, to live. Although the concept of aliens controlling monsters to enslave mankind isn't exactly new. It was used before in Monster Zero.

The miniature work in this one was excellent. The replica of the L'Arc de Triumph is very realistic. The UFO design is different than the ones used in Monster Zero which is good. I mean you don't want people to think every alien shops at spaceships r us. Then we have the SY-3, the supership for the movie. In a small way the prototype to the Super X ships of the Heisei series. It is capable of traveling to the moon and back thanks to its removable booster. It can also fly in Earth's atmosphere thanks to a pair of fold out wings. There's also a ground car the crew can drive around in. There are even a miniatures of Godzilla and a couple of other monster used in certain shots. What I like most are the shots of the actors imposed over, or in case of the SY-3, in the miniature shots. It's pretty obvious but everything is to scale so it's forgivable.

A few notes (alright nitpicks) about Destroy All Monsters. One is Monster Land. While you can see they inhabit one main island, Ogosawara Island to be exact, you can see it's a group of islands. In later movies it turns into one island called Monster Island. A nice little touch is that the monsters are kept on the island by scientific means.

This is also one of the bloodier G movies I have ever scene. When people get shot you see blood and when the captain pulls off the earing off his sister you see blood dripping from her ear and down her hand. Then there's the big monster fight at the end.

While eleven monster do show up, not all of them fight. Three of them including, Baragon, Varan and Manda, don't do anything. Mothra and Kumonga only spray their web at Ghidorah while the others do the majority of the fighting. Then Minya, MINYA of all Kaiju, looks like he gets the finishing blow on Ghidorah. I like to add that I can see why they used Larva Mothra for this one. You have at least four Monster with moving tails, a Rodan flying around and Ghidorah with two moving tails and three heads. Adding another flying Kaiju could have been a nightmare.

Conclusion

Destroy All Monsters is a must if your 're a fan of the older Kaiju movies. Yeah it has some flaws, but they can be overlooked. So pop some popcorn, turn off the lights, unhook the phone and put up the "beware of kaiju" sign. Then sit back and enjoy.

Scikaiju