Godzilla vs. Hedorah - A Messy One

So, I said in the title as a joke that this is a messy one, because Hedorah is a messy monster. As for the movie itself, see, that's trickier. Godzilla vs. Hedorah is one of the absolute strangest movies in the series in just about every category. Held within this one movie we see one of the absolute zaniest moments of Godzilla's 65 year career as a film icon, one of the weirdest opponents he's ever battled with, strange editing, and just in general a movie that is just incredibly odd in every department. The most important question about Godzilla vs. Hedorah however is a very simple one: does it work? Is it a good Godzilla movie? Yet again, the answer we're going to get is a strange one. Because on one hand it is one of my favorite movies starring the King, but on the other hand, well, it's just a messy one.

Humanity has been polluting the Earth too much, and a monster from Outer Space in the dark nebula of the Orion Belt thrives off of this: Hedorah. Ever evolving, changing shape and causing tons of damage, only Godzilla can stop the monster, save the country, and maybe even the world.

So, one department that I really enjoy about this movie is its different commentary. We've gotten a lot of commentary on nukes and their devastating power throughout the series. Every movie seemed to talk about them it seemed. Godzilla, the Mysterians, Atragon, even Frankenstein vs. Baragon had some nuclear commentary in there. And there isn't anything wrong with that, not one bit. It's an important topic and with us in an era where it is so prevalent, it deserves all the discussion and recognition that it can, and does, get. But when you hear the same commentary over and over, eventually you start to become numb to it. So, while the point of "Be good to our planet" with the discussion and commentary on pollution isn't exactly new, talking about straight up pollution and the poisoning of the Earth is, and I think the movie handles this pretty well. We get to see a lot of devastation and destruction in the movie because of just how dangerous Hedorah is, killing a lot of people on screen just from flying above them, having its emissions destroy buildings and even reducing people to skeletons. Honestly, it can get really disturbing, but it's good to see so much of this tackled in the movie.

Now, how about Hedorah itself? This jerk is mean. Godzilla's had a lot of tough competitors and he's gonna have many more in the upcoming future, but I think Hedorah might be up there in the top three meanest opponents he's ever faced, and probably ever will face. Before their final battle, we see how much damage Hedorah can do, and we get a lot of science lessons on what exactly he is. He's a weird alien, thriving on pollution and is shown in basically cartoons eating up factories and drinking whale blood, and he just sits on smoke stacks absorbing all that lovely CO2. I don't think an exact explanation is given as to WHY he thrives on the pollution so much outside of the simple fact he does, and so, that's about all I got. But he can really get under your skin. From seeing him destroy buildings without basically any effort, reducing humans to bones, DUMPING HIMSELF ON A CAT and even making Godzilla almost pass out in their first battle, he's an evil monster, and clearly only sees humanity as a means to an end. And he only gets worse from there. My main highlight of Hedorah is that in their final battle, he throws Godzilla in a pit and just dumps his acid all over him. Godzilla just flails around helplessly, and it's actually kinda hard to watch. Only made worse when Hedorah starts laughing at Godzilla, taunting him and how helpless he really is in that moment. He does a lot of damage to Godzilla from there, burning one of Godzilla's eyes so badly he basically loses his eye, and eventually, he even reduces Godzilla's left hand to bone. He just kicks the crap out of him, and he's an absolute jerk and a really solid monster antagonist for the film. He's really hard to stop too. Basically if any cell of him continues to exist, it can potentially keep growing and just form another Hedorah. So when the final battle goes on and Godzilla has to kill him, he has to tear him apart. And tear him apart he does. Godzilla just tears into him, ripping out any part of Hedorah's body that has any moisture left. It's satisfying to watch him get the crap kicked out of him so thoroughly considering how bad we see him thrash Godzilla. He really is a pretty solid antagonist for the movie, which I think helps with the save the Earth message, because when a monster this evil is killing Godzilla, then imagine what it can do to us and the rest of the world!

One thing to note about the movie is just how freakishly weird it is. I mean, of course it's weird when you're dealing with a monster basically made purely out of pollution, but it doesn't even come close to stopping there. Honestly, if that was where it stopped, I would recommend this movie a lot faster. Check out this scene for example. It's just a little too trippy for my tastes with what feels like a drug hallucination just hanging over this scene like it thinks that's its job. The whole movie is plagued by really odd choices like this however. Godzilla's first appearance is set to the weirdest sounding "interpretation" of his theme EVER. And then when he physically shows up ('cause the first time he appears it's as like a dream or something), he appears as like this big black smudge in the sky made only clear by being filled in black. And it just keeps getting weirder. Honestly I'm not fully convinced I'm not high on Hedorah fumes myself, 'cause I think I might actually be hallucinating most of the stuff that happens in the movie. What I know for a fact I'm not hallucinating since everyone has seen it and it MUST be seen to be believed, let's talk about the greatest thing this movie has brought to the series: ladies and gentlemen, that's right. GODZILLA IS FLYING. Please forgive the link, it was honestly the only full clip of the scene I could find online and unedited. Regardless, watch the scene. Remember a few weeks ago when I was talking about how scary Godzilla is and how the first film is about nuclear devestation and about how we're not being good to our planet? Yeah. Here's where we are now. Thank you, Toho, truly.

I honestly feel like I can't really fully talk about Godzilla in this one. Honestly, this has got to be one of the weirdest appearances of the character to date. For his character and a film, it's just baffling that any of this actually was filmed, directed and released into theaters. Like, Godzilla! What did they do to you, man?! I can definitely say the suit used in this movie named Soshingekigoji is one of my favorites in the whole series. Of course we've seen it before with it appearing in Destroy All Monsters and Godzilla's Revenge, but I felt like it'd be best to mention it here. It's a really solid design of the character, especially with his face. Despite this being the era of Godzilla where he'd start applying and appealing towards kids more, this suit looks actually pretty serious and angry all the time, with a badass scowl permanently on his face. But it's just so hard to highlight in this movie because it is just so out there! And of course he does his standard Godzilla fare. He doesn't city stomp as much, he leaves that all to Headorah. But he still breaths the atomic breath and fights the monster, but that doesn't change the fact that he FLIES in this movie. No, I'm not getting over that. I never can and I never will. Fun fact, and an amusing little anecdote: I took a writing class my Senior Year of high school that culminated in writing a paper about something we're passionate about. I wrote on why Godzilla matters and should be taken more serious. I wanted to appeal to the fact people think Godzilla's weird, and maybe even a little stupid, so, I wanted to use a clip from a film. So, I did. I presented the scene, perfectly titled "Something You Don't See Everyday" to my class. And the jaws just dropped. It was hilarious.

So, that's Godzilla vs. Hedorah. Honestly, I can say I recommend it. It's got some of Godzilla's highest highs and lowest lows and gives us one of my favorite opponents he's ever faced. I can definitely give a warning to prepare yourself because of how W E I R D it is, but if you like weird stuff, then by all means. Grab the popcorn and start getting trippy, 'cause this one is a doozy.

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Tomorrow's gonna be a mixed bag. It's a movie I got a lot of nostalgia for, but I will be the first to openly admit it's one of the worst in the whole series, though it does have some positives. If you know what I mean, then you shouldn't be surprised that tomorrow we're diving into Godzilla vs. Gigan.