Godzilla Vs. An Extraterrestrial Can Opener

The Japanese literal translation of Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972) is Earth Destruction Directive: Godzilla vs. Gigan. Cool, but a lot of syllables. The U.S. version was titled Godzilla on Monster Island. They didn’t ask me if they could change it.

Giant insect aliens from Space Hunter Nebula-M come to Earth to colonize it (i.e., poop and pee on it). They do this by destroying everything in order to bring peace. (Big deal – we’ve already been doing that for years.) Masquerading as humans, the alien’s plans were captured on a tape recorder, and when played back, caught ears of Godzilla and Anguirus, who were hanging out on Monster Island, catching some rays.

Godzilla sends his little beer b*tch Anguirus to check out the problem. That they do this back talking to each other – in English – really lent credibility to the plot (Their conversation sounds like something a hip-hop DJ does to vinyl.) But Godzilla knew he was gonna have to put on his work clothes and go knock boots with the aliens.

Godzilla gets punched out and Gigan, who has a helmet with a cyclops eye, giant hook hands and a wicked neck-to-nut buzz-saw that, when activated, wrecks your shirt and everything in it, goes to mount him in a total Brokeback Mountain (2005) maneuver. That looked really uncomfortable. But the prison sex moment was interrupted by Anguirus. That was close. King Ghidorah also dog-piles on the party without being invited.

Comical over carnage, the only people watching 1970s Godzilla movies at this point were kids – and me.