Okay. I have reached the point where I know what’s up. There are/were only two Godszilla, I have high confidence in this fact. The downside is, now I’m five movies into the series, and I was supposed to watch the first one and the ninth one. So, like… should I just go ahead and power through since I’m already more than halfway there?

There is one compelling factor here: Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster is one of the weirdest movies I’ve ever seen, and that is saying a lot.[1] See, there’s this princess of a nearby island nation who is trying to make a peace treaty with Japan, maybe? Or something. but also internal politics means there are people trying to assassinate her, and also sometimes with no explicit explanation provided, she is from Venus and has been on Earth for thousands of years. Also, the Mothra twins are visiting for a TV show appearance. Also, a meteor shower woke up Rodan, who you would have no reason to know (aside from watching a separate movie without a Godzilla) is a giant pterodactyl thing. Also also, there was a meteor shower that had one weird meteor that changes sizes and has sporadic magnetism, and landed in the Japanese Alps, a mountain range with which I was unfamiliar.

My point is, Godzilla doesn’t even show up until 40 minutes into the movie, and okay, it’s not his name on the title card, but King Ghidorah isn’t much sooner (and might be later still, for all I remember). In the meantime, the Venusian princess is warning people that “Rodan will wake up in a second so don’t go get that guy’s hat that blew down the hill”, or “don’t get on that ship because last time we saw Godzilla he was maybe drowned again, and ships go on water”, or “King Ghidorah destroyed all life on Venus and he’s here on Earth now so get your affairs in order.” Luckily, they didn’t write her as Cassandra, so after the first time she’s right, people start listening.

But the best part of the movie is close enough to the end that I’m going to warn of spoilers, even though I’ve been really cavalier up to now.

[1] I mean, it should be the weirdest movie basically anyone has ever seen, averaging out across the populace. But in the nichier markets there are some true unpolished gems. The Baby, anyone?

So Godzilla and Rodan are fighting, right? And the tiny Mothra twins have summoned Mothra (who is still a caterpillar not a moth yet, and also one of them died, so only one giant caterpillar not like last movie) to convince Godzilla and Rodan to fight Ghidorah. And there’s this running translation of what’s going on, which is basically half “I don’t really want to stop fighting this guy, he’s a dick, and Ghidorah’s not even here” and half “Why should we help humans? They’re always super mean to us!”

Anyway, in the end Ghidorah shows up and they do have a fight, in which Rodan has wind powers and Mothra still has silk-spinning powers and Godzilla mostly has rock throwing and tail grabbing powers[2], and ultimately Ghidorah flies off (into space?) and the others just kind of stand there, but hey, the monster was defeated and the assassins were also defeated and the princess got shot at the correct angle to stop being from Venus, so, happy ending. Right?

It is clear that Mothra is a good guy, and it’s pretty clear that Godzilla is a brooding anti-hero. I have no particular read on Rodan, though.

Shit. I’m going to watch the next one, aren’t I? If they stay this weird, how can I not?

[2] Don’t ask me why, but in addition to three heads, Ghidorah has two tails