Across the Universe: Size does matter

By Don Kaye
Special to MSN Movies

When the first official trailer for director Guillermo Del Toro's "Pacific Rim" hit last week, fans went nuts over the scenes of cataclysmic destruction perpetrated by monsters as tall as skyscrapers, the shots of the giant robots built to defend against them, and the glimpses of apocalyptic battles between the two. What Del Toro is doing is not new, but he is doing it on a scale and with the kind of modern special effects technology that has not been seen or available before for this particular subgenre of sci-fi.

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Del Toro has said in interviews that "Pacific Rim" is his homage to the kaiju eiga, a Japanese term that translates as "monster movie." Such films were produced in great quantity by the Japanese film industry for several decades. They usually involved a giant monster or monsters of some kind -- dinosaur, flying lizard, insect or some combination thereof -- stomping through a major Japanese city, sometimes battling each other as thousands of helpless Japanese watch or flee in terror. The major studios producing kaiju eiga were Toho and Daiei, although Kadokawa and Shochiku offered up some titles as well.

Toei, another company, offered up the famous "Ultraman" TV series in 1966, in which humans are able to transform into giant silver-and-red-suite​d humanoid beings in order to fight the many giant monsters that threaten the world. The original "Ultraman" was a huge success and spawned a ton of spin-off series, and while Del Toro's giant defenders are robots (controlled by human pilots), they seem to give at least a passing nod to the Ultramen.

The most famous kaiju, of course, is Godzilla (known as Gojira in his native land). The 400-foot-tall fire-breathing reptile made his unforgettable debut in 1954 as a somber metaphor for Japan's national trauma over the atomic bombs dropped on the country just nine years earlier. Over the years, he evolved into a semi-good guy, battling a wide array of other giant beasts and invaders over the course of 28 films, although in the '90s he became a more elemental force of nature, acting as a champion for the Earth itself yet indifferent to the human race.
Perhaps the second best-known dakaiju ("giant monster") is Gamera, a tremendous flying turtle who also started out rampaging through Japan but ended up being a friend to humans and especially little kids. The late-'60s series of Gamera films grew increasingly juvenile, but the creature was reintroduced in the mid-'90s in a more sophisticated series of movies that drew acclaim both in Japan and the U.S.

Rodan was the first Japanese beast to follow in Godzilla's footsteps in the U.S., with the flying dinosaur's 1956 debut also the first kaiju eiga to be filmed in color. "Rodan" was unique in that it received a fairly wide release in the States and also portrayed the creature(s) as misunderstood, with a surprisingly poetic ending. Rodan ended up returning and teaming with Godzilla and other beasts quite frequently in so-called monster rallies like "Destroy All Monsters." Trivia: George Takei, better known as Mr. Sulu on the original "Star Trek," did voice work on "Rodan."


Making her debut in 1961 was Mothra, the giant moth who starred in four of her own films as well as nine co-billed with Godzilla, usually as a foe but sometimes as an ally. The original "Mothra" was far less dark and allegorical than either "Godzilla" or "Rodan," with the film having the air of a fairy tale at times (and there are in fact small fairies in the movie who communicate with Mothra). The movie also ends with Mothra surviving. Although Mothra became quite popular, she was never as menacing as her counterparts.


Ghidorah has been an almost constant enemy of Godzilla and other dakaiju ever since making its debut in 1964's classic "Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster." That was the movie in which Godzilla made the switch from villain to hero, teaming with Rodan and Mothra to defeat this triple-headed monstrosity. Ghidorah appeared in three more films in the late '60s and early '70s, also resurfacing in 1991's outstanding "Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah" and showing up in films well into the early 2000s.

"Pacific Rim" opens in theaters July 12, 2013.