Around this time last year I decided to watch the Millennium era movies and really liked them. The only thing was, as they all act as alternative sequels to the original film, which I hadn't seen, I felt I was missing some understanding of them. So I decided to watch the original, and before I knew it, I'd decided to work my way through the whole series. I've also seen 'The Return of Godzilla', the first film in the Heisei era, but I decided I should really watch the films in chronological order to get the best understanding of how the series changed as it went along. I also decided I'd watch all the other Toho films that would get somehow "absorbed" into the Godzilla continuity. Not just the obvious ones like 'Rodan' or 'Mothra', but the less well-known ones like 'Varan The Unbelievable' and 'Atragon' too. I think that way you see how Toho's way of making the films changed, and get more of a feeling as to how popular these films were back then. You also get to see how the ideas were changed as they were pulled from their original films into the world of the King of Monsters, which I find just as interesting as seeing how Godzilla himself changes over the years.
So far I've only got up to 1965, but that's already 14 films! I'm not even halfway through though; by my reckoning I've got about 22 films still to go. I'm not in any hurry to get through them though. I watch a lot of Sentai and Kamen Rider, and I find that when I try and speed through episodes they all blur together and my memory starts to skip over a lot of the smaller details. I like keeping the Godzilla films as something a little different; I'll throw one on every couple of weeks or so and it makes a refreshing change from the more modern toku shows. It may be early 2014 before I finally reach the finish-line with 'Godzilla vs. Destoroyah', but the relaxed pace keeps them special. After that, who knows? I'll probably have to dive into the Gamera series and the DaiMajin trilogy just to keep getting my regular daikaiju fix :sweat:
