RRRRRAAAAA!!!! It's Godzilla!
The first Godzilla (or Gojira, as he is known as in Japan) movie was made in 1954, and had a strong anti-nuclear subtext. Godzilla was a dinosaur, that had survived, buried under the sea for millions of years. When the Americans dropped the H-Bomb, Godzilla was awakened, and mutated into an even larger and more fearsome monster! Originally a one off, Godzilla was a huge success, and thus, many sequels were made. In these sequels, Godzilla often faced large rubbery opponents, who he almose always defeated. The title took the formula: Godzilla vs. x, where x is the name of a monster (e.g. Battra).
Godzilla faced many opponents, amongst them: Mothra, the giant moth; King Kong; Battra; Ghidora; Manda; Mecha-Godzilla, an evil robot Godzilla; Space Godzilla, a Godzilla clone from space; and countless others.
The writers found a way to recycle old enemies, as it would be too expensive to have a new opponent ever movie! :-) Thus, x was brought back as either King x, or Mecha-x, or even Mecha-King x!!! Ghidora is one such example. Ghidora was defeated, so he came back as King Ghidora, but he was defeated again, so he came back as Mecha-King Ghidora! Wow, what fun!
Whenever he won, he would do a victory dance to celebrate. And below is a picture of the ceremony. Chris T, you owe me BIG TIME for this picture, I searched for ages to find it, but here it is:
There Chris, I can see you jumping for joy after that one! Gozilla also liked to shoot his Atomic Ray (see King Ghidora pic), whenever the makers found enough money for special effects, that is. When Godzilla was not fighting, he was destroying Tokyo, and he got rather hungry, and ate trains, and ships. Mmmmmm.
Godzilla eventually met his death at the hands of Destroyah, the only monster able to defeat him. He suffered a fate worse than death after this however, when he was reincarnated in the American film that bore his name. Uuughhh.
There were some scenes that no-one has seen, however, even the Japanese. Here is a still of one such scene, where Godzilla is ehem.."fighting" Manda. Hmmmm, I can see why it was never shown. I think we know where Godzilla Jr. comes from now.
I will leave you with some other pictures of Godzilla, so until next time, RRRRAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!
