594, 1000 Godzilla: The Showa-Era Films, 1954-1975

[knives]

Probably the Smog Monster which is just kind of weird might not be the best for kids. Though it's environmental message could work well for them.

[FrauBlucher]

I think 99.9% of people that are hooked on Godzilla and the Japanese monster movies did so as children. They should all be fine. They aren’t any worse then what’s around today. There are some Looney Tunes cartoons that may be more questionable for kids than these movies. If anything the kids may not like the look and artificiality of it. They’d rather have a Transformers style.

[domino harvey]

Are any of these not good to watch with kids?

Persona

EDIT: Sorry, I skimmed the last page of the thread

[swo17]

For further context, with the youngest one that doesn't understand anything yet I watched Brain Damage once and she thought it was hilarious. With the older one, we've recently enjoyed some early Jerry Lewis movies. Haven't tried any Bergman yet.

[soundchaser]

I'd be curious to see an unsuspecting child's reaction to All These Women, but exposing them to it may be unethical.

[jwd5275]

For further context, with the youngest one that doesn't understand anything yet I watched Brain Damage once and she thought it was hilarious. With the older one, we've recently enjoyed some early Jerry Lewis movies. Haven't tried any Bergman yet.

It also depends on the kid. My daughter (9) and youngest son (4) love them no matter what is going on. However my middle son (7) tends get scared in more intense moments (the mine scenes in the first half of Rodan come to mind) but completely eats it up once the fighting begins.

[Big Ben]

I watched them all when I was four or five but mileage will obviously vary. There's some bloody violence in Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla as one monster gets his jaw broken and bleeds from it. There are also ape men who bleed black blood when shot (Don't ask.) . There is also as I recall quite a bit of blood when a woman gets her earring ripped off in Destroy All Monsters. The only truly "dead serious" Godzilla film from the Showa era is the original though. Most of these are pretty digestible.

I would argue that another Toho film, mentioned previously, War of the Gargantuas is worse than all of them as it features a monster that stalks and devours people. It's not graphic, in the Jaws way but it was explicit enough that it was removed from the original Japanese prints. Rodan also has some rather horrifying sequences where men are dragged underwater by something they can't see. That bothered me deeply as a child but I'm unsure how far your kids go on the "Deep Mine Water Spooks Me" meter.

.

[swo17]

Thanks for the rex guys, gonna head down now and put on Prophecies of Nostradamus for the fam

[domino harvey]

For what it’s worth, in third grade I received a VHS of King Kong vs Godzilla for my birthday from one of my friends and for some reason I loved watching it as a kid, even though I don’t think I’d ever seen or wanted to see another Japanese monster movie

[FrauBlucher]

For further context, with the youngest one that doesn't understand anything yet I watched Brain Damage once and she thought it was hilarious. With the older one, we've recently enjoyed some early Jerry Lewis movies. Haven't tried any Bergman yet.

The farting in Fanny and Alexander should make this the introductory Bergman

[domino harvey]

And you also show the Silence because that has a kid in it. Kids love movies about kids!

[knives]

Oh, so that's why Andy is the most popular Toy Story character.

[swo17]

And you also show the Silence because that has a kid in it. Kids love movies about kids!

Virgin Spring will probably be a better way to ease them in since there's only a kid in it for half the movie

[domino harvey]

All right, no one’s going to top that one

[artfilmfan]

Swo,

Once upon a time, your sister expressed to her friend a certain opinion on your cinematic taste. Aren’t you planning to invite her to the Godzilla watching party with your kids to see if she’ll change her opinion?

Hint: In contrast to the films that you once put on your Amazon wish list (which you said you overheard your sister expressing her opinion about), just about everyone must have heard of Godzilla.

[swo17]

Zuh?

[movielocke]

Is invasion of the Astro monster only available in the English dub on the channel?

I started playing it through the end of the first reel and it’s dubbed, and a quick search I didn’t see any other options.

I played it from the collection page for Astro monster not from the direct click to play option though...

I’m fine watching the dub though if it’s otherwise not edited.

[FrauBlucher]

What are the chances of this being region free like the Bergman set?

Between 0.00 and 1.00

According to a poster on Blu-ray.com forum they asked and Mulvaney answered here
Plus, Nick Wrigley apparently tweeted about a possible UK release

[ComradeMisato]

Are any of these not good to watch with kids?

Just gonna come back to this just because I didn't see it mentioned -- in Godzilla vs. Megalon, there are a few scenes involving one of the villains riding with a couple truckers he's hired. You might not notice if you aren't looking for them, but the back of the cab has a couple nude pinups on it. Not all that clearly visible, but you can easily spot them if you look.

There's also a scene in Terror of Mechagodzilla in which the aliens perform surgery on the female lead, during which they implant the control system for Mechagodzilla inside her. There are two wide shots of the aliens operating during which her entire bare torso is visible, including what are supposed to be her breasts (the whole torso is obviously a prosthetic given the gaping hole in the abdomen). There's also a close-up on the inside of her torso where they're operating -- nothing gory, and what we see of her insides are mostly gears and motors, but there's also what's clearly supposed to be a beating heart visible in the corner.

[kcota17]

Update to the features:

Toho Unused Special Effects Complete Collection, a 1986 documentary featuring archival making-of footage; scenes deleted from films including Destroy All Monsters, King Kong vs. Godzilla, and Mothra vs. Godzilla; and interviews with Honda, producer Tomoyuki Tanaka, special-effects director Teruyoshi Nakano, and others.

[movielocke]

Godzilla vs megaton is also available on the channel only in a dub, but unlike Astro monster this isnt a huge problem because there’s only about a hundred lines of dialogue total in megalon.

On the other hand they have a pitch shifted adult doing a super obnoxious and awful “child” girl voice for the one male child in the film and it wrecks the entire dub it’s so grostesque.

[Orlac]

The best thing about the dubs for Gigan and Megalon is Ted Thomas, who I feels was one of the few honestly good actors in HK based dubbing - and in Gigan, he voices Godzilla!

[ntnon]

Is it definite that this set will only be released on blu-ray? If so - and I don't see any mention of a DVD release anywhere obvious - is the speculation about the logic, possible future releases or an elimination of DVDs..?

Sans reasoning, it seems odd that potential DVD-only people might be kept from collecting #1000.

[soundchaser]

It’s probably because most of Criterion’s DVD sales are institutional now (libraries and the like), and they assume most libraries won’t want to stock something with such unorthodox packaging. Same with the Bergman set.

[mfunk9786]

If you have 999 Criterion DVD releases and 0 Blu-ray players, I don't really know what you're doing