Brian Thibodeau
Supporting Actor
- Joined
- Dec 10, 2003
- Messages
- 992
Not exactly sure what you mean, but here's some info:
If you wanna see how it all began, rent the original, which was a fairly serious piece of cineam despite its comparitive cheesiness to today's monster flicks, and some of the 60's and 70's sequels, which were aimed at a much younger audience, and ultimately killed the series in the mid-70's.
A bunch of them are available in this box set, which is usually pretty cheap to buy. Individual discs are also available and some places will no doubt have them for rent:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...v=glance&s=dvd
Many films from of the mid-80's early 90's revival series are available from Columbia Tri-Star. This thread mentions nearly all of them. Jacked up budgets, jacked up production value, better special effects. Still a bit cheesy and draggy in spots, but if you dig them, you might mind. These films started in 1985 with GODZILLA 1985 and ended in 1995 with GODZILLA VS. DESTOROYAH. Only the first two, GODZILLA 1985 and GODZILLA Vs. BIOLLANTE remain unreleased on DVD. The continuity's a bit dodgy from film to film in this series, so you don't necesarily have to start at the beginning to follow them.
The most recent revival began with GODZILLA MILLENNIUM (or GODZILLA 2000 in the US) and will wrap up with this year's GODZILLA FINAL WARS. All the films barring the last one and, obviously, the upcoming one, are available on US DVD. There's very little continuity from one film to the next in this series apart from, I believe, the two most recent ones, so you can pretty much jump in anywhere.
As to where to find them, well, they're all over the place, and many chain rental outlets will likely have at least a few of them if you don't wanna spring for buying them.
If you watch the newer stuff first, obviously it could bias you against the older stuff, which is decidedly cheaper and designed to appeal to youngsters (though not guite as young as the old GAMERA movies.
This reminds me, if you wanna start at the top, rent any of the three mid-90's GAMERA movies. They are by far the greatest Japanese monster movies ever made (particularly the third one, which rivals the US Godzilla in technical flair, while retaining the distinctly Japanese monster movie themes), complete with big budgets, digital effects, realistic and logical interaction between monsters and surroundings during battles, intelligent human characters and more. The director of this series, Shusuke Kaneko, even helmed one of the newer Godzilla flicks, GODZILLA, MOTHRA, KING GHIDORAH: ALL OUT MONSTERS ATTACK, which is one of the better entries in that group.
GAMERA: GUARDIAN OF THE UNIVERSE:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...v=glance&s=dvd
GAMERA: THE ADVENT OF LEGION
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...v=glance&s=dvd
GAMERA III: REVENGE OF IRIS
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...v=glance&s=dvd
Hope that helps.
If you wanna see how it all began, rent the original, which was a fairly serious piece of cineam despite its comparitive cheesiness to today's monster flicks, and some of the 60's and 70's sequels, which were aimed at a much younger audience, and ultimately killed the series in the mid-70's.
A bunch of them are available in this box set, which is usually pretty cheap to buy. Individual discs are also available and some places will no doubt have them for rent:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...v=glance&s=dvd
Many films from of the mid-80's early 90's revival series are available from Columbia Tri-Star. This thread mentions nearly all of them. Jacked up budgets, jacked up production value, better special effects. Still a bit cheesy and draggy in spots, but if you dig them, you might mind. These films started in 1985 with GODZILLA 1985 and ended in 1995 with GODZILLA VS. DESTOROYAH. Only the first two, GODZILLA 1985 and GODZILLA Vs. BIOLLANTE remain unreleased on DVD. The continuity's a bit dodgy from film to film in this series, so you don't necesarily have to start at the beginning to follow them.
The most recent revival began with GODZILLA MILLENNIUM (or GODZILLA 2000 in the US) and will wrap up with this year's GODZILLA FINAL WARS. All the films barring the last one and, obviously, the upcoming one, are available on US DVD. There's very little continuity from one film to the next in this series apart from, I believe, the two most recent ones, so you can pretty much jump in anywhere.
As to where to find them, well, they're all over the place, and many chain rental outlets will likely have at least a few of them if you don't wanna spring for buying them.
If you watch the newer stuff first, obviously it could bias you against the older stuff, which is decidedly cheaper and designed to appeal to youngsters (though not guite as young as the old GAMERA movies.
This reminds me, if you wanna start at the top, rent any of the three mid-90's GAMERA movies. They are by far the greatest Japanese monster movies ever made (particularly the third one, which rivals the US Godzilla in technical flair, while retaining the distinctly Japanese monster movie themes), complete with big budgets, digital effects, realistic and logical interaction between monsters and surroundings during battles, intelligent human characters and more. The director of this series, Shusuke Kaneko, even helmed one of the newer Godzilla flicks, GODZILLA, MOTHRA, KING GHIDORAH: ALL OUT MONSTERS ATTACK, which is one of the better entries in that group.
GAMERA: GUARDIAN OF THE UNIVERSE:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...v=glance&s=dvd
GAMERA: THE ADVENT OF LEGION
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...v=glance&s=dvd
GAMERA III: REVENGE OF IRIS
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...v=glance&s=dvd
Hope that helps.
