Godzilla Movies

[Xystus]

My 5 year old son loves Godzilla. He loves his action figures, loves the Hanna Barbara cartoon, loves the 1962 Godzilla vs King Kong fight scene I found on youtube and is now asking to see a Godzilla Movie. The 2014 Godzilla movie was on TV the other night after he was in bed so i watched the first 15 minutes and i’m not letting him watch that one. My question for all of you is are the old movies from the 50’s and 60’s OK for a 5 year old? I have never seen any and I don’t want to buy one just to find out its not appropriate.

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

The older Godzilla movies might be scary for a five year old. My cousins liked the films, when I was very small, they’d scare me.

The ones where Godzilla is portrayed as a good protector of Japan, might be better.

Son of Godzilla might be the most kid friendly. I remember a number of scenes where Dad Godzilla tries to train son and son instead of being fierce is cute. (I think he’s adopted, because there is no Mrs. Godzilla to my knowledge)

My favorite one is very campy, it’s Godzilla vs the Smog Monster. The smog monster starts off small, then feeds off the pollution of Tokyo and gets huge and more toxic.

On IMDB for each film there is normally a parents guide. It explain the level of violence and of there are problematic scenes.

 

[mikekle]

My 5 year old son loves Godzilla. He loves his action figures, loves the Hanna Barbara cartoon, loves the 1962 Godzilla vs King Kong fight scene I found on youtube and is now asking to see a Godzilla Movie. The 2014 Godzilla movie was on TV the other night after he was in bed so i watched the first 15 minutes and i’m not letting him watch that one. My question for all of you is are the old movies from the 50’s and 60’s OK for a 5 year old? I have never seen any and I don’t want to buy one just to find out its not appropriate.

Is the 2014 version the one with Matthew Brodrick? If I remember correctly that movie was pretty tame language/ sexuality wise.

 

[Xystus]

Is the 2014 version the one with Matthew Brodrick? If I remember correctly that movie was pretty tame language/ sexuality wise.

He was not in the first 15 min i saw, not that i remember anyway. Bryan Cranston was in it. There was a make out scene early on that i don’t think a 5 year old need to see and i changed the channel after seeing it. Maybe he was in it later.

 

[Xystus]

On IMDB for each film there is normally a parents guide. It explain the level of violence and of there are problematic scenes.

Thanks for the tip, ill check it out. Hopefully the guide gives “todays” rating information. I made the mistake of watching Ghostbusters on Halloween with my kids. It said PG so i thought it should be OK. apparently what passed for PG in 1984 is vastly different from PG today.

 

[Stephen_says]

Is the 2014 version the one with Matthew Brodrick? If I remember correctly that movie was pretty tame language/ sexuality wise.

Matthew Broderick was in the one from like 1998. It wasn’t really “Godzilla”.

When I was a kid I loved Godzilla. From what I remember, a lot of the movies would go over kids’ heads. Nothing inappropriate, but there are always two story lines: The Godzilla fighting another monster storyline, and then a human storyline. The human storylines were super boring, though I thought the dubbing was funny .

I remember “Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla”, and “Ebirah, Horror of the Deep” (which was a Godzilla movie, though he’s not in the title). “The Son of Gozilla” was good for kids I think, as was already mentioned. You should really just find a bunch of the monster fight scenes, burn them to a DVD, and play that!

 

[Pat_Payne]

My 5 year old son loves Godzilla. He loves his action figures, loves the Hanna Barbara cartoon, loves the 1962 Godzilla vs King Kong fight scene I found on youtube and is now asking to see a Godzilla Movie. The 2014 Godzilla movie was on TV the other night after he was in bed so i watched the first 15 minutes and i’m not letting him watch that one. My question for all of you is are the old movies from the 50’s and 60’s OK for a 5 year old? I have never seen any and I don’t want to buy one just to find out its not appropriate.

The very first two-- Godzilla (Gojira) and Godzilla Raids Again – may be too intense for children. They’re very good but are very dark. The first one is a coded meditation on atomic warfare, and is much darker in tone and spirit to the rest of the series. It includes graphic (for the time) depictions of injuries suffered in the attavck (meant to draw a parallel with similar scene of human devastation in the wake of the Tokyo firebomb attacks of march 1945 and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki), a subplot surrounding a weapon that can dissolve the flesh of any living creature, which is ultimately used by one of the film’s heroes in what’s essentially a suicide attack against Godzilla. The second one also paints Godzilla as a villain or at the very least a malevolent force of nature.

Starting with Godzilla v. King Kong, the tone begins to change to the more campy tone of the later films.

Xystus, I’d take the IMDB parents guides with a grain of salt, only as they are user-submitted. Some of them have solid info, some of them don’t.

 

[Nigel7]

Those old Godzilla movies are fun. I watched a lot of it as a kid.
Godzilla was created by the Japanese people post-WWII as a metaphor for the destructive power of nuclear weapons, having themselves been the subjects of atomic bombing (Hiroshima & Nagasaki).

 

[KevinAK]

Matthew Broderick was in the one from like 1998. It wasn’t really “Godzilla”.

When I was a kid I loved Godzilla. From what I remember, a lot of the movies would go over kids’ heads. Nothing inappropriate, but there are always two story lines: The Godzilla fighting another monster storyline, and then a human storyline. The human storylines were super boring, though I thought the dubbing was funny .

I remember “Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla”, and “Ebirah, Horror of the Deep” (which was a Godzilla movie, though he’s not in the title). “The Son of Gozilla” was good for kids I think, as was already mentioned. You should really just find a bunch of the monster fight scenes, burn them to a DVD, and play that!

Ebirah is also known as Godzilla VS The Sea Monster

In addition to Son you might try Godzilla’s Revenge. It is kid friendly.

 

[Joe_5859]

I don’t know anything about the Godzilla movies, but would you be able to request them from your local library? That’s my first stop when I want to see a movie. You could borrow and preview before you buy.

 

[Xystus]

Thanks everyone for your (name removed by moderator)ut.

 

[MrZoom]

Is the 2014 version the one with Matthew Brodrick? If I remember correctly that movie was pretty tame language/ sexuality wise.

No, Broderick was in the 1998 version (which I have not seen).

Both the 1998 and 2014 versions are rated PG-13 in the U.S., so probably too intense for a 5-year-old.

Apropos of nothing, somehow I thought the 2014 version came out in … 2015. Has it really been almost three years? How time flies …

 

[KevinAK]

I don’t know if you have METV in your area, but they have a Saturday night hosted movie show called Svengoolie that will be showing Godzilla movies in February.

MeTV.com - Svengoolie