It’s an all-out attack of monstrous proportions as the battle against the three-headed kaiju king from outer space continues!
This second bursting box of behemoths contains King Ghidorah, Manilla, Gorosaurus, and Baragon and includes select interchangeable heads, arms, legs, or FX.
King Ghidorah – This three-headed space dragon is also Godzilla’s arch-enemy! King Ghidorah comes with three gravity beam FX that can attach to his three head portraits.
Minilla – son of Godzilla. Minilla comes with alternate arms, an alternate head portrait, and his signature atomic smoke ring FX that attaches to his head portrait... he’s still working out the whole atomic breath thing.
Gorosaurus – The giant dinosaur that utilizes a leaping kick attack, similar to that of a kangaroo.
Baragon – A four-legged, horned dinosaur-like creature. Baragon is known to leap long distances, burrow deep into the ground, and use his head to get his point across. Baragon comes with an alternate head portrait and an alternate pair of legs.
5 Points XL Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters (1968) - Round 2 Boxed set is packaged in a collector-friendly window box, designed with collectors in mind.
Ages 15+
Destroy All Monsters (Japanese: 怪獣総進撃, Hepburn: Kaijū Sō-shingeki, lit. 'Monster All-out Attack') is a 1968 Japanese epic kaiju film directed by Ishirō Honda, with special effects directed by Sadamasa Arikawa and supervised by Eiji Tsuburaya. The film, which was produced and distributed by Toho Co., Ltd, is the ninth film in the Godzilla franchise, and features eleven monster characters, including Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, King Ghidorah, Anguirus, and Minilla. The film stars Akira Kubo, Jun Tazaki, Yukiko Kobayashi and Yoshio Tsuchiya.
In the film, humans have achieved world peace by the year 1999, and various giant monsters are confined to an area known as Monsterland. The monsters are freed from the area and are mind-controlled by aliens known as Kilaaks, who send them to attack major cities. When the monsters are freed from the Kilaaks' influence, the aliens send King Ghidorah to challenge the other monsters.
Destroy All Monsters was released theatrically in Japan on August 1, 1968. The film was released by American International Pictures with an English-language dub in the United States on May 23, 1969. Contemporary American reviews were mixed, with praise mainly held for the climactic monster battle. Retrospectively, the film has received more praise, and is considered a favorite among Godzilla fans for its "audacious and simple story", "innovative action sequences",[5] and a "memorably booming" score by Akira Ifukube.
Plot
At the close of the 20th century (1999 in the dub), all of the Earth's kaiju have been collected by the United Nations Science Committee and confined in an area known as Monsterland, located in the Ogasawara island chain. A special control center is constructed underneath the island to ensure that the monsters stay secure and to serve as a research facility to study them.
When communications with Monsterland are suddenly and mysteriously severed, and all of the monsters begin attacking world capitals, Dr. Yoshida of the UNSC orders Captain Yamabe and the crew of his spaceship, Moonlight SY-3, to investigate Ogasawara. There, they discover that the scientists, led by Dr. Otani, have become mind-controlled slaves of a feminine alien race identifying themselves as the Kilaaks, who reveal that they are in control of the monsters. Their leader demands that the human race surrender, or face total annihilation.
Godzilla attacks New York City, Rodan invades Moscow, Mothra lays waste to Beijing, Gorosaurus destroys Paris (although Baragon was credited for its destruction), and Manda attacks London. The attacks were set in to motion to draw attention away from Japan, so that the aliens can establish an underground stronghold near Mount Fuji. The Kilaaks then turn their next major attack onto Tokyo and, without serious opposition, become arrogant in their aims until the UNSC discover, after recovering the Kilaaks' monster mind-control devices from around the world, that they have switched to broadcasting the control signals from their base under the Moon's surface. In a desperate battle, the crew of the SY-3 destroys the Kilaak's lunar outpost and returns the alien control system to Earth.
With all of the monsters under the control of the UNSC, the Kilaaks call King Ghidorah, who is dispatched to protect the alien stronghold at Mount Fuji, battling Godzilla, Minilla, Mothra, Rodan, Gorosaurus, Anguirus, Kumonga and Varan. While seemingly invincible, King Ghidorah is eventually overpowered by the combined strength of the Earth monsters and is killed. Refusing to admit defeat, the Kilaaks produce their ace, a burning monster they call the Fire Dragon, which begins to torch Tokyo and destroys the control center on Ogasawara. Suddenly, Godzilla attacks and destroys the Kilaaks' underground base, revealing that the Earth's monsters instinctively know who their enemies are. Captain Yamabe then pursues the Fire Dragon in the SY-3 and narrowly achieves victory for the human race. The Fire Dragon is revealed to be a flaming Kilaak saucer and is destroyed. With the Kilaaks defeated, Godzilla and the other monsters eventually return to Monsterland to live in peace.
King Ghidorah (キングギドラ, Kingu Gidora) is a fictional monster, or kaiju, which first appeared in Ishirō Honda's 1964 film Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster. The monster was initially created by Tomoyuki Tanaka, Eiji Tsuburaya and Shinichi Sekizawa as an homage to the eight-headed mythological Japanese dragon Yamata no Orochi. Although the name of the character is officially trademarked by Toho as "King Ghidorah",[19] the character was originally referred to as Ghidorah or Ghidrah in some English markets.[12]
Although King Ghidorah's design has remained largely consistent throughout its appearances (an armless, bipedal, golden and yellowish-scaled wyvern with three heads, two fan-shaped wings, and two tails), its origin story has varied from being an extraterrestrial planet-destroying wyvern,[20] a genetically engineered monster from the future,[21] a guardian monster of ancient Japan,[22] or a god from another dimension. The character is usually portrayed as the archenemy of Godzilla and a foe of Mothra,[23] though it has had one appearance as an ally of the latter.[22]
Despite rumors that Ghidorah was meant to represent the threat posed by China, which had at the time of the character's creation just developed nuclear weapons,[24] director Ishirō Honda denied the connection and stated that Ghidorah was simply a modern take on the dragon Yamata no Orochi.[25][2][26]
Overview
Development
According to special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya's protégé Teruyoshi Nakano, the initial idea for Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster came from Tomoyuki Tanaka, who also created Godzilla. Tanaka's inspiration came from an illustration of the Lernaean Hydra in a book about Greek Mythology, and Orochi of Japanese folklore. Tanaka was enamored with the idea of Godzilla fighting a multi-headed serpent but considered seven or eight heads to be too excessive, and thus the number of heads was reduced to three.[2] The final version, designed by Akira Watanabe,[3] was a three-headed dragon with large wings, two tails and of extraterrestrial origin.[26]
Toho also drew inspiration from the three-headed dragon Zmey Gorynych or King Dragon キング・ドラゴン (Kingu Doragon)[27] in Japanese version from the 1956 Soviet film Ilya Muromets, which had been distributed theatrically in Japan by Shintoho in March 1959.[28][29] King Ghidorah's name is composed of "King" (キング, Kingu) and "Ghidorah." The "Ghidorah" part of King Ghidorah's name comes from the pronunciation of the word "hydra" (Гидра, ˈɡʲidrɐ) in Russian, written as ヒドラ (Hidora) in Japanese.
Other sources of inspiration included mythological creatures such as the hydra, cerberus, unicorn, pegasus, and qilin.[30]
Shōwa era (1964 - 1973)
Shōwa Ghidorah
In its debut film, Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, Ghidorah is portrayed as an ancient extraterrestrial entity responsible for the destruction of the Venusian civilization, five thousand years before the film's events. Its attempt to destroy Earth is thwarted by the combined efforts of Godzilla, Rodan and Mothra.[31]
Subsequent Shōwa era films would portray Ghidorah as the pawn of various alien races seeking to subjugate Earth.[32][33][34] King Ghidorah also appears in the fifth and sixth episodes of the television series Zone Fighter, where it is revealed that it is supposedly a creation of the Garoga aliens, though it is left unclear as to whether this statement is true or not.[35][36]
Screenwriter Shinichi Sekizawa insisted that the Ghidorah suit be fabricated using light-weight silicone-based materials in order to grant the wearer greater mobility.[37][38] The final Ghidorah design was constructed by special effects artist Teizo Toshimitsu,[39] who had initially painted it green in order to further differentiate it from Godzilla, Rodan and Mothra, but changed it to gold on the insistence of Eiji Tsuburaya, after his assistant noted that being a creature from Venus, the "gold planet", Ghidorah should be that color.[2]
The monster suit itself was built by Akira Watanabe, and worn by Shoichi Hirose.[4] Hirose walked hunched over inside the Ghidorah costume, holding a metal bar for balance, while puppeteers would control its heads, tails and wings off-camera like a marionette.[26] The monster's heads were each fitted with remotely controlled motors, which were connected to operators via a wire extending from the suit's backside.[39]
Performing as Ghidorah proved challenging to Hirose, as he had to time his movements in a way that would not conflict with the separately operated heads and wings, as doing so would have resulted in the overhead wires tangling.[37][38] Because of the suit's weight, it frequently snapped the overhead wires supporting it.[39] Special effects were added as the creature is capable emitting destructive, lightning-like "gravity beams" from its mouths and generating hurricane-force winds from its wings.
Despite King Ghidorah's central role in the film's plot, the character was given little screen time, as Hirose had fallen out with special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya, who never forgave Hirose for accepting a Hollywood deal, and subsequently he hired Susumu Utsumi to play King Ghidorah after Invasion of Astro-Monster.[37][38] In that film, King Ghidorah was given a darker shade of gold, and its movements both on land and in the air were more fluid than during Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster, as the special effects crew had at that point learned from the shortcomings of the previous film's depiction of the creature.[41]