Rebirth of Mothra (1996)

directed by Okihiro Yoneda

Japan

104 minutes

3.5 stars out of 5

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A lot of people might not know that there was an entirely Mothra-centric trilogy of films released in the mid-1990s. Despite Mothra's popularity stateside, none of these films has ever gotten a wide release with subtitles. This is still very surprising to me, considering that there were still Godzilla films being produced to commercial success that did eventually end up being exported. 

This first entry into the trilogy expands upon Mothra's status as an environmental protector. The main characters - who are two very young children, so if kids in film annoy you, you may have a worse time with this than I did - have a father working in the logging industry, and while he's not as greedy and careless as his bosses up top, he doesn't exactly do anything to get out of the business or halt the destruction of pristine forests, either. I only realized later that he was the catalyst for the entire plot, because it really feels like this one guy as an individual doesn't have much to do with anything. Even though he was only one cog in the deforestation machine, it was him who prised up the seal keeping Desghidorah asleep, and triggered the immense destruction to follow. Even then, though, most of the story was controlled by external actors; an evil little lady bent on taming Desghidorah and using him to her own ends was watching in the wings and manipulating things the whole time. Humans are incidental to this, being used simply as a means to an end and then left to flounder in the ensuing chaos.

There's no better way I can describe this movie other than to say that if you are a Mothra fan this will be your jam. It introduces many new characters and concepts and explores the ones we already know. The Shobijin get yet another name change, being called collectively "Elias" in this trilogy, and they're implied in this first film to not be two unusually tiny people living on an island where everyone else is average-sized, but a whole race of that size. The three of them that we see are sisters: the good two standing in for the twins we all know and love, and one bad apple who, like I said, wants Desghidorah for her own purposes. It's also established that in the past there were many, many Mothras - that the Mothra who the Elias have communed with for years is now old, and not well; her time to die coming soon, she's lain an egg and is resting on the verge of death, but still ready to come to the rescue should an innocent planet under fire need her help.

It goes without saying that the kaiju designs are amazing here, as they always are. The big Mothra is a bit cuter than we're used to, less "buggy", with fluffier legs and brighter colors. The good two Elias sisters have a flying steed referred to as Fairy Mothra who is a much smaller but similarly adorable baby Mothra. And we even get to see an entirely new generation of Mothra that we've never seen before, opening up the truly exciting possibility of other members of Mothra's species who bear only a passing resemblance to her, with all the variation that real-life moths have between individuals. This is basically a moth party, but Desghidorah (who, if you haven't figured it out, is an updated King Ghidorah) looks good too. I was disappointed that he dropped his iconic bidibidibidibidibidi in this film, but I still like him, and the more "terrestrial", reptilian look makes him into almost a different monster than the dragonlike King Ghidorah.

And I just want to talk for a second about how much I love the fact that the Mothra larvae are a central player in both this and other kaiju films. The design of the larvae does not for a second shy away from the fact that this is a grub - a brown, slimy, writhing grub, with no classically endearing characteristics, who can't locomote other than by inching its way across the ground. This time they even add squelchy sound effects whenever it moves. And yet it is not made fun of or kept on the sidelines but is a vital force in almost every fight it enters. I honestly cannot think of any other movie in which a grub would be allowed to be heroic like this. It's never cast in a comedic light, Mothra's baby is as much of a savior as Mothra is, even when it's in wriggling grub form.

The pacing of this film is drastically different from what I'm used to in my Godzilla movies and I was not prepared for it at all. I'm used to anywhere from 70 to 100 minutes of humans faffing around until Godzilla shows up for a handful of moments, and the big battle being reserved until the very end, sometimes with a quick skirmish at the beginning before everyone goes back to their hideouts to await the final fight. This movie is the final fight. Like, the whole thing. There's a little silliness at the beginning where the Elias and their respective mounts completely trash the main characters' house and freak out their mom, but then Desghidorah wakes up and I'd say a solid 80% if not more of this whole film takes place while Mothra and her baby are fighting to stop him destroying the world. I say "the world", but in another contrast to your typical kaiju film, Desghidorah never leaves the forest reserve where he finishes off the deforestation that humans started. He never quite stomps his way into a city. He would have certainly done so if not stopped, but all we see of him is him rampaging around a forest. It's weird, a little, but again, this is a movie about the destruction of the natural world by humans, who trigger a series of events that inevitably ends with a runaway chain of continuing climate change and animal death. The stories of humans who might see their own lives complicated by Desghidorah is for another time.

I personally liked the way most of this film was taken up by action scenes. It may get tiring, but I guess it was such a change from what I typically see in kaiju media that I found it novel in this case. The human drama feels obligatory and somewhat forced, but the lore behind Mothra and her devotees is fresh and interesting when it gets squeezed in here and there. I am very interested in seeing where this series goes next especially if it moves into new territory other than having Mothra face Desghidorah.