I Introduced My Friend's Five-Year-Old Son to Godzilla By Showing Him All Monsters Attack (1969)

A couple months ago, I got a phone call on my way to a Friday evening dinner. It was my buddy Matt. I don’t answer the phone for just anybody these days, but I answer the phone for Matt. And I’m glad I did.

“Hey man,” he said. “Do you have time to talk to a five-year-old boy about Godzilla?”

Folks, I wish this is how all of my phone calls started. Of course I had time to talk to Matt’s eldest son, Garner, about his favorite kaiju.* And boy did he have some good questions for me. “Why does Godzilla live at the bottom of the ocean?” Truly, I did not know, but I made up a sufficient answer about him being very old and amphibious. “Why is Godzilla the King of the Monsters?” Again, great question, but I told him that all of the other monsters deemed him as such, maybe because he has radioactive blue fire breath. Then he asked me why Godzilla has radioactive blue fire breath, and I began to understand why Matt called me.

Needless to say, it was a delightful phone call, but I saw an opportunity to go the extra mile. Matt told me that Garner hadn’t seen a Godzilla movie yet—he was mostly inundated with videos of Godzilla toys and some clips from the cartoons—and I knew that I had to be there when he saw his first one.**

Then I had to figure out the most important thing: Which movie should he watch first? He’s only five after all. I didn’t want to suggest anything that would give the boy or his younger brother nightmares. (Some of those early Godzilla movies, especially the original, are pretty haunting at times.)

Luckily for him, I recently embarked on a full binge of the entire Godzilla feature filmography (yes, even those lackluster animated Netflix joints), and I was able to narrow it down to a couple films that seemed ideal. I strongly considered 1967’s Son of Godzilla, because that’s the first appearance of Minilla, Godzilla’s useless idiot son who I assume was introduced to the franchise specifically to appeal to younger audiences. But I ultimately went with All Monsters Attack because not only does it also feature Minilla, it has the advantage of an even more useful character in Ichiro, a young Japanese boy who gets bullied a lot and dreams of visiting Monster Island (where Godzilla and all of his friends and also all of his enemies live). It’s also only 69 minutes compared to 86 minutes for Son of Godzilla, which is a huge advantage. Matt approved of the selection and it was decided.

When the event came around, I brought a peace offering of a Godzilla Funko Pop that I won in a contest years ago because I thought Garner would enjoy it more than me. And I think he did; he immediately added it to his Godzilla toy collection with several Godzillas and a couple King Kongs and Gameras and a King Ghidorah. He even decreed that this new toy is Minilla, which makes sense because it does kinda look like the stubbier, goofier version compared to his real-deal Godzilla figures.

And then it was movie time. Matt cautioned me ahead of time to keep in mind that Garner has the attention span of a five-year-old boy, which means he might not sit still and watch the whole thing with us. An even bigger obstacle: I didn’t consider that reading comprehension is still a work in progress for most five-year-olds, which means a subtitled foreign film is…rather difficult.

But this child loves Godzilla. And he was into it.

He sat on the edge of his chair, mesmerized by the sight of Godzilla and Minilla as they fight bad guys on Monster Island, including Ebirah the giant lobster, Kumonga the giant spider, some giant mantises, a giant condor, and a bad guy unique to this film named Gabara (who shares a name with Ichiro’s real-life bully, which provides a clear story parallel as Gabara is Minilla’s bully too). And he particularly loved when Godzilla swats down some fighter jets that show up seemingly for no reason other than to annoy the monsters. All the while, Matt and I did our best to narrate what was happening by reading the subtitles aloud, but Garner didn’t seem to care. He just wanted to watch his hero fight the bad guys.***

And then, when the film was over, he said something remarkable that I’ll never forget.

As the credits rolled, Garner calmly turned to Matt and said: “Daddy, nothing can hurt me and I’m not scared of anything.” I couldn’t believe it. Matt had to explain that there are things that can hurt us, even going through a safety checklist real quick, but we were both laughing and beaming with pride. Not only had this young boy thoroughly enjoyed his first Godzilla film, he felt empowered and emboldened by the King of the Monsters. He was ready to take on the world, because he watched Godzilla do it first.

So there you have it. Parents, if you want your children to journey through this world without fear of monsters or bullies or cops or robbers, show them Godzilla movies. They’re inspirational!

*I actually called him back a day later because I was almost to my dinner destination. Also, I didn’t even pick up the phone, and Matt texted me right after calling. But the story is better if I answer and talk to Garner on the spot, isn’t it? This, reader, is what we Professional Writers call “creative nonfiction.” You’ve probably never heard of it.

**When I asked Garner if he was excited to watch his first Godzilla movie, he said that he’d already seen “the girl one,” but Matt and I have no idea what that means. Godzilla does lay eggs in the 1998 American film, but Matt knows better than to show him that clunker.

***Garner was understandably kinda bored during the scenes where Ichiro is at home or roaming his city, and he didn’t really care about the side plot of Ichiro helping the local police catch a gang of robbers. But thankfully, this film doesn’t waste too much time in the real world and takes viewers to Monster Island for what feels like more than half of the runtime.

All Monsters Attack is available on HBO Max, the Criterion Channel, Tubi, and Pluto TV, and it’s available to rent elsewhere.