
Teen Tyrant
MemberMothra LarvaeSep-04-2014 11:43 PMSo, having watched Godzilla's fight with the Muto pair several times now, I finally realized why the battle is so wonderful and breaks from the common pattern seen in Godzilla movies.
With a few exceptions in the Millenium series (GMK, Final Wars), Godzilla's films since the first appearance of Mechagodzilla typically have a pattern of Godzilla fighting a creature or creatures that are either larger and stronger than him, or at least equal in size and power. Mothra is an exception, but she has certain advantages that make up for her physical weakness compared to Big G. I realized that Muto, particularly the large female, is very much like enemies such as Ebirah, Kamakaras, Gabara, Hedorah, Gigan and Megalon; that is, enemies from the middle of the Showa era to the Mechagodzilla films. These are enemies that Godzilla is able to physically defeat without a great deal of difficulty when on their own. Godzilla owned Ebirah, stomped the bejeezus out of the Kamakaras, handed Gabara's non-existant tail to him, tossed Hedorah all over the place, and flat-out beat the crap out of Gigan and Megalon. Yeah, when Hedorah grew bigger than him he became a problem, and when Gigan had King Ghidorah watching his back he had trouble, but otherwise, these were enemies who stood practically no chance against Godzilla in a straight up brawl.
The Mutos were a return to this era of enemy. When Godzilla and the female Muto first charged each other, I expected it to be a more violent collision, one resulting in two equally powerful creatures meeting. I was surprised (pleasantly) to see Godzilla more or less pick the Muto up from the ground in a football tackle and push her across half of San Francisco like she was no more an obstacle for him than the buildings he trampled through. You could see her trying to dig her claws into the buildings around them to anchor herself in place and it did nothing; Godzilla was having none of that. Despite her huge size and the implied challenge that a female monster would present (a mother protecting her offspring is nothing to mess around with no matter what species you are), the Muto could do nothing against Godzilla's power. The flying male Muto faired no better. Being smaller, faster and able to fly, he was able to play keep-away with Godzilla and get in a few nips, but that was all. It was only when the two worked together, like Gigan and Megalon, that they had any success against Godzilla, and even then they had to exploit his one weak spot by attacking his gills. It was awesome to see a "heroic" Godzilla tackle a physically inferior foe again, showing that he didn't get his title of King for nothing.
On a side note, I'd like to point out that one other great thing about the Muto, particularly the female, is that it kept up the tradition of each Godzilla era introducing a least one monster that is officially confirmed as female. The genders of all the monsters are more or less up for debate, but only four have been confirmed to absolutely be female, all four were introduced in a different era, and except for the Muto, for reasons described above, all of them have given Godzilla a major headache: Mothra in the Showa era, Biollante in the Heisei era, Megagurius in the Millenium era, and now the Muto in what we could call the Legendary era (American, Hollywood or Gareth Edwards era are also possible options). For this reason, I'm glad we were introduced to a new female monster for Godzilla to tackle, however lacking in challenge she may have been.