Earth attack order Godzilla vs.Gigan

Directed by
 Music by
 Running time
96 minutes (USA)
 Budget

Earth Destruction Directive: Godzilla vs. Gigan (also known as Earth Attack Command: Godzilla vs. Gigan) and also known as Godzilla on Monster Island when first released to U.S. theaters, is a 1972 tokusatsu film. The 12th of the Toho Studio's Godzilla series, it was directed by Jun Fukuda with special effects by Teruyoshi Nakano. In the U.S., Cinema Shares released the film in 1977. When released to video in the 1980s, the title reverted to Godzilla vs. Gigan.

The monsters featured in this film are Godzilla, Anguirus, King Ghidorah and a new monster, Gigan.

Godzilla fans usually do not hold the film in high esteem. It had a lower budget than most of the other Godzilla films and depends heavily on stock footage from earlier Toho kaiju movies, such as Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, Rodan, War of the Gargantuas, Destroy All Monsters, and Monster Zero. However, because of the film's low-budget, the special-effects crew could not have completed the movie without the use of the older footage. Some fans do enjoy the film for its lengthy four-way fight between the monsters at the finale.

## Plot

Giant cockroaches from a Dying Earth-like planet in the Space Hunter Nebula M plot to colonize our planet of Earth and destroy all cities to make it more "Peaceful" (Peace and technology are the themes of this film). They inhabit the bodies of recently deceased humans, thus resembling them, and work as the staff of the Japan branch of the peace-themed theme park, World Children's Land (based in Switzerland), the centerpiece being the Godzilla-shaped "Godzilla Tower". The plan of the Nebula M aliens is to use the space monsters King Ghidorah and Gigan (guided by two "Action Signal Tapes") to wipe out civilization. A cartoonist named Gengo Kotaka stumbles onto their plan after being hired as a concept artist for them. When Gengo and his friends play one of the incomprehensible Action Signal Tapes (which he obtained by accident) on their tape player, only Godzilla and Anguirus hear it from afar and catch on to this evil plot as well. Godzilla sends Anguirus to the source of the sound to make sure nothing's wrong, but once Anguirus arrives at Tokyo Bay, the Japanese military, having no clue on the Monster's intentions, drives him away. Anguirus goes back to Monster Island, and Godzilla then follows him back to the city. Both monsters try to save the Earth from King Ghidorah and Gigan, though the Nebula M aliens plan to lure Godzilla into a shocking fatal trap via placing an extremely powerful laser cannon inside the Godzilla tower,s mouth and firing it at Godzilla.Once the tower is destroyed by the main human characters Godzilla and Anguirus try to Drive Gigan and King Ghidorah into a retreat back into space and save the our world Earth.

## Cast

* Hiroshi Ishikawa   as   Gengo Kotaka, manga artist
* Tomoko Umeda   as   Machiko Shima
* Yuriko Hishimi   as   Tomoko Tomoe
* Minoru Takashima   as   Shosaku Takasugi
* Zan Fujita   as   Fumio Sudo, chairman of World Children's Land
* Toshiaki Nishizawa   as   Kubota, secretary of World Children's Land
* Kunio Murai   as   Takashi Shima, computer engineer
* Gen Shimizu   as   Self Defense Force commander
* Kuniko Ashihara   as   Fumio Sudo's mother
* Kurayoshi Nakamura   as   Priest
* Akio Murata   as   Kado, editor-in-chief
* Naoya Kusakawa   as   Police officer
* Wataru Omae   as   Voice of police station speaker / radio announcer / Nebulan henchman
* Hiroto Kimura, Sadao Watanabe, Noritake Saito   as   Nebulan henchmen
* Akira Nishikawa   as   Nebulan henchman / JSDF radar operator
* Haruo Nakajima   as   Godzilla / employee of magazine company / JSDF staff member
* Koetsu Omiya   as   Anguirus / JSDF radar operator
* Kanta Ina   as   King Ghidorah
* Kenpachiro Satsuma   as   Gigan (as Kengo Nakayama)

### International English dub

* Linda Masson   as   Tomoko Tomoe
* Michael Kaye   as   Shosaku Takasugi / Kado / Nebulan henchman / police officer
* Ted Thomas   as   Kubota / Godzilla / priest / radio announcer
* Chris Hilton   as   Fumio Sudo

## Staff

* Directed by   Jun Fukuda
* Written by   Kaoru Mabuchi, Shinichi Sekizawa
* Produced by   Tomoyuki Tanaka
* Stock Music by   Akira Ifukube
* Cinematography by   Kiyoshi Hasegawa
* Edited by   Yoshio Tamura
* Production Design by   Yoshifumi Honda
* Assistant Directing by   Fumisake Okada
* Special Effects by   Teruyoshi Nakano
* Theme Song "Godzilla March" Performed by   Susumu Ishikawa
	+ Composed by   Kunio Miyauchi
	+ Lyrics by   Shinichi Sekizawa, Jun Fukuda

## Soundtrack

*Main article: Earth Destruction Directive: Godzilla vs. Gigan (Soundtrack).*

## Titles

* Earth Attack Command: Godzilla vs. Gigan (literal Japanese title)
* Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah: Earth Attack Command (early Japanese title)
* Godzilla on Monster Island (Original United States title)
* WAR of the MONSTERS! (Original United Kingdom title)
* Galien, the Monster from other Galaxies Attacks the Earth (Spain)
* Godzilla Against Gigan (Godzilla contra Gigan; Mexico; Godzilla kontra Gigan; Poland)
* Earth Objective: Mission Apocalypse (Objectif Terre: Mission Apocalypse; France)
* Frankenstein's Hell Brood (Frankensteins Höllenbrut; Germany)
* Godzilla Versus the Giants GIGA (Italy)
* The Planet of Godzilla Monsters (Dutch Belgium)
* Godzilla Against the Giants (Turkey)

## U.S. release

In March 1975, the Hong Kong-dubbed international version of Godzilla vs. Gigan played at the Toho Theatre in Honolulu, Hawaii. In 1977, Cinema Shares released an edited version of the international English print of Godzilla vs. Gigan throughout the U.S. as Godzilla on Monster Island, although only about a minute of the film actually takes place on Monster Island. The company made several cuts to the international version to obtain a G-rating from the MPAA:

* The title card reads "Godzilla on Monster Island" and the laser beam effect from the Japanese credits sequence is gone.
* Gengo calls Tomoko "a hard bitch" under his breath. Cinema Shares muted the entire soundtrack when the word "bitch" is muttered.
* Two scenes of Godzilla bleeding from Gigan's attacks are trimmed. The scene where Gigan cuts Anguirus in his snout with his abdominal saw is also edited out. However, the scenes afterwards, despite having Godzilla and Anguirus covered in blood from their wounds, were unchanged.
* While Godzilla and Anguirus swim away at the end of the movie, Godzilla turns and blasts the camera with his radioactive breath, lifted from the opening of the film. The energy beam fills the camera, over which the words "THE END" are superimposed.
* Perhaps the most significant change in the English-language edit of the film occurs when Godzilla and Anguirus talk. In the original Japanese version, speech bubbles appear out of the monsters' mouths and display their dialogue. In the international version, voice actor Ted Thomas, the producer of the English-language soundtrack, recorded actual English dialogue for the scene, while the speech bubbles were removed. This alteration was retained in Cinema Shares' version of the film.

Godzilla on Monster Island was frequently shown in television syndication throughout the 80's, and it aired several times on the Sci-Fi Channel before being replaced by the widescreen international version in 2002. In 1988, New World Pictures picked up the home video rights to Godzilla vs. Gigan and Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. Toho provided New World Video with prints of the international versions, now under their official international titles. The international English dub track was retained, but both films were now restored to their full length. These versions were subsequently re-released on video in 1992 by Starmaker Video, in 1997 by Anchor Bay and in 2004 by TriStar Pictures. The TriStar DVDs feature newly remastered prints of Toho's original international versions along with the original Japanese audio. Kraken Releasing also released Godzilla vs. Gigan, Ebirah, Horror of the Deep and Godzilla vs. Hedorah on DVD and Blu-ray in 2014. The versions of the films included in these releases are identical to those from the TriStar DVDs. Because these DVDs and Blu-rays use the international prints of the film, Godzilla and Anguirus' speech bubbles are not present even in the Japanese audio track.

## Remarks and Remake

### Animated Remake

in 2017 Gemstone Animation posted a trailer on you-tube called godzilla vs. gigan said to be released in 2023.

## DVD

**Power Multimedia** DVD (1999)

* Region: N/A
* Discs: 1
* Audio: English (Mono), Mandarin (Mono)
* Subtitles: Chinese (traditional and simplified)
* Special Features: None
* Notes: Presents an unaltered 35mm transfer of the film's international version, albeit cropped to 1.33:1. Includes traditional and simplified Chinese subtitles. Out of print.

**Cine Plus** DVD (2001)

* Region: 2
* Discs: 1
* Audio: German (2.0 Mono and 5.1 Surround)
* Subtitles: None
* Special Features: None

**Toho** DVD (2004)

* Region: 2
* Discs: 1
* Audio: Japanese (1.0 Mono and 5.1 Surround)
* Subtitles: Japanese
* Special Features: Audio commentary by Shinji Higuchi and Kenji Konuta, theatrical trailer, image gallery, "Godzilla March" sing-along

**TriStar Pictures** DVD (2004)

* Region: 1
* Discs: 1
* Audio: Japanese (2.0 Mono), English (2.0 Mono)
* Subtitles: English, French
* Special Features: Trailers
* Notes: Uses a single video track with English titles and credits, leaving out Anguirus and Godzilla's speech bubbles. Out of print.

**Madman** DVD (2006)

* Region: 4
* Discs: 1
* Audio: English, Japanese
* Subtitles: English
* Special Features: Theatrical trailer, poster gallery, trailers for *Invasion of Astro-Monster*, *Godzilla vs. Hedorah*, and *Godzilla 2000: Millennium*

**Kraken Releasing** DVD/Blu-ray (2014)

* Region: 1 (DVD) or A/1 (Blu-ray)
* Discs: 1
* Audio: Japanese (2.0 Mono), English (2.0 Mono)
* Subtitles: English
* Special Features: Japanese trailer
* Notes: Uses a single video track with English titles and credits, leaving out Anguirus and Godzilla's speech bubbles. Subtitles alternate between translating the Japanese dialogue and following the English dub, while a second subtitle option only translates on-screen text.

**Toho** Blu-ray (2014)

* Region: A/1
* Discs: 1
* Audio: Japanese (2.0 LPCM, 5.1 DTS-HD MA)
* Subtitles: Japanese
* Special Features: Audio commentary by Shinji Higuchi and Kenji Konuta, "The Man who Made Godzilla Tower: Nobuyuki Yasumaru" featurette (20 minutes), conversation between Masaaki Tezuka and Yuriko Hishimi (40 minutes), theatrical trailer, scans of the theatrical program, "Godzilla March" sing-along

**The Criterion Collection** Blu-ray (2019) [*Godzilla: The Showa-Era Films, 1954–1975*]

* Region: A/1 or B/2
* Discs: 8
* Audio: Japanese
* Subtitles: English
* Special Features: All bonus features on Criterion's *Godzilla* Blu-ray, 1990 Ishiro Honda interview by Yoshimitsu Banno, interview with director Alex Cox, interviews with actors Bin Furuya and Tsugutoshi Komada, 2011 interview with critic Tadao Sato, unused effects sequences from Toho releases including *Destroy All Monsters*, trailers, illustrated hardcover book with an essay by Steve Ryfle and liner notes on each film by Ed Godziszewski
* Notes: Uses a new English subtitle translation. Sony distributed a Region B/2 version of the set in the United Kingdom.