Godzilla vs. Mothra

Directed by
 Running time
 Budget

**Godzilla vs. Mothra** (ゴジラVSモスラ *Gojira buiesu Mosura*?, also known as Godzilla & Mothra: Battle for Earth) is a 1992 film directed by Takao Okawara. The slogan is "Great Battle of Super Colors”.

## Plot

A giant meteor fell off the coast of Ogasawara in the Pacific Ocean, waking up Godzilla asleep at the bottom of the sea in the battle with Mecha King Ghidorah . On the other hand, on Infant Island in the South Sea, a huge mysterious object appeared from the ground due to the effects of a huge typhoon and development.

Treasure hunter Takuya Fujito goes to Infant Island with his ex-wife Masako Tezuka and Kenji Ando, ​​a member of Maruyu Kanko who is developing the island, on the condition of exemption from digging and vandalism in Ayutthaya . What they saw was a Mothra egg. Tomokane, the president of Maruyu Kanko, decides to ship Mothra eggs to Japan.

However, Cosmos 2 people of the island claiming a small beauty is, Butler warns the crisis caused by the resurrection of. Meanwhile, from the glacier of the northern sea, Batra wakes up and enters Japan, appears in Nagoya, destroys the city, and disappears into the ground. On the other hand, the egg carrier "Ariake Maru" was attacked by Godzilla while sailing off the Pacific coast of the Philippines. Mothra larvae hatch from the eggs , and spit strings from their mouths to respond. Butra also appeared, and the three-way battle began. An undersea volcano exploded while Godzilla and Butla continued sinking into the sea . Both disappear into magma.

Cosmos was accompanied by Takuya and others, but was kidnapped by Ando, ​​and Tomokane plans to make them the image characters of the company. Meanwhile, Mothra has landed in Tokyo following Cosmos. Made a cocoon in the National Diet Building and eventually changed into an adult. Mt. Fuji erupted at the same time. Godzilla emerged from the erupting lava.

An adult butler also appears before Mothra takes off. Godzilla also appears while both are clashing in Minato Mirai, and the battle of three sides begins again.

## Cast

* Takuya Fujito: Tetsuya Bessho
* Masako Tezuka: Satomi Kobayashi
* Kenji Ando: Takehiro Murata
* Miki Saegusa: Emi Odaka
* Midori Tezuka: Shiori Yonezawa
* Ryuzo Dobashi: Shoji Kobayashi
* Chief of Staff, Fuyuki Takaoka  : Susumu Kurobe
* Chief of Ground Staff (Takeo Shimura  ): Kenzo Ogiwara
* Chief of Staff at the Sea (Daisuke Hirata  ): Shin Tatsuma
* Tank Captain: Satoshi Watanabe
* Cosmos: Keiko Imamura , Sayaka Osawa
* Dixon (Institute for Biology): James Nougent
* Mount Fuji/Volcano Observatory: Masahiro Matsufuji
* NASA staff: Jun Ortiz , Joshua Riverman , Kobe Diddle , Jemmy Cotton , Robert Zacher
* Mayumi Fukasawa: Yoshiko Tanaka
* Takeshi Tomokane: Makoto Otake
* Captain: Shinya Owada
* Minoru Ohmae: Koichi Ueda
* Shigeki Fukasawa: Saburo Shinoda
* Joji Minamino: Akira Takarada

## Staff

* Production: Tomoyuki Tanaka
* Screenplay: Kazuki Omori
* Music Director: Akira Ifukube
* Producer: Shogo Toyama
* Photo: Masahiro Kishimoto
* Art: Ken Sakai
* Recording: Teiichi Saito
* Sound effect: Hideyo Sasaki ( Oriental Sound )
* Lighting: Hideki Mochizuki
* Editing: Miho Yoneda
* Assistant Director: Kunio Miyoshi
* Producer: Takahide Mori, Koji Maeda
* Kudo: Takami Morioka
* Special technology
	+ Photo: Kenichi Eguchi , Toshimitsu Oneda
	+ Art: Tetsuzo Osawa
	+ Lighting: Kaoru Saito
	+ Special effect: Tadaaki Watanabe
	+ Molding: Tomomi Kobayashi , Tsuzo Murase
	+ Performance: Koji Matsumoto
	+ Assistant Director: Kenji Suzuki
	+ Producer: Taro Kojima
	+ Godzilla: Kenshiro Satsuma
	+ Batra: Hae Li Ken Ryu
* Cooperation: Defense Agency , Tokai University Information Technology Center
* Sponsored by: Japan Satellite Broadcasting , Namco , Seiyu , Konica , Toshiba , Oshima Transport
* Production cooperation: Toho Visual Art , Toho Sound Studio, Toho Music, Toho Costume, Tokyo Lab, Toho Studio
* Special skill director: Koichi Kawakita
* Director: Takao Okawara
* Toho movie works
* Distribution: Toho

## Titles

* Mothra: The Butterfly Dragon (Original taiwan title)
* Godzilla's Dragon War of the Four Seas (Hong Kong)
* Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth (United States)
* Godzilla vs. Mothra: Battle for Earth (Oceania)
* Godzilla: Battle of the Saurian Mutants (Germany)
* Godzilla: The Mutant Dinosaur (Argentina)
* Great Battle of Super Colors ( Slogan & Production title)

## Production

The idea of shooting a movie featuring a revamped Mothra dated back to a screenplay written in 1990 by Akira Murao entitled *Mothra vs. Bagan*, which revolved around a vengeful dragon called Bagan who sought to destroy humanity for its abuse of the Earth's resources, only to be defeated by Mothra, the goddess of peace. The screenplay was revised by Kazuki Ōmori after the release of *Godzilla vs. Biollante*, though the project was ultimately scrapped by Toho, under the assumption that Mothra was a character born purely out of Japanese culture, and thus would have been difficult to market overseas unlike the more internationally recognized Godzilla.

After the success of *Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah*, producer Shōgo Tomiyama and *Godzilla* series creator Tomoyuki Tanaka proposed resurrecting King Ghidorah in a film entitled *Ghidorah's Counterattack*, but relented when polls demonstrated that Mothra was more popular with women, who comprised the majority of Japan's population. Tomiyama replaced Ōmori with Takao Okawara as director, but maintained Ōmori as screenwriter. Hoping to maintain as much of *Mothra vs. Bagan* as possible, Ōmori reconceptualized Bagan as Badora, a dark twin to Mothra. The character was later renamed Battra (a portmanteau of "battle" and "Mothra"), as the first name was disharmonious in Japanese. Tomiyama had intended to feature *Mothra* star Frankie Sakai, but was unable to because of scheduling conflicts. The final battle between Godzilla, Mothra and Battra was originally meant to have a more elaborate conclusion; as in the final product, Godzilla would have been transported to sea, only to kill Battra and plunge into the ocean. However, the site of their fall would have been the submerged, Stonehenge-like ruins of the Cosmos civilization, which would have engulfed and trapped Godzilla with a forcefield activated by Mothra.

Ishirō Honda, who directed the first *Godzilla* film and many others, visited the set shortly before dying.

### Special effects

Koichi Kawakita continued his theme of giving Godzilla's opponents the ability to metamorphose, and had initially intended to have Mothra killed off, only to be reborn as the cybernetic moth *MechaMothra*, though this was scrapped early in production, thus making *Godzilla vs. Mothra* the first post-1984 *Godzilla* movie to not feature a mecha contraption. The underwater scenes were filmed through an aquarium filled with fish set between the performers and the camera. Kawakita's team constructed a new Godzilla suit from previously used molds, though it was made slimmer than previous suits, the neck given more prominent ribbing, and the arrangement of the character's dorsal plates was changed so that the largest plate was placed on the middle of the back. The arms were more flexible at the biceps, and the face was given numerous cosmetic changes; the forehead was reduced and flattened, the teeth scaled down, and the eyes given a golden tint. The head was also electronically modified to allow more vertical mobility. Filming the Godzilla scenes was hampered when the suit previously used for *Godzilla vs. Biollante* and *Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah*, which was needed for some stunt-work, was stolen from Toho studios, only to be recovered at Lake Okutama in bad condition. The remains of the suit were recycled for the first battle sequence. Godzilla's roar was reverted to the high-pitched shriek from pre-1984 *Godzilla* films, while Battra's sound effects were recycled from those of Rodan. In designing Battra, which the script described as a "black Mothra", artist Shinji Nishikawa sought to distance its design from Mothra's by making its adult form more similar to its larval one than is the case with Mothra, and combining Mothra's two eyes into one.

## Release

*Godzilla vs. Mothra* was released in Japan on December 12, 1992 where it was distributed by Toho. The film sold approximately 4,200,000 tickets in Japan, becoming the number one Japanese film on the domestic market in the period that included the year 1993. It earned ¥2.22 billion in distribution income, and grossed ¥3.77 billion in total.

### U.S. release

Godzilla vs. Mothra was released directly to VHS in the United States by TriStar Pictures in April of 1998, alongside Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah. TriStar released the film under the title Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth in order to avoid confusion with Mothra vs. Godzilla, which was known as Godzilla vs. Mothra in the U.S. at the time. TriStar used Toho's international English dub of the film, but not the international title card, instead using the Japanese title card with "Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth" in parentheses at the bottom of the screen. TriStar later released the film on DVD in November 1998 on the same disc as Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah. In 2014, Sony released the film on Blu-ray with its original Japanese audio track in a two-disc set with Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah.

## DVD

* DVD released on March 21, 2002.
	+ It is recorded in "GODZILLA FINAL BOX" released on April 22, 2005.
	+ It is included in the tall case version "Godzilla DVD Collection V" released on May 23, 2008, and a single item version is also released at the same time.
	+ On May 14, 2014, a low-priced limited edition was released as "Godzilla 60th Anniversary Edition".
	+ On June 15, 2016, the <Toho DVD Masterpiece Selection> version was released.
* The Blu-ray disc was released on January 22, 2010.