Castle Bravo: A Godzillaverse Retrospective

It's been a long-time in the edit room, but it's here! Our friend Case Aiken from Certain Point of View brings us together for a Pacific Rim themed RPG one-shot as a training exercise for jaeger pilots Derek and Charlotte turns into the heftiest challenge of their piloting career. Much love to our friend and one-shot DM Case Aiken for doing music and foley editing for this episode! It was...

It's a Gamera movie! After the first film clawed its way to release and found modest success, Daiei was ready to go all the way and give Gamera a second chance at the big screen, this time with an enemy monster to fight all his own, Godzilla style. No guests this week or for a while, as Season X is a purely Derek and Charlotte affair! Social Media Derek on Bluesky - @derekvandyke.bsky.social C...

It's EXTREMYL not a Godzilla movie. We begin our sidebar into (echoey voice effect) SEASON X to cover the Gamera series with the 1965 black and white original Gamera, the Giant Monster. Gamera is, famously, the most enduring of Godzilla's knockoff competitors, and we'll be looking at how Gamera grew up in the shadow of the Bigger G, and whether or not it ever comes to stand fully besid...

With major scheduling conflicts tying up recording on the next 5 episodes (the Netflix trilogy, King of the Monsters, and Godzilla Vs Kong) we're hitting the "break glass in case of emergency" in order to keep the show on the rails. Listen in for a candid discussion between the two of us about our plans for the show going a bit off the rails, and how embracing a knockoff may be able...

It's... not even a Godzilla movie? Okay, hold that thought until the credits are done rolling. Following in the footsteps of Legendary's Godzilla reboot, King Kong returns to the scene with his own Vietnam War era reimagining intended to prep the stage for a future crossover. And cross over they very much would... but not yet. We're joined this week once again by podcaster and frequent...

It's... not even a Godzilla movie? We take our first ever break from the schedule to talk about Pacific Rim, a movie that ISN'T Godzilla but made such an impact on general audiences that it paved the way for Legendary's Godzilla releasing a year later. The two were basically seen as companion films for a long time, and for years many were convinced that Legendary would end up folding P...

It's not a sequel to anything! Again! Following Legendary's total reimagining of Godzilla in 2014, Toho joined forces with acclaimed anime writer and director Hideaki Anno (of Evangelion fame) to direct their own completely standalone reimagining of a Godzilla movie, unconnected even to the original. What we got is an impeccably made, gripping film that has an awful lot to say about Japane...

It's not a sequel to anything! The Americans get another crack at Godzilla, bringing the king of the monsters back after a decade-long hiatus. The result is a movie that would launch one of the only successful cinematic universes in modern Hollywood, the uneven but thoroughly interesting "Godzilla". Come for Bryan Cranston, stay for... well, not Bryan Cranston, sadly. We're joine...

It's not a sequel to Tokyo SOS! Or, for that matter, a sequel to Godzilla vs Destoroyah, so stop saying that! It's truly the end of an era as we come upon the infamous Godzilla: Final Wars, a movie that decided that whatever it was going to be, it was going to be a lot of it. Featuring the most kaiju we've seen in a movie so far, and almost as many references to modern American blockbu...

It's... a sequel to Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla! Toho's reimagining of Mechagodzilla was a hit, and for the sequel they decided to amp up the star factor with a fan favorite who Mechagodzilla had never had a chance to meet: Mothra! This movie takes full advantage of this setting's unusual take of "the Showa era but Godzilla was only around for the first movie" to give us a...

It's been a long gap and a tumultuous summer. As we warm the machine back up for full production, we look back on the movies we've covered so far and casually chat about how many of them have stuck with us over time. It's a light episode, but it got electrons to start moving through brainmeats. We'll be back soon with the next full episode. Social Media Derek on Bluesky - @derekvan...

It's not a sequel to GMK! The Millennium era of Godzilla sees yet another "fresh start" that only acknowledges the original film, but weirdly also a bunch of other connected non-Godzilla movies of the Showa era. Boot up your DNA computers, because the latest model of Mechagodzilla is here to grace the silver screen once again with a drastically different take that was immediately bel...

It's not a sequel to Godzilla vs Megaguirus! Okay, that part's more obvious than last time. Today's movie is one of the most highly regarded in the franchise, and certainly the one with the longest title (just call it GMK). It's the darkest, most mean-spirited movie in the franchise so far, rocking a totally different creative crew from anything we've seen on a Godzilla movie before, and love it o...

It's not a sequel to Godzilla 2000! The often underlooked Godzilla vs Megaguirus brings over most of the creative team behind Godzilla 2000, and sure SEEMS like it should be a sequel, but it very specifically isn't! Setting the stage for a VERY strange new millennium of Godzilla, Godzilla vs Megaguirus gives us prehistoric black hole dragonflies and inexplicable flooding of Tokyo 1. Polish...

WELCOME BACK TO LIZARD CHURCH! Derek and Charlotte return after a healthy absence to kick off a new season of Castle Bravo. We had almost as much of a break as Godzilla himself, who was put back to work ASAP after the backlash to TriStar's first American Godzilla film. Godzilla 2000, released in 1999 (because what do numbers mean), received a huge western marketing push and a rare theatrical relea...

The season three finale is here as we tackle one of the most infamous blockbusters of the 90s. It has loomed over our heads for several episodes, languishing in development hell, but the 1998 Tristar Godzilla is finally here. Hollywood Disaster Film magnates Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich bring their crew from Stargate and Independence Day to bring audiences a movie almost as big as its marketing...

We're back with Matt and Jayson one last time as we bring Mothra's 90s movie trilogy to a close. It's a movie that was unfairly kept from western audiences for an unreasonably long time, especially when you consider just how good this final entry retroactively makes the entire Rebirth of Mothra trilogy. Moths are good, actually. Yes, we have technically broken our continuity slightly,...

Mothra's standalone film series continues as our baby boy Leo fights an aquatic jet plane dragon that is also a starfish parasite factory that is also an ancient garbage disposal created by Not-Atlantis. A furby pees on people. Leo turns into an underwater X-wing. It's a weird movie, but more than that, it's a movie that feels like it was shotgunned through an edit bay so it could be o...

Godzilla is dead and signed over to Hollywood, but Toho still needs to make money, so they dusted off some old script ideas and set to make Mothra a solo star again. The first of a trilogy aimed much more squarely at kids and families, Rebirth of Mothra is often overlooked but not lacking in charm. Come for Mothra and a goth Ghidorah doing fighting game special moves, stay for an evil camp fairy i...

It's the end of an era, the end of several careers, and the end of more than a couple lives (not all of them fictional) as the Heisei period of Godzilla movies draws to a close. One of the most beloved entries in the franchise, Godzilla vs Destoroyah ties the end to the beginning by centering the legacy of the Oxygen Destroyer, Dr Serizawa, and the Yamane family. Also, Crab Satan. Crab Satan i...

And so we're back! From outer space! It's a moment we have been dreading as the Heisei era finally loses the plot. Godzilla vs Spacegodzilla is a fun spectacle, and basically an early Dragonball Z arc in Godzilla form, but it's a case study in how good filmmaking can't overcome basic structural script problems. Derek does a script rewrite live even, a Castle Bravo first (and hopefu...

No, it's not a sequel to Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla. This entry in the Heisei era is the most interested in continuity so far, the most jam-packed with returning monsters, and the least thematically interesting (in that there is no real theme to speak of). But it's big, flashy, and fun, and they managed to make some version of Minilla that doesn't make me physically ill, so that's g...

With the previous two movies barely managing to break even, the decision was made to Break Glass In Case Of Emergency; it was time to bring back Mothra. The resulting film was not only incredibly faithful to Mothra's original film appearances, but also more smartly reimagined elements of her story to fit into the modern day (especially in comparison to Ghidorah's radical reinvention just o...

In the wake of Godzilla vs Biollante's middling box office performance, Toho decided to break out a secret weapon that would ensure a box office draw: King Kong. Except that got messy and complicated quick, so they went back to the workshop and brought out Godzilla's most recurring villain instead: King Ghidorah. What follows is the dumbest, smartest, dumbest again, maybe smartest again mo...

Return of Godzilla was a critical and commercial success, so Toho wanted to strike while the iron was hot. The best way to do this? Find a talented director and force him to work with a script you got in a contest. A tumultuous behind-the-scenes story led us to a movie wildly beloved by fans: Godzilla vs Biollante. Starring a guest appearance by infamous Dragon Quest series composer Koichi Sugiyam...