Ghidrah The Three-Headed Monster (1964)

This is one the most important in the series because Toho finally gave Godzilla an arch rival. Ghidrah's a weird looking monster, a three headed dragon from space that can shoot lightning out its mouths. His name was changed later in the series to Ghidorah and the prefix King is thrown on his name here and there. In this one, aliens from outer space take control of a targetted princess to warn the humans of an attack from Ghidrah. Pretty poor planning on their part because like I said she's being targetted by assasins. Well, like they promised, Ghidrah shows up with his lightning blowing up everything in Osaka either with lightning or his supersonic flying speed. As Ghidrah's raising hell on Osaka, we see Godzilla and Rodan (A giant pterodon that starred in his own film) beating each other. I guess Godzilla just isn't a people person. Anyways, he and Rodan just freaking hate each other and beat the crap out of each other, so Japan is pretty much screwed with 3 monsters destroying everything. Then Mothra comes in. In larvae form because the other one is supposed to be dead. She tries to take on ghidrah alone and gets beaten to a pulp. The twin faries get Mothra to go up to Godzilla and Rodan and try to get them to team up on Ghidrah. To get their attention, she spits web on Godzilla. A funny moment here, as Rodan starts laughing at him! Then when Mothra does it back to Rodan, Godzilla has good hoot himself. You can really tell how the series was trying to appeal to a younger demographic by applying human traits. Bad idea if you ask me. Godzilla and Rodan stop playing volleyball with a boulder long enough for them to do monster talk while the twin faries translate for us idiot humans. The battle begins shortly after this and this is where monster rumbles were born. 4 monsters beating each other up? Whats better than that?

Godzilla vs. Mothra

Godzilla vs Mothra is the 4th installment of Godzilla and features him again as a bad guy. But, notably, Godzilla isn't the 1st monster to appear in the movie. Mothra is. She lays an egg on an island but loses it. She a tropical storm sends to civilization, a corporate jerk finds it and wants to make money off it. Then twin fairies, who represent Mothra come down and tell the man that if he doesn't release the egg, Mothra's gonna crack some skulls. Now this is unusual for Mothra because she's a good monster who only throws a fit when nature is severely harmed. And not only does our business villain say no, he kidnaps the fairies. What a tool. To make matters worse, Godzilla arrives. From the ground, that's pretty unusual considering he retreated to the water after Godzilla vs King Kong. Godzilla has a rough time in this one as he falls into that Pagoda and the pyros malfunction setting the head on FIRE! The actor wasn't harmed because the head was in the neck, and it actually looks pretty cool for a freak accident. The monster action is actually really good considering Godzilla's fighting a moth but she puts up a good fight using wind storms created by wings, and dragging Godzilla around by his tail. She also uses a deadly pollen that poses a threat. In the end, the egg hatches and two larvae Mothra come out. They join the fight between Mothra and Godzilla and actually help fend Godzilla off. It's a great installment in the series and a great monster flick.

Godzilla Raids Again (1955)

Godzilla would return in this movie again as a force of destruction, but this time to attack Osaka. He isn't alone in this one as he faces a monster known as Anguirus and thus the monster match was born as a new tradition to carry throughout the series. The film was made only a year after the original but the mood and tone of grim despair are already gone. Godzilla and Anguirus beat the living crap out of each other and it gets pretty fast paced. Now, the Godzilla suit was trimmed down because it was so heavy that having to fight another monster would be a suicide mission. The fighting is decent, Godzilla fights like a boxer and Anguirus just gets his butt whipped. He's a worthy foe, but it's the King of the Monsters here.   Another tradition was started in this movie as well, when the pagoda gets destroyed in numerous monster battles in Osaka. The ending is really cool with the army shooting at the ice caps on mountains burying him for the next 7 years in frozen sleep. But he would return yet again in the best monster battle ever. Overall, this movie has some decent monster action, but not without it's flaws. Its an average sequel that doesn't impact the series a very large amount but did establish the importance of the monster battle.

Godzilla vs. King Kong (1962)

Godzilla vs King Kong! Wow, how big was this?! Two of the most famous monsters ever going head to head. The east vs the west, WWII rematch, America vs Japan. When Godzilla arrives, he's a bad guy, blasting the hell out of everything and just being an overall monster. When the army figures out for the 3rd time in a row that they can't do jack to a giant monster, they call in King Kong to even the odds. Now realistically, I mean for a monster movie, if original Kong were to fight Godzilla, it wouldn't be much of a fight. Godzilla was between 160 to 300 feet tall. Kong was 25 feet tall. Plus Godzilla could breathe fire. What's even weirder is, according to Cinnemassacre, Godzilla was originally supposed to be Frankenstein. And that Godzilla replaced him simply for marquis value. I guess that must've sucked for the German fans out there, knowing that their monster was scrapped. As for the fight, Kong gets his teeth kicked at first by Godzilla, but no matter how many times Kong gets put down, he just keeps getting up. He's the underdog, no doubt about it, and the fire definately poses a threat. That is until Kong gets lucky and gets struck by lightning, making some sort of power surge within him. Another sign that reminds more of Frankenstein. Godzilla and Kong really start fighting now and this time it's an equal brawl. Kong throws rocks and stuffs a tree up his butt. Nah, he  only stuck it down his throat. Then they fight like two Sesame Street characters. It's freaking hilarious. The winner is one of those up to you to decide and the only way to do that is to check it out for yourself.

Godzilla (1954)

Nearly a decade after WWII ended, Toho, a rising movie company decided to created a monster to symbolize the nuclear devastation that Japan had experienced first hand. The actual Japanese pronunciation of the name is Gojira. The name Gojira is actually the cross between the Japanese names for gorilla and whale, despite the fact that he looks nothing like a gorilla or whale the name was taken from a big guy who worked on the set and Gojira was his nickname. It's probably not hard to tell that our monster is a guy in a rubber suit but not many know how much it sucked to be the guy inside. First, it was hotter than the devils kitchen. Second, it was hard to move. And finally, you couldn't see a thing because your head was in the neck. Getting back to the movie itself, the producers created Godzilla in as force of nuclear destruction destroying everything and killing thousands in the capital of Japan, Tokyo. Toho doesn't treat this like a B-monster movie, they make it a natural disaster by showing gruesome death photos of people crushed by buildings, and to add on to the disturbance, there is a choir of girls singing softly in the backroud which creeps the heck out off me. The American release of the movie starred Raymond Burr who played a journalist named Steve Martin, narrating over the destruction Godzilla causes. Now since people typically dislike films made out of the country, all the shots of death were cut out and remade with American actors. Overall, this movie set the bar pretty high for the series. Check it out!