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I hate to be the rotten apple, but I didn't like this movie.  Sure, there was that battle with Ghidorah at the end, but BABY GODZILLA KILLED ONE OF HIS HEADS WITH A SMOKE RING!  ARRRRRGH!  Otherwise, the monsters just kind of appeared, went "Rahh", and vanished for the middle part of the movie.  It's like one of those movies into which the makers cram as many celebrity cameos as possible.  Rarely the formula for success.

Sadly, some of the "monsters" were just leftover suits horribly deteriorated from long storage--this is why Baragon gets little screen time and poor, immobile Varan (The Unbelievable!) gets almost none--while other, less-impressive but more-recent monsters like Gorosaurus and Spiga appear much more often.

Thankfully, others were newly-made. The Angilas suit would be used in "Godzilla on Monster Island/vs Gigan," a cameo in "Godzilla vs Megalon," and "Godzilla vs Mecha-Godzilla," and by that time it too was in terrible condition; such are the problems of budget. I prefer the original design of Manda (from "Atragon"), but the new one gives quite an impressive performance, slithering down city streets and crushing elevated tracks in its coils.

Eiji Tsurubaya's best miniature set actually appears early on; the SY-3's launch base. This 'miniature' must have been freaking huge. The pan-shot across it shows fabulous depth. Others, like the Paris set, are incredibly detailed for their short appearances. Of course, you just can't beat an Akira Ifukube score, and this is one of his best. I just wish...well, the stupid dummy shown plunging down a cliff is the worst I've ever seen, but screw it. Monsters everywhere! Whee!

The final scene is fantastically unique; the monsters are utterly at peace, instead of roaring and snarling and thrashing and raising hell. They're quiet. They're chillin' out. It's enough to bring a tear to a kaiju-fan's eye.

As to the Baragon in Paris thing, he *was* scripted to be the monster conducting the attack.  However, as a previous poster noted, either the Baragon suit was so badly deteriorated as to be unusable, or else (an alternate theory advanced recently in G-Fan) they had ordered a new suit and it didn't arrive in time to use it.  Either way, Gorosaurus was instead used.  This would explain to those who follow these things enough to be confused as to why Gorosaurus suddenly manifested tunneling why this was so.  Baragon, of course, was established as a tunneling beast in Frankenstein Conquers the World.  Similarly, the reporter calls Gorosaurus "Baragon" because Baragon was still the monster named in the script Toho sent over for translation/dubbing purposes.

Destroy all Monsters, was the battle royal of monster movies. To imagine all the Toho creatures in one film, would be mind boggling, but here it is. I found every moment the monsters had screen time to be the most exciting. My only quirk with these films,is WHY DO THE HUMANS, WHO COULDN'T ACT THEIR WAY OUT OF A WET PAPER BAG GET MORE SCREEN TIME? If there were no monsters in this movie, I would say "Why bother"?

Well not enough of seeing the monsters and those you never have seen before are there for like 8 seconds. I would've liked more monsters smashing things.

i love the classic godzilla type monster movies. even though it looks stupid because of the actors in suits unlike the special effects marvels we have now, i enjoy the classic monster movie.(especially when it includes Godzilla king of the monsters!)

Definatly beats STAR WARS. DESTROY ALL MONSTERS is the mother of all monster films. The special effects are exelent! What am I saying, they were not exelent but magnificant. Eiji Tsuburaya, I sallute you. Tsuburaya is the "Master" of special effects and not that no-tallent-bum George Lucas. Though the monsters on here are limited (Baragon, Manda, Varan, and Minya were not seen that much in here), it is still a good film. I recently bought a Japanese Widescreen version with the American International Pictures (AIP) English language dub because the recently video release version contains a new dubbing soundtrack. For those who are searching for the original AIP English dub, I suggest you look a lot more harder because it is missing. But thank God I have my version of this special film.

I saw this one on Swedish TV as a kid, around 1970, and was thoroughly fascinated. (So _much_ action crammed into one single movie.) The national TV network did not show much SF in those days and I cannot really understand how anyone in TV HQ purchasing dept could have chosen this movie. Anyhow, it was very amusing to read about it 30 years later. Thanks a lot.

   If you're in two minds about renting the video and watching it, then all I can say is "GO FOR IT ! !"  The opening several minutes are so unintentionally hilarious that you will laugh 'til you cry !!  It's funny, all right, I mean: split-your-sides and fight-for-breath funny.  I have watched even quite staid and reserved people slump off the chair onto the floor laughing through the introductory "Monsterland" scene at the beginning of the film.  See it - and if you can get "Godzilla vs Gigan" while you're at it, then you'll have my candidate for the silliest of all Japanese monster movies into the bargain.  Happy viewing ! ! !

Ah, sweet excess!  This one is just a blast, there is not a single reason to not see it.

In no way a good movie, but I love it. So many monsters. THey don't get enough screen time, but what they do get is worth it. I give it 4/5.

One of the best G-Films ever! Who could ask for more in a Godzilla film (monster-wise, anyway). Though I was hoping they got into the worldwide destruction a bit more, the attack on Tokyo from Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, and Manda, as well as the battle-royale at Mt. Fuji more than made up for it. Man, seeing Godzilla, Gorosaurus, Angilas, Rodan, Mothra, Spiega, and Minya all going at King Ghidorah like that! Wow! One of the best G-films from the 1960s.

Ready for yet another qik review-once again I say-GO Godzilla!!For once,there are some good lookin' alienbabes(esp. the Head Kilaak)The pluses in this flick:opening volcanic/gas attack on monster island;the SY-3EVERYtime it takes off;Godzilla/Rodan guarding alien base & airspace;the all-SO-familiar attack of Tokyo;the takedown of alien moonbase(to me-that scene's enuf to make a badmovie good!}and the final fight goes w/o saying.Do I have to point out the minuses in here?How about varan sharing a lil'more cinema spotlight(eh,Toho boys?)No offense but allowing Ghidrah to get SPANKed sumptin' awful the minute Gorosaur doubleheels him in the back is something I'll never forget..(I'm still lookin for the other mothra twin-see ya!)

This is simply the most fun a kid can have! I saw it when I was about 10, and now 34, after watching it on sci-fi channel, I still love this movie. All the Toho monsters in one movie, and seeing Ghidra get his butt kicked WWF style rules! Got it taped for my son who's a huge Godzilla fan like I was at his age. This is the kind of entertainment I wish more of today's kids could experience. Great site by the way...

How come the alien base on earth resembles the "bat cave" from Batman? The begging of this movie was brought to you by Toho construction paper Ltd.

This was one of the first Godzilla movies I ever saw and It just totally rocks, which is quite a surprise for a godzilla film of the showa series which is saying a lot because I am a fan of the more darker  serious heisei series.
The one thing that bugged me though was the fact that there was no explanation to why baby godzilla had not matured at all since "son of godzilla"

I just bought this moive today and I love it. The best thing about this G film is that there is no stock fotage. So far, this is my second Godzilla moive(my first one was Godzilla 1956). If you love big monsters and one heack of a fight, get this one.

Pretty cool movie, Lots of Kaiju action. I enjoyed it, but I still think that Ghidrah: The Three-Headed Monster, Was a better movie.

I like seeing all of the monsters in this film, but the final fight scene between King Ghidorah and the Earth monsters always stands out in my mind.  First is the lame excuse for introducing King Ghidorah on the side of the aliens: "King Ghidorah is a space monster, so we can control his mind" (or something to that effect).  Second is the poor strategy of the aliens.  Sure, Ghidorah is a kick-ass three-headed monster, but he is no match for ten other monsters his own size (plus an annoying Baby Godzilla (Godzillita?).)  Another alien monster or two (like that one with the buzzsaw in his chest) would have been better, but it was still fun watching Ghidorah getting the tar beaten out of him.

This IS & always will be the penultimate Japanese monster (kaiju) ever made! When i first saw this classic back in the 1970's on Saturday afternoon TV in Chicago, i knew from the beginning that you should not consider yourself a kaiju fan unless you see this monster battle royale!

On a lighter note, Gamera still blows...

Forget that crap like E.T. or Citizen Cane, just find yourself a copy of this movie. Better than all of movies on this list, better than all the movies that have ever come out of Hollywood. Perhaps the greatest form of art in human history!!!

Man, the world needs more classic films like this one!

Dr. Bendo's comments echoed my own (which were published a few years ago in a letter to G-FAN) about the Kilaaks' stupidity in sending one monster (King Ghidorah) against ten Earth monsters when, as proven in GHIDRAH THE THREE HEADED MONSTER, three could kick his twin ass.
Still, DESTROY ALL MONSTERS is a fun movie to watch, despite the fact that it didn't put the other monsters to better use. Kumonga and Mothra only spit webbing on Ghidorah's corpse, Minya only blew smoke rings at the tri-beast and the rest just watched from the sidelines as Godzilla, Angilas* and Gorosaurus did all the fighting.
Oh well, at least it was better than the G-flicks that followed it.
* I used to date a chick named Ann gillis.

I've been downing most of the movies I've commented on so far, but this one is different.  As ridiculously stupid as all of the Godzilla movies are, this one was probably the best.  When I was a kid, I loved watching the monsters fight.  I'm not sure that I'd enjoy it now as much as I did then, but I still have to salute this one.  A gem among Godzilla movies (that's not saying much, but hey...I give it credit).

Oh I almost forgot... I just loved the gorosaurus scenes. I was so dissapointed when he was killed in "King kong escapes" but when I saw him on the opening sequence of DOM
I was like "Now where have I seen that T.Rex before? Why... No... It cant be?!?"

Wow what a team huh? all them monsters battling to keep ghidra and those evil aleins from taking over the universe or at least the earth but since he was out numbered ghidra had no chance gets his butt kicked

At least Rhodan was seen consuming Tuna-free dolphin.

Silly beyond belief, but still a rollicking Monster Grudge Match.  Sadly, the quality of the series seemed to take a pretty standard downturn during the 70's.  The cityscape miniatures are astoundingly elaborate and the glittery body-suited Amazon aliens are a kick.  The plot is pointlessly elaborate much like "Monster Zero".  Why not just unleash Ghidorah and the flaming spacecraft upon the world instead of rallying the other turncoat monsters?  This is nitpicking, since logic was never terribly important in any of these movies, but why were Baragon and Varan even included at all?  They register so little screen time and just seem to vanish during the big pay off.  Manda doesn't get much action either.    All in all, "Destroy All Monsters!" is a double-edged sword.  It is wild and raucous, but the monsters' reputations as figures of harmless fun were sealed with this film.  

Destroy All Monsters is the Greatest Godzilla movie ever and it's 10 times better than Star Wars. All the monster battles were amazing and the Destruction scenes will blow you away. Destroy All Monsters will blow you away with it's great special effects and Giant monsters again and again.

Nothing like a battle royal between all those monsters to keep things going what action what pose and ghidra out numbered 10 to 1 and even with three heads ghidra gets his butt kicked

One of the worst Godzilla movies ever made.Where the hell was BARAGON and VARAN and MANDA when GHIDRAH was getting his butt kicked out getting a beer or something.Buy MONSTER ZERO that was to me the best godzilla movie from the 60's.Avoid this crap.

Seven monsters against one King Ghidorah. Not a fair fight, don't you think?

Destroy all Monster is another one of my favorites . It was the last good monster film of the Showa series . The special effects are good and well excuted . The only thing I did not like about this movie is that Varan and Baragon don't get much of an apperance Baragon only gets 20 seconds Varan only got bnetween 7-10 seconds why you may ask ? The suits had detorited and they could ony get short appearence. Destroy all Monsters gets on my rating 4 oujt of 5 stars ...

Wow!,it's the year 1999,Space:1999,well,actually this came first,but both fancy the idea of daily space flights to the moon,like for instance astronaut Akira Kubo and the rest of the spaceship crew of SY-3,fortunatly the moon's not going out of earth orbit nor is there another Gorath,but unfortunatly they do encounter a UFO belonging to the Kilaaks,with the exception of some alien we meet,like Prince of Space,Maya,Dr.Who and a few others,most come from planets that are dieing and want to take over earth,like The Mysterians,Natels,X-ites ect.,anyway the Kilaaks invade MonsterIsland and force the monsters and people to try to conquer the world for the glory of Kilaak,one of them is Yukiko Kobayashi,who just happens to look like the Gracie Allen of Japan,I wonder if she's related to the equally lovely Tetsuko Kobayashi who was the Empress of MU in Atragon,anyhow we can't let this happen so in order to stop it the people of earth have to find the Kilaaks main sytem of control,it's on the moon!,so the crew of SY-3 takes care of that and  the monsters and people are freed,including Garcie Allenson,so the Kilaaks send in Ghdriah-The 3-Headed Monster in to Destroy All Earth Monsters,except Gamera,he should of been there,Toho Diae conflicts not withstanding,well the final monster fight was certainly better than thoes in Godzilla The Final Wars,especially the part where Gorasoras dropkicks Ghidrah!,Earth Monsters win,and SY-3 takes care of the last Kilaak ufo,seems they couldn't stand the cold,which brings up just one more thing,the head of the Monsterland project was nonother than Jun Tazaki,and as all of us remember he's the one who lead Atragons attack aginst the MU Empire,see this would of been a perfect oppertunity to get Atragon out of the mothballs and use that Zreo Ray Cannon aginst the Kilaaks,you know how well it worked aginst the MU Empire,just ask Tetsuko Kobayashi,she'll tell you!.

I AM GODZILLA!

RAAAAWR!!

I give this movie a  :thumbup:

Just a quick update,our friend Keith of Showa Video has Destroy All Monsters,the A.I.P. original,at last!,get it and enjoy!.

Gidora must have sent guite the resume, since only G, Mothra larva and Rodan kicked his hiney last outting.
"What? No, that was a fluke, truse me, I can be a contender this time!"

In 'Fantastic Four' (vol. 1) #347, the premise is a homage of sorts to this film. The alien Skrulls use the monsters of Monster Island as a tool to try to conquer the Earth but are defeated by Spider-Man, Wolverine, the Hulk and Ghost Rider-I thought it was a nice shout-out to the sci-fi of yesteryear.

Chris K. mentioned how the film's original American-English dub-track was supposedly lost. That's more of a shame than younger fans may initially realize. The original English narration was by celebrated announcer Norman Rose. And there is an even bigger loss: the original English-dub for Akira Kubo's Katsu was by his regular -- and very well-known -- dub artist Jack Kirby. Kirby dubbed Kubo's voice in a great many of Kubo's onscreen and offscreen performances, including the original "Speed Racer" cartoons. That's Kirby dubbing for Kubo in the English-language versions of "Son Of Godzilla" and "Godzilla vs. Monster Zero". Ironically, the new English dubtrack does make a few, perhaps unintentional improvements in some awkward places of the original dub -- in the original dub, the Kilaaks were said to be incapable of dying, and when Ghidorah arrives on the scene Dr. Yoshida immediately orders that the controls be reset -- as though the Monsters wouldn't otherwise fight Ghidorah (a little too perfect with the mind-control, Doc). However, not counting the fact that a number of the voices on the newer dubtrack are sadlcartoonish, there is one piece of the original dub which is sadly missed: when Dr. Yoshida is addressing the reporters, the newer dub has him suddenly speaking unaccountably about a typhoon which occured twenty years earlier. In the original dub, he says something very much(or possibly exactly) like: "What we know now is simply ancient history. When the Monsters first appeared, they meant to DESTROY THE EARTH." That's a line from the original English dubbing I truly miss.

there was a Jack Grimes who worked with Titra Dubbing (along with Peter "Speed Racer" Fernandez, who wrote most if not all of Titra's dub scripts).  i believe Hal (Barney Miller) Linden dubbed Akira Kubo (at least according to the IMdB).
i have a really nice DVD copy of this and SMOG MONSTER both with the AIP original dubs.  anyone interested should PM me, i'd be happy to help.

David

Xenorama is indeed right. Akira Kubo's regular English-dubber was indeed Jack Grimes, not Jack Kirby. Well, now that that's rectified, how about some more attempted insights into the various non sequitors of "Destroy All Monsters"?

-- How did Katsu know that Kyoko's earrings were mind-control devices? Did he recognize the Kilaak metal in their composition? Talk about being super-observant!
-- It's clear that the monsters are being controlled by those metallic "rocks" which are being used as miniature relay-stations by the Kilaaks rather than the bodily implants inserted into humans to control them. But after the United Nations begins collecting these devices, the monsters apparently still remain under Kilaak control. Are the Kilaaks replacing those transmitters as fast as they are being removed? And how?
-- In the original English-dub, the Kilaak Queen never hesitates to say her people are taking over Earth and want humanity as their slaves; there is no dementedly perky "I have a dream" speech about establishing "a new scientific civilization" on our world. But there is never any explanation in either dub about why the Kilaaks want to enslave humans. Considering that the Kilaaks are actually tiny sluglike beings of "living metal" which can only exist properly in extreme heat (it's even possible they use heat rather than any gaseous air for respiration), one is tempted to believe that they need human physicality due to the obvious limitations of their physical nature; like in Mario Bava's "Planet Of The Vampires", where the Aurans take over human bodies because their noncorporeal state prevents them from building anything. Yet the Kilaaks successfully assume human form and have successfully developed an advanced technology. So why enslave humanity?
-- If the Kilaaks truly come from a tiny planet between Mars and Jupiter (i.e., an asteroid), how can they have come from a molten-hot environment when that portion of space is so distant from the sun's heat? They would have to have come from inside an asteroid with a molten core similar to Earth's (a physical impossibility, to say the least). Of course, such a small planetary body lacking any atmosphere couldn't maintain a molten core for long, so of course the Kilaaks would have to move as their world cooled. But why not go to a more appropriate, superhot world such as Mercury or Venus rather than Earth?
-- If the Kilaaks, even in an assumed human form, still require a molten-hot environment, how can those various mind-controlled humans be seen in their presence without burning to cinders? It would seem because those humans are not humans at all, but other Kilaaks -- possibly humans transformed into Kilaaks? Is that what the Kilaaks really need humans for: genetic stock to replenish their race? Maybe that explains why no human bodies are seen after the SY-3 crew destroy the Kilaaks' moonbase.
-- And hey ... just what kind of technology could function or even survive in a molten Kilaak environment?

Just a thought or two.

I often re-watch this film, and it always brings back a slew of memories. I first watched it when I was 14 (on a Friday the 13th!), and up to that point my only *daikaiju* experiences were with the original "Godzilla", "Godzilla Versus The Thing" ["Mothra Versus Godzilla"], and "King Kong Escapes" as well as the non-Toho film "Monster From A Prehistoric Planet" ["Gappa The Triphibian Monster"]; I had heard of Rodan and Ghidrah, but was unfamiliar with Manda, Angilius, and the others, and thought they might be totally new monsters which would have attacked Japan in the future sometime prior to the movie -- I wasn't sure if Gorosaurus was the same tyrannosaur I'd seen in "KIng Kong Escapes", but of course he was. A few more interesting observations:

-- The original movie poster for this film was fantastically deceptive. Almost none of the monsters depicted are shown in the film, and in fact are mostly unidentifiable except for a giant spider which is obviously Spiga. There is a three-headed winged dragon, but it scarcely resembles Ghidrah and is breathing fire. A bipedal spiky thing may be Angilus or Varan, another looks like a hairless and deformed ape, and a beaked thing with horn-rimmed eyes might be Gappa (which doesn't appear in the film).
-- The force fields are all referred to as "walls" in the newer dub-track; the one surrounding Monsterland was originally referred to as an "electromagnetic force screen"; still, th e fact the Kilaak force fields ring when struck is a nice touch.
-- Ghidrah's defeat is all the more wonderful because the Earth-monsters actually KILL him! It is truly the most SATISFYING death-scene in *daikaiju* history. Even back then, Ghidrah was such a repugnant creature that it is always so wonderful to see his three heads get the very life stomped, bitten, smoke-ringed out of them.

Oh, and I remember something else. "Destroy All Monsters" was the first time I found out about Godzilla's son. I was just beginning to learn about genetics and mutations back then (1970), and had assumed that Godzilla was STERILE because of all that radioactivity he's charged with. I hadn't heard of "Son Of Godzilla" yet, and when I actually saw Minya/Minilla/Son of Godzilla, I thought he resembled that old comic actor Jimmy Durante (??!!!). But even then his ridiculous appearance didn't surprise me because I realized that, being the offspring of one or two radioactive parents, he was obviously DEFORMED.

Middle-school minds used to work that way back then, I suppose.

Ghidra dont stand a chance neither dose the evil aliens one all the good momsters break the mind control and kich ghidras butt I HAVE THIS ON VSH campy at times but still great

Even though Showa Video's no more,you can still get the AIP version of Destroy All Monsters from Super Strange Videos and Fifth Dimension Films.

What are you whining about? Ghidorah has 3 heads, he can see in all directions, no oje can sneak up on him! Plus he's from space!  :bouncegiggle:

Two other great stars are often missed in this movie: Yoshio Tsuchiya ( I forget his character's name in the film) and a very-little seen Susumo Kurobe, aka Hayata from the 1966 Ultraman TV series. You have to look quickly to see Kurobe because he's one of the hypnotized thugs on the beach scene where they have the shootout.  Kurobe was also one of Dr. X's henchmen in King Kong Escapes.