The Kaiju Transmissions Podcast

While everyone is seeing Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom this weekend, Byrd, Matt and frequent guest host Trev are here to discuss the first four films in the franchise.  You'll hear our thoughts on the films from the original 1993 Jurassic Park through 2015's Jurassic World.  The original film remains one of the most important genre classics ever made and the franchise continues to churn out sequels and make big money.  Join us as we talk about the origins of these films, our memories of how the original film affected us as kids, and the varying quality of the sequels.  Hold onto your butts!

For a special Father's Day episode, Byrd and Matt are joined by guest host Tom to watch 1967's Son of Godzilla!  This commentary covers our feelings on the movie, seeing it for the first time, director Jun Fukuda's attitude towards the Godzilla franchise, behind the scenes info and trivia, and more!  This is a favorite of ours and was a blast to record.  Enjoy and happy Father's Day!

Byrd and Matt are joined by G-Fan Ben Painter (the lucky winner of our listener contest) to discuss growing up with Godzilla and kaiju movies.  We talk about our first exposures to the genre, our favorite nostalgic memories, discovering the Heisei films in the early 90s, the pre-internet days, grey market VHS tapes, and more.  We also touch on being a fan in adulthood- raising children, introducing our kids to Godzilla, the movies we would recommend for young, new fans, and more!  Hopefully you'll enjoy this trip down memory lane as much as we enjoyed recording it!

Byrd, Matt and guest host Chris (The Other Sounds Podcast, Cosmic Monster) take a detour and visit when giant monsters attacked a galaxy far, far away.  Our main topic is the two part "Zillo Beast" arc of the "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" animated series, which was a loving tribute to daikaiju cinema.  In addition to discussing these episodes, we talk about the other giant monsters of the Star Wars universe and Godzilla's connections to the franchise.  But first, Chris gives us his review of "Solo: A Star Wars Story" and we share our thoughts on the strange current status of the series.  This episode was originally supposed to be recorded to coincide with the release of the new Star Wars film, "Solo" but the recording had to be delayed.  But we did it anyway, so we hope you enjoy it!

Byrd, Matt and guest host Tom delve into Japan's premier cyber-punk superhero, the Guyver!  We discuss the films The Guyver (1990) and The Guyver: Dark Hero (1994).  These two American adaptations of the Japanese manga/anime franchise combined body horror, Japanese tokusatsu hero aesthetics and the dark superhero cinema of 1990s Hollywood.  How successful were these bio-punk oddities?  We get into that, but first, as a primer, we also have some conversation on other aspects of the Guyver franchise, including the manga and anime.  Enjoy the discussion!

On this Mother's Day special, Byrd and Matt celebrate Mothra's Day by revisiting Toho's Rebirth of Mothra trilogy from the 1990s.  While Godzilla was in the hands of Tristar, Toho wasn't done making kaiju films and went to their second biggest kaiju money maker to keep the train rolling.  Mothra (1996), Mothra 2 (1997) and Mothra 3 (1998) came in at the tale end of the Heisei kaiju film cycle and were tailored for a younger audience than the Godzilla films.  These movies have gone on to be fairly maligned among fans, but are they really that bad?  Listen and find out!

Byrd and Matt present a very special audio commentary track for Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All Out Attack (2001) with director/writer/photographer Norman England!  Norman was on the set of the film nearly every day taking photos and is here to tell us all about it.  Listen as Norman tells us all about his memories of the set, the cast and crew, director Shusuke Kaneko and more!  This commentary is full of behind the scenes stories and fun trivia.  Cue up your copy of this kaiju classic (or just listen) and enjoy the discussion!

Byrd and Matt are joined by special guest Nick Poling (of the Rondo nominated Monster Report on Youtube) for our very first episode (of hopefully more to come) on the fantastic films of stop motion auteur Ray Harryhausen!  Today we are focusing on his three "Giant Monster On The Loose" films, The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953), It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955), and 20 Million Miles To Earth (1957).  We give the background on each film, as well as our reviews.  We also have a detailed discussion on Ray's history and his early days including his early short films, working under the great Willis O'Brien, and his WWII years.  We also discuss the stop motion innovator's impact on kaiju/tokusatsu, our thoughts on the undying stop motion vs. suitmation debate, and more!  Enjoy this jam-packed discussion on one of the true heroes of genre cinema!

Byrd and Matt find out what happens when "Big Meets Bigger" as they discuss the new Dwayne Johnson vehicle, Rampage, based on the video of the same name.  We discuss the history of the Rampage games, our memories of playing them when we were young, and give our thoughts on the recent film adaptation.  Did this movie break the "bad game movie" curse?  And how is it compared to recent Hollywood giant monster films?  Listen and find out!

To get you ready for the Rampage movie this weekend, Byrd, Matt and special guest Kevin Derendorf (from the Maser Patrol blog/podcast) deliver this special episode all about kaiju video games!  We take a nostalgic trip down memory lane and discuss the history of giant monster video games.  We touch on games starring Godzilla, Gamera, Ultraman, King Kong, Power Rangers, and others, as well as game-exclusive properties like King of the Monsters, War of the Monsters, Monster Hunter World, and Kaiju Dunk City.  We talk about the games we grew up with, our favorites, and how recent games have held up.  Enjoy!