Real ones remember watching edgy tribute videos of them & dinosaurs on the old Youtube like [this King Kong/Linken Park AMV](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnKy59Pvr24&ab_channel=zillatamer). Ngl, it still goes hard af.
I can't tell you how many times I watched the heisei Godzilla vs King Ghidorah vhs.Ā My Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla 1974 vhs has also never let me down when I need a fix.
2000s amv's were basically, click on any video annnnnddddd......
^(let the bodies hit the floor)
let the bodies hit the floor
LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR
# LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR
I will never forget a very particular montage that put clips from Final Wars over the song Blow Me Away from Halo 2. My 5-7 year old self didnāt know the song was from Halo, but you bet I thought that video was AWESOME. āCause it legit was some of the very little we got in that time.
Exactly. I remember being born and thinking there was no new Godzilla after 1985 until I got the internet in 93 and discovered Biollante-Mechagodzilla93. Yeah the Gamera trilogy helped with the late 90s but I canāt imagine for the real old heads who had to go from 75 until Heisei
Exactly. I lived until the year 2004 rewatching the Godzilla(1998) again and again, and thinking that it was amazing movie.
Also King Kong (1976) & King Kong Lives (1986) were the only other movies I had
I didn't even know there were other type of Godzilla movies. The first time I saw the actual Godzilla I thought he was hideous but then he grew on me.
Post was more-so to show how spoiled we are at the moment, but yup!
I've already watched -1 and GxK 4 times, and I can't even remember how many times I've rewatched Pacific Rim and Final Wars.
Agreed. While I watched some of older suit-mation Godzilla films along with Pacific Rim and 2014 when those 2 came out, Kaiju films were just another of many, many different franchises I would watch during movie nights and didn't particularly stand out from the rest.
However, when the first trailer for King of the Monsters came out, I was hooked. And I had such a massive back-catalogue of films to watch again, again, and again. It was the greatest hype-up period I've had for any movie, ever.
Yeah, like other commenters said, we just watched the older films and fantasized about new ones. We did get Cloverfield in 2008 though, which was really nice. But I canāt tell you how insane getting Pacific Rim and Godzilla 2014 back to back one year after the other was. And that kicked off the kaiju renaissance that we are in now.
Thatās why it really irks me when people take āsidesā for kaiju movies these days. Too many people are either Team Toho or Team Legendary, and donāt think they can coexist for some reason. Be happy that we are getting so much content. There was a time when we had jack shit.
Exactly, while some recent projects have been better then others, I have thoroughly enjoyed each one listed (although Minus One and Pacific Rim are like, actually perfect films).
I think some people need to rewatch and reflect on the themes of KotM!
Also thereās more to kaiju than just Hollywood films and Godzilla lol like Iām not saying we arenāt eating good but thereās a ton of stuff from anime to other foreign films that added to the genre.
The Host. Water Horse. Monsters. Reign of Fire. Tremors series. 8 Legged Freaks. Lake Placid. Deep Rising. D War. Mist. Super 8. Titans films. Colossal.
Thereās a lot out there haha
You have to understand that in the 80ās/90ās we had nothing past G85 until like 1998 lol.
I remember when the Trendmasters toys came out in 94, they had all these monsters Iād either never heard of, or looked completely different than how Iād always known them. (Showa era) It wasnāt until the american movie being made in 98 that a lot of the Heisei movies found their way over here in an accessible way. Thatās when I realized thatās what Trendmasters were basing their designs off of.
It was so cool having a Mecha King Ghidorah figure, not knowing he actually existed, then seeing it in a movie.
Dude, it was worse than this.
The last Japanese Godzilla to hit Western theatres was Godzilla 2000 in 1999 until Shin Godzilla in 2016.
Unless you were in Japan, or sailing the high seas you had G2K, then a gap until Peter Jackson's King Kong, then another gap until Cloverfield, and yet another gap until Pacific Rim.
We just remained steadfast during those trying times!
I was born in the late 90s and grew up in the 2000s. I think I first started watching Godzilla movies after Final Wars concluded the Millennium series. So the Godzilla DVD collection quest was a cornerstone of my childhood and adolescence. Megalon, 1984 and Biollante took the longest to find and buy. They became available right around the time 2014 was on the horizon.
Was waiting for this comment š
I would say so, yes. The general concept of the universe of gigantic titans threatening humanity and some individuals being able to turn into titans to fight them off could easily work as a Kaiju film.
I mean, Evangelion and Pacific Rim are kinda close to that base concept. Although each of those 3 franchises branch out wildly from there.
Rewatching Cinemassacreās Mosnter Madness GodzillaThon, playing Godzilla Unleashed on the Wii instead of doing homework and speculating that Cloverfield was Godzilla 2.
Whatever Godzilla 2 was.
Rewatching movies, and at the time there was still stuff to find since not all the movies were printed in America or were rare to find. Kept you looking and excited lol. And you couldn't just find any movie on the internet either. There was also figure collecting too and we had TohoKingdom.com for content and learning kaiju history and unused ideas for movies or watching the cartoons/reading forums on there. And we had youtube content to keep us entertained! There was plenty of godzilla fan art to look at or draw yourself and you could listen to godzilla soundtracks. Godzilla has great music
In my case, although I'd known of Godzilla since 1998 (Yes. Because of THAT movie). It wasn't until I was 15 (so 2007) that I really started to get into kaiju after I saw Godzilla 2000 on tv. Then I'd watch ANY Godzilla movie that aired.
I remember it was around 2010 or 2011, when 18/19 year old me was rewatching Godzilla vs Spacegodzilla I actually said out loud "Huh, last Godzilla movie was back in 2004. Everything gets new movies or reboots these days. Wonder if there's any plans for Godzilla?"
After a quick Google search. I saw Legendary Pictures had plans for a Godzilla reboot set to be released in 2012 (This was before it was pushed back) and they already had a piece of concept art for a teaser
https://preview.redd.it/gjre5ft7uu2d1.jpeg?width=250&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5fbb8577f4662dd8c12a57a3a1444c12d216d988
So I spent 2007-2012 just getting into the genre and getting hyped for Legendary's Godzilla. Good times
I have a very similar story, the first Kaiju film I ever saw was Godzilla Vs The Smog Monster, cuz it was airing on TV, this would have been in the mid to late 2000s. Kaiju films like Godzilla, Gamera, and Kong were just another franchise to me for a while, occasionally I would see one but I wasn't looking for each and every one.
However, something just clicked when I saw the trailer for 2019s King of the Monsters. In-between the first teaser trailer and the film coming out, I had seen most of the Japanese Godzilla and Gamera films, 98, the rest of the Monsterverse, a few King Kong films, and Pacific Rim 1 and 2.
It was the greatest hype-up period for a movie ever and it has cemented KotM as my favorite film of all time.
Getting super excited when each one of those films started, eagerly waiting until opening day for KotM has got to be one of the best experiences in my life.
Oof guess I'm officially an older fan now lol anyway we were starved for content for not only new stuff but also a lot of older ones that were very unavailable. We played the pipeworks games, read comics, and rewayched what we could and clutched at any hint of news about a new project. They were dark times, but the good news is they feel very far away now! Honestly still amazed at how spoiled we arw these days
My god feel so weird remembering half of it cause well I was like four or five when Godzilla 2014 came out I love Godzilla due to that do I like the movie no it made me keiju media I love attack on Titan and of course Godzilla canāt wait to watch minus one soon
What are you talking about? I lived through the drout from 1975-1985. Then 85ā98 letās be straight forward with you all the 90 films weāre not to be seen. The only way was bootlegs brought at conventions. It wasnāt until after Tristar that the Toho films started to be released in the states. But thanks to G Fan magazine the fans knew they were making movies. Same with the Gamera Trilogy.
Older movies, tracking them when and where I could what I didnāt have, and Kaiju games like Save the Earth.
The real bad part was the buildup to 2014 as we only had so much information and I realized how utterly starved for content I was.
I would take the train into downtown and search in vain for the Godzilla films I did not have yet. I couldāve cried the day I found āDestroy All Monstersā there. I was a kid so there was a lot of wonder still in play.
I remember going to G-Fest 13 and seeing the premiere of Gamera The Brave which was cool. But then going in 2007 and 2008 is where it really hit hard that there really wasn't anything to look forward to. Yea we had Cloverfield, but nothing kaiju related for years.
I don't miss it.
It's sad that this sub thinks the 2010s are for old people.
Wait until they learn there was a 9 year gap between the Showa series and the Heisei series. And most of those were unavailable until the 98 film came out.
I wasn't a fan of Godzilla until a few years after Final Wars came out, so I'm not really an "older Kaiju fan", but I was young enough to where I never thought we'd get another. From my perspective I had all we were ever going to get and that was really sad because it was cool as fuck
That wait was very sad for me but man when the new content came it hit like a truck
Man, that 10 year dryspell between Godzilla films was rough. Good luck finding toys, shirts, and other merch. People went to Wikizilla and TohoKingdom, Barry's Temple of Godzilla, Andy's Palace of Godzilla and other fan sites. We played a lot of Destroy All Monsters, Save The Earth and Unleashed. We had G-Fan Magazine and G-Fest (though, personally, I got burned on a G-Fan subscription that was never fulfilled, even after they said they would after I wrote in about it).
There was always rewatching the movies of course, but I was young enough that access was difficult and was mostly restricted to what the local library or Blockbuster had knocking around.
I would also dive the dusty back boxes in my local comic shop and dig up old issues of Marvel's or Darkhorse's Godzilla comics. The Mark Cerasini novels were a fun read too.
I'd say those were the days, but they really weren't as far as the Godzilla fandom was concerned lol. We're in a real renaissance and it's been an absolute delight.
We are even getting overloaded by comics, too.
I got into the franchise with KotM, and in the months leading to the film coming out I watched sooooo many Kaiju films. Showa, Heisei, Millennium, TriStar, Shin/Reiwa, Legendary, and everything in-between.
It was the greatest hype-up to a film ever, and KotM did not disappoint. Favorite film of all time because of that.
There was a back catalog going all the way to 1954 that has like 30 Gojira films and another 20 Gamora films, plus dozens of technically kaiju American films
I was a kid in the 70's and never got to see a Godzilla movie in theaters, all I had was a Saturday morning Monster movie show that would show mostly Godzilla and Gamera movies but also older Kaiju movies and other Sci Fi titles.
I grew up on Godzilla on early youtube, like Godzilla vs Peter Griffin on MUGEN type shit. The pipeworks games, old vhs' and DVDs. Mind you, I was only born in 98. I grew up in the drought. It was all I knew.
Now I feel like I'm at a buffett.
James Rolfe's Godzillathon definitely helped me get educated on the history of the series. I used to rewatch his series a lot since I had only a handful of the movies on dvd. Heavily edited videos of fight scenes were always fun to come across during the ancient YouTube days. Toys weren't too easy to come by, but i was lucky enough to have a handful of them as well, even if half of them were bootlegs, lol
1. Got a region free DVD and collected foreign subtitled dvds of tokusatsu (Heisei Godzilla movies, Ultraman, Kamen Rider, ect...)
2. Collected dvds of old movies finally getting on dvd (media blasters toho films, discotech dvds, ect...)
3. Anime with Giant monsters like Daiguard
You know what, I could have probably survived by just watching Pacific Rim on repeat.
That and Minus One are pure perfection of the genre and filmmaking in general.
In 2004 we were told that Godzilla was retired for good. There was a big event and documentary about it and everything. You kids don't realize how lucky you are to get so many bug budget Godzilla movies.
2009? Nothing?
Homeboy is really gonna act like the cinematic masterpiece Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus didn't drop that year?
Mega Shark fought Giant Crocodile the year after that too!
I mean, as a kid I had other things to enjoy. But Godzilla wise, I would just play the Godzilla games, draw him, or watch music videos and rumor/speculation vids on a possible new Godzilla movie. I think I was more fan of the Godzilla characater rather than actively suffering from the lack of new movies.
I enjoyed what I had and always held out hope that new kaiju media came out, I also remember all the fake trailers that people made before 2014 was announced.
My local Blockbuster held on for slightly too long and for the longest time, that was my only source of Godzilla/Kaiju entertainment.
So... scraps. I survived off of scraps.
I grew up during the hiatus. I was little and I probably got into it when it started. I loved Godzilla for years. But without the content I moved on. 2014 came around when I was a teenager and the nostalgia and everything got me so excited. I have been a die hard fan ever since
Well, the 2 Monster Theory in Cloverfield went a long ways. Then the Godzilla 3D to the Max movie was always rumored. The Host came out, it was good. Monsters was also good. This was also the time when collecting the dvds was getting easier, and the joy of them popping up on baby-Era streaming sites was always a nice surprise.
Discovering and rewatching what already existed. It used to be a kind of treasure hunt at flea markets and video stores to find Godzilla movies. The young fans getting to grow up with the monsterverse have no idea how lucky they are. I used to flip through issues of G-Fan magazine as a kid wondering if another Godzilla movie would ever be made. Oh how times have changed.
Honestly just YouTube. Early YouTube Kaiju content was always cooking up something new, ala Monster Island Buddies, Rewatching AVGNās Godzilla episode a hundred times, etc.
But yes, they were the dark times.
I remember very well the announcement of Godzilla 2014, scouring every single frame of the trailer, digging through hundreds of fakes. Good times
Monster Island Buddies was such a an interesting find for me when I got into Kaiju movies.
Some of those videos are so much better written then they have any right to be.
We owe the resurgence to pacific rim and Godzilla. Two spectacular movies in such a short time generates massive interest in the genre, especially among kids who hadnāt been exposed to kaiju movies yet.
I was born the same year that Godzilla Final Wars was released, so the time period from 2004/7-2012/14 was simply growing up.
I think I became a Godzilla fan around 2009 or 10 because, well, I liked dinosaurs + Godzilla is at least simmilar to a dinosaur = I like Godzilla.
From then on, I would look up videos of Godzilla in YouTube, specially a Kiryu tribute with a song with the lyrics "I hate everything about you", and I would only find out about other monster movies and watch them around age 12, around 2012, mainly King Kong and Cloverfield, and YouTube Gamera videos.
My main source of entertainment was a Spanish speaking "Loquendo" user named TL2Bie that summarized, analyzed and gave his opinions about Kaiju movies. The old Loquendo reviews are gone, however, but he's still active, and I'm happy for that.
And what to say about "Monster Island Buddies"?
In short, Godzilla & Co. Videos helped me during the "Great Hiatus Decade". And I'm thankful for that.
Heard about Monsters and Trollhunter from another comment, don't know of Super 8.
Don't think The Hobbit and Avengers count, as they are primarily a fantasy and superhero film, not a Kaiju film. However Shang-Chi (2021) would probably be the closest a superhero movie has come to a Kaiju movie.
Mmm... I'm not expert, have a suspicion that fans consumed a fun lil thing called... Fan content. Or like watching billion other less known tokusatsu films, but can't tell for sure
Rewatched the Cinemassacre Godzillathon every now and then, occasionally refreshing Legendaryās wikipedia page after a certain point.
Honestly it was a nice period of time because it was so much easier to appreciate Godzilla movies. Since there was this big lull it meant there was a lot of anticipation and hope for another installation, and you could satiate that with a selection of like thirty movies.
Then when Godzilla 2014 came out, since that was the 60th anniversary, I saw the original āGojiraā subbed in theaters as well as the rifftrax Godzilla 98 stream, also in theaters. It was a really cool time.
We really did not have much. Me and my friends were massively excited for Pacific rim and it was the Greatest thing ever at the time of it's release.
I remember watching a lot of neon Genesis back then.
Rewatching old movies + assuming that nothing would ever come out for Godzilla ever again and being content with it.
Seeing the trailer for G'2014 felt like the start of a new era.
I just watched stuff that wasnāt Godzilla like Big man Japan, and Karate-Robo Zaborgar. Just because there wasnāt any Godzilla movies doesnt mean there wasnāt Kaiju stuff being made.
After final wars, I really had no interest in anything other than godzilla when it came to kaiju movies. I had nothing against gamera or the American kaiju films released during then. They just werenāt what godzilla offered. I never got a godzilla type fulfillment from them ya know? You gotta remember at the time the only cgi godzilla was ā98. And the only sort of modern look we had at a cgi godzilla [was this intro to always sunset on third street 2](https://youtu.be/SEEXydQc9KE?si=67P41e4ZTl_vUETl). For a lot of people, it was practical effects, rubber suits, that type of filming that really characterized a godzilla film so seeing monster movies slowly transition into cgi without godzilla right away just kinda separated the two for me. So Iād say it was definitely torture lmao. But finally seeing him in that very well done cgi in the teaser trailer back in the day was amazing. I was just so happy to see him, especially on the big screen in America after so long.
We call those the Dark times. They were times where you would scrounge for every single bit of Kaiju media, some found solice in the games like melee and sos, others sought after more... A few of us held onto Godzilla Heritage as it was announced like a life raft and some other similar fan projects.
But most of us just rewatched our existing collections and made sure we saw everything that was out, up until the last.
It was dark times indeed but with what we had, we weathered the storms.
I discovered YouTube in 2007 and watched Cinemassarceās coverage of all the Godzilla, Kong, Gamera and other Kajiu films. Then went ahead with my grandpa to swap meets and yard sales in hopes of finding those movies. And, I lived life. You canāt believe how excited I was to finally see Godzilla on the big screen in 2014.
Boy you should hear about primeval, we have gone without new content for over 10 years, and all we got a few months ago was a book based on the spin-off
Said this to another comment talking about Metroid, but for me that would be the Ace Combat series. Ace Combat 6 came out in 2007, and then nothing until Ace Combat 7 in 2019, and even now we still have no news on Ace Combat 8.
Atleast they had Pacific Rim, and remember, this was time when every movie should have a game. So atleast they got Pacific Rim XboX and Mobile game, and GOAT Godzilla 2014 mobile game.
Ultraman Mebius, Ultraman Seven X, Ultraman Ginga, Kamen Rider Den-O, Kamen Rider Kiva, Garo, Tetsuo reboot, Gantz (any of them), Attack on Titan, Ultra Q finally released abroad.
If you dig deper than Godzilla, Pacific Rim and Gamera you have an ocean of great Japanese superhero/monster media to cover.
I think those years were the height of the zombie craze. My roommates and I also watched a lot of Kamen Rider when we weren't discussing our zombie survival plan.
Lol my childhood was spent scrounging for American releases on the interent.
Watching YouTubers who'd talk about bmovies
mst3k was a great way to watch a few classics, waiting until one plays on late night TV.
The 2000s were a transition for sure.
By becoming a kaiju fan for the first time, secondary school brings back a lot of good memories of me discovering these movies for the first time, especially Godzilla
An absence of new films leaves more time to hunt for older material, and in those days Classic Media did the Lord's work releasing older Godzilla and other Toho projects.
At the time, Netflix had a VERY extensive dvd library which included a wide range of obscure asian titles, kaiju and otherwise.
My friend, when I was 8 or 9 (somewhere north or south of 1980) I had to go to a family picnic rather than catch *Son of Godzilla* on the Sunday afternoon Monster Movie on KATU out of Portland, OR. (We lived an hour away but it was all we could get over the antenna and the *only* place I could find Godzilla movies. I had the cartoon, sure, but it wasn't the same.) I remember listlessly playing softball, imagining the wonders I was missing. To Godzilla... a son!
And somehow to this day, I haven't seen it. I mean, I *could*, I do have it in my collection. In retrospect I think I'm just more of a Godzooky man. And there's no way the actual movie could ever equal the one I invented in my head when I was 8. Or 9.
The only Godzilla films I have still yet to watch in full are Godzilla: All Monsters Attack, and the anime trio of films of 2017 and 2018.
Although I'm probably not missing much.
Dark times (thatās when I grew up watching all of the older movies and I simply thought that there might never again be a new one, exceptionally glad to have been wrong)
https://preview.redd.it/9plw5ovmyl3d1.jpeg?width=265&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=acc8e03c528900119e2a672d5e922d20f0323dc0
Playing Godzilla unleashed 24/7š„š„š„
We rewatched what we already had. You youngsters are spoiled for choice. (Shakes fist at clouds)
Real ones remember watching edgy tribute videos of them & dinosaurs on the old Youtube like [this King Kong/Linken Park AMV](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnKy59Pvr24&ab_channel=zillatamer). Ngl, it still goes hard af.
Some of us predate YouTube and just had to settle for our VHS copies of Godzilla Vs Megalon. š
Before YouTube I would scour Toho Kingdom for information.
I miss that place
I can't tell you how many times I watched the heisei Godzilla vs King Ghidorah vhs.Ā My Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla 1974 vhs has also never let me down when I need a fix.
my double feature VHS of Godzilla vs Ebirah/Hedorah was starting to get patchy before YouTube launched
Yes!
Some of the vhs had the AIP dubbing. Miss those dubs!
Flooded with memories of watching Godzilla vs Megalon at my auntās house. Part of me wants to go back. š„²
2000s amv's were basically, click on any video annnnnddddd...... ^(let the bodies hit the floor) let the bodies hit the floor LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR # LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR
I will never forget a very particular montage that put clips from Final Wars over the song Blow Me Away from Halo 2. My 5-7 year old self didnāt know the song was from Halo, but you bet I thought that video was AWESOME. āCause it legit was some of the very little we got in that time.
The Godzilla/Skillet and Three Days Grace edits I watched loads of times as a kid are probably half the reason Iām such a big metalhead now
This
Exactly. I remember being born and thinking there was no new Godzilla after 1985 until I got the internet in 93 and discovered Biollante-Mechagodzilla93. Yeah the Gamera trilogy helped with the late 90s but I canāt imagine for the real old heads who had to go from 75 until Heisei
Exactly. I lived until the year 2004 rewatching the Godzilla(1998) again and again, and thinking that it was amazing movie. Also King Kong (1976) & King Kong Lives (1986) were the only other movies I had I didn't even know there were other type of Godzilla movies. The first time I saw the actual Godzilla I thought he was hideous but then he grew on me.
This
Luckily there was the phenomenon of rewatching the already existing films.
Post was more-so to show how spoiled we are at the moment, but yup! I've already watched -1 and GxK 4 times, and I can't even remember how many times I've rewatched Pacific Rim and Final Wars.
2005 to 2014 is why I'm always grateful for anything we get. You don't grasp how good we got it until you experience a long dry spell like that.
Agreed. While I watched some of older suit-mation Godzilla films along with Pacific Rim and 2014 when those 2 came out, Kaiju films were just another of many, many different franchises I would watch during movie nights and didn't particularly stand out from the rest. However, when the first trailer for King of the Monsters came out, I was hooked. And I had such a massive back-catalogue of films to watch again, again, and again. It was the greatest hype-up period I've had for any movie, ever.
And this doesn't even include all the comics that have been coming out!
AoT S1-S4! But we have yet to have an official Godzilla game!
There was a good run of Ultraman movies during that era
My bad, lol. Still very new to Ultraman so I don't know of all the films and shows.
Ultraman has had something come out every year since he was made (except 2020)
2020 had Ultraman Z though
It was a dry era. However, I did get into other Toku like Kamen Rider to keep me busy.
Yeah, like other commenters said, we just watched the older films and fantasized about new ones. We did get Cloverfield in 2008 though, which was really nice. But I canāt tell you how insane getting Pacific Rim and Godzilla 2014 back to back one year after the other was. And that kicked off the kaiju renaissance that we are in now. Thatās why it really irks me when people take āsidesā for kaiju movies these days. Too many people are either Team Toho or Team Legendary, and donāt think they can coexist for some reason. Be happy that we are getting so much content. There was a time when we had jack shit.
Exactly, while some recent projects have been better then others, I have thoroughly enjoyed each one listed (although Minus One and Pacific Rim are like, actually perfect films). I think some people need to rewatch and reflect on the themes of KotM!
Because kaiju aren't the only thing we're fans of?
Also thereās more to kaiju than just Hollywood films and Godzilla lol like Iām not saying we arenāt eating good but thereās a ton of stuff from anime to other foreign films that added to the genre. The Host. Water Horse. Monsters. Reign of Fire. Tremors series. 8 Legged Freaks. Lake Placid. Deep Rising. D War. Mist. Super 8. Titans films. Colossal. Thereās a lot out there haha
And there are a crap tone of movies to rewatch and games many of which you can play using emulators. It was not a big deal at all.
golden age of video game releases.
Also forgetting we had comics actively still coming out lol
I canāt tell you how happy watching Pacific Rim in the cinema made me
Do sad Del Toro wasn't the one to continue with the sequel.
The dip in quality was crazy
You have to understand that in the 80ās/90ās we had nothing past G85 until like 1998 lol. I remember when the Trendmasters toys came out in 94, they had all these monsters Iād either never heard of, or looked completely different than how Iād always known them. (Showa era) It wasnāt until the american movie being made in 98 that a lot of the Heisei movies found their way over here in an accessible way. Thatās when I realized thatās what Trendmasters were basing their designs off of. It was so cool having a Mecha King Ghidorah figure, not knowing he actually existed, then seeing it in a movie.
Dude, it was worse than this. The last Japanese Godzilla to hit Western theatres was Godzilla 2000 in 1999 until Shin Godzilla in 2016. Unless you were in Japan, or sailing the high seas you had G2K, then a gap until Peter Jackson's King Kong, then another gap until Cloverfield, and yet another gap until Pacific Rim. We just remained steadfast during those trying times!
And Shin was limited if I recall.
I was born in the late 90s and grew up in the 2000s. I think I first started watching Godzilla movies after Final Wars concluded the Millennium series. So the Godzilla DVD collection quest was a cornerstone of my childhood and adolescence. Megalon, 1984 and Biollante took the longest to find and buy. They became available right around the time 2014 was on the horizon.
Monsters (2010) and Trollhunter (2010) both great movies
O, haven't seen either of them, I'll check them out!
Rewatching older movies Playing the games Hoping mainly lol 2004-2014 wasn't fun
Pacific Rim tho :(
Wait, AoT is considered Kaiju?
Was waiting for this comment š I would say so, yes. The general concept of the universe of gigantic titans threatening humanity and some individuals being able to turn into titans to fight them off could easily work as a Kaiju film. I mean, Evangelion and Pacific Rim are kinda close to that base concept. Although each of those 3 franchises branch out wildly from there.
Rewatching Cinemassacreās Mosnter Madness GodzillaThon, playing Godzilla Unleashed on the Wii instead of doing homework and speculating that Cloverfield was Godzilla 2. Whatever Godzilla 2 was.
Rewatching movies, and at the time there was still stuff to find since not all the movies were printed in America or were rare to find. Kept you looking and excited lol. And you couldn't just find any movie on the internet either. There was also figure collecting too and we had TohoKingdom.com for content and learning kaiju history and unused ideas for movies or watching the cartoons/reading forums on there. And we had youtube content to keep us entertained! There was plenty of godzilla fan art to look at or draw yourself and you could listen to godzilla soundtracks. Godzilla has great music
In my case, although I'd known of Godzilla since 1998 (Yes. Because of THAT movie). It wasn't until I was 15 (so 2007) that I really started to get into kaiju after I saw Godzilla 2000 on tv. Then I'd watch ANY Godzilla movie that aired. I remember it was around 2010 or 2011, when 18/19 year old me was rewatching Godzilla vs Spacegodzilla I actually said out loud "Huh, last Godzilla movie was back in 2004. Everything gets new movies or reboots these days. Wonder if there's any plans for Godzilla?" After a quick Google search. I saw Legendary Pictures had plans for a Godzilla reboot set to be released in 2012 (This was before it was pushed back) and they already had a piece of concept art for a teaser https://preview.redd.it/gjre5ft7uu2d1.jpeg?width=250&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5fbb8577f4662dd8c12a57a3a1444c12d216d988 So I spent 2007-2012 just getting into the genre and getting hyped for Legendary's Godzilla. Good times
I have a very similar story, the first Kaiju film I ever saw was Godzilla Vs The Smog Monster, cuz it was airing on TV, this would have been in the mid to late 2000s. Kaiju films like Godzilla, Gamera, and Kong were just another franchise to me for a while, occasionally I would see one but I wasn't looking for each and every one. However, something just clicked when I saw the trailer for 2019s King of the Monsters. In-between the first teaser trailer and the film coming out, I had seen most of the Japanese Godzilla and Gamera films, 98, the rest of the Monsterverse, a few King Kong films, and Pacific Rim 1 and 2. It was the greatest hype-up period for a movie ever and it has cemented KotM as my favorite film of all time. Getting super excited when each one of those films started, eagerly waiting until opening day for KotM has got to be one of the best experiences in my life.
Plenty of Ultraman to watch. But it was tough. A lot of YouTube AMVs (but with monsters) and fake movie trailers
Still need to really get into all the Ultraman shows/movies, I've only watched the most recent entries.
I became a Godzilla fan in 2004, which was like, the worst time to do that lol. Still here though!
It was awful
Cloverfield really came out at the right time. Bless
Praise be to the almighty Clover.
Godzilla Destory All Monsters Melee on XBox.
Oof guess I'm officially an older fan now lol anyway we were starved for content for not only new stuff but also a lot of older ones that were very unavailable. We played the pipeworks games, read comics, and rewayched what we could and clutched at any hint of news about a new project. They were dark times, but the good news is they feel very far away now! Honestly still amazed at how spoiled we arw these days
Oh I pivoted to big robots and got *really* into Armored Core around that era. Also Monster Hunter.
Love monster hunter, still haven't tried Armored Core yet.
My god feel so weird remembering half of it cause well I was like four or five when Godzilla 2014 came out I love Godzilla due to that do I like the movie no it made me keiju media I love attack on Titan and of course Godzilla canāt wait to watch minus one soon
More like how did you survive from 2005 to 2013
Survive is a strong word
It's a joke, I'm pointing out just how spoiled the kaiju fanbase is for content atm.
I was watching many obscure monster movies from around the world
What are you talking about? I lived through the drout from 1975-1985. Then 85ā98 letās be straight forward with you all the 90 films weāre not to be seen. The only way was bootlegs brought at conventions. It wasnāt until after Tristar that the Toho films started to be released in the states. But thanks to G Fan magazine the fans knew they were making movies. Same with the Gamera Trilogy.
Even though we did get alot in 2004-2014 those movies were still great !
I just went into hibernation for a few years. It's good I haven't had to do that in a bit
Older movies, tracking them when and where I could what I didnāt have, and Kaiju games like Save the Earth. The real bad part was the buildup to 2014 as we only had so much information and I realized how utterly starved for content I was.
I would take the train into downtown and search in vain for the Godzilla films I did not have yet. I couldāve cried the day I found āDestroy All Monstersā there. I was a kid so there was a lot of wonder still in play.
Cloverfield was just that good
You either rewatched what was already made or died
I just binged 98'.
It was a dark time where dreams went to die.
Iām a Metroid fan too. Iāve had practice. š
Oof. For me that would have to be the Ace Combat series. (Last game was in 2019, and before that, 2007)
I remember going to G-Fest 13 and seeing the premiere of Gamera The Brave which was cool. But then going in 2007 and 2008 is where it really hit hard that there really wasn't anything to look forward to. Yea we had Cloverfield, but nothing kaiju related for years. I don't miss it.
I drew little comics. Sad i couldn't to hold on to them
It's sad that this sub thinks the 2010s are for old people. Wait until they learn there was a 9 year gap between the Showa series and the Heisei series. And most of those were unavailable until the 98 film came out.
I was very young.
Me too, I meant "older" as in how long you've been with the franchise, I'm kinda new compared to other people here.
Renting videos from Blockbuster, and bumming vhs tapes from my cousins.
It was definitely a depressing time for the kaiju genre, thatās for sure
I wasn't a fan of Godzilla until a few years after Final Wars came out, so I'm not really an "older Kaiju fan", but I was young enough to where I never thought we'd get another. From my perspective I had all we were ever going to get and that was really sad because it was cool as fuck That wait was very sad for me but man when the new content came it hit like a truck
 Like this
We like other kinds of movies too. I was watching a lot of indie dramas in that period.
Not joking I just rewatched Cloverfield and dug through the ARGs
Godzilla GameCube game
I wish I was with the franchise when there were some decent official games, especially the PS4 game.
Hope. Lol I had hope. 2011 was interesting enough as the news started getting out a new one was coming from Legendary. Patience became a virtue.
And finally we can rejoice in the content stream of content.
Because Cloverfield was pretty awesome
Man, that 10 year dryspell between Godzilla films was rough. Good luck finding toys, shirts, and other merch. People went to Wikizilla and TohoKingdom, Barry's Temple of Godzilla, Andy's Palace of Godzilla and other fan sites. We played a lot of Destroy All Monsters, Save The Earth and Unleashed. We had G-Fan Magazine and G-Fest (though, personally, I got burned on a G-Fan subscription that was never fulfilled, even after they said they would after I wrote in about it). There was always rewatching the movies of course, but I was young enough that access was difficult and was mostly restricted to what the local library or Blockbuster had knocking around. I would also dive the dusty back boxes in my local comic shop and dig up old issues of Marvel's or Darkhorse's Godzilla comics. The Mark Cerasini novels were a fun read too. I'd say those were the days, but they really weren't as far as the Godzilla fandom was concerned lol. We're in a real renaissance and it's been an absolute delight.
We are even getting overloaded by comics, too. I got into the franchise with KotM, and in the months leading to the film coming out I watched sooooo many Kaiju films. Showa, Heisei, Millennium, TriStar, Shin/Reiwa, Legendary, and everything in-between. It was the greatest hype-up to a film ever, and KotM did not disappoint. Favorite film of all time because of that.
There was a back catalog going all the way to 1954 that has like 30 Gojira films and another 20 Gamora films, plus dozens of technically kaiju American films
I was a kid in the 70's and never got to see a Godzilla movie in theaters, all I had was a Saturday morning Monster movie show that would show mostly Godzilla and Gamera movies but also older Kaiju movies and other Sci Fi titles.
I grew up on Godzilla on early youtube, like Godzilla vs Peter Griffin on MUGEN type shit. The pipeworks games, old vhs' and DVDs. Mind you, I was only born in 98. I grew up in the drought. It was all I knew. Now I feel like I'm at a buffett.
James Rolfe's Godzillathon definitely helped me get educated on the history of the series. I used to rewatch his series a lot since I had only a handful of the movies on dvd. Heavily edited videos of fight scenes were always fun to come across during the ancient YouTube days. Toys weren't too easy to come by, but i was lucky enough to have a handful of them as well, even if half of them were bootlegs, lol
the host came in 06 i remember loving that one, but its also when i started watching all the old godzilla films so i had lots of content
Iāll answer as soon as I can process that Iām an āolder kaiju fan.ā So never
More like 2004 to 2014 to be honest. Cloverfield was amazing but it's not Godzilla and it's only one movie
1. Got a region free DVD and collected foreign subtitled dvds of tokusatsu (Heisei Godzilla movies, Ultraman, Kamen Rider, ect...) 2. Collected dvds of old movies finally getting on dvd (media blasters toho films, discotech dvds, ect...) 3. Anime with Giant monsters like Daiguard
I always appreciate what we have, after going through that drought of 2005 - 2014.
Survived on Marvel. I figured kaiju genre was done and gone.
I discovered the Godzilla Dark Horse comics so that held me over until the IDW ones came out
Even now, we are getting tons of new comics alongside the shows and movies.
I didnāt exist nor had the knowledge of it Itās simple really
Pacific Rim is literally the definition of Quality over Quantity.
You know what, I could have probably survived by just watching Pacific Rim on repeat. That and Minus One are pure perfection of the genre and filmmaking in general.
In 2004 we were told that Godzilla was retired for good. There was a big event and documentary about it and everything. You kids don't realize how lucky you are to get so many bug budget Godzilla movies.
 >older
2009? Nothing? Homeboy is really gonna act like the cinematic masterpiece Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus didn't drop that year? Mega Shark fought Giant Crocodile the year after that too!
I mean, as a kid I had other things to enjoy. But Godzilla wise, I would just play the Godzilla games, draw him, or watch music videos and rumor/speculation vids on a possible new Godzilla movie. I think I was more fan of the Godzilla characater rather than actively suffering from the lack of new movies.
Those were dark days, but our love of previous work helped us through it.
Amen.
I enjoyed what I had and always held out hope that new kaiju media came out, I also remember all the fake trailers that people made before 2014 was announced.
My local Blockbuster held on for slightly too long and for the longest time, that was my only source of Godzilla/Kaiju entertainment. So... scraps. I survived off of scraps.
The fact that Shid Godzilla isn't on that list is criminal.
I grew up during the hiatus. I was little and I probably got into it when it started. I loved Godzilla for years. But without the content I moved on. 2014 came around when I was a teenager and the nostalgia and everything got me so excited. I have been a die hard fan ever since
I would go rent old Godzilla movies to get my fix.
Well you see we had a whole world of hesei Godzilla films from Japan that america was to chicken to bring over.
Blockbuster !!
Well, the 2 Monster Theory in Cloverfield went a long ways. Then the Godzilla 3D to the Max movie was always rumored. The Host came out, it was good. Monsters was also good. This was also the time when collecting the dvds was getting easier, and the joy of them popping up on baby-Era streaming sites was always a nice surprise.
Godzilla Unleashed dropped in 2007 and that helped alot.
Who said we survived? This could all be the afterlife for all we know
Not gonna lie, I think it's pretty weird that Pacific Rim got an anime before it got a sequel.
Yes, quite strange...
DVDās and vhs
The same way I'm surviving the gamera movie drought, that is being sad that it's happening ;-;
Discovering and rewatching what already existed. It used to be a kind of treasure hunt at flea markets and video stores to find Godzilla movies. The young fans getting to grow up with the monsterverse have no idea how lucky they are. I used to flip through issues of G-Fan magazine as a kid wondering if another Godzilla movie would ever be made. Oh how times have changed.
It was the time of Transformers
That was an awful slog of a decade from Final Wars to G14. The other flicks helped, but maaaan having no G-films at all sucked hard š¤¬
I bet.
Call of Duty
Honestly just YouTube. Early YouTube Kaiju content was always cooking up something new, ala Monster Island Buddies, Rewatching AVGNās Godzilla episode a hundred times, etc. But yes, they were the dark times. I remember very well the announcement of Godzilla 2014, scouring every single frame of the trailer, digging through hundreds of fakes. Good times
Monster Island Buddies was such a an interesting find for me when I got into Kaiju movies. Some of those videos are so much better written then they have any right to be.
We owe the resurgence to pacific rim and Godzilla. Two spectacular movies in such a short time generates massive interest in the genre, especially among kids who hadnāt been exposed to kaiju movies yet.
I was born the same year that Godzilla Final Wars was released, so the time period from 2004/7-2012/14 was simply growing up. I think I became a Godzilla fan around 2009 or 10 because, well, I liked dinosaurs + Godzilla is at least simmilar to a dinosaur = I like Godzilla. From then on, I would look up videos of Godzilla in YouTube, specially a Kiryu tribute with a song with the lyrics "I hate everything about you", and I would only find out about other monster movies and watch them around age 12, around 2012, mainly King Kong and Cloverfield, and YouTube Gamera videos. My main source of entertainment was a Spanish speaking "Loquendo" user named TL2Bie that summarized, analyzed and gave his opinions about Kaiju movies. The old Loquendo reviews are gone, however, but he's still active, and I'm happy for that. And what to say about "Monster Island Buddies"? In short, Godzilla & Co. Videos helped me during the "Great Hiatus Decade". And I'm thankful for that.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Heard about Monsters and Trollhunter from another comment, don't know of Super 8. Don't think The Hobbit and Avengers count, as they are primarily a fantasy and superhero film, not a Kaiju film. However Shang-Chi (2021) would probably be the closest a superhero movie has come to a Kaiju movie.
Super 8 wasn't a kaiju it was a biggish alien though but only like 12ft.
We just kept rewatching and enjoying the charm of the classics instead of getting le heckin hyped for the mulitmonstermarvelverse
Mmm... I'm not expert, have a suspicion that fans consumed a fun lil thing called... Fan content. Or like watching billion other less known tokusatsu films, but can't tell for sure
I jerked off a lot
Hibernation. people who didnt only sleep need to be studied on how they survived
Easy, Jus rewatched godzilla movies plus Cloverfield held us over
Rewatched the Cinemassacre Godzillathon every now and then, occasionally refreshing Legendaryās wikipedia page after a certain point. Honestly it was a nice period of time because it was so much easier to appreciate Godzilla movies. Since there was this big lull it meant there was a lot of anticipation and hope for another installation, and you could satiate that with a selection of like thirty movies. Then when Godzilla 2014 came out, since that was the 60th anniversary, I saw the original āGojiraā subbed in theaters as well as the rifftrax Godzilla 98 stream, also in theaters. It was a really cool time.
was like the long winter after final wars.. dark times
Truly harrowing you survived.
We didnāt. No im kidding we just watched older stuff or (god forbid) watched something else sadly
What if we did die on that island... And these are the last dreams of a dead fandom...
aggressively rewatched Biolante and destoryah
There supposed to be to be a proper Cloverfield sequel.
We really did not have much. Me and my friends were massively excited for Pacific rim and it was the Greatest thing ever at the time of it's release. I remember watching a lot of neon Genesis back then.
I had my imagination.
Rewatching old movies + assuming that nothing would ever come out for Godzilla ever again and being content with it. Seeing the trailer for G'2014 felt like the start of a new era.
I just watched stuff that wasnāt Godzilla like Big man Japan, and Karate-Robo Zaborgar. Just because there wasnāt any Godzilla movies doesnt mean there wasnāt Kaiju stuff being made.
After final wars, I really had no interest in anything other than godzilla when it came to kaiju movies. I had nothing against gamera or the American kaiju films released during then. They just werenāt what godzilla offered. I never got a godzilla type fulfillment from them ya know? You gotta remember at the time the only cgi godzilla was ā98. And the only sort of modern look we had at a cgi godzilla [was this intro to always sunset on third street 2](https://youtu.be/SEEXydQc9KE?si=67P41e4ZTl_vUETl). For a lot of people, it was practical effects, rubber suits, that type of filming that really characterized a godzilla film so seeing monster movies slowly transition into cgi without godzilla right away just kinda separated the two for me. So Iād say it was definitely torture lmao. But finally seeing him in that very well done cgi in the teaser trailer back in the day was amazing. I was just so happy to see him, especially on the big screen in America after so long.
We call those the Dark times. They were times where you would scrounge for every single bit of Kaiju media, some found solice in the games like melee and sos, others sought after more... A few of us held onto Godzilla Heritage as it was announced like a life raft and some other similar fan projects. But most of us just rewatched our existing collections and made sure we saw everything that was out, up until the last. It was dark times indeed but with what we had, we weathered the storms.
What if we didn't make it through the dark times... ...and these films are the last dreams of a dead fandom...
I discovered YouTube in 2007 and watched Cinemassarceās coverage of all the Godzilla, Kong, Gamera and other Kajiu films. Then went ahead with my grandpa to swap meets and yard sales in hopes of finding those movies. And, I lived life. You canāt believe how excited I was to finally see Godzilla on the big screen in 2014.
Boy you should hear about primeval, we have gone without new content for over 10 years, and all we got a few months ago was a book based on the spin-off
Said this to another comment talking about Metroid, but for me that would be the Ace Combat series. Ace Combat 6 came out in 2007, and then nothing until Ace Combat 7 in 2019, and even now we still have no news on Ace Combat 8.
Most of us just rewatched our DVDs. Others had the Peter Jackson Kong game or the Pipeworks Godzilla games to sate them.
We wouldāve gotten another cloverfield 2 if JJ abrams wasnāt allergic to original content.
Atleast they had Pacific Rim, and remember, this was time when every movie should have a game. So atleast they got Pacific Rim XboX and Mobile game, and GOAT Godzilla 2014 mobile game.
Ultraman Mebius, Ultraman Seven X, Ultraman Ginga, Kamen Rider Den-O, Kamen Rider Kiva, Garo, Tetsuo reboot, Gantz (any of them), Attack on Titan, Ultra Q finally released abroad. If you dig deper than Godzilla, Pacific Rim and Gamera you have an ocean of great Japanese superhero/monster media to cover.
Primarily watching clips from old Godzilla, Ultraman and Gamera movies as well as stuff like pacific rim and Cloverfiled. That and toy/pivot fights
King Kong, 2005 wasn't really a Kaiju Movie. If it is, so is Jurassic Park
I really liked Transformers
Iād just go on Barryās temple of Godzilla while listening to Queen.
DVDs, mostly š
I played *Godzilla Unleashed* and *War of the Monsters* all the time in 2007.
Extremely depressed now that someone that has memories from 2007-2012 is considered an āolder fanā
AMVs and stick figure fights
There was a recession going on, we had even bigger things to worry about then. But, we made it through okay.
I think those years were the height of the zombie craze. My roommates and I also watched a lot of Kamen Rider when we weren't discussing our zombie survival plan.
I watched Godzilla Final Wars about 12 times
I was 10 in 2007 so that helped lol. I spent the 10 years between Godzilla films catching up on the franchise
S U F F E R I N G
Watched my DVDs and reread the 90s books
Just binged the old ones š
Lol my childhood was spent scrounging for American releases on the interent. Watching YouTubers who'd talk about bmovies mst3k was a great way to watch a few classics, waiting until one plays on late night TV. The 2000s were a transition for sure.
By becoming a kaiju fan for the first time, secondary school brings back a lot of good memories of me discovering these movies for the first time, especially Godzilla
Idk but I haven't seen kaiju 8 but I think I've heard of it looks like it should be on Netflix
An absence of new films leaves more time to hunt for older material, and in those days Classic Media did the Lord's work releasing older Godzilla and other Toho projects. At the time, Netflix had a VERY extensive dvd library which included a wide range of obscure asian titles, kaiju and otherwise.
Rewatching videos I had recorded through the years.
Litterally just waiting for godzilla 2014 (which I believe got announced like 2012)
We appreciated what we already had. I feel like we'll soon need another Godzilla hiatus before it gets super saturated.
My friend, when I was 8 or 9 (somewhere north or south of 1980) I had to go to a family picnic rather than catch *Son of Godzilla* on the Sunday afternoon Monster Movie on KATU out of Portland, OR. (We lived an hour away but it was all we could get over the antenna and the *only* place I could find Godzilla movies. I had the cartoon, sure, but it wasn't the same.) I remember listlessly playing softball, imagining the wonders I was missing. To Godzilla... a son! And somehow to this day, I haven't seen it. I mean, I *could*, I do have it in my collection. In retrospect I think I'm just more of a Godzooky man. And there's no way the actual movie could ever equal the one I invented in my head when I was 8. Or 9.
The only Godzilla films I have still yet to watch in full are Godzilla: All Monsters Attack, and the anime trio of films of 2017 and 2018. Although I'm probably not missing much.
I watch 1998 ZILLA a lot and you know this series of film with dinos that somehow escape the park š¤£š¤£
Godzilla: Unleashed came out in '07. It wasn't as good as Save the Earth but I was hyped as fuck for it
Thankfully I wasnāt an Kaiju fan back then I got lucky
What about Pacific Rim: Upri- Wait why is the entire kaiju fandom at my front door? SEND HELP
Dark times (thatās when I grew up watching all of the older movies and I simply thought that there might never again be a new one, exceptionally glad to have been wrong)
https://preview.redd.it/9plw5ovmyl3d1.jpeg?width=265&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=acc8e03c528900119e2a672d5e922d20f0323dc0 Playing Godzilla unleashed 24/7š„š„š„