Rodan

Classic Kaiju film directed by Ishiro Honda, who knows a little more about Kaiju films than you do, pal, because he invented them! This page is based on the dub by the King Brothers.

The movie takes place on one of the smaller islands of Japan. A small mining operation is in a panic; the mine's deepest vein has flooded, and one of the miners was found horribly mutilated. The blame falls upon Goro, the last person the dead miner was seen with. Goro's friend Shigeru, determined to prove Goro innocent, discovers that the killings were actually done by prehistoric insects. Shigeru leads a group of soldiers into the mine, where they battle the monsters. When bullets prove ineffective, Shigeru kills the bugs with a booby-trapped mine cart. With the monsters that did the killing dead, the movie's over, right?

Wrong.

As the cart explodes, the mine shaft collapses, trapping Shigeru inside. Meanwhile, a nearby volcano has become active, endangering the village, and to make matters worse, UFO's flying at supersonic speeds have been sighted all over the world, attacking jets and carrying off a young couple visiting the mountain. Meanwhile, Shigeru has been found outside the mine, badly hurt and suffering from a total loss of memory. Weeks go by, the UFO's are sighted some more times, and Shigeru's memory slowly returns. When his fiance Kiyo shows him that eggs her pet birds laid are hatching, Shigeru suddenly remembers what happened to him.

As it turns out, when he got trapped in the mine, Shigeru fell into the nest of the killer insects. (Remember them?) Inside this nest was an egg, which promptly hatched, revealing a giant flying reptile, which eats the remaining bugs before taking off. A scientist who hears Shigeru's story and examines all the collected evidence in the mystery of the UFO, realizes that the monster and the UFO are one and the same, a species of Pteranadon called Rodan. Army guys show up, and discover that Rodan is living in the volcano, and what's more, it's not alone. A second Rodan flies out of the mountain, and joins its mate in leading the military in a chase across Japan, finally landing in, and leveling, Sasebo.

After the attack, when the Rodans have gone back to the volcano, the military comes up with a final, desperate plan to defeat the monsters. The plan: Set off the volcano, with the Rodans still inside. As the mining village is being evacuated, Shigeru (Remember him?) finds Kiyo near the volcano, and tells her that he loves her, and that they should probably get out of the way of the volcano. Not a moment too soon, either, because as they leave, the army moves in. Bombers attack the Rodans' nest, and ground-launched missiles set off the volcano. When the Rodans fly out of the erupting volcano, all hope seems lost when, suddenly, one of the reptiles succumbs to the volcanic fumes. As the military, Shigeru, and Kiyo look on, the other Rodan flies into the eruption, choosing to die rather than be separated from its mate. As Shigeru ponders the implications of such actions in supposedly "vicious" monsters, he wonders whether he could ever make such a sacrifice for Kiyo, and we fade to black.

It's basically Godzilla with two Kaiju. No relation to French sculptor Auguste Rodin, whose last name is pronounced the same way.

Tropes used in Rodan include:

Always a Bigger Fish.
Easy Amnesia - Sort of. The amnesia happens after a terrible head injury and it takes several weeks to recover, but once Shigeru does he remembers everything he's seen.
Canon Immigrant: Rodan, into the Godzilla films.
Clear My Name - A man is accused of murdering a man who he is feuding with. Killer insects are at fault.
Cosmic Horror - Being an early Kaiju film, there is a distinctly Lovecraftian influence on the monsters.
Dub Name Change - The City of Fukuoka is changed to Sasebo, Nagasaki for the U.S. release. The volcanic Mt. Aso was changed to "Mt. Toya" for whatever reason. Rodan's name is actually pronounced "Radon" as in Pteranodon in the original release.
Green Aesop - The creatures are disturbed by over-zealous coal mining.
Giant Flyer - Rodan flies so fast as to use his sonic boom as a weapon.
Giant Equals Invincible-Averted, hard. Both monsters die by falling into a volcano while the JSDF bombs the area with an air strike.
Immune to Bullets - The Meganulon.
Meaningful Name- Rodan's Japanse name "Radon" is a reference to what it is, a a mutated "pter-RA-no-DON".
Ptero-Soarer- Rodan. Justified, in that Rodan isn't supposed to be realistic in the first place.
Recycled in Space- It's a tragic love story, with Kaiju as the two ill-fated lovers. In the original release very little emphasis is placed on the second Rodan, It's not even implied that the two creatures are mates.
Stock Footage: Much like the U.S. release of Godzilla Raids Again, the distributors felt the need to add a pointless prologue with stock footage of Hydrogen Bomb blasts and Fauxlosophic Narration. This doesn't even make sense concerning the Rodan or the Meganulon, as they are not even mutants. Although, sometimes stock footage is put to better use, such as the fighter jet take off sequence.
Tertiary Sexual Characteristics- Used in a more realistic sense. The male Rodan is a different shade of brown than the female.
Together in Death- The male Rodan chooses to die alongside his mate after she dies in a volcano.