Godzilla vs. Hedorah
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Godzilla vs Hedorah (also known as Godzilla vs the Smog Monster, and Gojira Tai Hedora in the original Japanese) is a 1971 film. Part of the Toho studio's Godzilla series, it was directed by Yoshimitsu Banno with special effects by Teruyoshi Nakano.
Hedorah (ヘドラ) was an alien lifeform that landed on Earth and began feeding on pollution. Thanks to his toxic nature, as well as his acidic, poisonous body, Hedorah very nearly put an end to Godzilla in their struggle. Godzilla finally put an end to Hedorah by completely drying him out using electrical generators set up by the military and his own radioactive breath. The movie contains several strange impressionistic animated scenes portraying the smog monster at his evil work.
On a side note, this was the first time we see Godzilla fly. He uses his atomic breath as jet propulsion.
Producer's reaction to the film
Tomoyuki Tanaka, who produced the first 22 Godzilla films was in the hospital while the film was made. Upon recovery and actually seeing the film, it is said that he told the director of the film that he ruined the Godzilla series and that he would never direct at Toho ever again.
The unproduced sequel
After Yoshimitsu Banno finished directing Godzilla vs. Hedorah, he begun work on creating another installment in the Godzilla series. Like his first Godzilla movie, Banno had wanted the next film to have a strong message against pollution. The initial idea was that a starfish living in the polluted seas mutates into a giant Monster and ends up fighting Godzilla. However, he scrapped this idea and wrote what was going to be Godzilla Vs. Hedorah 2. In it, Godzilla was to fight another Hedorah, this time in Africa. Due to Tomoyuki Tanaka's incident on the set of filming Hedorah (see above), this was never realized.