Godzilla vs King Ghidorah was a box office success, so Toho felt empowered to continue the formula that film had laid out: bring back classic Godzilla foes and stir in some plot elements from successful Hollywood films. This helps to explain the otherwise out-of-nowhere homage to the Indiana Jones franchise at the start of this film.
Following that little side quest toward Adventureland, we learn of the ancient Manichean duality of Mothra and Battra from the tiny twin Cosmos (which I’ll let the Wikipedia authors tell for me):
The Cosmos tell of an ancient civilization that tried to control the Earth’s climate, thus provoking the Earth into creating Battra, which became uncontrollable, and started to harm the very planet that created it. Mothra, another earth protector, fought an apocalyptic battle with Battra, who eventually lost. The Cosmos explain how the meteoroid [that recently fell from space, re-awakening Godzilla,] uncovered Mothra’s egg, and may have awoken Battra, who is still embittered over humanity’s interference in the Earth’s natural order.
When a greedy corporation takes hold of some Mothra eggs and takes the Cosmos hostage, some Mothra and Battra larvae head off to the rescue. Whilst Mothra heads off to Japan to retrieve the Cosmos, Battra takes on Godzilla, fighting to something of a stalemate. Later, now in full flying modes, the two guardians of Earth renew their rivalry until Godzilla shows up again, whereupon they join forces to defuse the draconic dinosaur’s destruction.
As we’d later find out, the decision to resurrect Mothra for this installment came from the convergence of a few failed ideas: there was already a Mothra-led flick in the works (with the moth taking on a shape-shifting creature often linked to Godzilla hisself), but it wound up stillborn due to concerns over international marketing; then another return of Ghidorah found itself scrapped as well to make room for Mothra, who focus testing showed was more popular among women, a demographic Toho wanted desperately to tap into. Hence the more straightforward reboot. Then there was the original ending idea, wherein Mothra would be defeated and come back as Mecha-Mothra, something that sounds simultaneously awesome and godawful, meaning it needs to be seen (Rebirth of Mothra IV, anyone?).
No matter how it came about, the film’s just as much of a mixed bag as its immediate predecessor. The creature designs are very nice, with Mothra looking much more fuzzy and moth-like than in previous incarnations (even if the light-up eyes almost never look convincingly realistic (read: non-plastic)) and Battra’s design playing nicely as something of a dark take on his fuzzier counterpart (I initially thought the name indicated the creature was a bat, kinda a twisted take on the moth (bats eat moths, after all), but it actually stems from “Mothra” and “battle” being conjoined … go figure); but, just like last time, some of the composites are shaky, and the dubbing here is absolutely atrocious. Whosever idea it was to dub children with adult voices – ones that don’t even try to approach kids’ registers – deserves a special place in hell. Oh, and psychic Miki is here, too, a sort of Forrest Gump having adventures amidst kaiju battles.
Although Mecha-Mothra never appeared, a different cybernetic creature would fill the mecha-void in the next film in the series. As Colin Hay once said (or, rather, repeated several times over the years), “Who can it be now?” Well…
Allusions of Grandeur 