As you’re no doubt aware, the Big G – Godzilla himself – returns to movie theaters this weekend in a new American reboot. (Let’s hope this one is better than the Roland Emmerich version.) In anticipation of that, let’s vote on some of our other favorite giant movie monsters.
The following list is by no means comprehensive. I’ve eliminated Godzilla and most of the gigantic foes he’s faced, except those (like Mothra) who have also headlined their own solo outings. I’ve tried to limit the list to monsters with some marquee value who were primary components of their respective movies, and are of a size capable of terrorizing a large land area, not just a small handful of characters. If I’ve missed something you consider essential, be sure to vote “Other” and tell us in the Comments.
Personally, I favor Gamera over Godzilla. The original 1933 King Kong is the granddaddy of giant movie monsters, and still one of the few capable of eliciting an actual emotional attachment. I’m also partial to the Angels from the anime franchise ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion’, and of course the Sandworms from ‘Dune’.
Vote for as many options as you’d like.
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William Henley
Well, there is Adam in Honey I Blew Up The Kid.
I was thinking when I first started reading that there is no way Josh is going to remember The Angels, and would be pretty sure he would forget T-Rex. Thanks for proving me wrong, those are my choices!
Shannon Nutt
Gamera by far, although I also voted for 1933’s King Kong (still the only decent one brought to screen) and Jurassic Park’s T-Rex.
Josh Zyber
AuthorOption added for the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. Can’t believe I forgot him!
Alex
Didn’t we do a giant monster tournament last year? Are we going to do something like that again? Who won? I forget.
William Henley
We could do like a sci-fi character torunament. Like Yoda vs The Dominion vs the Borg vs Terminator vs Biff Tannan vs TRex vs Rodan or something crazy like that
Josh Zyber
AuthorGodzilla won our Monster Madness tournament last year. Today’s poll is less of a “versus” monster battle, than a “Vote for everything you like.” Different intention.
Aaron ran all of our Madness tournaments. Unfortunately, he’s too busy with other things these days to contribute to the blog.
NJScorpio
While (other than the original ‘Gojira’), ‘Pacific Rim’ is my favorite monster movie, I didn’t love the Kaiju design. They are very good, and I liked the varitety and detail…but I found them harder to watch in 2D. My first time through (2D), you could tell what’s going on, but a lot of the detail and personality of the Kaiju are lost…since these are creatures we’ve never seen before, so it’s hard to have a frame of reference. All the little details sorta flatten out. Watching in 3D revealed a lot more detail and care put into the creature designs (for me, at least).
As for creature design only (and not overall movie), I’d go with either ‘The Host’ or “Reign of Fire’.
If it’s just my favorite to see running around, doing what giant monsters do, then it’d be the T-Rex for ‘Jurassic Park’.
William Henley
I really don’t get The Host. I just don’t see Wanda and Soul Fleur as that intemidating. They certainly are not giants, and pretty sure the aliens were pretty benign.
Barsoom Bob
Wrong Host. South Korean monster that lives in the Han river. Pretty cool if you can get past the bite the hand that protects you, anti American sub text.
Timcharger
Josh, you’re gonna put in Dragons from Reign of Fire, and NOT Smaug from Hobbit?!
David Duprey
I went with The Graboids, seconded by King Kong (1976) and in “Other”, The Balrog from Fellowship of The Ring.
Shannon Nutt
T-Rex is leading, which raises the question of if it’s a ‘legitimate’ monster, since it the only(?) ‘monster’ on this list that actually existed in real-life…so technically, it’s not a ‘monster’. 🙂
Eric
Who cares? The T-Rex in Jurassic Park is still awesome. Leave him in. Stay Puft is my favorite. Good list, Josh, but I wish you had included Big Ass Spider.
Csm101
I think if the t-rex is a legitimate candidate for giant monster, then why not the mutated,sewer dwelling alligator?! He does break through the asphalt kaiju style…
I would like to give an honorable mention to the Chucky looking kid from Honey I Blew Up the Kid.
Alex
While I admit he’s fairly new to the cinematic world, Smaug was handled marvelously in The Hobbit. He was one of the few things that was truly great in that movie, Martin Freeman being the other. Hmm… maybe we should just let Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman play every role from here on out.
Alex
Vermithrax Pejorative might have been a good choice too.
Zuria
My vote is for two classics that were left out: Sanda and Gaira from War of the Gargantuas. Classic film!
Sam Calvin
I vote for Talos in Jason and the Argonauts.