Jordan, Jesse, GO! - (SNEAK PEEK) To Be Watched: The War of the Gargantuas

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

This is a special sneak peek at our bonus content spin off series To Be Watched! If you want to listen to the rest of the episode, become a member of MaxFun! maximumfun.org/joinjjgo Welcome to the second episode of To Be Watched, the Jordan Jesse Go spinoff podcast where we go through all the movies we've been meaning to watch. This time around, we're talking cult kaiju classic, The War of the Gargantuas!  Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinjjgo

In 1966, legendary Japanese director Ishiro Honda and Toho Pictures teamed with an American production company to try and replicate the success of their blockbuster monster movie, Godzilla, with an all-new Kaiju series. The result is a movie that's strange, slapdash, occasionally beautiful, and weirdly emotional. Also, it features a giant octopus, so that's pretty cool. This is War of the Gargantuanas. Theme song, you got a list in your pocket. movies and shows you and cut yet And just like you, they got films in the queue It's Jordan and Jesse's To Be Watched, yeah

Hi, this is To Be Watched, the Jordan Jesse Go spin-off podcast Where me, I'm Jordan and Jesse watch movies That have been in our cues for way too long. This month, it's my pick, and I picked the 1966 Kaiju Classic question mark, War of the Gargantuanthus. And this is a special preview for you, the Jordan Jesse Go subscriber. If you become a member of Maximum Fun, you get to listen to the whole entire thing. So go to maximumfund.org slash join JJGo.

That's Maximumfund.org slash join JJ Go. Jordan. War of the Gargantuas. What is it good for? of the gargantuancheous. Good God. So I had never seen this movie. I maybe had an inkling.

Maybe Jesse has seen this before, not because you're a huge kaiju guy, but because of your kids' interest in cult movies. I am a huge kaiju guy. I'm half panther and half squid. Okay. And you're really big. Yeah. No, I haven't seen this one. I did have, there was a stretch where my daughter, Grace, was really interested in kaiju. And there was a second stretch where my youngest kid, Frankie, was really interested in kaiju. But neither of them actually led to me watching a bunch of kaiju movies, which is too bad because I would have watched them. Like the extent to which I would have preferred to watch those than the various other things I've. been forced to watch by my children. It would be hard to overstate.

I didn't even get them to make it through multiple of the new Godzilla versus King Kong movies, which I find perfectly enjoyable. So I have not seen this. And indeed, I don't think I had seen all of any of these Toyo 1960s and 70s, kaiju movies other than regular Godzilla. I've seen regular Godzilla and I don't think I've, I've seen parts of others. I've definitely seen the one where Godzilla teaches her child to breathe fire. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Talking about Son of Godzilla. Son of Godzilla, maybe. And then I've seen little bits and pieces, but I have not actually seen any of these. And I'll tell you, Jordan,

watching War of the Gargantuanwas was a real cold water in the face experience for a guy who really didn't know what the fuck was going on. Yeah, this is a pretty advanced kaiju movie. This is like, you know, this is, this is for the sickos. This is one for the sickos. You're a nasty sicko. You're a kaiju sicko. I mean, look, I've seen Pacific Rim.

twice. Right. But you are a guy that, you know, grew up watching monster movies on the monster movie show like a real classic baby boom. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, these types of things were on in my house a lot. I think I, you know, I was a dinosaur kid and therefore became a Godzilla kid once I learned about Godzilla. And so, yeah, I've watched a lot of these 60s, 70s movies. I think I've related many times on Jordan Jesse Go that we had a VHS tape of Son of Godzilla, which to me was the Godzilla movie for a while. I think I had seen Son of Godzilla 40 times before I had seen the original. But that's one that we got like in a bin at Kmart, like for five bucks.

There was always a bin of $5 movies at Kmart that you got to have if you were good in Kmart. And I think I watched it till it broke. It was one of those where I watched it till it, you know, melted, un-un-unspooled in the VCR. So I, you know, have watched a lot of these. But War the Gargantua's was not really on my radar until I, a couple months back, did the great John Moes sleeping with celebrities podcast. And on that podcast, people take something that they're interested in and you talk about it in a soothing way to help people fall asleep. Have you done it, Jesse? I don't think I've ever done it, but I'd be thrilled to.

Yes. It's possible I got an invitation from the great John Moe that thought it was an invitation from the bad John Moe. Is there a bad John Moe? Well, you know, one presupposes the existence of the other, in my opinion. Sure, like for every brown gargantua, there is a evil green sea gargantua. Yeah. In fact, I remember, now that I think about it, I remember the little avatar in the upper corner of the email, did look a lot like John Moe, but covered in seaweed. Yeah, okay, so that was probably the bad one. That was probably the bad one who eats hikers and does not save ladies who are about to fall. Okay. But this is a legendary kaiju movie. This is the movie, Jordan, that made Brad Pitt want to go into show business. Yeah, he says in some interviews it's the first movie he saw.

What is a strange film experience. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, I stuck this in my queue a couple months ago. So I was on sleeping with celebrities. My topic was the Godzilla eras. There's like eras of Godzilla films. Like they'd make them, they'd stop and then they'd pick it up again.

And, you know, like Taylor Swift, Godzilla has eras. Two divas. Two iconic divas. Yeah. And so when I was researching the first era of, of Godzilla movies, which, you know, this, this is kind of contemporary with. This is in the timeline of Godzilla movies. It is a canonical movie that happens with the other Godzilla movies.

I did not know that. So I am like, I got to see this thing. I got to see these gargantuanas everybody's talking about. And it's been in the queue for a couple months. And when we came up with this podcast, and I'm like, I know what Jesse will love to watch. This thing I'm curious about. So. Yeah. I thank you for thinking of me. Thank you for incorporating my thoughts and feelings into this.

You're right. As I got onto an airplane from Boston to Los Angeles, I thought to myself, I'm so glad I don't have to watch any of the 1970s American film classics that are loaded onto my computer at all times in case I get it on an airplane and get to watch a movie that no one else will watch with me. just a long list of clutes. And, you know, you got a clout list probably on your computer, right? Yeah, clout. Clute likes. And that I will get to watch a movie about two gorillas that look a little like vampire bats. Yep. One of which is covered in seaweed fighting each other.

Because he's from the sea, fighting each other. That is a beloved favorite. of Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Tim Burton, Quentin Tarantino, Guillermo del Toro, and the guys who created Attack on Titan and Neon Genesis Evangelion. Right. Well, yeah, let's talk about what happens in war of the gargantuanthous. I'd be interesting to point out, I did it a little bit in the intro. This is directed by Ishiro Honda, who directed Godzilla. And yes, and I think an equally, equally impactful and influential film. Yes.

Yeah, I think they're roughly the same. I mean, the truth is that, like, of these movies, obviously Godzilla, original Godzilla far outstrips the rest in terms of its impact and popularity and so on and so forth in broad culture. But this is one that the people whose creativity was, shaped by these kaiju movies site over and over and over. I mean, like the Girmo del Toros

and Quentin Tarantinos of the world, the anime guys of the world, that would be Hideyaki Ano and Hajime Isayama. Yes. Over and over and over. This is the one, like, this is the cult classic.

This is the legendary one because it is more than just monsters. Yeah. Yes, right. And I think, you know, I can see Guillermo del Toro's whole deal is sympathizing with the monster more than the humans. And this movie really presents you with a lot of tragic, emotional monster imagery. Indeed. For him to jack off to. For him to jack off to, yes, exactly. If you want monsters embracing and helping each other up and bathing each other, there's also some monster bathing in this. We start out. When were you the first time you learned about monster bathing? I mean, I was about 13. Yeah. And, you know, I rubbed my pillow the right way. And then I looked at my window and a monster was bathing another monster.

Yeah, got it. And I learned about it. So we start out. This is a classy movie. We start out with the Janus Films logo. Hey, wouldn't it be funny if somebody took out the J and it just said, Anus Films? Anyway, I think about that often.

Yeah. We start with... I love foreign films, too. And Anus Films. foreign objects. Foreign objects. In my an... To stimulate my prostate.

Right in the Janus. So this movie starts as these movies very, very, very often do with a boat at sea. Yes, a one lone sea guy. I won't say seaman. That's gross. He's just a sea guy. We're not gross guys. He's captain in this boat.

And a giant gross tentacle comes in. Ah, he's getting attacked by a giant octopus that no one mentioned. again for the rest of the movie. Yeah, I got to tell you, Jordan, when I saw this, I assumed that our gargantua was a giant octopus. I can understand why you would think that. Because it's called War of the Gargantulas,

and this is an absurdly huge octopus, or as my children, one of my children used to call it when they were younger, octoflis. That's a fun name. Jesse, do you know what version of this movie you watch? There are multiple, as with a lot of these Kaiju movies that were like recut and redubbed and, you know, made for TV and then some cuts went to theaters. There's a lot of them. Do you know which one you watched? I watched a Shout Factory

dubbed version. Shot Factory has a version that's on YouTube. And that's the one I watched. It was dubbed. It did not have subtitles. And I know that there are like different versions of the story, even to some extent. Um, mine was about two. gargantua is fighting each other. Okay. Yeah. So I think we watched the same version. So this movie technically a sequel, technically a sequel to a movie that was called many things, but maybe best known as Frankenstein conquers the world. Yeah.

And in a cut of that movie, it ends with him fighting a giant octopus that comes out of nowhere. So this is maybe supposed to be the octopus from that first movie anyway. People probably remember Frankenstein conquer. is the world from the AFI list of 100 movies to see before you die. Right. Yeah, sure. Right below Seven Samurai. You know how I learned this was a sequel, Jordan?

Hmm. It's because I couldn't tell what was going on. And you're like, have I missed an entire movie? So, okay, this octopus, it's attacking the boat. But then, you guessed it, one of the titular gargantulas rises from the sea. This is a green one. We'll meet a brown one later. This guy's green.

He looks like he's covered in moss. Yeah, how would you, we talked a little bit about this. You described the gargantua a little bit. It's a little bit. He mostly, so I think he looks, because I, because I was so confused when I stopped watching the movie and still had a little bit of flight left, I looked it up. And in the first version, in the first of this pair of films, the ape. looks a lot more like Tarzan.

Right. In this version, it looks like a guy, a classic guy in gorilla suit in many ways, except that it also has a little bit of a vampire bat face. Yeah, I guess in the first movie, what happened was Nazis stole Frankenstein's heart, Frankenstein's monster, took it to Japan, an atomic bomb hits Japan, and then Frankenstein is reborn into the body of a boy who then gets giant. So it's a little more of a giant guy. And this, the gargantuanthas are made from the cells of that guy from that first movie. Anyway.

Are both gargantuanas? I thought one of the gargantulas was the guy from the first movie. I think it's not. I think he's supposed to. Oh, he's raised. It's a cell baby that's raised by the scientists from the movie. No, I think that the, what? The flashback we see is the scientists raising the Frankenstein from the first movie.

But I think the cell babies matured themselves out in the wild, I think. Okay. But one of them was raised by- Jesse, why you're so dumb? What did you thought that the... Come on, man. We even want, come on. Can I tell you what my first note is on this movie?

Yeah, sure. Is this the water world of monster movies? Seems expensive to shoot all this water stuff. Yeah, I think that like a big thing. thing was like, so that you have different suits for these. You have a land suit and you have a suit that can go in water for the monsters. So I think, you know, they took a lot of pride in, you know, having a water suit and you got this big water tank at the studio. So yeah, a lot of these things have water fights and, you know, yeah, a lot of them start with like a ship being attacked. That's a pretty

popular opening. A lot of the studios had nice water features like the Americana and brand. Oh, yeah. Sure, sure, it's a beautiful. If you're ever visiting LA, come to the Americanae brand and see the dancing fountain, all the sonatra your ears can hold. What a beautiful experience. So the gargantua kills the octopus and then attacks the boat. It leaves only one guy alive and he's in a coma. So he's in a hospital. They're trying to figure out what happened to this boat. I just want to say, Jordan, there's a part where he's destroyed the boat and he's in the water and you realize that even though this is a big water tank, and even though this is, as you pointed out, the water suit, it's not a swimmable suit.

No. You can't go parallel to the ground. You know what I mean? So he stands and then does arm swimming motions. And this- As though that's how swimming is done. Yeah. And I think in this bit, and you also get kind of a flashback of him chasing all the sailors,

this. This is a classic. These movies, especially the movies from this era, are known for the kaiju having a hilarious size discrepancy, depending on what shot you're seeing. And in some shots, he's a little bigger than the guy. And then later, he's as big as a building. So there's some of that going on. Yeah. Really hard to tell. Yeah. Really hard to tell how big the gargantua are. Anyway, so he's, this guy's in a coma. He wakes up with the only thing he says is monster, monster. And so the general, the general army guys, they, there's only one thing they know to do, and it's to call Kyoto for a Frankenstein experts. Yeah, what they say is, they say, they pick up the phone, and it's one of those like talking, talk to the operators, pick up the phone, and they say,

Long distance, Kyoto, Dr. Stewart's Clinic, the Frankenstein expert. The Frankenstein expert. So I think there are some cuts of this movie where they call him a gargantua, not this one. They call him a Frankenstein, which is even more confusing. And what I found myself thinking is how many Dr. Stewart's are there in Kyoto? Sure. Why is this disambiguation? Not Dr. Stewart, the podiatrist, who lives in Kyoto.

Yes, they're looking for Dr. Stewart. This is, so this was a co-production with America, so they wanted an American star in here. So, yes, we have one kind of goofy white guy who really sticks out. He's played by Russ Tamblin, who... Best known, of course, is David Cross's father-in-law. Really? Yeah, David Cross is married to Amber Tamblin. Amber Tamblin's father, Russ Tamblin. I kind of went down his Wikipedia and kind of, you know, looked at some of his, you know, highs and lows. I guess he turned down Gilligan.

Oh. He only wanted to do serious material. He's like Gilligan is beneath me. Thank you for listening to the little preview. The whole thing is available. If you're already a member, thank you for being a member. Go listen to the whole thing. If you're not yet, go to maximum. dot org slash join jjgo and become a member so you can listen to this and every episode of TBW. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network of artist-owned shows. Supported directly by you.