Godzilla vs. Hedorah

Director Yoshimitsu Banno has mentioned that Hedorah's eyes in the film were deliberately made to resemble female genitalia, with Banno joking that the vaginally inspired look made it more unsettling. During Godzilla's battle with Hedorah, strange white orbs are ripped out of Hedorah's dried-out body. According to Banno, they are meant to be Hedorah's eyes, which he considered the most important part of a person's body. The film has a running theme of eyes being injured with several of its characters. However, the reason they do not resemble Hedorah's actual eyes is due to rushed production and a smaller budget. Banno mentioned that not only had Toho given him less than half of the budget of the prior Godzilla films, but he was also only given 35 days to shoot the entire film (both the drama scenes and the special effects scenes). Making matters even more challenging for Banno was the fact that he had to make do with a single film crew.

When Hedorah throws some sludge at Godzilla during the Mt. Fuji scene, it hits Godzilla's right eye - but after Hedorah gets done laughing, Godzilla's left eye is the one that is damaged.

In the AIP version of this film, its entire cast is mysteriously uncredited.

There are two distinct versions of the American International Pictures version of this film, which is titled "Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster." The first version, presumably the original 35mm theatrical version, features an English language cartoon sequence (reworked from a similar Japanese language one in the Japanese version). A similar insert replaces a shot of a newsreader with an English language map of Fuji City. In addition, AIP removed all of the Japanese text from the scenes of various "science lessons" given by Dr. Yano. This is the version that was released on VHS and LaserDisc by Orion Home Video in 1989. The second version, however, has none of these unique shots. The Hedorah cartoon and newsreader scene are unchanged from the Japanese version and Dr. Yano's science lessons feature onscreen Japanese text. This version seems to have been the standard 16mm release for television distribution and can be seen mostly in unlicensed home video releases of the film, such as the 1990 Simitar VHS release from the U.S. and the Digital Disc DVD release from Canada.

Edited into Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972)