GODZILLA FINAL WARS

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

GODZILLA: FINAL WARS ~ 2004, Ryuhei Kitamura – Japan

In 2004, Godzilla’s 50th anniversary, Toho released Godzilla: Final Wars. It was meant to be a finale of sorts, after which good old Godzilla would take some time to chill out. In an effort to celebrate the long running franchise, Final Wars works like a celebration of the entire cannon, and in a way, it’s almost a remake of every Godzilla movie simultaneously (mostly Destroy All Monsters), but it’s kind of a damn mess.

The plot is as follows: It is the future; blah blah blah who cares; the plot isn’t worth hashing out. Again, it’s that same old alien invasion story Toho has used over and over, but it’s really just a means to justify Godzilla fighting as many monsters as possible, and he really, really does. There are some dumb aliens in the mix, as well as a bunch of “mutants,” whom we’ll be talking about later.

It feels kinda disjointed and hurried. There is so much freaking homage in here that it almost just feels like watching a sitcom a clip show episode most of the time, which is not what you want from a glorious, 50th anniversary finale to your proudest franchise. The special effects suffer in the same way most modern Godzilla movies do- cheap, crappy CG and terrible composite effects, but the worst thing about the movie is the emphasis on its human, and “mutant” characters. We spend a lot of time with them… And that time is a grab bag, sometimes its good, sometimes its really, really terrible.

Let’s look at the good; basically, aside from all the rad monster stuff, the coolest part of the movie is this guy:

gfw76 Captain Gordon… He kinda looks like Stalin, mostly because they dress him exactly like Stalin for some reason… but he also kinda looks like Sgt. Slaughter, or a bad ass Mario, so that’s sort of a mixed message, but the fact remains that holy shit is he cool. Our lame ass mutant characters bust him out of military jail because they need his leadership to save the world. He’s really awesome, and he’s the captain of a sweet flying/submarine/drill type ship borrowed right out of Atragon, which is one of the better Showa era homages in the entire flick. That’s all good stuff…

…And then, on the other end of the spectrum, we have these guys….

gfw54 …“Mutants.” they suck so bad. These guys are part of the Earth anti-monster defense initiative or something. I have no idea in what way they’re better than normal people, but they’re supposed to be vaguely super human somehow, while remaining incredibly cliche and disinteresting. They’re like some profoundly lame Matrix/Ultraman combo deal, and they take up far too much screen time. I hate them a lot, for real, I’d have taken the G-Graspers over these idiots.

Also worth a mention, the big, stupid, Roland Emmerich version of Godzilla pops up in this movie, too. It tromps around and is promptly murdered by the real Godzilla, which takes less than a minute, and is a great thing that we all know needed to happen. I didn’t expect any sort of closure on that one, so this feels like a nice treat. Of course, I could have done without the unlistenable Sum 41 song that plays over the scene, but we have mute buttons, so it’s still good.

So, is it a good movie? Kinda. It’s probably going to make most Godzilla enthusiasts happy. I found myself enjoying the effort taken to pay respects to Godzilla’s older films, and all the monster fighting sequences are well done and entertaining. Also great; after relentlessly flip flopping on the Nature of Godzilla, I feel like this movie finds a good balance by casting him as humanity’s last ditch guardian by default, a looming threat that we all dread, but which is at the same time, our only hope for survival. I think this is a logical extension of the metaphor, given that GZ was originally meant to symbolize the horrors of atomic warfare. It’s a safe assumption that, if facing alien invasion, we might come to feel the same way about nuclear weapons that we do about Big Green in this film, so it feels appropriate that he has again found himself as a stand in for the bomb. Godzilla: Final Wars does a good job with that idea.

….BUT it isn’t a classic. As a finale, it feels appropriately epic, but we’ve traded a lot of character development for more for slick action sequences this time, and I’m never in favor of that. It’s simply too cluttered, and too all over the place, but if what you’re looking for is giant monsters fighting and little else, this for sure will give you what you want. I just think it would be wise to expect more from Godzilla, because his potential is enormous.

C-

GODZILLA 2000

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Godzilla 2000 – 1999, Takao Okawara – Japan

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The world of Godzilla 2000 is one where the debate over whether or not Godzilla exists is over. Here, he has become an accepted part of life. Researchers study Big Green the same way they might study earthquakes, tornadoes, or really any natural phenomena, and while there remains a strong urge to destroy him, there is at least some portion of the scientific community eager to contain Godzilla somehow, for scientific purposes. Neither side seems to get their way, however, as always, he remains unkillable, and uncontrollable.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, mankind has unwittingly awakened an ancient, extraterrestrial life form that had been snoozing at the bottom of the ocean for millennia, and when this advanced life-form gets hostile, we again find ourselves totally unable to fend off our would-be destroyer. We’re basically worthless, when you get down to it, so once again it falls on the rough, greenish shoulders of Godzilla to bail our asses out, even though we launched like, a thousand rockets at him just yesterday… And that’s the movie!

Up until about the halfway mark I was pretty convinced that I was watching the best Godzilla movie in a very long time. This one marks the beginning of the Millennium Era, the third recognized period in Godzilla film continuity, and It starts out very, very strong, with many of the regrettable traits brought into cannon during the Heisei absent completely. Which is awesome, I love Godzilla, and I want to like the Heisei era films, but they made it pretty difficult sometimes. This film, on the other hand, is much easier to get behind, it feels higher budget and more serious than what we saw out of Big G’s last several escapades, and I feel like the spirit of the Showa era is felt ever so briefly here and there, although that could have been the hysterical relief brought on by not having to deal with any more psychics or hard, shiny, plastic monsters.

G2000 opens with a pretty neat scene; we have some Godzilla tracking enthusiasts hoping to catch a sight of the big guy in their custom outfitted Kaiju jeep, and guess what; they totally do. The whole sequence is cool, and very well done, even if it does try to borrow a bit from Jurassic Park, and even Twister. It somehow feels so fresh and real, and the way this movie tries to sell you a world where there is an apparent attempt to adapt to and understand Godzilla is just so different from what we’ve seen before. This is one of G2000’s many positive qualities, however, it ain’t all waterslides and puppy dogs, this movie has some serious flaws that really begin to gang up on you over the course of the film. The single worst problem out of the whole batch is a debilitating lack of balance, which is probably the most common flaw in all of Kaiju Cinema; as is so often the case, we end up spending way too much time with characters that we just don’t care about, and even when we finally get to the good bits, it somehow feels boring because of how little we give a shit about this world to begin with. It’s just too little too late, and the giant alien monster that Godzilla has to fight is also decidedly lame. That doesn’t help.

Regardless, the strength of the first half of the movie is enough to make this one stand out in my mind, and overall, I like the film. It’s a good enough start to a new era, and Godzilla fans will likely have a pretty good time with it.

C+

Godzilla Vs Destroyah

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Godzilla Vs. Destroyah –1995, Takao Okawara – Japan

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When Toho revived the Godzilla in 1984, they brought us a new era with shinier, more plastic looking monsters, who relied largely on laser based combat, as well as numerous psychics, soldiers, and also the single worst time travel movie of all time, Godzilla Vs. King Ghidorah. Now, after seven films in eleven years, Toho wraps up the Heisei series with Godzilla Vs. Destroyah, and really, I’m kind of glad it’s over.

THE PLOT~ After Godzilla turns up in Hong Kong with some sort of crazy, fiery lizard rash, G-Force’s top minds conclude that Godzilla’s monster guts are reaching superheated levels, due to some sort of radioactive meltdown in his dragon belly. Apparently, Godzilla’s rumbly tum-tum will soon reach an unsustainable temperature, which will trigger an explosion large enough to annihilate the entire planet, which is clearly not a win/win scenario for him, or for us humans. Immediately, Japan busts out some Freeze ray technology they’ve been working on, and it’s actually more effective than you might think.

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Meanwhile, some wayward Japanese scientist is sniffin’ around the old Oxygen Destroyer technology, which was the device they used to kill the original Godzilla in ’54, before it’s formula was lost with the death of it’s creator. As is the case 100% of the time that scientists try to do anything, this experimentation inadvertently resurrects and mutates a prehistoric monster, and the next thing you know, weird, bug like creatures are scurrying all over Tokyo killing the hell out of everyone. Science.

These monsters are basically just Toho ripping off the creatures from Aliens, right down to their extendable mini-mouth tongues, and we even get some soliders equiped with Ripley-esque flamethrowers running around trying to combat these creepy crawlies, so clearly, it’s uninspired, cut and dry plagiarism yet again from the Heisei series, which has become alarmingly routine lately. Honestly, it doesn’t help this movie’s case- Godzilla should be above shamelessly xeroxing other intellectual properties in this way, so for shame, Toho. Cut it the fuck out.

Anyhow, all these beasties merge together to create one giant, kaiju sized bug monster, which, apparently, is Destroyah, a creature which was absolutely named by Sylvester Stallone, without question. Confronted with this horrible crab/bug/dino looking abomination, Japan thinks; “Hey, this thing is a product of the original Oxygen Destroyer, right? Maybe it can solve our other giant monster related problem, if you know what I mean.” So, that brilliant idea is what we decide to go with, and in order to stage this confrontation, Godzilla Jr, now himself quite giant, is used as bait, since Miki (yep, she’s in this one too) has a special psychic connection to him and can kinda guide which way she wants him to go.

Miki totally dotes on Godzilla Jr as though he were a damned Labrador or something, but with some coaxing she is convinced to help direct GJ into the city, where he will most likely be slaughtered by a nightmarish insect monster before her very eyes. Godzilla Jr Shows up, probably thinking “Where are my human friends? I love humans!” and then he is immediately beaten to within an inch of his life by Destroyah, until Poppa G drops in, and shit goes to 11.

In the end, Godzilla defeats Destroyah, but not without going critical and literally melting like a giant, radioactive candle; however, the Earth is somehow spared from total destruction due to G-Force’s freeze lasers, or something. I’m not actually sure how these guys manage save the Earth, but they do somehow. I think maybe the idea is that the radiation that would have killed us got sponged up by Junior, which in turn transformed him into a full fledged Godzilla, but honestly, this bit is a little unclear for me.

Other things happen in the movie, there are multiple characters and subplots, but mostly these are just an attempt to further connect this film with the original ’54 Gojira, in hopes that our new movie will somehow seem more credible as a result of that connection, but honestly, who gives a shit? No one, that’s who. This movie is a little thin, like Jared from Subway, but it is fairly climactic, so I’ll give it that. Godzilla certainly looks formidable in his weird meltdown condition, and Godzilla VS Destroyah does feel tense and dramatic at times, but the movie remains burdened by problems typical to all Heisei era films; they just aren’t as fun, or as high quality as their Showa predecessors. In the end, Godzilla Vs Destroyah comes out somewhere in the middle of the list, if we were to rate the Heisei era films from best to worst, but on average, just about any Showa movie is head and shoulders above the films belonging to this second era. Onward; to the next book of the Godzilla trilogy; the Millennium Series.

C-

Terror of Mechagodzilla!!!

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Terror of Mechagodzilla ~ 1975, Ishiro Honda – Japan

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After twenty-one years and fifteen movies, the original Godzilla franchise comes to an end with the solid, yet sadly anti-climactic Terror of Mechagodzilla. This is also the first Godzilla film Ishiro Honda has directed since 1969’s Godzilla’s Revenge, and it’s good to see him back for the finale. Honda pulls out all the stops this time around, embracing more dynamic quick cuts and dramatic camera angles, as well as some hip 70’s split screen techniques, all more typical of fellow Godzilla director Jun Fukuda’s work than of his own. It’s almost like he wanted one more opportunity to prove that he could beat these youngsters at their own game, and it does certainly level the playing field a bit. While Honda’s work is invaluable to the kaiju lexicon, his composition was always governed by more classic sensibilities. With Terror of Mechagodzilla we’ve got that masterful Honda style, but with a little of Fukuda’s zazz thrown in. That’s a strong mix, yo.

The downside: It’s damn aliens again.

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THE PLOT~ After the destruction of Godzilla’s robot doppelgänger in Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla, Japanese scientists travel to the supposed undersea wreckage site, in hopes of retrieving the pieces of said robot so that they can use them to do terrible, terrible things (I’m sure), but to their surprise, they instead find Titanosaurus, a huge, aquatic dinosaur, right where Mechagodzilla should be. Oh hell! Titanosaurus’ existence was theorized years ago by a prominent scientist named Dr. Shinji Mafune (played by franchise favorite Akihiko Hirata!), to which the scientific community responded “A dinosaur?! What are you, crazy? Get this guy out of here!” I don’t really understand anyone’s reaction to Titanosaurus in this movie, even the present day scientists act like the discovery of a living dinosaur is a huge deal, when Japan is decimated by warring dinosaurs like, twice a week at this point. Remember, guys? You see dinosaurs every day? You all probably know someone who has been killed by a dinosaur at this point? Why is one more dinosaur so damn mind blowing? Whatever, you guys. Anyway. We Earthlings would soon regret our treatment of Mafune, because after years in isolation and disgrace, this hombre has gone coo coo for cocoa puffs, big time. It’s so bad that he’s actually betrayed mankind and formed a partnership with dastardly space aliens, here to conquer the Earth and wipe out human civilization, so we really should have been nicer to him about his freaking dinosaur.

These aliens need Mafune, because his intellect is so substantial that even a race of beings who have mastered space travel think he’s pretty damn smart. Logically, however, they have to know that they can trust him, so as a means of further guaranteeing Mafune’s loyalty to their evil cause, these aliens use their far-out space-technology to revive his daughter Katsura after she is killed in a lab accident. Granted, she’s a damn cyborg now, but Mafune is good with this. He and the aliens then hatch a two-fold invasion plan; one; Mafune’s state of the art “animal controlling device” is rigged up and used to manipulate Titanosaurus into smashin’ shit and killin’ folks. Two; using technology based on Mafune’s designs, Mechagodzilla is repaired and deployed for a similar purpose. Without Mafune’s knowledge, however, the aliens bind Mafine’s robo-daughter to Mechagodzilla, meaning that if one of them dies, so does the other, just in case the good doctor should decide to flip flop back over to Team Earthling. Looks like Mafune’s really in it for the long haul now.

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Meanwhile, Interpol, aided by a marine biologist called Akira Ichinose, have been sniffin’ around Titanosaurus, as well as the missing Mechagodzilla pieces, and soon the two sides meet in a dance of espionage, gunfire, and shiny, spaceman costumes with stupid helmets. Ichinose develops romantic feelings for Katsura Mafune, unaware that she is 1; In league with would be Earth conquerors from space and 2; A damn cyborg. My favorite line in the movie comes toward the end, when Ichinose discovers the truth about Katusra, and tells her “Even if you are a cyborg, I love you.” We shouldn’t be surprised, this is a culture where grown men have developed committed, romantic relationships with body pillows. A cyborg is like a body pillow in many ways.

Also, Godzilla eventually shows up. He’s not in this thing enough. That’s a major beef for me.

It’s all a mixed bag, as always. While it’s impossible to ignore the significant updates Honda has made to his screen language repertoire, he doesn’t ever employ the use of these more jazzy techniques to the degree that Fukuda does, and they actually stand out more because they’re so isolated to key sequences, like when Titanosarus rises up out of the sea. Fukuda had also pushed the envelope in how violent the monster battles were allowed to get, which included the use blood effects, and that really heightened the drama, Those effect shots are largely absent from this entry (although Mecha-G’s revolving finger-rocket punches a hole in Godzilla’s chest at one point, and that’s pretty heavy). While I don’t want to say that blood is mandatory for Godzilla movies now or ever, it did help add a sense of desperation and risk to the conflicts when it was used well in the past, and it’s hard to step backwards from that without losing some of the momentum the audience has now come to expect.

One thing that Honda does do that surprised me more than a bit; Damn android nipples! While Katsura is being fiddled with and modified by our aliens, we get a weird, uncomfortable gander at her bare chest. Now, see here, Toho, we Westerners have demonized the hell out of that whole region of the female anatomy for centuries, so toss a blanket over her or something. Get back to widespread destruction and the death of human beings, what a woman has under her clothes is a most dark and sinful thing, and we want no part of your freaking space martian peep-show.

Also problematic; the aliens themselves. They don’t even appear to be the same aliens from the prior film, which would really have helped sugarcoat the situation. These aliens come from “Black hole third planet,” and are profoundly uninteresting. Past Godzilla films have done a much better job making their aliens distinct, as well as elevating the Earth Vs Aliens conflict to make it feel more global, and more dramatic. The best example of this was probably Destroy All Monsters, but the aliens in Terror of Mechagodzilla are maybe my least favorite of all the Showa E.T. Interlopers. Truly, they are nothing special, and when you do something over and over and over again for years and years, dammit, you need to make it special somehow.

A highlight I wanted to mention; Akihiko Hirata’s performance as Dr. Mafune. Firstly, he’s been with the franchise from the beginning, so it’s cool having him back in a prominent role as this series comes to a close. He also does a good job in this role even without acknowledging his position as an original cast member, and he’s likely to stand out as especially memorable even if this is the first Godzilla film you watch. He looks like a Japanese Einstein, and his portrayal of a brilliant mind driven to madness is enjoyably manic. While most of the cast is likable, he stands above the rest in Terror of Mechagodzilla as being a real asset.

Beyond it’s glaringly scant Godzilla and monster screen time, the film is pretty solid, but not perfect. Even excluding Gojira, Honda has shot much, much better Godzilla films before this one, And Terror Of Mechagodzilla doesn’t feel like a big enough deal. Past entries in the Showa cannon were made with the understanding that they would be the final Godzilla film, so they managed to go out with a bang in a way that Terror of Mechagodzilla doesn’t. It’s no kind of finale, and it doesn’t even feel deliberately open-ended, the film just ends, as its predecessors had done, and that was that. Given that this was the last time audiences would see Big G for a while, it would have been nice to enjoy a better send off, but I suppose we aren’t often given that luxury in life.

I’m getting all philosophic here!

Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla!

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla ~ 1974, Jun Fukuda – Japan

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It’s 1974, and Godzilla Vs Megalon is now a year behind us. Toho, no doubt still coping with the grief of knowing they had birthed Jet Jaguar into the world, decides to get right back on the horse and gives us some of that same old same old; Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla; yet another movie that would pit Godzilla against a monster controlled by invaders from space. Returning director Jun Fukuda, who had salvaged past alien invader Godzilla films with his Zazzy directing, piles on the Zazz like a damn Zazz-machine, but at this point we’ve seen this exact plot so many times that keeping it zazzy is now easier said than done. I mean, they pile on that zazz, but right now, what we need is a new story. Not zazz.

…It’s still pretty fun, though.

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THE PLOT~ While exploring the Japanese Island of Okinawa, archeologists uncover a centuries old mural hidden in deep underground in an ancient cave system. This mural tells of a chilling prophecy, the exact wording escapes me, but essentially it boils down to this:

“A monster is gonna show up to kill everybody, but then more monsters are gonna show up, so it’ll all be cool.”

Everybody flips out when this is discovered, even though by my count that prophecy has already come true like, a million times. Whatever. They also find some Space Titanium in the cave, and some serious science shit goes down. How wild and advanced is the science in Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla? Why, it’s so out there that the Subtitles can’t even keep up!

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The subtitles didn’t even want to try on that word!

Soon, Godzilla pops in for his daily raid. It’s assumed immediately that Big G is the monster spoken of in the aforementioned prophecy, but something isn’t adding up. This new Godzilla sounds sorta funny, he doesn’t have the all too familiar Skreeonk style roar the Japanese have come to recognize… His spines are also shinier, and his dragon breath has a vague space-alien type quality to it… Plus, when Anguirus shows up to spend some quality dino time with his best buddy, Godzilla brutally kicks the shit out of him, which is totally out of character (Godzilla Raids Again). What the hell is going on?

Godzilla-vs-Mechagodzilla-fight Holy smokes! Another Godzilla shows up! The Japanese people’s collective mind is blown. After a short throw down between the two warring twin Godzillas, we discover the truth, the first Godzilla was a mechanized imposter, a robotic replica of Godzilla, who was coated in a false skin, not unlike Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator, and also probably in real life. Of course, this robot Godzilla, forever known as Mechagodzilla, is part of an alien plot to conquer the Earth. The aliens involved are pretty lame. They’re shape shifting gorilla people.

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So, As part of the prophecy, King Caesar, the shaggy, lethargic guardian monster of Okinawa, is awoken, and he and Godzilla team up against Mechagodzilla. King Caesar is kind of cool, he’s a bipedal, somewhat humanoid dog/lion type creature, and I’ve never been secretive about my longstanding bias towards monsters with floppy ears. King Caesar makes Jet Jaguar look like a serious mountain of shit, but we don’t actually spend too much time with him, so he isn’t given much of an opportunity to shine. Additionally, his “guardian monster” status is slightly reminiscent of an underdeveloped Mothra, so what little we do get from him isn’t really breaking new ground. King Caesar is a bit of a missed opportunity.

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Anyway, Godzilla and King Caesar put the beat down on Mechagodzilla something fierce, and eventually Earth is saved yet again. The final battle is sorta bloody by Kaiju standards, which is pretty cool. On the profoundly lame and bizarre end of the spectrum, however, Godzilla’s premeditated scheme to take down Mechagodzilla involves him absorbing electricity during a lightning storm so that he can magnetize his body and temporarily(?) possess metal based super powers like Magneto. I don’t know if you were able to actually read that without hemorrhaging, but the same thing happens in Ernest Goes to Jail, so I want you to think about that long and hard before you go to sleep tonight.

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Really, the biggest thing this movie has going for it is that it introduced Mechagodzilla, a character who would become a favorite among Godzilla movie buffs. Aside from that, it’s really sort of a lesser entry in the series. The recycled plot is, by this point a pretty major problem to contend with, and nothing else brought to the table feels fresh enough to compensate. What’s here is pretty good, but honestly, not having it be aliens would have made a world of difference at this point. Really, anything else would be better.

We have one more Showa era Godzilla film left, and then Big Green takes a long break.

C+

Godzilla Versus Gigan!

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Godzilla VS Gigan ~ 1972, Jun Fukuda – Japan

After the radical change of pace that was Godzilla VS Hedorah we are again back in step with more traditional Toho fare on Godzilla VS Gigan, yet another recycled alien invasion/Godzilla film, directed by Jun Fukuda. Godzilla VS Gigan reuses, for the two billionth time, several plot devices introduced to the franchise way back in 1964’s Ghidorah: The Three Headed Monster, but Fukuda manages to breathe a little bit of life into the picture with his zesty directing and keeps it feeling fresh enough… But just barely.

THE PLOT~ Gengo is a struggling, out of work cartoonist (Preaching to the choir, buddy) with a resourceful nature and a plucky thirst for adventure. While at a job interview (Wait, what?! You serious?!) Gengo becomes suspicious of his would be employers, World Children’s Land, who are currently building a theme park intended to promote world peace and also giant, horrible monsters who smash and kill people. Gengo, falls in with a few other characters interested in exposing whatever conspiracy World Children’s Land has brewing, and together they uncover the truth. You’re never gonna believe this, guys, but the people running World Children’s Land are actually a bunch of body snatching aliens. Thin ice, Toho, you’re really pushing it. Anyway, these aliens, who are actually giant cockroaches wearing human holograms, intend to destroy mankind, and also Godzilla, and their plans to accomplish this involve two space monsters, whom they control. Gengo and his pals plan to put a stop to this astro-roach bullshit, and that’s the movie.

Let’s do a Monster Roll Call.

Godzilla– Once a towering, insurmountable force for death and destruction destined to blanket the Earth in grim darkness, fire and blood, Godzilla is now totally cool and nice, you guys. Not only is he no longer a bad guy, but in Godzilla VS Gigan, he’s a damn underdog. Most Godzilla films portray him as an unstoppable, scaly juggernaut, the unbeatable conclusion to any conflict, but in GVG it kinda seems like his monstrous snout has finally bit off more than it can chew. He really takes a lot of abuse this time around, including, at one point, a full on Ghidoriah lightning bolt attack to his dragon balls. Rough. (NOTE: Apparently, this shot is actually recycled footage from Ghidorah: The Three Headed Monster. So, apparently this has happened to Godzilla twice now!)
Anguirus– Anguirus has also come a long way from being Godzilla’s most hated rival to the sturdy, dependable, four legged BFF we see in GVG. Now he’s like, the “solid dude” of the kaiju kingdom, Anguirus is the monster who would come over to help you move. I mean, he’s a quadruped, with no apparent dragon breath or laser eyes, so his offensive capabilities are pretty much limited to biting and just being spiky, but he’s still out there in the fray, taking his lumps and doing what he can to back up his bros. If Godzilla seems like the underdog in this battle, Anguirus is straight outclassed, and you might find yourself worried about the little guy. I know I was!
King Ghidorah– What is Ghidorah the king of, anyway? Pissing me off, that’s what. Anytime aliens pop in, they summon Ghidorah from the cold recesses of space to shriek, fly around, wiggle his three heads and barf lightning at everybody. GVG is no different, which proves just how successful his outer-space Craig’s List ads are.
Gigan – This guy is the big addition to GVG. Gigan is basically like, the Boba Fett of the Kaiju world. He’s a cypher, he has no purpose and no drive of his own, he’s here to do his job; kill monsters and bust shit up. He’s like a giant monster hit man, hired on by aliens to dish out the death, because truly, that is what he was made to do. This damn thing has no hope of ever living a normal life, and that is by design. Every limb he has ends in a straight up blade, his face alone has four different slicers poking out, and his fucking belly has a fully functioning buzz saw embedded in it. The only means of manipulating an object that Gigan has is to slice the hell out of it, even just picking something up is out of the question unless it can also be impaled in the process. He is super cool, though.

The big monster brawl at the end of the picture actually stretches on for quite a bit of screen time, but it’s excellent. Actually, it might be the best fight in one of these movies yet, certainly it owes more to the big throw down between Godzilla and Hedorah than what was seen in Ishiro Honda’s more reserved, classic feeling Godzilla pictures. Fukuda’s dynamic use of camera works wonders here, the fight feels epic, dirty, painful, frantic, desperate, and mean. Ghidorah and Gigan have the run of the place for most of it, and they really kick the shit out of our boys. Godzilla spends some time down for the count, with Gigan and Ghidorah almost toying with him, beating him mercilessly as he is unable to even regain his composure. Anguirus tries like hell to save Godzilla and take these mercenary dragons down, but he’s utterly outmatched, and thus, is subjected to a series of violent beat downs the likes of which he has not known in centuries. There’s actually a bit of monster blood spurting and dripping in this one, and it really ups the ante and gives this conflict a greater sense of urgency. These guys are really getting hurt!

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As usual, a crucial part of the human plan to turn the tide is to defeat the aliens and free any monsters that might be under extra terrestrial control. In order to achieve this, Gengo and his pals launch the most harebrained scheme I’ve ever seen; they literally load a bunch of boxes of dynamite into the elevator of the alien control tower, and then drape a black and white poster with cartoon drawings of themselves in front of the boxes, hoping that this super intelligent race of aliens 1) won’t notice them loading up their elevator with boxes of explosives and 2) won’t know the difference between living breathing humans and black and white cartoons, and will therefore open fire, detonating the explosives and destroying Martian H.Q. It totally works. If your alien race is dumb enough to fall for that, welcome to the Darwin Awards, you do not deserve to continue your intergalactic imperialism.

As said before, this is mostly another “been there, done that” Godzilla film, but Toho manages to squeak by thanks to Fukuda’s talents and in the end we have yet another enjoyable entry in the franchise. It’s more than a little maddening to know that they really see no issue with repeating essentially the same plot over and over and over again, but whatever. I still liked it. Everything else works and even the human characters are pretty likable, except for Gengo. This a-hole turns down jobs and then models a cartoon monster after his attractive and supportive girlfriend who just so happens to have a black belt in an unnamed field of the Martial Arts. Dude- screw you, man. On behalf of unemployed cartoonists everywhere, I hope you are eaten by Rodan.

SPACE AMOEBA!

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Space Amoeba (AKA: Yog: Monster From Space, AKA Gezora, Ganime, Kameba: Kessen! Nankai no daikaijû) 1970, Ishiro Honda – Japan

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In the annals of Kaiju cinema, no one director can claim to have contributed quite as much as Ishiro Honda, the director of like, friggin’ everything. Well, not everything, but he directed a lot. Most of Toho’s real, certifiable kaiju classics come from his body of work, Honda was in the director’s chair for Gojira, Mothra, Rodan, the list goes on and on. However, he also brought us Space Amoeba, which is more or less totally forgettable, so I guess not everything King Midas touches turns to gold.

THE PLOT~ After some alien space glitter hijacks a satellite and crashes it in the ocean, islanders (And some Japanese folks who have come to our island for one reason or another) find themselves terrorized by a series of giant, goofy monsters, which include a squid, two weird crab things, and a spikey turtle. I’m pretty sure the original idea for this story is credited to a five year old kid playing with some toys in the bathtub.

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Although these enormous beasts are indeed a serious threat to our stable of who-cares-characters, we are delighted to learn that each one possesses it’s own unique weakness- for instance, Gezora, the squid type dude, is vulnerable to fire, and Ganime, the crab guy, is vulnerable to having both of it’s eyeballs shot off and then being thrown off of a cliff onto sharp, jagged rocks before suffering horrible injuries brought on by explosive blasts. That’s a good one to remember. We also learn that all the monsters, and indeed, the aliens who control them, are vulnerable to high frequency sounds, so our humans cook up a plan to save the world that mostly hinges on pissing off all of the island’s sleeping fruit bats- but hold up! Someone has been sneaking around and killing all of the bats somehow! Yes, apparently there is a traitor in our midst- Obata, who was kind of already the bad guy since we learned earlier that his entire purpose for tagging along on this island adventure was one of industrial espionage, has apparently been possessed by space glitter also, thereby making him double the traitor. And to think I thought he was just your typical sneaky dude in a flashy white suit with a super dope Satan goatee.

Anyway. The movie ends, as every movie should, with a giant crab wrestling a giant turtle until they both topple over into an active volcano, leaving our cast of good guys to instantly be rescued by a Japanese fishing boat, roll credits.

It’s not amazing. It’s fine, and it’s entertaining enough, but a classic this is not. I’ve read that apparently lots of Westerners have a warm place in their hearts for this film after seeing it in drive-ins or on TV under the name YOG: The Monster From Space, but without the aid of nostalgia to warm your heart, Space Amoeba isn’t going to rise above the rabble. There’s also not much to it, thematically; there’s some stuff in here about respecting indigenous cultures and the exploitation of humans and resources, but as usual, it’s a mixed message, and they sort of touch on the idea of combatting your inner-demons, but for the most part, this is just a straight up B-movie that offers little for your mind to digest beyond giant monsters and a tropical settling.

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The monsters aren’t too bad, though, I especially enjoy seeing Gezora lumbering about on land, for some reason, although Ganimes and Kamoebas (the turtle dude) could have been cooler. The legacy of Space Amoeba isn’t a proud one, these monsters didn’t really go anywhere after this. Off the top of my head, I’m pretty sure I killed Gezora about a million times on the Godzilla Nintendo game, and Kamoebas has a cameo in Godzilla: Tokyo SOS, but he’s a corpse already when he shows up, so all in all the class of Space Amoeba remains under-utilized and relatively forgotten by today’s movie buff. It’s also not easy to get a copy on home video, so that doesn’t help.

piccit_space_amoeba_1971_2043x2909_1446595838 Space Amoeba feels a little cheap, too, almost like they had a few extra reels of film and a bunch of unused monster suits so they decided to squeeze out one more movie before going back to the producers for more funds. I think this one might be for completest only, it’s too difficult to obtain to warrant a viewing for casual Zilla fans.

Destroy All Monsters!!!

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Destroy All Monsters~ 1968, Ishiro Honda – Japan

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In 1968 Toho released their THIRD Ishiro Honda directed Godzilla film wherein a race of extra-terrestrials take control of Earth’s monsters in an attempt to force a surrender and usher in alien occupation of the planet. Each of these films feature Ghidorah as the ultimate monster challenge posed to Godzilla and co., and in each film, mankind discovers a way to release their monsters from the alien’s control at the eleventh hour and saves the day. To rephrase that, between 1964 and 1968, Toho released five Godzilla films, and three of them had essentially the same story. I’m not saying I dislike this run of films, but how can anyone argue that things were getting alarmingly “been there done that” by this point? This is the Super Street Fighter II of Godzilla films (Making Final Wars the Super Street Fighter II Turbo of the franchise.)

THE PLOT- Mankind is really kicking ass these days. We’ve managed to put together a pretty sweet international space program, complete with moon bases, and Earth’s monsters are all contained for observation on a tricked out island somewhere in the Pacific. Advanced science has been developed to prevent each of the monsters from ever escaping, and simultaneously we’ve designed a self sufficient Eco-system which can feed the creatures indefinitely while we study them from ultra safe bunkers deep beneath the surface of the island. Yes sir, nothing can go wrong now. Oh, wouldn’t you know it, aliens show up and want to conquer our sweet planet, and they have somehow managed to take control of all of our monsters. Really, really sucks how often this happens.

Long story short, there is some space warfare stuff that goes down, and in the end we manage to free our monsters from alien control and defeat the interloping space people once again. Sound familiar? This also won’t be the last time Toho does this in a movie.

It’s not so bad, though. It’s still a pretty good effort, and the alien/outer space stuff is actually done pretty well, much better than in Invasion Of Astro Monster. The daring human assault on the alien moon bases is an especially exciting and well done sequence for it’s lack of giant monsters, and the film does a good job upping the ante and making this movie feel more global and epic in scope. It does really feel like the very survival of mankind is on the line, and really, that’s the mark of a successful alien invasion film, so kudos on that, Ishiro.

There are also lots, and lots of monsters, and they look good. The big battle at the end where Godzilla leads a monster army against Ghidorah and the alien invaders is pretty cool, and it’s satisfying to see Ghidorah get his ass beat so, so hard by Papa G’s Kaiju Posse.

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Overall, Destroy All Monsters does it right, but the problem is that we’ve just tread this ground so many times already. Had it not been diluted by the foul backwash of repetition, this movie would really shine. As it is, it’s still pretty good.

B-

INVASION OF ASTRO-MONSTER!

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Invasion of Astro-Monster ~ 1965, Ishiro Honda – Japan

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Rocky waters for the Godzilla franchise!

Following the awesome Ghidorah The Three Headed Monster we have Invasion of Astro-Monster, which is actually weirdly similar, but not anywhere near as good. Like the last film. We again have Godzilla and Rodan VS King Ghidorah, almost like they didn’t want to go get any new monsters costumes out of the garage, but we’re missing Mothra this time out, so in a sense it’s even a step back from it’s immediate prequel. Weird!

THE PLOT- A new Planet, called Planet X, is discovered in our solar system. We soon learn that Planet X is inhabited by an advanced race of humanoids, and they want our help. It seems that after he had his ass handed to him by our Earth monsters, King Ghidorah retreated to Planet X, a land where he could ruin everything indiscriminately without interference. The people of Planet X offer a trade; they can’t deal with Ghidorah’s shit anymore, so if we loan them Godzilla and Rodan they’ll give us the cure for cancer. Long story short, they’re a bunch of treacherous A-holes, and soon we end up with an invasion force from Planet X forcibly attempted to colonize Earth, and they happen to control Godzilla, Rodan AND King Ghidorah using electro magnetic waves now. It looks grim for Earth, but since most of you are aware that there are another twenty or so sequels to this film, I don’t think it’s out of line for me to spoil the end and say that they figure it out okay.

So, Invasion of Astro Monster feels way too much like it’s predecessor to be fresh. WAAAY too much like it. Also hindering the film is the light monster content; there just isn’t enough kaiju clobbering action to carry this picture. What we have instead is a greatly expanded role for extra-terrestrials, something that was hinted at in the prior film, but relatively unexplored. This time around we certainly get our fill of aliens, but they feel boring and they eat up way too much run time. Ghidorah: The Three Headed Monster had so much going for it, but Invasion of Astro-Monster just feels like an inferior sibling.

Also, this is the movie where Godzilla does his weird victory dance. I don’t know what in the hell that was about.

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C-

The Mysterians!!!

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

The Mysterians – 1957, Ishiro Honda – Japan

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In the eleven years between 1964 and 1975 we saw seven (SEVEN) Godzilla films with essentially the same plot; aliens (or, in the case of Godzilla Vs Megalon, an ancient, futuristic society from the bottom of the ocean, same deal) show up and try to conquer Earth. At first they act like they’re out interplanetary pals, but then they bust out a giant monster, which they control, and start acting like real dicks. Fun fact; unbeknownst to me until NOW, the blueprint for this scenario predates Ghidorah The Three Headed Monster; it goes back at least as far as The Mysterians, in 1957, which is essentially the same idea, but without Godzilla. Yeah, it’s not a very original idea in the first place.

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THE PLOT~ A highly advanced race of aliens arrive in rural Japan and set up shop, invasion style. These aliens, all of whom look like they should be piloting a damn Voltron or something, claim that they mean us no harm; they just need a place to crash for a while, and they’d really appreciate us being cool about it. PLUS, they want to bang our Earth ladies. So, hopefully we’re into that.

We’re not. Earth maybe would have been cool with them chilling here for a while, but banging Earth ladies is well over the line, and so, plans to kill every last Mysterian are immediately put into development by every organized government on the planet. They all have to die, every damn one of them.

It turns out that reaction was warranted, because, of course, The Mysterians are all assholes and they plan to conquer the Earth after all. The small area of land they’ve taken is being transformed into some kind of Spacebridge, or something, and it becomes important that we manage to stomp out their efforts before construction is complete. The advanced technology the Mysterians wield makes this difficult, but we figure it out and eventually the invasion is repelled. Hooray! Go die in the cold reaches of space, you sons of bitches.

My take on The Mysterians is a mixed one. Apparently, the film was regarded as being quite well done at the time of it’s release, but without that perspective, it’s hard to know how to look at The Mysterians in a fair way. My honest, gut reaction is that time hasn’t been very kind to this movie. We heard this story so many times during the Showa era that it leaves this early effort feeling unremarkable, and it’s difficult to remember that this one predates the many superior versions we’ve already enjoyed. The Mysterians feels like a rough draft of an idea, and it’s just not done well enough to make this the movie you want to see when so many superior variations are available to you.

Additionally, right or wrong, to me, Godzilla somehow feels exempt from the B-movie stigma that would normally be attached to an alien invaders/giant monster movie. His contributions to pop culture somehow earn him a pass, but without Big Green on board, Mysterians can’t claim this same exemption; it feels every bit as hokey and dated as the American saucer and spaceman films of the 1950’s, even with Ishiro Honda and the supremely talented Takashi Shiumra attached to the project.

The special effects are another problem; they further date and cheapen the production quite drastically. Taking into account the limited technology of the era, it is again difficult to assess this in a fair way, but regardless, it’s impossible for more modern eyes not to notice the clumsy use of blue screen and assorted other gaffs. The miniatures look quite nice, as is the case with most Toho productions, but Mogera, the giant, mechanical monster deployed by the Mysterians early in the picture, looks obnoxiously shoddy. Successful neither in design, nor execution, Mogera looks exactly like a man stumbling about in a costume made largely of spray painted cardboard boxes, which has the potential to be hilarious, if that’s what you’re looking for.

moge-01 He is the doofus of the kaiju world.

Mogera turns up again in the Heisei era during the events of Godzilla Vs Spacegodzilla. Somehow he sucks much, much less in that movie.

But are we being too hard on The Mysterians? After all, it’s enjoyable enough, it’s certainly ambitious (jam packed with effects shots from start to finish) and it’s nearly sixty years old! If we’re being fair, the movie is probably fairly impressive when put against other films from that era, and it’s not really that The Mysterians is a bad film, it’s just not as good as Toho’s output in the following years… But this IS an earlier effort. Last word: The Mysterians is interesting, and fun for the completist, but if you’re a more casual movie goer, this just isn’t a Must-See.

C-

Fantastic Crap Comics

by Christopher Ochs

Tag Archives: Aliens

GODZILLA FINAL WARS

GODZILLA 2000

Godzilla Vs Destroyah

Terror of Mechagodzilla!!!

Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla!

Godzilla Versus Gigan!

SPACE AMOEBA!

Destroy All Monsters!!!

INVASION OF ASTRO-MONSTER!

The Mysterians!!!