Godzilla: Toyko S.O.S.

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. – 2003, Masaaki Tezuka – Japan
tokyosos Wow! I had some low expectations for this one, but Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. is actually pretty solid!

The formula is good; Toho said “Hey, let’s make a Godzilla movie, but let’s have it be more like Top Gun, only without all the blatant homo-eroticism.” So they did. And it was cool! The air force setting really helps to keep our human characters interesting, they all have something going on that feels less stale than characters from other films in the series. We also have a dude from the original Mothra movie popping in as a secondary character in this one, which is done pretty well and helps the movie feel connected to the Showa era in a fun way.

As is tradition with post Showa era Godzilla flicks, Tokyo S.O.S. picks and chooses which film continuities it observes, this time serving as a direct sequel to Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, but also acknowledging Gojira, and Mothra. In this continuity, Mechagodzilla is a man made weapon designed to take down Big Daddy G, and constructed partially from the skeleton of the monster from the original Godzilla film. Mothra and her tiny, magical, unison speaking fairy girls are not cool with this. Apparently, using the corpse of a slain monster to create the world’s most fearsome war machine is kinda pushing it, from an ethics standpoint, and Mothra wants a proper burial at sea for Godzilla senior, pronto. That’s trouble for we humans, though, because it would mean dismantling Mechagodzilla when we still desperately need him to defend our oh, so stompable human bodies from all the beast rampages we keep experiencing. Mothra respects that, so in order to sweeten the deal, she promises to protect mankind from Godzilla if we comply with her wishes, but also to kill us all if we fail to comply. Mothra is not good at negotiating. But anyway, it’s a good thing we called her bluff, because later in the film Godzilla kicks Mothra’s ass and without Mechagodzilla to save us we’d have been totally f’ed.

So, it’s pretty good. The monsters are well done, the human stuff is cool, and the whole movie is well made. There is an apparent desire to rely on practical effects and costume monsters over CG this time, and damn, keep it comin’, Toho, because Godzilla and Mothra look great. Probably the worst effect in the movie is the composite job used to make Mothra’s envoy look tiny, but even that is fine. We’ve seen that effect suck for 50 years now. We’re used to it.

Tokyo S.O.S. is yet another solid achievement for the Millennium Era, and, like it’s immediate predecessor, I’d call it one of the best post-Showa Godzilla movies yet made. recommended for fans of the series.

B-

GODZILLA AGAINST MECHAGODZILLA!!

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla – 2002, Masaaki Tezuka – Japan

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Not Godzilla VS Mechagodzilla, or even Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla II, nay, this here is Godzilla AGAINST Mechagodzilla, a rad Kaiju jam coming out of the heart of the Millennium Period. This little movie is one of the best post-Showa era Godzilla films yet, and maybe the best movie of any era to feature Mechagodzilla, although most Godzilla fans would probably count that as some form of weird, monster movie blasphemy. I stand by my statement, and I accept your ire.

Controversial Mechagodzilla claims aside, this is indeed an excellent flick that takes time to focus on the little things, and it’s also the only Millennium era Godzilla film to establish a timeline which wasn’t totally abandoned immediately; this movie actually has a direct sequel, the also excellent Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S.! Right on, guys!

THE PLOT~ Akane is a determined, but emotionally damaged woman who channels her dismissive outlook on the sanctity of life into an successful career in the armed forces. Tokumitsu is a brilliant scientist, and a pioneer in the field of DNA computer technology, which will probably be instrumental to Skynet when the Machines rise up to kills us all. Hayama is his daughter, and her mom is dead, so naturally she’s going to make a big deal out of that. The three are brought together as part of a project to create Kiryu– the modern day Mechagodzilla, using the recovered skeleton and DNA of the original Godzilla, which was killed by the oxygen destroyer back in 1954.

See, in the world of Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, Japan has indeed been plagued by various monster attacks throughout the years- Mothra and one of the Gargantua monsters are singled out as having existed within this continuity, and additionally, the original Gojira is, as always, cannon here as well, but unlike in the Showa era, after the first Godzilla is defeated, a second one does not turn up for many, many years, not until now, as a matter of fact. Much to the government’s shock and horror, this big ol’ lummox proves to be resistant to the various lasers and anti-monster weaponry which has been developed over time to defend Japan, and so in desperation to save their skins, the idea to create Mechagodzilla is hatched by the top minds in the country.

Godzilla_X_MechaGodzilla_-_Kiryu_Goes_Out_Of_Control

Evidently, someone thought this would be a good idea.

But it’s a rocky road- this giant, Godzilla shaped W.M.D. is highly controversial when it’s proposed and unveiled, and it does go haywire and decimate a city or two at first- but that’s all part of the game when you work with skyscraper sized, cybernetic war machines, you really have to do it baby-steps style. In the long run everything is ironed out, and most exciting of all, Tokumistu may actually end up getting laid out of this deal, which is colossal. Plus, while they don’t really defeat Godzilla at the end of the film, Japan does manage to successfully run him out of town for the first time ever, which is a real turning point in the crusade against giant monsters everywhere… Win!

Like Godzilla S.O.S., Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla balances a nice Top Gun vibe with it’s monster mayhem, and they do a really good job on both fronts. This is, in every way, a far cry from the lame G-Graspers and purple spikes of Godzilla Vs. Megaguirus, which was also directed by Masaaki Tezuka. Damn, dude, what happened? Your last movie totally sucked! Well, this guy has clearly learned a few things since his last foray into the Godzillaverse, and it shows, GAMG is filed with editing and photography that feels much more artistic and effective than the bland craftsmanship we sometimes see in these films, and honestly, it’s appreciated. Godzilla deserves to be treated with respect, and a talented director behind the camera goes along way in making this film feel worthy of the legacy.

Another great touch that helps push this film up over the hill is how well scripted it is. When watching a film in a language you don’t understand, you have to accept that the nuances of the social relationships you see on screen are going to mostly be lost on you. Additionally, you can’t really fault the dialogue on the basis of what you read in the subtitles, but you can still kind of get a feel for when things are being done really well, or exceptionally poorly. Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla takes extra time to put small details in place and invest in dialogue where most recent Godzilla films don’t. The exchange between Tokumitsu, his daughter, and the representatives from the anti-monster bureau (or whatever it’s called) where they keep referencing Professional Baseball is an excellent example of what I’m talking about. It’s such a nice little detail, and it shows care where other movies may have just assumed that these relationships didn’t matter. It’s the ease with which we can invest in these more established personalities and relationships that really helps to make the world of GAMG one worth revisiting, and I wish more kaiju films took the time to nurture these small details.

The cast in Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla is also excellent. The acting and characterization is great, particularly Akira Nakao’s turn as the Prime Minister and Kou Takasugi’s stern, authoritative performance as Colonel Togashi. Again, I don’t speak Japanese, so a lot of this shit is gonna remain shrouded forever in mystery for me, but in the case of these two actors in particular it feels pretty apparent that they’ve done a great job. The rest of the cast is also good from what I can tell, but even without a grasp of the spoken language, the physicality of Nakao and Takasugi sells their characters in a way that would be hard not to praise. They’re assets to the film without question.

The effects are, as is maddeningly typical at this point, a mixture of fantastic practical effects, and humiliatingly poor CG. The worst offender, in so far as digital effects are concerned, is probably Mechagodzilla’s lame ninja flip in his last battle with Godzilla- it’s embarrassingly lame both in concept and execution. However, the suits look just fantastic, and these digital fails tend to roll off the back of a viewer who has waded through a decent number of these pictures by now. Even so, it’d be nice to see a decent investment in CG from Toho, either that, or a film which just didn’t use computer generated effects at all. This middle ground is undesirable.

Overall, I’m very, very pleased with this one. It’s an excellent effort from the studio behind almost fifty years of kaiju classics, and it further establishes the Millennium era Godzilla films as superior to the much troubled Heisei era series. Recommended!

B+

Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack ~ 2001, Shûsuke Kaneko – Japan

Poor Godzilla seems to be in a constant state of reboot. That’s apparently how it’s gonna be here in the Millennium era, just reboots as far as the eye can see. In Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (Which shall henceforth forever be abbreviated as GMK because I never want to type that nightmare of a title again) we have again abandoned all previous Godzilla continuity save for the original 1954 film, with one surprising exception; the 1998 American made Roland Emmerich film. They keep that in cannon simply so that they can explicitly clarify that that fucking monster was NOT Godzilla. Awesome. Anyway.

The story is as follows: Godzilla hasn’t been seen since ’54, but Japan remains spooked. Apparently, they’re right to fear Godzilla’s return, because lo and behold- here he is, back, and hellbent on stomping Japan off the map for good. The fate of the country rests on three ancient guardian monsters who come to save the day; Baragon (who apparently wasn’t worth a spot in the title,) Mothra, and King Ghidorah. No idea where these asshole guardian monsters were in ’54, but in the end they can’t really get the job done this time either, so mankind is forced to step up to the plate at the eleventh hour with some sort of new super weapon and take out Big G forever, just like they did last time. You can’t rely on Guardian monsters for shit these days.

GMK carries along with it a reputation of being one of the better recent entries in the Godzilla franchise, and to a point, I agree. The production is mostly very competent, the monster effects are well done, especially Baragon, but occasionally Godzilla’s rubbery hide will fold in a way that seems too puppet like for the new millennium, and we should be doing better than that by now. If we had better costumes way back in The Labyrinth, then I really can’t pardon this today. Also, there are composite shots and CG effects all over the place that look like complete garbage, so as usual, Toho needs to put more of an investment in it’s digital effects department if they want to use them so friggin’ often.

Anyway. The tone is fairly consistent, and there is a clear attempt to recapture the grim menace Godzilla used to exude, which I can get into. Toho really seems interested in getting our big green boy back to his Atomic Bogeyman basics, so this time around they really make it a point to highlight human deaths as a result of Godzilla’s rowdiness. Unfortunately the tone is kept fairly light so these causalities don’t feel tragic enough to really get that point across. By and large, the Heisei era managed to communicate that particular message a lot more effectively, but GMK is still superior to those films by a wide margin.

What GMK does best, I think, is balance fun monster battles with grounding scenes of human drama and exposition, which is a phenomenal achievement. We spend just enough time with our humans on the ground to pull the narrative together, but not enough that we feel bored. In general, this balance is extremely difficult for kaiju films to strike, so I theorize that for this reason GMK stands out as being especially good, even amongst viewers who aren’t film savvy enough to recognize that this balance is what they’re responding to.

It’s not all sunshine and lollipops, however. GMK is a competent and enjoyable movie, but as a Godzilla film, it’s struggles in weird ways. It’s kinda like the Jason Goes To Hell of the Godzilla series, strong for casual viewers, but potentially difficult for longtime fans. We see in GMK new ideas that I would argue are playing too fast and loose with these characters, and Godzilla himself is stretched, conceptually, to the point of nearly coming apart at the seems. Essentially, this time around, all these monster are fueled with spirit energy, because from the looks of it, Toho has completely lost faith in science altogether. That’s fair enough, but while the Guardian Monsters are all gassed up on your run of the mill, ordinary Japanese spirits, Godzilla’s monster engine runs exclusively on pissed off Japanese World War II ghosts, who have possessed him with the intent of getting revenge on a modern day Japan which they feel has betrayed the values they fought for, and it totally has. I’m really not sure how I feel about any of that, especially since there is at least some evidence to suggest that Godzilla is, in effect, a zombie in this film, which I am absolutely not down with. Worst of all: (SPOILER ALERT) The film climaxes with Godzilla being blown up, and after victory is declared, we see a large, still beating Godzilla heart sitting at the bottom of the ocean, just waiting to like… Grow a new Godzilla, or something? I don’t know, but it’s very much reminiscent of Jason Goes To Hell’s most objectionable component, and also it sucks and I hate it.. (END SPOILER ALERT)

I think the worst thing about GMK, however, is the K. King Ghidorah, in this film, is like, the ultimate Earth Guardian Monster, the last champion for the human race, standing against Godzilla in a battle to save us all, and that, my friends, is horse shit. Maybe I’ve missed something, but I grew up with the Godzilla films, and in my day, there was no more sneaky, evil, treacherous asshole of a monster that King Ghidorah, alien dick head sent from Planet X to screw us all. Every time he shows up, he’s like, Godzilla’s ultimate nemesis, and he’s always the baddest of bad guys. Are you now, GMK, expecting me to do a complete 180 and root for this slimy, three headed douche bag? Oh, think again. I am not prepared to for that. I’d rather Godzilla kick his ass and then eat every human on Earth than flip flop on my staunch Anti-Ghidorah stance. That, in a nut shell, is the biggest problem with GMK, it’s just taking a lot of liberties with a pretty concrete and established universe, and not all of the ramifications are going to sit well with you.

That having been said, most fans seem to be pretty much fine with it, for whatever reason, so maybe these things don’t matter so much after all? What do I know, I guess. It’s still a pretty solid entry at the end of the day, and it beats the hell out of Godzilla Vs Spacegodzilla.

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 Spacegodzilla

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Godzilla VS Spacegodzilla – 1994, Kensho Yamashita – Japan

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(ACTUAL CONVERSATION RECORDED INSIDE THE OFFICES OF TOHO)

“Dude…We’ve had Godzilla fight like… lots of stuff already.”
“Yeah, I know….”
“… What if we just had him fight… like… another Godzilla?”
“…You mean, like, Mechagodzilla?”
“…Yeah.”
“Uhhhhh…. I dunno, man. We just did that…”
“Okay, okay, not like, a Mecha one… What about, like… Like….Ummmmmm….. Oh, how ‘bout like, a space one?!”
“……..A spacegodzila?”
“…Yeah!”
“…Can it have like… A shit load of crystals all over it?”
“Hell yeah, it can.”
“….Okay. Sure, we can do that.”

AND…. it was underwhelming. Spacegodzilla, the character, is face-palmingly over the top. If you wanted an illustrative comparison between the shift in how the original Godzilla was designed in 1954, and the school of thought informing the creation of Spacegodzilla 40 years later, I offer forth this comparison; Consider that the original Godzilla from Gojira is like Japanese Kabuki theater; Strange, grim, and haunting, yet somehow beautiful and understated. Now, in terms of the energy that went into the conceptual design behind Spacegodzilla, on the other hand, consider every track ever recorded by the band Dragonforce playing simultaneously at a volume that would guarantee hearing loss. That’s what it would be like. Have you seen those crystal poking out of his damn sholders? Freaking ridiculous. And while we’re making comparisons, if you were looking for an appropriate forerunner for this film from the Showa era, Godzilla Vs Spacegodzilla is both the Godzilla Vs Gigan, and the Godzilla Vs Megalon of the Heisei series. That’s not great, guys. And you’re about to know it.

THE PLOT~ Japan has two plans now; and they’re gonna try them both. We’ve got Project T, and Project M. Breakin’ it down:

PROJECT T- Remember Mikki, the psychic girl who has been in every damn one of these movies but hasn’t really contributed in any solid way whatsoever? Well, they want to lodge a damn satelite dish in Godzilla’s neck and see if she can hijack his brain. Spoiler alert; She can’t.

PROJECT M– Remember how we just did the whole Mechagodzilla thing, and it failed? Well, how about sinking another couple billion tax yen into a second giant, metal robot to fight Godzilla? “Thought you’d never ask,” Says G-Force. What we end up with is Moguera, and yes, it’s another giant, vaugley monster shaped robot, but Moguera is different. What’s strange about Mogera is that he sort of seems like whoever designed him had weird priorities. Like, yeah, he’s got some weaponary on him, but he really seems like he was intended for 50% monster combat and 50% digging hella tunnels. I’m not sure why he would ever need to dig hella tunnels, but hey, who knows? Maybe if they had outfitted Mechagodzilla with the ability to just burrow like a mother fucker we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. And anyway, Moguera represents progress, because it’s a sign that G-Force is finally starting to understand that you don’t necessarily have to design your weapon to look exactly like your target for it to be effective. I mean, a gun isn’t shaped like a human, but it sure can put one down real good. Just food for thought, G-Force.

Anyway.

So, in hopes of getting things under control and eliminating the need to deploy an enormous mechanized war machine on a highly populated city, Project T kicks off their Godzilla brain hijacking mission first by sending a small group of G-Force personnel off to Birth Island, where Godzilla kinda sorta lives. Among this group we have:

Miki – Who cares? (Actually, Miki sucks a lot less in this movie than she does in any other Heisei film.)
Shinjo and Sato – Two knucklehead soldiers who are sorta like the Merry and Pippin of the Godzilla cannon. These two are actually kinda fun, and I like them quite a bit.
Dr. Gondo – This lady is the sister of Lieutenant Goro Gondo, who got Godzilla’d to death back in Return of Godzilla. Naturally, she hates Big Green, and she wants his scaly ass six feet under… Or, I guess, six miles under?
Other people– who cares?

When our rag tag team of G-Force bozos hits the beach on Birth Island, they encounter it’s two full time residents. They are:

Little Godzilla– “Baby” has grown up a little, which oddly enough has made him look drastically more infantile. Whatever, it’s an improvement, when he first appeared in Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla II, he looked both stupid, and hideous. This redesign has him looking a little bit more like the baby from the Dinosaurs sitcom, but also a little more like Minilla, which I think is a plus, somehow. That being said, he still looks cartoonish, and not very believable. Really, Toho did a better job pulling off Minillia way back in Son Of Godzilla, and in general the special effects in Godzilla Vs Spacegodzilla feel shabby as shit.

Major Yuki– This character is the real star of Godzilla Vs Spacegodzilla in my mind. Yuki is a grizzled, angry old bad ass/maverick who has been camped out on Birth Island with the intent of murdering Godzilla single handedly, because Godzilla killed his best friend, the previously mentioned Lieutenant Gondo. Damn, Gondo was apparently just the wrong dude for Godzilla to kill, I guess.

Anyway, the failure of Project T (Yeah, it fails) really just serves to bring this group of people closer together, and they form our core characters throughout the rest of the movie.

Actually, it’s maybe worth mentioning that when our team gets to Birth Island, there are also these giant, moving, jagged crystal protrusions that shoot green lightning into the sky in the middle of the island, but none of our characters really seem to think they’re anything special. I would have been alarmed, but I guess what do I know? Except that I was right, these would have been worth investigating, because pretty soon Spacegodzilla turns up and this formation is apparently his space dragon landing pad. Birth Island really isn’t big enough to support two skyscraper sized battle-monsters, so pretty much immediately Godzilla comes face to face with Spacegodzilla, and he does not fare well in the confrontation- it ends with Spacegodzilla depositing Little Godzilla inside one of his weird, crystal chambers, which seems like a bad thing since Godzilla definitely did not want him to do that. These two are now enemies.

So, just what in the fuck is Spacegodzilla? Well, I’ll tell you; he is, theoretically, some sort of weird, galactic anomaly formed from wayward Godzilla DNA carried into space via Mothra or Biolante (Even though Biolante never happened at this point, as it was undone in the events depicted in the utterly stupid Godzilla Vs King Ghidorah) which mixed with like, space gasses, or crystals, or slime, or something. Some kind of space stuff. So, he’s genetically similar to Godzilla, but spacier. This is bad for our decidedly less-spacey Earth Godzilla, who ends up slugging it out with Spacegodzilla again on mainland Japan. Godzilla may not have stood a chance against his interplanetary sibling, but luckily control of Mogera had at this point been handed over to Shinjo, Sato and Yuki, and the three manage to work with Godzilla to kick the shit out of Spacegodzilla until he freaking dies. Awesome, actually. I can’t believe how cool Moguera ends up being in this movie, and it even gets to dig some tunnels, which is useful to our team, believe it or not.

So, what’s good, and what’s bad? This movie has a healthy portion of both, so we need to sift through it before he iron out an assessment.

THE GOOD:

Moguera! More accuratley, Shinjo, Sato, and Yuki, the three soliders tasked with the job of piloting Moguera in his attack on Spacegodzilla. When Mechagodzilla frumped on out to throw-down on Big G in Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla II, it had several pilots, and we only really knew and gave a shit about one of them. Hell, even he wasn’t that likable, to be honest. This time around, we keep our crew small, and we’ve already spent a bit of time getting to know each of them before they suit up and hop behind the wheel, so in this way the fate of Moguera feels like something we’re much more invested in. And Moguera doesn’t come out unscathed, this confrontation feels desperate and dirty in a way that I haven’t seen done this effectively since Destroy All Monsters, and we actually care about the outcome.

Also remarkable is how much better Miki is in this film than she has ever been before. She plays into the plot in a way that doesn’t feel nearly as unnecessary or tacked on as it has in the past, plus she ends up with an emotional investment in another human character, and contributes to the outcome of events in a way that felt warranted, and valuable. So, that’s one out of six, Miki… Still a failing grade… But this is your movie.

The bad, on the other hand, mostly comes down to production value… And it’s sort of a long list. Here we go.

THE BAD:

Number one; Spacegodzilla… You suck. Spacegodzilla is both super, super over the top, and surprisingly boring. It’s like the whole “X-TREME!” thing from the tail end of the 90’s, just being “X-TREME” really isn’t enough, you also have to not suck ass. That’s the lesson of Spacegodzilla, who feels neither original, nor well developed enough to hold our interest. The one hope you have of giving a shit is if you somehow have a weird, psychological malfunction that makes you just fucking gaga for Space Crystals, because that’s one thing Spacegodzilla does do, he brings the Space Crystals like no one else. Beyond that, this is a snooze fest- population: Spacegodzilla. You’re garbage,

Secondly, the effects…. Holy shit, they’re terrible. This movie feels cheapier, shoddier, and more like an episode of Power Rangers than any Godzilla movie ever before or since. This really is the relative low water mark for special effects in a Godzilla movie. Firstly, the composite shots- wow. Maybe the technology just wasn’t there in the 90’s, but these stand out as being fails unworthy of the franchise, without question. Next, all of the outer space sequences in this film are unforgivably hokey and dated. Spacegodzilla’s assault on the Nasa spacestation, and Moguera’s subsequent outer space battle with Spacegodzilla are both embarrassing and look like they belong in the non-theater sequences of Mystery Science Theater 3000– the black sheet background with dangling planets and monsters on strings just can’t be pardoned. This is an example of an effect that has been obsolete since the 70’s, and I can’t wrap my mind around the fact that we see them here in a film from the 90’s. It’s just pitiful how badly these sequences were done, given the quality we expect from Toho at this point.

And it’s far from isolated just to those sequences, all of Godzilla Vs Spacegodzilla is just sorta shitty looking all over. This film is so much closer to a 1960’s B-movie than any ACTUAL Toho 1960’s B-movie ever was, and it doesn’t feel like this was done deliberately at all, there is an element of crappiness that just permeates this film’s production value completely and cheapens it beyond redemption, which is a total shame, because Godzilla deserves better.

That being said, there is one arena where this film shines, and that is in it’s tail puppetry. Godzilla’s tail is like, freaking miles long, and it wiggles about like a live trout, stranded on a rock. Toho did not let the quality of their tail puppetry droop with the rest of the production value, and it has to be acknowledged, they are the absolute unrivaled masters of tail puppetry on this planet. All hail the true Tail Puppetmasters.

So, GvSG sucks in all the areas you’d expect it to excel, but somehow manages to kind of break even in the least predictable way; by giving us human characters we like and care about, including one who has been around a while now without much to show for it before this film (that would be Miki, of course.) Additionally, Moguera, who sucked like crazy in The Mysterians, is kinda cool in this, so Godzilla Vs Spacegodzilla is a real curveball. In the end, it’s still one more nail in the coffin for the underperforming Heisei series, which honestly, I wanted to enjoy a lot more than I do.

C-

Return of Godzilla/Godzilla 1985!

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Return of Godzilla/Godzilla 1985 ~ 1984, Koji Hashimoto (Japan)/1985 R.J. Kizer (USA)

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After a nine year break, Toho returns with a full on reboot of the Godzilla franchise that ignores a whopping twenty years worth of movie continuity, which isn’t a problem, because ignoring continuity is something Toho has always been excellent at anyway. This time around, we acknowledge only 1954’s Gojira as cannon, and begin with a brand new storyline which would later become known as the Heisei series. Because we’ve taken thirty or so movies and completely thrown them in the trash, we’ve erased Godzilla’s transformation into the grumbling, heroic Guardian monster he had grown into in his later films, and so the monster we see now is again painted more as a horrible, planet-wide menace that must be destroyed. This movie is super, super grim, and when you look at our last dozen outings with Big G, this couldn’t be a more different experience. At the same time, however, because this is still an accurate continuation of the original Godzilla concept, and because previous films have also proven that there is enough room within the Godzilla format for more than one idea, this dramatic shift in tone does not make Return of Godzilla feel like an illegitimate sequel. It still works just fine.

THE PLOT~ Thirty years after the original Godzilla monster attacked Japan and was subsequently destroyed, a second, identical monster surfaces in the Pacific Ocean and starts smashing boasts and killing people. Japan becomes aware of the situation almost immediately, but chooses to suppress this information for fear of causing unnecessary panic amongst the already tense Global Political Stage. Soon, however, they have no choice, as Godzilla strikes down a Soviet Nuclear Submarine and causes a heated international incident. Assuming that only the United States could have been behind the attack on their submarine, the Soviet Union threatens to escalate this situation to full scale nuclear warfare, and Japan is forced to announce the existence of Godzilla as a means of diffusing the situation. This only brings Japan’s government new pressures from both the Americans and the Russians in regards to how to handle this big green bastard and his boat smashin’ ways, and everybody gets super stressed out. The rest of the picture balances Japan’s war with Godzilla and their deep seeded abhorrence of Nuclear weapons with cold war tensions and international bickering, making this film an effective means of addressing where the Nuclear Discussion had moved to in the mid 1980’s. That feels pretty appropriate, given Godzilla’s atomic bomb history, but we also see a lot of Godzilla thrashing about and being shot at, so don’t worry about spending too much time watching old dudes in suits yell at each other.

In terms of our human characters, we have several, but holy shit, who cares? They’re all fine, I guess, but we don’t really care about them all that much. Be honest, we almost never do.

I think Toho kind of assumed that since the later Godzilla films had become so popular with a younger audience, that these kids had now grown up, and were ready for a Godzilla film more their speed, and that’s fair enough. What Return/1985 does best is that it stays true to the concept behind the original Gojira film, while at the same time making it current to the early 80’s, and that’s cool. It’s all about nuclear war, how devastating it can be, what it means for humanity to now possesses this power, and above all, how we can work to avoid using nuclear weapons ever again. As I said before, I think this is a logical place for this franchise to go, and I think they’ve done it pretty well. The tense atmosphere of the Cold War is certainly captured effectively, and the seriousness with which nuclear warfare, and even Godzilla himself, are handled gives the movie a much less schlocky feel. I think it’s entertaining enough, even without another monster for Godzilla to wail on, but if I’m wrong on that, audiences won’t have long to wait for a return to the Monsters V. Monster format, cuz Godzilla Vs. Biolante is just around the corner.

GODZILLA 1985

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Like Gojira in 1954, Return of Godzilla was also re-edited for American audiences to include footage of white people, because no one knows what would happen if Americans had to watch a movie without white people in it, and for sure, nobody wants to find out. In the case of the original film, the American version became known as Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and in the case of Return of Godzilla, the American version is called Godzilla 1985. In both cases, the special Caucasian-ified American version features celebrated actor Raymond Burr as a journalist named Steve Martin, but to what degree this new footage is imposed on the original, and what effect that has on the film as a whole, could not be more different in Godzilla 1985 than it was in King of the Monsters. We do lose some of the nuclear paranoia, but we still fair MUCH better this time around.

While still a classic film, Godzilla: King of the Monsters was clearly inferior to it’s Japanese sibling, which already had excellent characters and compelling drama BEFORE we crammed in a bunch of white folks. In that case, the addition of Raymond Burr’s character only distanced the audience from the real story, and that softened the film’s impact a great deal. With Godzilla 1985, though, I don’t think this is the case at all. This time around we still spend ample time in Japan with our original characters, and their stories and relationships are not so badly cheated in the same way. Additionally, Raymond Burr adds a special connection to the first film, even if he wasn’t in Gojira we know he was in King of the Monsters, and his character is very well written and acted this time around. The best thing this Westernized version does, however, is that it expands Godzilla’s presence to a global level much better than the Japanese one does. In this version, the Americans learn about Godzilla much sooner, and we come to learn that they are every bit as stressed out about it as the Japanese are, which really elevates the tension. I may be committing some weird form of Godzilla treason here, but I actually like the American version better for exactly these reasons. And Burr is kicking out the Jams, too.

Regardless of which version you see, however, this is a nice entry in the series, and a great way to jumpstart a new slew of giant, monster clobbering adventures. Many of the effects have not held up well for their age, but they shouldn’t slow you down too much, it’s still plenty enjoyable for the seasoned Toho fan.

B-

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 Hedorah!

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Godzilla VS. Hedorah (AKA Godzilla VS The Smog Monster) ~ 1971, Yoshimitsu Banno – Japan

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I’m going a little off the rez with this one, because I’ve learned that common G-Fan consensus is that this is a lesser, or even one of the worst of the Showa era Godzilla flicks, and I totally love this movie.

Yes, I’ll admit that it’s goofy, but it was only a few movies ago that Godzilla did a damn victory dance on Planet X. Is this really that much goofier? That was a real low point. And anyway, Godzilla VS Hedorah is also notably darker than it’s recent predecessors, and it makes up for its various short comings by having the most fascinating composition seen in a Godzilla film up to that point, with the exception of the original 1954 film. This is the first Godzilla movie to actively campaign from a new perspective, the perspective of Japan’s 1960’s/70’s youth culture, which is exciting. It’s kinda like younger generation managed to wrestle the megaphone away from their parents and, for the first time, finally had a chance to make their own statement. I totally think it holds up, Godzilla VS Hedorah proves that there is enough room within the Godzilla metaphor that it can mean more than one idea and carry relevance from a broad range of individual perspectives. If Jun Fukuda’s turn in the directors chair felt like a breath of fresh air back in Ebirah: Horror of the Deep, Yoshimitsu Banno here feels like a whirling hurricane of fresh air, heaving your home off it’s foundation and smashing your car windshield.

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THE PLOT~ Japan has become horribly, horribly polluted. Like, incredibly polluted. It’s pretty over the top. From within this bog of toxic muck and rotting trash, we have the birth of a new organism, totally unlike any other on Earth; Hedorah, a big tadpole made out of slime and garbage that thrives off pollutants and likes to sink boats. Hedorah makes a big stink doing just that, and Japanese scientist Dr. Yano sets out to study the creature, because he is a scientist, and monster studying is the only steady work a scientist can get in 1970’s Japan.

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More central to the story is Dr. Yano’s son, Ken, who is actually our main character. We see the film from his perspective. Ken, like many Japanese children, has a fascination with Godzilla, who by this time had become less of an atomic, dinosauric bogeyman and more of a weird, semi-anthropomorphized antihero. Ken believes that Godzilla will save mankind from the Hedorah’s deadly toxic rampage. And Godzilla totally does.

When we meet Ke Godzilla vs Hedorah n, he’s playing with Godzilla toys in his backyard. Throughout the film he claims to have dreams and premonitions of Godzilla rising up out of the sea to rescue mankind from Hedorah, who has evolved into a biped with the ability to fly, and has decimated Tokyo, leaving many dead. The film is presented in a strange, almost dreamlike manner, inter-cutting jazzy 70’s split-screen techniques, frightening hallucination/dream sequences, and even occasional short animated sequences, which really lends credibility to the idea that this film could actually just be Ken’s fantasy. Perhaps we never really leave the backyard and Ken’s clunky, plastic monster dolls are playing out the events of Godzilla VS Hedorah for us. While the movie certainly presents itself as being cannon, there is enough here to justify the “child’s fantasy” idea, and the movie is open ended enough, if you want it to be. Several important monster related plot points are triggered by Ken’s “visions”, and these sometimes carry an odd imaginative feel, such as when Ken claims to spot Godzilla lurking unseen by anyone else amongst the city’s skyline while riding a roller coaster.

Animation was weird in the 70’s.

Another important character in the film is Yukio. Yukio represents the more active, optimistic youth culture of the Japanese 70’s. He and his peers are eager to try and wrestle the fate of Japan out of the hands of their elders, who have apparently mismanaged it to the point that a damn trash monster was born. Yukio organizes a youth demonstration to take place atop Mt. Fuji when the fate of Japan is at it’s most bleak, and this sequence is especially painterly, and also telling of the film’s thesis statement. While Yukio and his cohorts dance merrily to some swinging, funky 70’s jams in the face of certain Smog Monster related doom, strange, aged figures sit in silence hiding amongst the tall grass just outside the light of the bonfires. These figures are motionless, and drained of color, they merely watch from their hiding places as the young people take the stage. While the appearance of these figures isn’t explained, I think the movie is fairly open about it’s dual-message intent. One could argue that they are merely the elderly locals, watching with curiosity the antics of these teens from the city. They could also quite likely be literal ghosts, mournful at their own shortcomings in securing a bright future for their country, and eager to see how this new generation will handle their nation’s new challenges. The actual truth behind what these figures are is entirely inconsequential because the film’s thesis remains the unchanged by a definitive answer. Whichever they are, they serve the same purpose, and I feel convinced that leaving things like this somewhat open for interpretation is more Banno’s style anyway. I’d love to hear what he had to say about them.

Ken being our lens through which we view the world in Godzilla Versus Hedorah is a conscious and powerful story telling device even beyond giving the movie the plausible claim to being a child’s fantasy. It let’s us understand the severity of the situation in a way that couldn’t carry the same weight from another point of view. For Ken, the outcome of this story is even more crucial, because as a child, Ken represents the future. In fact, he and Yukio form a two headed youth culture monster with Yukoo representing the young adults of today who are now arresting control of the situation from their woefully inadequate predecessors, and Ken representing the youth of tomorrow, themselves still powerless to do anything but hope. This was this new generations chance to say something, and through these two, Godzilla takes on a new meaning, shedding his role as a grim specter of atomic war and instead becoming a figurehead for socially motivated change. He burns up the old with his radioactive breath and paves the way for a new age of improved, socially conscious adults to build a world reflective of their values. In this film, Godzilla means, change, improvement, and rebirth, and that’s a testament to his validity as a cultural phenomena. Some might argue that this is throwing out the component of Gojira that worked best, but I would point that even religious figures can take up new characteristics reflective of their eras. All this lends more legitimacy to Godzilla as an idea, not less, because it proves that he has become a broader metaphor and can represent a new, yet equally crucial idea for each generation. And anyway, by this point, I think we had already strayed so far from his nuclear horror film roots that the integrity of this franchise was more than capable of handling this additional change. Again, Godzilla, by this time, had become a bigger cultural phenomena than Gojira could have predicted, and it now belonged to the entire world. The perspective of one nation, locked in one moment in history, could no longer contain this figure, he had made the leap from a plot device, to a folk character, something few intellectual properties can hope to achieve.

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So, while Godzilla VS Hedorah is in some ways the most childish entry yet, it’s also the darkest Godzilla film since his original appearance. Banno and the youth of 1971 want you to know the highs, but they also want those highs to mean something, so you’re going to also become very well acquainted with the lows. The movie uses very dark, loaded imagery, prolonged photography of thick, slime like sludge dotted with garbage coating the sea, black skies, thick, curling smoke, a disintegrating mannequin floating in black oil, a broken clock drifting in gunk. At one point we even see a live, crying, human baby, buried up to it’s shoulders in toxic sludge. These are heavy handed images, but the vibrant, exuberant culture that informs the perspective of Godzilla VS Hedorah really want you to understand and believe that at this time, in their mind, there was no more crucial battle to be fought, and the movie wants you to feel convinced that this is our darkest hour. The deaths in this movie are numerous, and we see them in no uncertain terms, human skeletons, their flesh dissolved by Hedorah’s acidic omissions, are a common and gruesome sight. The aforementioned final show down between Godzilla and Hedorah atop Mt Fuji is filmed so stylish and bleak that it looks like the last shot from Fulci’s The Beyond. The movie doesn’t hold back when it comes to the grim, or the silly. How much more childlike does it get?

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Whoa, did we get lost and wander onto Hausu?!?

Well, a lot more child like; this is the movie in which Godzilla damn flies. This did not go over well amongst kaiju fans, and with good reason, it’s dumb as hell. He achieves flight this by curling up into the Godzillasaurus fetal position and rocketing off using his dinosaur breath as propulsion. This means, of course, he’s flying backwards, but really, that’s just one problem on a long list with this idea. It’s not good, and it shouldn’t have been in the movie, but honestly, it’s not killing the picture for me. Especially not when I’m already looking at this as most likely being a vivid metaphor or a child’s fantasy. In any case, Godzilla takes on the abilities and characteristics needed of him, which again, harkens back to a more folksy and less self conscious form of story telling, and I can deal with it.

One more thing I want to high light; Godzilla’s incredibly violent “finish him” style execution of Hedorah. So awesome. Apparently, Godzilla really, really hates Hedorah. First, he kills him (we think.) He then proceeds to rip out the creatures eyes with his bare hands. Oh, snap, Hedorah is actually not quite dead, he makes a break for it and tries to fly away! Nope, Godzilla’s not having it, he chases him down, beats his ass a little, drags him right back, zaps the life out of him a little more, and then proceeds to desecrate the shit out of Hedorah’s lifeless corpse, a process which includes ripping it open, tearing chunks off and scattering them wildly all about, stomping on him, frying the individual pieces, and frantically looking around to make sure that there aren’t any extra pieces of him which need additional murdering. I mean, Godzilla makes absolutely sure. In every slasher film where they just assume the killer is dead and walk away, what they needed to do was take a page out of Godzilla’s Handbook; specifically, his Hedorah Policy, cuz damn is it thorough.

Banno was no young buck when this film came out, based on the information I was able to dredge up he was about 40 when he directed this picture, but that’s still twenty years younger than Ishiro Honda, the director of most Godzilla flicks up to that point, and clearly, Banno had a connection to the ideals of Japans youth culture that Honda did not. His radically new perspective is plainly felt in this film, and I think he did a great job with it.

In the end, judgement has been passed on this film long ago, and it wasn’t favorable. However, now there is an oportunity for a new generation to look at it with fresh eyes and make up their minds for themselves, and chances are, they’re going to hate it for all new, all different reasons. I actually think this is a pretty great entry in the series, and I love what Banno did with the ideas the franchise offered him.

B+

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.

VARAN THE UNBELIEVABLE!

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Varan The Unbelievable – 1962, Ishiro Honda – Japan

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Poor Varan. Turns out Big Papa Toho did not create all his Kaiju equal. Like Godzilla, Rodan, and Mothra, Varan, yet another giant, spikey lizard (but with flying squirrel flaps!), was introduced to the world in his very own standalone movie; and like his three, more fortunate comrades, he got the royal treatment. His name was the title of the movie, he didn’t share the stage with any other monsters, and in his film, he was depicted as being a near invincible force of prehistoric fury which threatened all of Japan, if not the world. This is pretty boiler plate kaiju contract stuff. However; whereas Godzilla, Mothra, and Rodan went on to enjoy decade spanning careers full of glorious mayhem, Varan fast faded into relative obscurity. In fact, the only time I remember seeing him again was in Destroy all Monsters, and even then, he was basically downgraded to the Kaiju equivalent of an extra. he didn’t even fight anybody. Fucking Gorosaurus got more love than Varan! What went wrong?!

THE PLOT~ when two scientists are mysteriously killed in a remote area of Japan while on an expedition to capture butterflies (really!) the brilliant decision to dispatch three additional scientists to the exact same area is made without haste. Lo and behold, our new team of scientists discover that the superstitious locals believe these killings to have been done by their god, who is, no surprise, an angry monster. This primitive belief is instantly belittled and dismissed by our scientists, who go on to immediately awaken, and subsequently irritate the shit out of that very monster, who then destroys the village real hard. Our dickhead scientists then go back to their big, monster-free city and tell everybody about this creature, who they have named Varan, and Japan says “What’s that you say? A living dinosaur? The most miraculous living creature on Earth? We better go kill that.” So, a bunch of Army dudes descend on the rubble that was once a peaceful Japanese village out in the middle of nowhere and try their damndest to kill what is quite possibly the rarest creature on the planet. While they fail to kill Varan at this time, they are succesful in pissing him off- wildly succesful, in fact. Varan, no longer enjoying his living situation now that the lake he slept in is poisoned and cannon shells seem to be impacting against his head constantly, gets the hell out of there and travels to Tokyo for absolutely no reason. The Japanese, refusing to take “Please don’t kill me” for an answer, assemble their top scientists for Plan B- the focus of which is still killing the hell out of Varan because he is very large and not shaped like a person- a crime they cannot pardon. A new plan is formulated and put into effect, and Varan suffers. Victory!

So, just why exactly did Gojira, Mothra, and Rodan go off with such a glorious bang, while Varan goes off with a muted, humiliated frump? Well…

Varan feels cheap, for one thing- low budget, and crummy. firstly, there were apparently more than one Varan costumes used, and they are of inconsistent quality. That’s a problem, but it’s far from the only area where the producers seemed a little penny-conscious; the underwater sequences are especially flimsy and look devastatingly swimming-pool-like. I don’t think this is what killed the film, however. Budgetary shortcomings can be overlooked, and monsters can be embraced even if they begin their lives as poorhouse kaiju. For Varan, his movie suffers greatly from its simplicity more than anything. It feels underdeveloped and rushed, right off the bat, it’s evident that this is a much more linear, Point A to Point B style monster movie than Gojira, Mothra, or Rodan were. This is 100% the truth, and it sucks.

It’s just so one dimensional! It never really takes the time to breathe or invest in its characters. Every time Varan goes on a rampage the tension is actually actively removed by frequent visits over to the sidelines, where numerous onlookers, mostly scientists, reporters, and military personnel, just hang out and watch the chaos, apparently not at risk of getting Varraned. To be frank, this is a bone-headed mistake, it makes this monster mayhem feel alarmingly safe, and in the end the black and white photography does more to make Varan feel gloomy than the actual on-screen smashing.

Varan’s simplicity is, however, most devastating in it’s tendency to dole out the what, while totally skipping over the why. That’s the greatest folly of Varan; gone entirely from it’s composition is the element of introspection which we had come to take for granted in Toho’s monster films. This thing could have carried the alternative title “SCIENTISTS ARE DICKS: THE MOVIE.” That’s the real moral, and it’s a moral that appears to be lost on Varan’s narrative altogether. This movie totally glosses over the undeniable guilt of the film’s scientists, who are responsible for everything bad that happens in this film, start to finish. It’s not ever even suggested that they could be guilty of anything whatsoever, and damn, they’re super, super guilty, in a big way. I wanna take you through a scene:

When the second group arrives at the remote village near Varan’s den, the same village that is soon after destroyed by Varan, there is a conflict of sorts between the town’s religious leader and Kenji, the lead scientist who has come to investigate what has happened to his colleagues. Essentially; it plays out like this:

Kenji: ‘Sup? Heard you guys think there’s a monster. That’s so stupid- there isn’t!

Priest: …Well, we’re pretty sure there is-

Kenji: That’s stupid!

Priest:…Well, okay, just listen, please, don’t go over there into that area you guys, okay? It’s kind of a big deal for us-

Kenji: PISS ON YOUR RELIGION, WE’RE SCIENTISTS! WE’RE GOING RIGHT INTO THAT AREA, YOU STUPID IDIOT!!!

Kenji: Oh, looks like he is real.

Kenji: Well, we’re going back to Tokyo where we have electricity and McDonalds, have fun dying in the wilderness without food or shelter, you fucking assholes.

AND SCENE!

For real, that’s the bare bones of how that plays out. These people show up, immediately disrespect the locals, blatantly defy their rules, they heed no warnings because they think they know better, and then when they wake up Varan, they just bounce, and the only people left to bare the weight of the consequences are the poor villagers, who are first treated like idiots and then go on to lose absolutely everything, insult AND injury. The fate of these people is never again addressed or considered, and no amount of shame is directed at the scientists who actually provoked the attack in the first place. They appear to forget about these human lives that they’ve destroyed immediately, and move onto the task killing this creature for no reason at all. It’s this attack that drives Varan out of his ultra-remote home and into highly a populated metropolitan area, as well, so it’s actually so, so obvious that this is another hubris story, but I honestly think the film fails to recognize this. It’s never explored or stated, they really just follow it along in a startlingly two dimensional fashion, and I think this is the biggest reason Varan failed to gain traction, and ultimately, could not help establish Varan himself as a monster with a future in the film industry. This is the Toho picture that rushed out a statement before it even knew what that statement was; and it’s not even a new statement. In fact, it’s so overt, that the argument could be made that this isn’t even hubris, so much as a simple lesson in morality. “Don’t be a dick” is another moral very present in Varan, but it too is not acknowledged or expressed in a conscious way by the movie itself. It’s kinda nuts.

This is a real minimalist, cut and dry monster movie that fails to give us a reason to feel anything about what we experience within it’s narrative. Frankly, it’s bellow average. Varan suffers from terminal simplicity, and because of this, his future is a bleak, bleak thing. It’s too bad, he seems like an okay guy.

C-

Fantastic Crap Comics

by Christopher Ochs

Tag Archives: Gojira

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