{"id":2910,"date":"2015-03-05T07:12:33","date_gmt":"2015-03-05T07:12:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/?p=2910"},"modified":"2015-03-05T06:53:49","modified_gmt":"2015-03-05T06:53:49","slug":"war-of-the-gargantuas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/?p=2910","title":{"rendered":"WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS!"},"content":{"rendered":"

War of the Garganutas<\/strong><\/a> – 1966, Ishiro Honda – Japan<\/p>\n

\"warofgs\"<\/p>\n

War of the Gargantuas<\/strong><\/em> is a half-hearted sequel to Toho\u2019s wacky ass Giant Frankenstein movie Frankenstein Conquers the World<\/em><\/strong><\/a>. We pick up where we left off for War of the Garganutas<\/em>, but we also go ahead and rewrite the past more than a little, because, as you should know by now, sometimes Toho likes to turn it\u2019s baseball cap around, light up a cigarette, and flash a big ol\u2019 \u201cF You\u201d middle finger to continuity. This is one of those times.<\/p>\n

THE PLOT ~<\/strong> When a large, scaly, blue-greenish, humanoid sea monkey with a flat top who is not at all similar to Frankenstein in any way apart from the aforementioned Flat top begins to terrorize Japan, the press is quick to lay blame on Frankenstein, the famous European monster which had been imported, and then enlarged to traditional Japanese monster scale some years back. However, the scientists responsible for the creation of this recent Frankenstein balk at this suggestion, on the grounds that A)<\/strong> Franky don\u2019t live under water and B)<\/strong> Franky don’t live at all, he is dead, dead as hell. At this point I\u2019ll go ahead and point out that despite what you may have seen in the previous film, from within the confines of War Of The Gargantuas<\/em>, this \u201cFrankenstein\u201d was born a strange, ape like creature, for absolutely no reason, and his creation now seems to have been achieved through genetic experimentation, rather than through the much more simple act of a child eating a radioactive monster heart. So, now you\u2019re up to speed.<\/p>\n

Soon, this alleged \u201cFrankenstein\u201d from under the sea begins to attack more frequently, and even wades up onto shore to gobble down some screaming humans, which, obviously, can’t be allowed to happen very often. It is confirmed through science that this is, in fact, a damn Frankenstein, despite his newfound love for livin\u2019 la vida agua, as well as his now much more aggressive and violent temperament. \u201cHow can this be,\u201d our scientists wonder, \u201che used to be such a nice monkey franken-creature.\u201d Well, turns out, this is a new, different Frankenstein monster altogether. In fact, the creature that our scientists\u00a0created is also still alive, and he remains a\u00a0largely a docile and good natured monster, which has been living in the inaccessible reaches of a Japanese Mountain Range far from human eyes. He\u2019s brown and shaggy, rather than blue and scaly, like his deep sea sibling, but he also is in absolutely no way a \u201cFrankenstein\u201d monster. He\u2019s a giant troll type creature, basically. BUT ANYWAY.<\/p>\n

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From here things play out like you always knew they would; it\u2019s scientists versus military, one side wants to spare the lives of these two massive monsters, the other side knows in it\u2019s heart that the only good Gargantua is a dead Gargantua. Eventually the two behemoth monkey monsters wind up battling one another, despite Brown Mountain Franky\u2019s hesitancy to use violence against his Blue Brother, and the two wind up dead via the power of Japanese Nonsense; in this case; a volcano spontaneously sprouts out of the ocean right next to them mid-fray and fries them both. That can totally happen, right? No, Toho, it can’t, dammit, go read a science book.<\/p>\n

The movie\u2019s principle theme is compassion versus fear. This is played out in the conflict between the scientists, who want to spare these creatures both for study, and out of pity, and Japan\u2019s military brass, themselves focused only on the preservation of human life; no matter the cost. We see the theme again illustrated with the Gargantuas themselves; Brownie doesn\u2019t want to hurt anyone, not even his Malicious Mer-Monkey twin, but Greenie is all too eager to mash and smash, and in the end, tragically, compassion doesn\u2019t have it\u2019s day. This same idea is a common one in these Kaiju films, we can see it especially pronounced in Rodan<\/strong><\/a>,<\/em> among other Ishiro Honda films, but War of the Gargantuas<\/em> is not a slave to it\u2019s super-motif, this movie has it\u2019s priorities aligned with the presentation of big, hairy monsters being shot at, and clobbering one another, first and foremost. For this reason, it feels like a pretty solid, but also desperately typical kaiju outing from Toho. It\u2019s has just enough heart and just enough muscle to make it memorable and fun, but beyond some pretty top notch photography I would suggest that there isn\u2019t really anything in War of the Gargantuas<\/em> that is excellent. It feels pretty middle of the road, to me. Not too many highs, but also, not too many lows. I think the decision to shed some of the craziness of Frankenstein Conquers the World<\/strong><\/em> was a poor one; that film absolutely stands out because of it\u2019s generous helping of \u201cWTF.\u201d Without all that crazy, War of the Gargantuas<\/em> crosses the finish line as a reliable, but not altogether remarkable, monster flick.<\/p>\n

C<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"GZ<\/a>\"GZ<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

War of the Garganutas – 1966, Ishiro Honda – Japan War of the Gargantuas is a half-hearted sequel to Toho\u2019s wacky ass Giant Frankenstein movie Frankenstein Conquers the World. We pick up where we left off for War of the Garganutas, but we also go ahead and rewrite the past more than a little, because, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[393],"tags":[773,149,65,71,785,787,709,244,788,723,786,68,784],"class_list":["post-2910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-773","tag-c","tag-frankenstein","tag-frankenstein-conquers-the-world","tag-gargantua","tag-giant-hairy-monkey-monsters","tag-ishiro-honda","tag-japan","tag-japanese-nonsense","tag-rodan","tag-that-is-in-no-way-a-frankenstein","tag-toho","tag-war-of-the-garganutas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2910"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3636,"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2910\/revisions\/3636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}