Terror of Mechagodzilla!!!

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!

B

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Godzilla Vs. Megalon!

Godzilla VS Megalon ~ 1974, Jun Fukuda – Japan

godzilla-vs-megalon-japanese-posterEven the poster is lame.

The trajectory of the Godzilla franchise has never been a straight line. Sometimes these movies are real home runs… Other times Jet Jaguar shows up. Now, I don’t want to blame everything on Jet Jaguar, but 100% of the movies he shows up in suck. Anyway, moving on; one year after Godzilla VS. Gigan, we have Godzilla VS Megalon, another kinda sorta almost recycled Godzilla film, which is still much better than the full on totally definitely recycled Godzilla films we often see. This time, the aliens who use a monster to destroy us aren’t aliens, they’re humans, from the Earth’s core… So, kinda sorta new, but not really. This movie is pretty mediocre, and that’s probably being generous…

 Godzilla-Vs-Megalon-PosterTHAT’S a poster.

THE PLOT~ The people of Earth have begun conducting all their nuclear bomb tests underground. They think this is totally no big deal, but unbeknownst to them, all these subterranean H-Bombs are really pissing off the people of Seatopia, a lost, Atlantis style civilization, which exists beneath the Earth’s crust. (Also, Seatopia looks like a “Ancient civilization” themed Las Vegas casino, and their leader is an aging swinger in a toga.) Seatopia has had enough of this surface people bullshit, so they launch their defender, Megalon, which is basically a giant humanoid cockroach with drill hands that can spit fire bombs. “That outta take care of it,” they think.

Meanwhile, up on the surface, we have our three human characters, Goro (Apparently before growing a pony tail and two extra arms) his constantly present, loyal, male companion Hiroshi (are these dudes a couple?) and their young child Rokuro, who they probably adopted together. When we meet these three, Goro and Hiroshi have brought Rokuro to a nearby lake for a nice afternoon of recreation, and Rokuro is out on the lake piloting what can only be called some sort of Aquatic Goof-Mobile.

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Just then, a fissure opens in the lake bed, creating a whirling maelstrom of danger and death. Perhaps this was caused by Seatopia, the subterranean bomb tests, or perhaps the lake was just tired of something so stupid looking as Rokuro’s Goof-Mobile splashing about on it’s surface and chose to commit suicide. Regardless, just when it looks like his goose is cooked, Rokuro is saved by Goro and Hiroshi, who employ the use of a Liferope Gun that they had with them. LIFEROPE GUN!? What kind of technology is Japan holding out on us? They gave us Playstation, but not the Liferope Gun? Bizarre. Not only that, but check it out, Hiroshi and Goro have also built a humanoid robot called Jet Jaguar, presumably for sexual purposes. Jet Jaguar attracts the attention of some secret agents from Seatopia who are concerned that the robot might thwart their Megalon related plans. They must not know that Jet Jaguar is totally lame. Anyway, there are some twists, some turns, Jet Jaguar is highjacked by these spies briefly, but then escapes their control and somehow gains sentience. He then zooms off to Monster Island to ask Godzilla for help clobbering Megalon, and Godzilla happily agrees because by this point he has completely turned the corner from menace to hero. Anticipating Godzilla’s involvement, Seatopia sends for Gigan’s help, because they apparently work with whatever cosmic temp agency manages him, but they couldn’t afford Ghidorah. Jet Jaguar grows to kaiju size (he can do that, I guess), and the four players beat the shit out of each other for the rest of the movie. It’s not that awesome…

Monster role call!

  • 936full-godzilla-vs_-megalon-photoGODZILLA- Just a big ol’ softy. In this one, Godzilla’s head has been redesigned, 713875-vlcsnap_2010_10_31_12h22m27s8his eyes are much larger, and more frontal, which gives him a more humanoid and friendly appearance. Godzilla also observes different human customs, such as the shaking of hands, and feeling insulted when Megalon taunts him with his weird monster butt-slap dance. Things were getting a little Gamera by this point.
  • JET JAGUAR– A giant piece of garbage.
  • MEGALON– A giant bug.
  • GIGAN- Hey! Gigan’s back!Godzilla-Vs-Megalon-1973

So, yeah… The movie has like, several car chases in it, which is new. There’s also a lot more human on human violence, some of which is kind of goofy. The whole film is much more light and silly than recent entries, and this is the movie where Godzilla does his much despised flying missile kick, a fighting move so ridiculous it was immortalized in the opening of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a program designed to mock cinematic insolence. In fact, Godzilla VS Megalon, as a whole, was riffed left, right and center by MST3K in 1991.

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GvM is a lull, an awkward misstep between the introduction of the relevant and much loved Gigan in the previous film, and the introduction of the relevant and much loved Mecha Godzilla in the sequel the following year. It’s a fumble, but it’s not super terrible. Really, GvM isn’t much of anything.

C-

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Godzilla Versus Gigan!

Godzilla VS Gigan ~ 1972, Jun Fukuda – Japan

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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.

  1. GodzillaScreen Shot 2012-09-20 at 10.49.53 AMOnce 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!)
  2. Anguirus21956 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!
  3. King GhidorahShowa_King_GhidorahWhat 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.
  4. GiganGVG_-_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.

B

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Godzilla VS Hedorah!

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.

Godzilla vs Hedorah (Japan, theatre program, Style B)

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 KeGodzilla vs Hedorahn, 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.

Godzilla_vs._Hedorah_2_-_Cartoon_Final_HedorahAnimation 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+

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SON OF GODZILLA

Son of Godzilla~ 1967, Jun Fukuda – Japan

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THE PLOT- A group of scientists (And one plucky, interloping journalist) work tirelessly in a Son-of-Godzilla-postertop secret research laboratory located on a remote island. Their experiments, focused on climate control, backfire, heating up the island to near unlivable temperatures, as well as causing a freak mutation in the island’s already pretty giant bugs, this time making them really, really giant. Things couldn’t get any worse, just kidding, of course they can- the giant bugs dig up an egg, which hatches. The hatchling? Apparently Godzilla JR! Eager to buck the absentee father kaiju dinosaur stereotype, Godzilla trods up onto shore for some good old fashioned monster child rearing. Things with our scientists are bad, they all got weird jungle fever, there is increased tension amongst the ranks, and now the island has turned into a full on Kaiju ass-whooping zone, so these are for sure stressful days. Their only hope for salvation comes in the form a mysterious woman found living on the island, and, of course, through Godzilla’s innate skill at clobbering the hell out of anything and everything.

Son of Godzilla is good! It’s a fun one. It looks cheaper, the monster costumes look a little 2585_17620less masterfully crafted than they have in the past, although there is passable use of insect puppetry here. It’s clearly meant to be more of a children’s film than past Godzilla flicks, but it’s not so over the top that adults needs be concerned, and little Godzilla Jr. (I should stop pretending that I don’t know his name- it just wasn’t ever mentioned in this film) doesn’t approach Jar Jar levels of annoyance by any means… At least, not in this movie, he doesn’t.

Really, the biggest flaw in Son of Godzilla is that while it is clearly geared for a younger audience, it’s too slow for kids, and it takes way, way too long for the monsters to turn up. When I used to watch these movies as a kid, the human sequences were a brutal chore to endure, I always wanted that monster on the screen right now. For Son of Godzilla, there’s a lot of work leading up the monsters, and possibly not enough payoff.

Regardless, the true test of how well Son of Godzilla performs for a young audience would be to let some kids watch it. From an adult perspective, the film is lighthearted, but still very enjoyable.

Check out these cool posters.
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B

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Godzilla Versus The Sea Monster!

Godzilla Versus the Sea Monster, AKA Ebirah: Horror of the Deep ~ 1966, Jun Fukuda – Japan

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Immediately following Invasion of Astro Monster, which was perhaps Godzilla at his most recycled, we have Ebirah, Horror of the Deep, one of the freshest films in the series up to this point. Thanks, Toho, and not a minute too soon!
For Ebirah, we have a new director, Jun Fukuda, and his style is a serious breath of fresh air. While I would never want for this to sound like a dismissal of Ishiro Honda’s remarkable talents, I will say that there is certainly enough room under the kaiju umbrella for more than one voice at the helm of the Godzilla franchise, and if there was ever a time that new blood was needed, it was right around 1966. The movie also moves the action from Japan’s cities and countryside to a remote, tropical island, and this shift in setting only further accents just how off the badly beaten path this film was to the series at that time.

THE PLOT- Although his brother’s ship has been lost at sea, Ryota is utterly convinced that he is somehow alive. He’s so convinced, actually, that he ends up hijacking a boat and dragging three total strangers, one of whom is a damn bank robber, on a fool-hearty adventure to find and rescue his lost sibling, and the group wastes no time becoming shipwrecked themselves when they are attacked by a huge, lobster type monster named Ebirah, leaving them stranded on the shores of a mysterious island.

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As the four soon come to realize, this island is controlled by a secretive paramilitary organization called The Red Bamboo, who have been using kidnapped natives from Infant Island as slave labor. Word of advice to the world’s paramilitary organizations; if you intend to kidnap islanders for slave labor, maybe pick a group that can’t pray to a giant, flying guardian monster to save them. I really hoped you’d use better judgment, guys.

Through their jungle adventures, our boys pick up a fifth friend, a female from Infant Island, and also discover Godzilla snoozing aggressively in a giant pile of boulders in one of the islands caves. Long story slightly less long, they wake up Godzilla, and shit get’s smashed. It’s really great!

godzilla-vs-sea-monsterI imagine that Ebirah would be Godzilla’s most delicious foe.

First, let’s talk about what Fukuda does that rocks my business so hard- his directorial style feels much more in line with the youthful bounce of 60’s beach cinema than Honda’s classical, 50’s screen aesthetic. While Honda’s work is tops, Fukuda’s feels great, too, and it really works in Ebirah. Here we have a noticeably more dynamic use of composition and moving camera, we have occasional zooms and dolly’s, even some dutch angles. The monster encounters are, in my opinion, drastically improved by this new, more dramatic use of camera, with angles shifting from claustrophobic close ups which stress the size of these beasts, to frantic, sometimes first person perspectives used in the fights between Godzilla and Ebirah. At one point, Godzilla’s fire breath is belched directly into the camera- I’m pretty sure that’s the first time I’ve seen that in this series, correct me if I’m wrong. This might be a controversial statement, but I feel that Fukuda’s use of camera in Ebirah is more effective when dealing with monsters which we are supposed to believe are enormous than what I’ve seen in previous Hondra directed outings, and I can’t remember being as impressed by the visuals in one of these movies since the first Godzilla film back in ’54.

The music undergoes a shift, as well. Akira Ifukube always brought a strange, Japanese folk inspired Bushido dirge to the series, but for this film we have a new composer, Masaru Sato, and, like Fukuda, he brings things up to date with a bouncier, zanier beach pop sound, and even some traces of surf rock guitar. I think it works, and it certainly adds to the film’s upbeat tone. Again, no disrespect meant, Ifukube is an absolute master and his work in the Godzilla franchise cannot be praised enough, but right now, we needed something new, and we got it. As a result, this movie benefits, and so does the audience.

On the setting: The tropical island thing isn’t totally unseen in these Toho kaiju pictures, but ordinarily, the action is always moved back to Japan and out of these remote locations. Not so with Ebirah, here, that’s where the meat of the story sits, and the implications of this give us a very different film. By removing the inevitably of city smashing and innocent casualties that are unavoidable when Godzilla thrashes around well populated areas, he is here free to stomp bad guys exclusively, and in this way he can continue his path toward becoming a more heroic figure, something Toho seemed interested in pursuing at this time. It’s also a lot more cooperative with the notion of the film being more fun and less dark, which it absolutely is. Hell, the Godzilla/Ebirah battle scene starts off with a rousing game of monster volleyball, and then leads into some Dick Dale guitar/submarine beast throw down type stuff, I’d have to think that Fukuda went into this wanting us to have a positive experience.

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And I think you will. Only the stodgiest of Godzilla traditionalists would throw up their arms in protest of Fukuda’s treatment of Big Green, and my guess is most of those people died in the theater back in ’98 when Roland Emmerich’s American ‘Zilla film premiered, so we shouldn’t hear too many objections to this glowing review. Or will we?!?

A

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