Kaiju Blender: Godzilla: Final Wars

With the reduced revenues from Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla and Tokyo SOS, Toho decided it was once again to retire the franchise. But they would celebrate Godzilla's fiftieth birthday with a big bang, a more expensive Godzilla film than they had ever before produced, directed by maverick film maker Ryûhei Kitamura. The approach had worked with the excellent and well-regarded Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah, Giant Monsters All-Out Attack. But it should be pointed out that director Shûsuke Kaneko had directed three well-received Gamera films before being asked to work on Godzilla. Kitamura had no such experience.



The first sequence is Godzilla being attacked by a flying submarine of the Atragon style. Godzilla falls into a crack in the Antarctic ice, freezing him, in a nod to Godzilla Raids Again. The gunner screams as he unleashes missiles to bring tons of ice down on Godzilla and in that moment, I knew exactly what kind of movie this is going to be.



In the narrative flashback, the audience is shown Varan, the squid from Space Amoeba, Titanosaurus, Gaira, Baragon, and Megaguirus. These kaiju do not appear in anything but stock footage, but it sets the tone. We are going to see a lot of monsters in this film.



We are also introduced to the mutants that protect us from the kaiju. A new race of superman and women have emerged from humanity, better, stronger, faster, and more psychically powerful. They, along with superb purely human specimens such as Captain Gordon, form the Earth Defence Force. After the title sequence, one of the supersubs defeats Manda. Gordon is emblemic of the film itself, big, physically powerful, and only speaking English, while everyone around hinm speaks Japanese, but somehow they understand each other anyway. As with Atragon, the sub fires its Absolute Zero gun, freezing and then destroying Manda. This introductory sequence lets us know how the Earth Defence Forces work.



The Earth Defence Force higher-ups, for reasons that will become clear, have rather Nazi-esque unforms; a grey overcoat with a belt with a black arm band. The Mutants, a scientist tells us, share a certain biological link with the kaiju. The best way to defeat monsters, it seems, is to use them against themselves. The Shobijin, Mothra's fairy communicators show up, and give us a bit of back story. They also tell out Mutant protagonist that he has some kaiju in him (now confirmed by science and mysticism), but that he has a choice, which is very Matrix: Revolutions, and badly presented in that film, as well.



Kaiju begin to wreck cities across the globe, with a similarity to the Kilaak invasion Destroy All Monsters. Anguirus, Rodan, King Caesar, Kamacuras, Kumonga, and even American Godzilla stomp on cities. Zilla, American Godzilla, is a weird sort of nod to the much-reviled 1998 film. Creature designer Patrick Tautopolis was gratified to be included in the Toho Godzilla canon, even though his creation was treated with a certain amount of contempt. Kitamura was determined to embrace as many films in the Toho library as possible, leaving out only Megalon, Destroyah, and King Kong.



Kitamura goes so far as to have an obnoxious, chocolate-mouthed American child call his turtle toy (which looks suspiciously like a Tirtouga Pokemon) a loser, attempting to compare itself favorably to the Gamera franchise. We've seen this behavior before: in 1999 Yonggary, Kraa the Sea Monster, and Gamera, Super-Monster. All these films have the same thing in common: they aren't particularly good, and they only demonstrate their own insecurity by calling other films and franchises names.



The M-Squad is deployed to take down Ebirah, the giant lobster we haven't seen since stock footage in the 1969 All Monsters Attack. Six mutants are deployed with shoulder weapons. There are a lot of pointless explosions, when the team are running, or standing still, or firing theit weapons. It's like each one is a John McClain, and their passing just causes things to explode in their wake. There's a lot of wirework which is well integrated into the miniature work, but it just feels like the director is trying too hard to be exciting, confusing motion with progress. There's a lot going on on-screen, but it doesn't engage me. A cinematic fight should be a story in itself, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. There is no progression here, nothing learned. Just weapons deployed, running, firing, and then it's all over except for the quip.



The monsters, it turns out, are being controlled by aliens, the Xilians from Invasion of Astro-Monster to be precise. They tried to be subtle, in the Japanese alien invasion thing, trying to be friendly, returning the UN secretary to humans. When he doesn't recognize his own dog, the jig is up. Subcommander X shoots the mission commander, promoting himself. The aliens, he announces, are there to make humanity their supply of mitochondria.



X is best described as a tantrum-throwing child, who will literally spazz out every time one of his monsters is defeated. He's an angry, drama-addicted, short attention-span sort of guy, exactly the sort to blow all his advantages and screw up an invasion.



The remains of humanity's defense rests with Captain Gordon and the Gotengo. Gordon decided the situation is desperate enough that he's going to unleash Godzilla, giving the TV Trope of the Godzilla Threshold its name. Godzilla then spends the last half of the film having very brief fights with all the world's monsters. Which is a pity. The technology was available to make these much more engaging and interesting fights, but because Godzilla had to get through so many opponents, each one is truncated.



Only the final fight has any sort of length. Godzilla, having knocked down six different kaiju, now comes up against Monster X. Monster X is an odd creature we haven't seen before, humanoid, with a head beam that also comes out of its shoulders. Now where have we seen a kaiju that has three breath weapons before? After he initial clash, each gets reinforcements, and Mothra faces down an upgraded Gigan.





Meanwhile, X monologues about Keisers, a mutation that happens to one in a million mutants, making them the most powerful creatures like ever. X is one, and so is our mutant protagonist. What a coincidence! Once awakened, he finds his inner Neo, stopping yellow bolts of light, burning with power, and declaiming about choice.



He defeats X, and this causes the alien ship to self-destruct. Monster X grows two new heads, and is revealed to be Keiser Ghidorah, with some very delicate blue among the golden scales. For the first time since the first Rebirth of Mothra Ghidorah has four feet. It no longer has any of the previous Ghidorah cries, and instead, some sort of strangled scream similar to Destroyah's. Other than that, the creature design is likely the best in the film.





It is immensely powerful, stronger than its last form, and Godzilla isn't doing so well until out mutant buddy focusses his psychic energy through the Gotengo, Godzilla receiving it through his spines. With the extra power, Godzilla smashes Ghidorah. He is not a grateful victor, however, and immediately uses his atomic ray on Gotengo. The upcoming massacre is forestalled by Minilla's arrival. Only children can stop the cycle of violence. Godzilla walks away through the devastation that was Tokyo, his offspring following.



The military is treated very differently from other Godzilla films. They are not incompetent, or lionized, but actually working against humanity. The Mutants who make up the Defence Force are actively working against mankind, and only those who choose to do so, mavericks and rogues, stand with humanity. The flying sub commanders who stabnd against the alien invasion are outlandish types, with dreadlocks, long blonde hair, or Captain Gordon.

Eschewing the traditional orchestral soundtrack, the rock sondtrack feels out of place and occasionally intrusive. It does not do the film any favors.

The experience of Godzilla Final Wars is something akin to watching Destroy All Monsters while watching The Matrix on the same screen. Gone is the traditional mystery story structure, in which the humans investigate and uncover and eventually solve the plot problem (in this case, an alien invasion). Instead, we have a group of superhumans who defend the Earth against the kaiju fighting. Drawing from a lot of anime, Kitamura manages to jam a lot of anime cliches into a number of overblown kaiju cliches and nods to previous films. The result feels like he jammed a bunch of movies in a blender, then reassembled it from whatever pieces he could salvage.



Next up, Peter Jackson's take on the Big Ape. All two hundred minutes of it.

That Other Island God: Atragon (But the Monster is Manda)

Toho wasn't just making monster movies in the sixties. They created a series of war films that were quite popular, such as developing several different types of film in the sixties. In 1961, the released Storm Over the Pacific, about the Battle of Midway, as well as The Last War, concerning the outbreak of World War Three. Both were popular. Perennial Godzilla scribe Shin'ichi Sekizawa decided to adapt another novel (as he had with Mothra), this one a fantasy about an undersea kingdom, inspired by the work of HG Wells.



This isn't really a monster movie. The majority is a mystery, in which agents of Mu move among the Japanese people, abducting them. This is a strange foreshadowing of the North Korean abductions of Japanese citizens, which wouldn't happen for a decade, but the Modus Operandi is eerily similar. The film's chief items of interest are Manda, the dragon-god of Mu, which shows up in Destroy All Monsters as well as Godzilla: Final Wars. But this isn't really about Manda, he shows up late and doesn't do much. The focus of the film, is the flying submarine Goten, which received an anime follow up, Super Atragon, and also shows up in Finals Wars. The ship's name was changed to Atragon for the foreign market.

The first half ot the film is abductions and implications, spies, deception, and delving into the past. It's interesting as drama, but has absolutely nothing to do with Manda. The famous ship doesn't even show up until forth-six minutes into the film. The model is pretty well integrated into the live-action with the actors. The film also gets some very well-shot beauty passes. These are a bit more interesting than the usual giant robot deployment scenes.



The overall plot is that Captain Jinguji has been hiding out on an island since the end of World War II, building Atragon so that he can continue the fight against Japan's enemies. The people of Mu have just declared that they will be takng over the surface world, and Atragon seems to be the only thing that can stop them. Atragon is an interesting supersubmarine, with a front drill to supplant the spur on Welles' Nautulus. More than that, though, it can fly. And it has an absolute zero gun, a weapon that freezes its opponents. This shows up on the third iteration of Mechagodzilla in 2002's Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla.

Once Atragion has been shown to the audience, the protagonists are kidnapped and taken to Mu. There, they will be sacrificed to Manda, the god and guardian of the Muvians. The Muvians have submarines with images of Manda on them, and these are the super-weapons that destroy ships. Ironically, Manda has no such breath weapon. Manda is clearly a mationette, surprisingly like Reptilicus, which came out two years previous, in 1961.



If there was any doubt that Atragon was inspired by 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas, it's dispelled when Manda wraps itself around the submarine. Like Nemo, Captain Jinguji electrifies the hull, throwing the dragon off the ship.



The solution to Manda is as simple as using the referred-to but never seen Absolute Zero Gun. Manda freezes, and Atragon can go about the business of destroying the Muvian culture.





As monster movies go, Atragon is unsatisfying. I wouldn't have bothered, but Manda shows up in a couple of films later, and Atragon herself is central of Godzilla: Final Wars. The movie is one of the more popular non-Godzilla films Toho put out. The origin of the Absolute Zero gun was a happy discovery.

Next week, the flashback is over. It's back to New York, in a 1982 American production.

WHAM! POW! BASH! DESTROY ALL MONSTERS

Despite the massive number of kaiju films released in 1967, most of them aren't particularly memorable. Many were new entrants into the field by studios that had never endeavored to make a giant monster film before. Even Toho's franchise was running out of steam, with the disappointing performance of Son of Godzilla, as well as the flooded market. Godzilla just wasn't as special as he had been. To celebrate the 15^th anniversary of the Godzilla franchise in 1968, Toho decided to get the band back together.

And with immaculate timing, my DVD player has decided it no longer likes my copy. Pictures will come later, sadly.

Destroy all Monsters is the last film with the five original artists from Godzilla; Ishiro Honda, Eiji Tsuburaya (although only in an honorary fashion, he was very ill as this time), Tomoyuki Tanaka as producer, Haruo Nakajima in the suit, and Akira Ifukube writing the music. Some call this the end of an era, but to my mind, it's a Hercluean effort before economic and social forces turned the kaiju film into a cheap and poorly thought-out spectacle.

The year is 1999, and as in several previous films, Japan (or, really UNSC) has a space program. They have also managed to confine all the monsters to a location, Monster Land. The space program trope fades a bit after the excitement of the space race cooled off, but the Monster Island idea is one that stuck with the franchise until the end of the Shōwa era. Moonlight SY-3 is a stylish, almost art deco spacecraft, combining attributes of a high-tech jet as well as a rocket.

Ogasawara Island, called Monster Land, is the culmination of several ideas previous films, such as Mothra vs Godzilla and Ebirah, Horror of the Deep. Although the monsters are not under human control, they are at least confined. If Godzilla and the other monsters are still seen as a metaphor for nuclear testing, this may coincide with the rise of nuclear power in Japan, with the Mihama Nuclear Power Plant beginning construction outside Tokyo in February of 1967. On the other hand, this is the ultimate expression of Dr. Serizawa's desire to study the monsters. Now that they are controlled, they can be understood.

The Kilaaks, the alien antagonists, can control the monsters. Japan can never do so, merely containing the monsters, but alien invaders and terrorist corporations such as the Red Bamboo seek to control the giant monsters for their own ends. Ghidorah is, again, the puppet of an alien intelligence just as he was for the Xiliens and the Futurans. They are all female, all Japanese-looking (despite the more international bent of the film) but this is a disguise. They really look like slugs, and are made of 'living metal.' It turns out that they can control humans just as easily as they can monsters. This creates a paranoia in the film similar to the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Anyone could be a Kilaak agent (until they discover the transmitters which allow the Kilaaks to control humans and monsters).

Strangely, Mothra has shed her unique status as protector of Infant Island, and has been confined in the same way that the other monsters have. Also gone from this film are her twins, the Shobijin, Mothra's interface with humanity. She's just another destructive monster. She's also back in larval form. It's possible (pardon me while I fan-theory) that this is the other larva that hatched in Godzilla vs Mothra and didn't become the Mothra we saw in Ebirah, Horror of the Deep, which I assume is the peacemaker from Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster.

The film is very much a retread of the tropes and ideas from Ghidorah. Alien invaders, all the monsters ultimately ganging up against Ghidorah, Godzilla pulling a turn from implacable enemy to unstoppable hero. But where Ghidorah has three monsters attacking the three-headed monster, some seven attack him here. More spectacular, sure, but not as challenging a fight. But more than any previous film, Destroy All Monsters takes a look at the international problem of monsters. Rodan attacks Moscow. Gorasaursus, unseen since King Kong Escapes stands in for Baragon, who was on loan to Tsubaraya's Ultraman. Which is why it is misidentified, as well as shows some rather unlikely tunneling abilities. We are told that Mothra attacks Beijing, and that Manda attacks London, but we don't see these. We do see Godzilla show up in New York harbor and blast the United Nations building with his radioactive breath. 1998 Godzilla is not the first time the big guy took a bite out of the Big Apple.

In the middle of the film (XXX minutes), we have a beautiful miniature of 1999 Tokyo. Small card move along her streets, an elevated train trundles along tracks. The set is large and took a lot of attention to detail. Ironic, really that the construction boom made Tokyo so much more impressive thirty years later. The destruction of Tokyo by Godzilla, Rodan, Manda, and Mothra is beautiful in its mayhem.

For the first time since Godzilla Raids Again, the camera pans over the charred and ruined city. This was one of the most effective shots of the original Godzilla film, and it's a reminder that these films aren't completely fun and games. But it's brief, and the devastation isn't as total as it was in 1954.

Part of the bigger budget for this film shows in the miniatures. The military vehicles are a bit more fanciful, including tanks with missiles on their turrets and strange-looking radar antennae. It's as ineffective as the military always is, but it's a pleasure to see some fantasy deigns come from Tsubaraya's studio. There is also the implication, and a prescient one, that the tanks are drones.

The last battle happens, again like Ghidorah, in front of Mount Fuji, where the Kilaak base is. This is our only glimpse of Baragon in the fight, mostly through a thicket. We get a better shot of him in the farewell section, however. But you have to wonder what the Kilaaks were thinking when they deployed Ghidorah. Godzilla, Rodan, and Mothra got rid of him last time, now Gorosaurus, Anguirus, Manda, Baragon, Varan and Kumonga (I'm not counting Minilla as a threat) are added to the team. It makes for a more impressive fight, but the outcome is pretty inevitable. Godzilla and Anguirus do most of the heavy lifting (the footage of Ghidorah flying with Anguirus firmly attached to one of its necks will be repeated a few times in later films) in the fight.

Once the fight is over, the Kilaaks deploy their Fire Dragon, a flying saucer burning with energy. Even though Godzilla puts an enormous foot through the Kilaak base, the Fire Dragon keeps coming. Ghidorah's inert body falls into the earth, similar to the way Frankenstein and Baragon ended. Only with more explosions, but it's up to the humans to solve the last problem. Which they do with Moonlight SY-3. This represents a major shift in attitude from Toho's previous films. Honda, who experienced WWII, had never allowed the military solution to be anything but show before this. And, although the conclusion is rooted in science fiction, Moonlight SY-3 fires missiles, causing the saucer to go down. The humans have taken the lead, controlling the monsters, no longer the ir helpless victims.

Destroy All Monsters was intended as a finale to the series, the end of monster films. However, it was so successful (admittedly selling only a hundred thousand tickets more than Son of Godzilla), but in a period of sharply declining attendance, this was seen as a major coup. And so the series continued, albeit with declining budgets.

Next up, Boy Scouts in trouble, and loaded with stock footage.